THE Nuremberg Trials Essay Example for Free

THE Nuremberg Trials Essay Section 1: Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hypotheses   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Importance of Study   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Methodology Section 2: Presentation and Analysis of Data   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (a) The Need for Gaining Justice: Holocaust’s History   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (b) The Victims to Whom Justice Must be Rendered Section 3: Topic Summary Section 4: End Notes    The Nuremberg Trial Section 1: Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Holocaust had been a great mark in the pages of human history. Understandably, the ones who were involved within the situation as the victims certainly need to realize the fact that they are given the justice that they primarily deserve. Justice is one particular thing that could at least ease the pain of the family members of the victims if not the victims themselves of the said historical event. The establishment of the legalities of the matter through the Nuremberg trials actually notes the possible ways by which the said victims could be given the justice that they deserve. Hypotheses   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The need for justice is an evident right of all human beings. Understandably, through the Nuremberg trials, this particular right of the victimized individuals during the Nazi regime shall be given attention through legal measures and investigations and punishment for those who have been found guilty of the massive human death that happened during the holocaust. Importance of Study   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Understanding history and knowing that whatever injustices happened back then are given the chance to be straightened out later on through legal terms gives the society a better vision on the strength of legal institutions to take careful hold of upholding the idealisms of human rights. This gives the entire human society a better view of how the legal system works and how justice is applied even upon those who were powerful in government office. Justice served through careful investigation and rightful punishment stand as the proof of the strength of the legal systems to imply rightful justice for the victims of any war era which would rather give relief to those who were victimized as well as to their family members whom they may have left if they unfortunately died during the said dreadful events in the past. Methodology   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To be able to garner the rightful foundation of the discussion that shall be presented herein, the researcher is to use the history of holocaust as a primary basis as to how the Nuremberg trial developed towards the aim of finding the right people who are supposed to answer for the deaths of many people during World War II. Later on, the discussion on the proceedings with which the idea of setting up a Nuremberg Trial shall also be given explanation thus giving a clear discussion on how the said system of justice and punishment works and how it particularly gave the martyrs and the victims a sense of justice from all the dreadful things that they have experienced during the Second World War. Section 2: Presentation and Analysis of Data (a) The Need for Gaining Justice: Holocaust’s History HOLOCAUST—what does it mean? According to some dictionaries, it was the genocidal slaughter of European Jews by the Nazis during World War  II. This could easily give the impression that only Jews suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis. Yet, are justice and truth served in having â€Å"Holocaust† apply only to the Jewish victims of the Nazi era? Writer Richard Lukas states: â€Å"The word Holocaust suggests to most people the tragedy the Jews experienced under the Germans during World War  II. From a psychological point of view, it is understandable why Jews today prefer that the term refer exclusively to the Jewish experience .  .  . Yet, by excluding others from inclusion in the Holocaust, the horrors that Poles, other Slavs, and Gypsies endured at the hands of the Nazis are often ignored, if not forgotten.† Lukas also states: â€Å"To them [the historians], the Holocaust was unique to the Jews, and they therefore have had little or nothing to say about the nine million Gentiles, including three million [Gentile] Poles, who also perished in the greatest tragedy the world has ever known.† When Hitler’s armies invaded Poland in September 1939, they were under orders to carry out Hitler’s policy of obtaining Lebensraum, living space, for the German people. As Richard Lukas states: â€Å"To the Nazis, the Poles were Untermenschen (subhumans) who occupied a land which was part of the Lebensraum (living space) coveted by the superior German race.† Thus, Hitler authorized his troops to kill â€Å"without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.† (Rule of Law, Internet) September 1939 started a relentless horror for the Polish people. Hitler had stated: â€Å"The war is to be a war of annihilation.† Hitler’s henchman Heinrich Himmler declared: â€Å"All Poles will disappear from the world. .  .  . It is essential that the great German people should consider it as a major task to destroy all Poles.† Thus, the Holocaust was not aimed at just Polish Jews; it was aimed at â€Å"all Poles.† â€Å"Terror was applied in all occupied countries. .  .  . But in Poland everyone was subject to such brutality, and mass executions based on the principle of collective guilt were far more frequent, because every Pole, regardless of age, sex, or health, was a member of a condemned nation—condemned by the policy-makers in the Nazi party and government,† states Catherine Leach, translator of the Polish book Values and Violence in Auschwitz. She states that Himmler viewed the Poles as a lower race to be kept in serfdom. â€Å"Even after Poland’s surrender [September 28, 1939], the Wehrmacht [German army] continued to take seriously Hitler’s admonition of August 22, 1939, when he authorized killing ‘without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.’† How could the German army and the SS be motivated to such pitiless murder? By being saturated with the teaching of the supremacy of the Aryan race and the inferiority of all others. Thus, as Lukas states in The Forgotten Holocaust: â€Å"The Nazi theory of colonial empire in Poland was based on the denial of humanity to the Poles whom, next to the Jews, Hitler hated the most.† In his introduction to the book Commandant of Auschwitz, Lord Russell of Liverpool said: â€Å"During the war probably not less than twelve million men, women, and children from the invaded and occupied territories were done to death by the Germans. At a conservative estimate, eight million of them perished in concentration camps. Of these, not less than five million were Jews. .  .  . The real number, however, will never be known.† On the basis of these figures alone, at least seven million victims were not Jews. Another testimony is that of Catherine Leach, who writes: â€Å"Poland was the first country to be subjected to Hitler’s ‘negative demographic policy,’ whose purpose was to prepare the vast territories in ‘The East’ for German resettlement, and Poland suffered the greatest losses in life of all the occupied countries—220 per 1000 inhabitants. Polish sources state that no less than 6,028,000 Polish citizens .  .  . lost their lives.† Of these, 3,200,000 were Jews. That means that nearly 50% of the Polish dead were non-Jews. (Conquest, 1990, 92) Indisputably, there has been a â€Å"Forgotten Holocaust† of millions of non-Jewish victims, mainly of Slavic origin. These include the millions of Russians slaughtered by the Nazis. Those Russians had no choice (Conquest, 1990, 92). By reason of Nazi racial doctrine, they were inexorably condemned to death. Yet, these statistics fail to take into account the thousands of non-Jewish Germans who also suffered as victims of the Holocaust for daring to oppose Hitler and his racist supremacy philosophy. Among these were thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to collaborate in Hitler’s militaristic pretensions (Conquest, 1990, 92). Yes, sprinkled across Germany and the Nazi-occupied countries were thousands of people who made a deliberate choice that led to the concentration camps and to death for many as martyrs. (b) The Victims to Whom Justice Must be Rendered WHY make a distinction between victims and martyrs? Because all those who suffered as a result of the Holocaust were victims, but only a minority were truly martyrs in the strict sense of the word. What is the difference (Bauer, 1972, 1300). A victim is â€Å"someone who is put to death or subjected to torture or suffering by another.† Victims usually have no choice. A martyr is â€Å"one who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles† or â€Å"one who sacrifices something very important to him in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.† (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) Thus, the victim is usually involuntary, while the martyr is voluntary. In a conference on the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis, Dr.  Gordon Zahn, University of Massachusetts, defined the Nazis’ victims under three headings: (1) those who suffered for what they were—Jews, Slavs, Gypsies; (2) those who suffered for what they did—homosexuals, political activists, and resisters; (3) and those who suffered for what they refused to do—conscientious objectors. Millions of Jews suffered and died simply because they were Jews in the ethnic sense. It mattered not to Hitler’s henchmen whether they were Orthodox or atheistic Jews (Shnayerson, 1996, 132). They were condemned to the â€Å"final solution,† or extermination, as Hitler’s method of ridding Europe of all Jews was called. Likewise, the Slavs, who for Hitler’s crusade were mainly the Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians, were condemned just for being Slavic, ‘an inferior race’ in comparison to the â€Å"supreme† Aryan stock. The existence of the major victims of the history of holocaust primarily shouts out towards the legal systems at present to be able to gain the justice that they believe they deserve as primary receivers of the hideous situations of those times. This is the reason why the introduction of the Nuremberg trials actually answers this particular need, not only to give justice to the people who were directly affected by the said history but also to clarify the names who are really involved with the said situation in the past. In connection with the Nuremberg (Germany) trial of Nazi war criminals after World War II, the Nuremberg Law that was followed was this: â€Å"Patriotic obedience in crime does not establish innocence.†   Ã‚   The development of the Nuremberg trials started during the end of the Second World War when the victims of the Nazi regime began to cry out for the justice that they ought to receive. Having the people responsible for what has happened back then was believed to be a great relief to the depression that such victims felt after the war years. Their recovery of the dreadful experiences that they have dealt with during the war years is the utmost concern of such proceedings. Moreover, the said trial tries to identify the culprits behind the holocaust murder to give a statement that such acts of inhumane treatment deserves to be punished and shall never be overlooked by the legal systems established by the alliance of the different nations from then until the present days. It was primarily the symbol of the beginning of the recognition of human rights that is supposed to mark the minds of those who are still planning to do the same thing as Hitler himself did along with his comrades. Section 3: Topic Summary   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   History would be history, but the indications of truth that it leaves the human civilization are reactive up until the present years of human living. The Nuremberg Trial remains to be among the huge indications that history actually impacts the legal systems until the current generations of human civilization. Likely, this system of historical impact in the legal systems does more than just address the needs of war victims. It also developed a more systematic process of which the human rights would be safeguarded even during war situations in case they would occur. This particular part of history is indeed a primary reason why it is important to turn one’s back to the past and learn something from what has happened before to have things run smoothly at present for everyone living in the human society. Section 4: End Notes # John Crossland Churchill: execute Hitler without trial in The Sunday Times, January 1, 2006 # ^ Tehran Conference: Tripartite Dinner Meeting November 29, 1943 Soviet Embassy, 8:30 PM # Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School. but by 1939 these rules laid down in the [Hague] Convention [of 1907] were recognized by all civilized nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war # ^Trial of Otto Skorzeny and Others, General Military Government Court of the U.S. Zone of Germany, 18 August to 9 September 1947. Bibliography # Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror A Reassessment London: Oxford University Press, 1990 page 92. # Bauer, Eddy. The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War II Volume 22 New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation 1972 page 3071. # Robert Shnayerson. Judgment at Nuremberg: Fifty years ago the trial of Nazi war criminals ended: the world had witnessed the rule of law invoked to punish unspeakable atrocities. From Smithsonian magazine, October 1996, pp. 124–141. 1996. # The Rule of Law. http://law.wustl.edu/alumni/magazine/spring2002/01_rule_of_law.pdf. (June 29, 2008). # Trial of Otto Skorzeny and Others, General Military Government Court of the U.S. Zone of Germany, 18 August to 9 September 1947. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Tourism Revenue Sharing (TRS) Benefits

Tourism Revenue Sharing (TRS) Benefits 1.1 Background Tourism Revenue Sharing (TRS) has been identified by various environmentalists and conservationists as the best way to offset human-wildlife conflict which impedes local support for national parks (Hulme Murphree 2002). By channeling tourism revenue to local residents, conservationists hope to offset wildlife costs and improve local attitudes toward conservation. To date tourism revenue-sharing programs have met mixed success (Western 2001).This study looked at the extent to which revenue sharing policies are put into practice and look at what projects funds are distributed across, beneficiaries of revenue sharing and the criteria used to determine them and look at implications for inequality, the livelihood impacts of revenue sharing and determine whether policy makers meet their commitments and the constraints to revenue sharing around Bwindi impenetrable National Park in Uganda. The growth in tourism industry has been one of the most profitable in national and communal economies in the Africa that were recently recognised by international and other global activists of development and environment concern. This has resulted in the need for several governments to transform from their earlier practices of managing tourist areas in conformity with the need to protect the environment and improve peoples livelihoods. As one of the ways to protect the environment and promote tourism, several national parks officials in Uganda like in many other parts of Africa have barred people from using them freely and tourism is now regarded as a tool to promote conservation and provide people with opportunities to improve their economic situations. Tourism in Uganda has been transformed from the traditional trend of activities based only on viewing animals to one that is ecologically oriented and at the same time benefiting the local communities around them. So-called eco-tourism therefore is an environmentally responsible form of tourism to relatively undisturbed natural areas in order to enjoy and appreciate nature, promote conservation, encourage low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of the local population (IUCN 1992). Eco-tourism aids conservation of the natural environmental heritage through sustaining the well-being of the local people through provision of revenue for planning, management, and evaluation, stimulation of economic tourism through tourist expenditures and even creation of markets for local peoples products (Hulme and Murphree 2001). Local communities here, refers to the group of people living in or near the protected area and usually have to gain or lose something as a result of the distant management and access to resources in this area (FAO 1992). Living adjacent to the Park, these people often pay the highest costs in terms of the park existence or pose the greatest threat to them and receive the least benefits compared to other beneficiaries (Adams and Infield 2003) and yet, it is local communities regarded as holding values and preferences compared to state interests embedded in protected areas. The development and success of eco-tourism put much emphasis towards winning local peoples support and even maintaining positive attitude towards ecotourism and conservation. For eco-tourism to succeed there is need for collaboration and full participation of the local communities in both conservation and management of natural resources, upon which eco-tourism is based (Obua 1996). This helps to create good relationship and a sense of ownership on the side of local people. Failure to do this can be a cause for conflict and resentment between the park management and local people (Mutebi 2003). According to Groove (1993), eco-tourism came up as a result of three basic reasons; First, dissatisfaction among tourists with the standard of mass tourism; second, the increased awareness amongst tourists of their potential impact on the host environments and the indigenous societies; and third, the love for adventure and nature by tourists. The origin and development of ecotourism in Uganda was based on the growing awareness that protected areas were alienated from local people and had many chances to fail without local peoples support (UWA 1996). As a result of this, there has been development of eco-tourism as a variant of conservation and revenue generation because it is believed that eco-tourism can generate revenues that may be re-invested in protected areas to facilitate conservation and improve peoples livelihoods. It is argued that ecotourism helps to provide a sustainable tourism option. This is achieved through its emphasis of the areas carrying capacity concept and the possibility of increasing the well being of people residing around these areas through sharing with them receipts from tourism, as is being done at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) In 1991 BINP was upgraded to National Park status. The shift from Forest Reserve to National Park had more implications than just a change in management. It also had a major impact on the surrounding communities; they were no longer allowed to enter the area. This implied that they no longer were able to utilize resources, as they had done traditionally. People who traditionally depended on forest resources for their survival in terms of energy, building materials and non-timber products for their livelihoods were denied access. The Forest Department used to allow free extraction of the non-timber products of the forest (Namara 2006). In addition to loss of access and control over park resources, people residing adjacent to the national parks bear costs related to wildlife conservation in terms of crop and livestock raids. However, despite the losses and costs suffered by local communities to wildlife conservation, tourism revenues were being collected both at national level and on park gates without necessarily scaling down to local people (Hulme and Murphree 1999). In an effort to manage and distribute diverse natural resources, the government of Uganda embarked on policies, regulations and acts through the parliament to ensure adequate implementation and protection of natural resource use (UWA 2001). A revenue sharing scheme was introduced in Uganda to enable local people benefit from forest resources and improve on their livelihoods. The success or failure of this policy is the core concern of this research. This study sought to investigate if the Uganda Wildlife statute of the 1996 policy implementation that requires 20% of park entry revenue to be allocated to the people residing around the park for their development benefits was achieved. According to the literature available, revenue sharing is under pressure and subject to claims from the Uganda Wildlife Authority to meet management costs in several other National Parks that earn little revenue on their own. These claims constrain adequate distribution and use of revenues to compensate for the real and perceived economic costs foregone for Park conservation among local people. This rise the concern for accountability and transparency in setting up sustainable programs needed to improve peoples livelihoods. These research ob jectives set grounds for finding solutions to such problems. 1.2 Problem statement Despite the growing body of literature on revenue sharing, there are still conflicting debates about the success and failures of community conservation in Uganda (Hulme and Murphree 2001). There is however, a paucity of studies on revenue sharing in Bwindi National Park, a situation that warranted research. It is equally perplexing that studies conducted about revenue sharing in various National Parks, have shown that their benefits are far less than the cost and prospective of resource use within the Parks (Hulme and Murphree 2001). This has been attributed to the fact that revenues obtained from tourism are distributed without frequent planning and understanding of social, cultural and economic contexts of areas surrounding the park. Bwindi National Park has a protection status but local people continue to invade the park and carry out illegal activities like pit sawing and snaring to supplement their subsistence activities (Madden 1999). To solve the tension and conflicts around the Park, UWA, CARE and IGCP embarked on programs like revenue sharing, sustainable use of non-timber resources and conservation education. Hulme and Murphree (2001) reported in chapter to that funds obtained from revenue sharing were used in constructing schools, health clinics and road construction. However, it was not known whether and how revenues intended for community development through revenue sharing benefited local people. This was owed to the fact that there was uncertainty of the revenue sharing policy and practice, community and individual level of access to revenues obtained from the park, and how tourist revenues compensate and support the livelihoods and development of local people. There was thus a need to undertake this study to understand how best conservation could meet local community needs and benefit people residing along the Park in line with national policies, while protecting the environment. 1.3 Research Objectives 1.3.1Goal The goal of this study was to examine park revenue sharing and its livelihood impacts to residents around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, western Uganda. 1.3.2 Specific objectives -To examine the extent to which revenue sharing policies are put into practice and look at what projects funds are distributed across. -To identify beneficiaries of revenue sharing and the criteria used to determine them and look at implications for inequality. -To assess the livelihood impacts of revenue sharing and determine whether policy makers meet their commitments. -To identify the constraints to revenue sharing around BINP 1.4 Justification It is believed and evidenced those good relationships between people and parks are a major element of ensuring sustainable conservation. Due to some benefits associated with people residing adjacent to national parks, community attitudes towards national parks have improved over time. According to UWA, the revenue sharing scheme aims at empowering local communities in local resource management and tends to ensure sustainability and improved rural livelihoods. As a development study student, I thoroughly scrutinised how policy impacts implemented from top government levels without the consent of local people can be a big setback in determining peoples development at the local level. The main intention was to look at which extent revenue sharing policies were put into practice. The concern was whether local people benefited from resources available in their localities; and whether these benefits related to revenue sharing. By evaluating the level of benefits obtained as a result of revenue sharing, recommendations on policies suitable for the local community were made. This research is important for both governments and non-government agencies that are involved in implementing conservation policies. This work intends to identify and look at the gaps between policy and practice, and formulated possible recommendations to ensure better sustainable livelihoods of people living around Bwindi National Park. CHAPTER TWO:LITERATURE REVIEW ECOTOURISM, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND PEOPLES LIVEHOODS The chapter provides a documented review of the general concept of ecotourism as a part of environmental conservation and likens it to the livelihoods of local people. The chapter begins with the history of environmental conservation in Uganda and then links it to natural based tourism as a way of combining tourism and protecting the nature, while developing communities residing around such areas. 2.1 Background of environmental conservation and tourism revenue sharing in Uganda In Uganda like in any other tropical areas, people residing adjacent to forested areas normally depend on forest resources for survival. Before changes restricting peoples access and control over these resources were made, they solely depended on such for income, food, energy, medicine and hunting (FAO 1992). Hulme and Murphree (2001) reported that the international and national conservationists claim that forested areas are vulnerable to human activity and a threat to biodiversity. To counter this, new management policies that restrict peoples access and control over these areas are thus normally established. To ensure protection and control over forest losses, major forest reserves including Bwindi were turned into National Parks and put under a single management unit Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) (Archabald and Naughton 2001), Tourism revenue sharing is not a new idea in Uganda. As early as 1950s, the Chief Game Warden declared: African Local Governments should receive a portion of the revenue accruing from game license fees to increase their interest in faunal matters, and thus encourage them to render greater assistance in the preservation of game and the enforcing of game laws (Archabald and Naughton 2002), This encouraged more reserach in revenue sharing Studies in revenue-sharing started early in 1952 and sustained until Independence in 1962. In general, a part of revenue from tourism fees was given to districts. No attempt was made to channel revenue directly to residents neighboring the park. However the Game Department shot wildlife caught raiding farms and offered local citizens the game meat (Naughton-Treves 1999). They further argued that no official facts that linked revenue sharing payment agreements to local communities with conservation policies While there are reports of local chiefs apprehending poachers, other chiefs and kings continued to hunt wildlife illegally despite revenue-sharing programs. One warden concluded that ‘A far greater awareness of the value of game animals has been shown by the Kingdom Governments and District Administrations, but on the whole they have not made any significant effort to stamp out poaching (Tennant 1963, p.33). Revenue-sharing projects continued after Ugandas independence, but in 1971 the country plunged into a 15-year civil war and the government lost control of wildlife and parks entirely (Hamilton 1984). With peace in 1987, Ugandan civil society began to be rebuilt. Eventually the national government endorsed biodiversity conservation and began shoring up the national park system and ‘upgrading several forest reserves to national parks (Sebukeera 1996). Due to the increased pressure by International donors and other non government organizations the government of Uganda recognized the importance of community-based approaches to national tourism revenue-sharing and adopted a new park policy in 1994. To check the viability of the new policy, a pilot project was established in Bwndi Impenetrable and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, in which 20% of revenue/income from gorilla tracking permits would be distributed to local communities residing near the park. Local communities welcomed the pilot project optimistically and it ran efficiently. Uganda National Parks (UNP) regulated that all the parks in the country set aside 12% of their total income for revenue sharing (Uganda National Parks 1994) Two-thirds of tourism revenue was to be shared with local communities neighboring the park, while the remaining third was to be divided between the parks home district government and a central pool at national park headquarters designated for communities surrounding those parks that generated very little income. The 1994 national mandate to share park revenue offered only a vague definition of the target beneficiaries as those people living adjacent the parks that are affected by, and affect the park (Uganda National Parks, 1994). Park level managers defined the target community as all parishes neighboring the park, a definition that emphasizes proximity to the park and pre-existing administrative units. In Uganda, parishes are subdivisions of districts governed by local elected leaders. They border three parks involved in the study extending up to 3 km from the park border in Mgahinga, 7 km in Bwindi, and 8 km in Kibale (UWA 2001). According to Archabald and Naughton (2001), the 1994 revenue sharing policy mandated Park Management Advisory committee (PMAC) with the responsibility to administer tourism revenue-sharing funds for each specific park. Although it was not specified in the national policy mandate, the park management committee decided to elect Parish Park Committee (PPC) representing to represent each parish in all the three study sites, to work as a link between local communities and Park Management advisory committee (PMAC). The 1994 tourism revenue sharing policy required that collected funds be used to benefit projects that would serve to improve high number of peoples livelihoods. However, this policy had to change prematurely after the Ugandan legislation merged Uganda National Parks and the Game Department into the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in 1996 (Archabald and Naughton 2001). The newly amended legislation set a change in revenue sharing policy from that of 1994, which included 12% share of all income obtained from the park, to 20% of fees obtained at each park (UWA 1996). Policy makers hoped the increase in tourism revenue-sharing would result into improved livelihoods and park popularity to local communities (Baliikowa 2008, Archabald and Naughton 2001). The change in TRS policy theoretically intended to increase the amount of money distributed to local communities as an alternative forgone for their free interaction with the park. The policy change and change in management from Park Management Authority Committee to a local parish level committee weakened institutional sustainability for TRS and made the 1996 tourism revenue-sharing policy given less priority and the policy saw a decrease in funds due to the exclusion of fees for viewing gorillas and chimpanzee (UWA 2001). According to Archabald and Naughton (2001) TRS scheme process was still bared with irregularities. Revenues generated under the 1994 mandate were later redistributed to local communities in 1998, four years after policy implementation. This slip in redistributing tourism revenue share continued until 2002 when UWA passed out another policy that started to be implemented in 2001 (UWA 2001). 2.2 Ecotourism Tourism is an ancient activity that has become so diverse in its objectives and setting that it is now broken into a variety of sectors of which one of the most and rapidly growing sectors is that of nature based tourism. Obua (1996) referred nature-based tourism to that is directly dependent on the use of natural resources in a relatively undisturbed state. This is contrary to mass tourism whose development in natural areas has often led to the degradation of the very features that first attracted the tourists to the area. Owing to the above, a new concept was developed with an environmentally responsible approach called sustainable tourism. WTO (1993) defined sustainable tourism as any activity managed in a way that enables it to continue indefinitely. As a sustainable program, ecotourism is the fastest growing segment of the nature based tourism sector. 2.2.1 Ecotourism and the local people To be sustainable, ecotourism must involve local people in its planning, development and management (Obua, 1996). Cater (1994) highlighted that tourism can encourage better basic services such as water and electricity; and also create jobs for local people, increase their income levels and support other social and environmental benefits. Cater further stresses that to link sustainable tourism to economic development, its benefits must have an impact on the livelihoods of indigenous communities to warrant improved management of their environment. Cater further notes that, not only should the local, people receive tangible benefits from ecotourism development but their education and, sensitisation on the importance of conservation is of paramount importance. Dueto the fact that most of the remaining natural forests are under the control of the government in Uganda, ecotourism offers local communities opportunities to become more involved in the management of their village forests and see material benefits coming from them. Rea1isation of the benefits from the parks by local people is often accompanied by a decline in deforestation and poaching (Obua, 1996). This has made ecotourism show potential to provide a practical and effective means of providing social and economic benefits to the local people. Obua (1996) notes that, education levels and income influence local peoples attitudes towards ecotourism. This is because education increases ones awareness of the importance of protection and conservation of the environment and natural resources and determine the extent to which the local people depend on protected area for their livelihood. If provision of such services is not properly implemented however, the local people may harm the con servation goals. This therefore stresses a need for continual monitoring of development programs targeting people surrounding the park. 2.2.2 The success of ecotourism The success of the management of protected areas greatly depends on the degree of support and respect accorded the neighbouring communities. Where protected areas are looked at as a burden, local people can make protection and conservation completely impossible. However, when tourism is seen as a positive development, local communities would combine their efforts together with park management in providing protection to the area from external forces and destruction mostly by the locals. Involving local people is a vital factor in reducing infringements of conservation regulations such as poaching and indiscriminate tree felling. Due to corruption however, conflicts develop owing to non-equitable sharing of benefits offered by conservation bodies and the conservation area itself. This physical exclusion from the very resources upon which they depend for their basic needs threatens to ecotourism development (Laudati 2007). It is important to note that there have to be economic incentives for conservation. A major incentive is to secure, restore, and develop the capacity of ecosystems to generate ecosystem services (including food, timber, pollination, seed dispersal) because this capacity constitutes the very foundation for social and economic development (Daily 1997). Conservation science has a major role to play in identifying the role of functional groups of organisms, their redundancy, and their response diversity in relation to ecosystem services and in recommending ways to sustain diversity in this context. 2.2.3 Impacts associated with ecotourism development The viability of ecotourism has received substantial attention among conservationists as a potential tool for sustainable development Debates about Uncontrolled and controlled or restricted tourism has raised a lot of controversy among scholars. The majority of the literature supports the concept behind ecotourism; however, even the supporters like Cater (1994) express caution over the hidden risks inherent to any nature based tourism activity. The potentially negative impacts from tourism have a number of faces. Uncontrolled tourism may lead to ecological disturbances and environmental degradation; create unwanted social and drastic economic impacts as well. The restrictions meant loss of forest resources and land which was once used by locals for agriculture to maintain their livelihoods. Crop raiding is another problem faced by people living around parks. Despite restrictions and damages done on their crops, efforts to compensate local people who depended on forest resources especially land were insufficient (Balikoowa 2007). This has resulted into increased poverty among local people and there is an urgent need among stakeholders and the Uganda Wild life authority to solve this problem. Alternatively, ecotourism has the potential to positively contribute to the development of an area. However, in order for this potential to be realised, a number of conditions must be fulfilled. These include; the regional market, management capacity, ecological and cultural attractions development, adequate infrastructure, access and security, and well-defined linkages between the local residents and conservation activities (Cater, 1994). Whereas some of the conditions are out of control of most tourism stakeholders, certain conditions can be achieved through active management. In the absence of active management, the true ecotourism potential in any given area will not be realised, and it is highly probable that negative impacts will occur. The concept of ecotourism in conservation helps to ensure deliberate and planned policies geared towards reducing the negative impacts of tourism activities on the environment. This is done by minimising impacts in one place by developing new attractions or activities for tourism in different places. Ecotourism here therefore encourages diversification necessary for development. As a form of integrated tourism where all stakeholders are involved (operators in the industry, conservationists, lawmakers, and local people), it encourages cooperation, planning and support for sustainable development. Ecotourism offers the local people the opportunity to improve their livelihood through the various economic activities that are developed and to participate in nature conservation or environmental management. The need for ecotourism development in Uganda has resulted into the initiation of the revenue sharing program. This implies that 20 percent of the profits from park entry fees are given to the communities. Each parish adjacent to the park boundaries is given a share of the money. The money used to be invested in infrastructure benefiting the whole parish, such as schools and feeder roads. It appeared that this strategy did not have the impact UWA was looking for, a big part of the communities did not link these improvements with the National Park. The strategy of UWA therefore changed, they start focusing on directly improving the situation on household level, for instance by buying goats for the villagers (UWA, 2002). In relation to the above, in order to improve the relation between the local communities and the Park Authorities, people are allowed to gather products from the forest in some areas of the park; this can be done in the so called Multiple Use Zones (MUZ). The products that can be extracted in these zones are medicinal plants, craft materials and seed collection for on-farm planting outside the park. The products that can be extracted are all listed, at this moment 36 species of medical plants and 21 species for basketry purposes are listed. In addition, some farmers are allowed to use the park for placement of beehives for honey collection (Plumptre, Kayitare et al. 2004). These MUZ are not accessible for all surrounding communities, only those communities who have signed a MoU can access the park, these are at the moment the communities in fifteen out of twenty parishes bordering the Bwindi. 2.2.4 Community participation and ecotourism development Cater (1994) defined community participation as a situation where people act in groups to influence the direction and outcome of development programs that will affect them. Agencies promoting any community participation program need to deal with organised entities with conventional procedures for making and implementing group decisions. Cater (1994) further notes that much as generating such an entity is hard, working with existing authorities may not be reaching all of the target beneficiaries or all those whose cooperation is essential to the project. Kiss (1991) stressed that local participation towards the development of an ecotourism project involves all people who are directly affected by wildlife from the protected area or have an effect on it. According to Ziffer (1989), increased local peoples involvement in conservation results into low negative impacts on the environment where as low involvement yields high negative impacts by the local people. 2.3 The UWA Revenue Sharing Scheme In an effort to compensate and sustain people residing in areas adjacent to the parks, conservationists and Uganda Wildlife Authority recognize the need for programs that would benefit local communities who affect and are affected by protection policy of the forested areas. Uganda national parks adopted a revenue sharing policy in November 1995 and the government of Uganda passed a legislation under Uganda Wildlife Statute of 1996, which under section 70 (4) stated that the board shall subject to subsection 3 of section 23 pay 20% of the park entry fee collected from a wildlife protected area to the local governments in the area surrounding the wildlife protected area (UWA 1996). From the collections, revenue sharing was one of the means of improving community park relations soliciting support from local communities around protected areas in order to ensure sustainability (Archabald and Naughton-Treves 2001), and indeed the report continued to emphasise that revenue sharing provided a mechanism of attempting to address fair and just distribution of benefits from protected areas to local communities who bear the biggest cost of protected areas (Hulme Murphree, 2001). My research therefore aimed at identifying whether this policy had been put into practice. Its level of success and peoples perception on revenue sharing among communities residing around Bwindi National Park were looked into. 2.4 Attitudes of the local people towards conservation Allport (1935) referred attitudes to a mental and neutral state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individuals responses to all objects or situations with which it is related. Attitudes are thus not born with but learned and have objective reference, differ in valence and like most psychological concepts; can be deduced from the observed antecedent stimulus and the consequent behaviour pattern. According to Lindberg (1991), local peoples attitudes towards conservation are mostly induced by ecotourisms contribution to the local economy. This can be in form of increased incomes by the local people, increased employment opportunities and even general infrastructure without forgetting participation of all stakeholders at all stages (government officials, protected area personnel and the local people). Contrarily, negative attitudes result from the negative impacts that local people acquire from ecotourism development. These may be in form of inflationary pressure on local economies and exclusion of the local people from management and use of resources on which they depended on for their basic needs (Cater, 1992). The involvement of several stakeholders makes it difficult for policy makers and beneficiaries of tourism revenue share fail to meet their intended objectives which justifies Laudats statement that â€Å" Individuals for whom the projects are intended are minimally consulted, and policies are not negotiated with the input of local residents but are determined and evaluated based on institutional core values and foreign parameters of success† (Laudati, 2007), increasing vulnerability of local communities as a result of poor coordination and management between Uganda Wildlife Authority and National policy makers. 2.5 Constraints to revenue sharing Constraints to revenue sharing stats with the vague manner in away which benefactors are defined by some scholars For instance, according to Uganda National Parks (1994) beneficiaries are defined as people living adjoining the parks that are affected by, and affect the park. Thus, Agrawal (1997) arg

Music Therapy :: essays research papers

rynjulf Stige is the first Coordinator of the music therapy education program at Sogn og Fjordane University in Sandane, Norway, where he is an associate professor. With diverse experiences as a music therapist using a community based approach, Stige has written numerous articles and books on music therapy and music education. He is editor-in-chief of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, and co-editor (with Carolyn Kenny) of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. He is one of the most insightful thinkers working within the music therapy profession. He believes that humans cannot escape culture. Through culture, we are provided the tools we need to deal with challenges of everyday life. Stige believes that culture has not been focused on enough and in his book, Culture-Centered Music Therapy, he brought the culture to the music therapy world. His book is divided into four main parts excluding the introduction, preface, etc. Part One of the book, outlines premises for the argument, examining basic concepts such as culture, humankind, meaning, "musicking," and the nature-nurture debate. Part Two highlights how culture-centered music therapy may be practiced. The scope varies from community music therapy (aimed in part on cultural change in the community), to ecological music therapy (focusing on communication at micro- and mesosystem levels), to individual music psychotherapy (considering the individual in cultural context). In Part Three, implications for describing and understanding music therapy are discussed, including a chapter on how to define music therapy as a practice, discipline, and profession. A culture-inclusive model of the music therapy process is also proposed. Part Four suggests approaches to music therapy research within a culture-centered context. A call for increased reflexivity, the ability to reflect upon one's social and cultural position, is at the heart of the discussion, along with a continuing theme of this book: the relations and tensions between local and more general perspectives on music therapy. Focusing more on Part I, the first three chapters that make up that section educate the reader on key premises that arise throughout the rest of the text.. The first chapter explores an integration of themes from biology, history and culture. It opens with a concise and scholarly history of the concept of culture, discussing etymological roots and noting different uses and misuses throughout history. Reference is made to the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography, the latter playing a significant part throughout the text.

Hemispheres Of The Brain :: essays research papers

Hemispheres of the Brain   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As I was reading the text I came upon a section that I thought to be quite fascinating. It talked about people who have a brain that functions like two different people inside of the brain. This is of course the Split-Brain Personality. As I studied this topic in more detail I found it to be quite broad and yet very detailed. I found that I needed a dictionary to be able to read all of the medical journals and books that are out there, to be able to understand what it was exactly, that I was reading. But with a little study and research I found that this is a precise science that is still largely full of mysteries. The study of hemispheric asymmetry with in the cerebral cortex had long been a fascination with the human race. The ancient Aztec cultures used to perform a type of brain surgery on humans. This is evident from the human remains that we find with incisions and piece's missing of the skull. Whether or not these primitive surgeries were successful is unknown. The earliest way for man to observe the brain was by noticing brain damage to a particular area of the brain that was damaged. Such observations were first recorded some 5,000 years ago (Myers,1995). The most popular case is that of Phineas Gage a railroad worker that had severe frontal lobe damage. This happened when a rail road spike was shot through his head by a piece of dynamite. Miraculously he lived through the experience, but with a severe change in his personality. From this physiologists learned that personality was largely controlled from this point namely by removing a persons inhibitions. For the most part the brain has been a mystery that is waiting to be opened. The last two decades have witnessed a period of research on the human cerebral functions comparable to the great era of discovery initiated by Broca in 1861(Young, G,. Segalowitz, S,. Corter, C,. Trehub, S,.1983). We have leaned more in the past 20 years about the brain and it's hemispheric asymmetry than we had learned in combined previous history.(Kosslyn, 1993). Most of this new work has been devoted to the study of cerebral functions in adults, but recently there has been a growing interest in infants and young children most especially among the study of hand preference. About 10 percent of the human population in left-handed(Myers,1995). By looking at ancient writings this right-hand preference has seemed to develop right from the start of the human race. It also is apparent that from ultrasound devises that about 9 in 10 fetuses suck

Animal Farm, by George Orwell :: Animal Farm Essays

Animal Farm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The animals (characters) in this movie acted as though they were humans. At the beginning, everything seemed normal, although the animals spoke to one another. Before I knew it, everything got out of hand and the people shot at the animals. Then, the animals attacked the people. The most depressing part of the whole movie was the fact that the pigs had all the power. The power to run the farm as they chose, the power to make the rules and the power to communicate with the humans until greed took over and everything got out of hand.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the beginning of the movie, the Pilkington’s drove down the rode, their children were hitting the pigs with slingshots and it appeared to be a normal, okay thing to do. They didn’t get in trouble in fact it was apparent that these boys needed some discipline. This family apparently had money and because of their social status, felt it was alright to treat animals and people, that weren’t of their caliber, as if they meant nothing to society. There was a great deal of class conflict between the family that lived on the farm, the Jones’, and the Pilkingtons. The Jones’ owed money to the Pilkingtons and they were taunted throughout the movie about it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On the other hand, the animals had personalities of their own and were holding meetings in the barn. They would discuss such things as how bad they were being treated by Mr. Jones. He was an alcoholic and drank all the time. He treated the animals poorly and put his drinking and fun before taking care of them. Sometimes they wouldn’t get fed for days. Meanwhile, Mr. Jones heard a lot of noise going on outside while the animals were having one of their meetings, so he took a shotgun out to the barn and shot into the barn killing the â€Å"Old Major†. Because â€Å"Old Major† was the lead pig and was shot and slaughtered, the other pigs decided it was time for a Revolution.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Soon after the shooting happened, the pig slaughterer tried to feed â€Å"Jessie† the sheepdog, the raw bones of â€Å"Old Major†. She knows it’s his bones and she refuses them and decides to walk away even though she was starving.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The pigs were the leaders of all the farm animals and had all the power to make the rules. As time went by, these pigs got more and more greedy and decided they would change the rules to their satisfaction.

Substandard Patient Care of Health Care Delivery

Substandard Patient Care of Health Care Delivery Substandard patient care is a term often used to describe health care agencies failure to meeting in an appropriate manner the health care needs of the community served. Substandard patient care of health care delivery may include a poor organizational behavior style, which can interfere with compliance requirements and regulations that govern the health care practice and services delivery. A country’s public health system has as a main function to provide health services to all its population.The American health system has evolved differently compare to the other rich industrialized countries’ health systems. The United States’ lack of a system of health insurance that covers the entire population makes the health care system; a system of privilege for some and disadvantage for others. Patients who cannot afford buying a private health insurance policy have to rely on volunteer organizations for preventive care. I n the worst of the cases patients may end up in an emergency room and occasionally become a victim of discrimination because they have no resources to pay for the services.In regard to these facts, the following information aims to describe hospital emergency rooms compliance with standards of services. Discuss the emergency health care delivery component’s role in providing services in compliance with standardized requirements and how it contributes to the management of health care delivery. Professional Experience with Substandard Patient Care Three months ago, I was working as a volunteer in a hospital emergency room providing medical interpretation services. During this particular occasion, I noticed that a patient arrived to the emergency room with a referral from other hospital’s emergency room.One can expect a patient coming to an emergency room with a referral from a private practitioner who may not have the needed equipment to treat a patient on site. However, a referral from other emergency room makes one speculate why a hospital would refer the patient if emergency rooms within most hospitals can provide the same types of services. One of the nurses on duty explained that for some hospital, referring patients to other emergency rooms is not an uncommon practice for some hospitals in Chicago, IL.Besides, the nurse said: â€Å"such practice does not meet standards of care. † The worst part she continued is that â€Å"there is a well-known law that prevents patients dumping practices. † I recalled a recent article published in the Chicago Tribune in April 2009. According to the Chicago Tribune article, some not for profit hospitals provide patients who arrive to their emergency rooms with discharge slips, prescriptions, and even Yahoo and Google maps to arrive to Stroger, Jr. Hospital, former Cook County Hospital.The Tribune staff interviewed the hospitals’ officials; they denied that they sent patients to Strogerâ₠¬â„¢s ER. Hospital staff said that they offer the patients a choice what hospital to go to complete their treatment. However, the Tribune obtained a discharge slip from a patient with a broken jaw that said â€Å"Go to Cook County Hospitals immediately. † Another discharged slip from a man with a tumor â€Å"Go to Cook County ER to be evaluated for admission. † A third referral slip from a woman said â€Å"Follow up at Cook County Hospital for uterine tumor surgery. Rejecting patients in emergency rooms present serious ethical issues for the institution and for the physicians who work in the hospitals. Some advocates argue that nonprofit organizations are not doing enough to provide services to the medically needy (Japsen & Grotto, 2009). The Nurse I met at the emergency room mentioned a law that prevent hospitals rejecting patients, she was speaking of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA). My research about EMTALA laws confirmed what the nurse in the emergency room stated.The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations have been in existence since 1986, last amended in 2000-2003. EMTALA governs the process of providing medical attention and the denial and transfer of a patient to another hospital if the patient is still in an unstable condition (Legal Information Institute, 2009). The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA) prevents hospitals from denying services to uninsured patients who arrive to an emergency room. The law is also known as the Patient Anti-Dumping Act.EMTALA is a federal law that imposes the duty to all hospitals emergency staff to provide the appropriate screening and treatment to any patient who may arrive to a hospital emergency room requesting emergency care. EMTALA applies only to hospitals that have a contractual agreement and payments come from the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Medicare program. Care must be accessible to patients even though the patient’s primary insurance may be through Medicare or Medicaid.The medical screening must be sufficient for all patients regardless of their ability to pay (Legal Information Institute, 2009). How Substandard Care Relates to Quality Care For hospitals, failing to provide emergency services place the institutions in the line of substandard patient care of health care delivery. Denying health emergency services is a discriminatory practice, which disqualify hospitals for meeting high standards of care. In health care services delivery, discrimination goes beyond racial and ethnic issues.A person seeking emergency care services or medical attention can be a victim of discrimination and services denied simply because he or she lacks resources to pay for services. Rejecting to treat a patient in an emergency room relates to an institution’s standards of quality of care but not in the good term. In fact, denying health services to a patient regardless of the reasons meets the criteria to define poor quality of care or substandard care because fails the main purpose of health care delivery. Furthermore, a health services consumer who does not received appropriate care services cannot experience patient’s satisfaction.Parrington, Haeuser, & Barto (2005) stated about patients satisfaction: â€Å"Patient satisfaction is identified as an important quality outcome indicator of health care in the hospital setting† (P. 23). Conclusion Health care is a rapidly evolving field and it has gone through many significant challenges to provide effective health services to all patients across all levels of health care The costs of health care have undeniably been increased, affecting accessibility and affordability of services to some sectors of the population.Mostly everyone within the United States is affected by healthcare costs including individuals, businesses, healthcar e workers, and facilities. Healthcare costs are rising faster than the rate of inflation, leaving many people in society no other choice but to discontinue coverage and refrain from doctor visits and medical checkups needed throughout a lifetime. The wealth of a country should be shown by the health of its citizens, but the opposite is happening. In a changing economy, the U. S. ealthcare system is less able to assist in the health needs of its people. Healthcare institution should play a better role within the community and adopt better ethical practices. References Frew, S. (2009, May). Federal Court allows case to proceed on Physician claim of EMTALA Retaliation. Retrieved October 11, 2009, from http://www. medlaw. com/healthlaw/EMTALA/courtcases/federal-court-allows-case to proceed-on-physician-. shtml Japsen, B. & Grotto, J. (2009). Are hospitals passing off their low-profit  patients?Chicago Tribune, April 10, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2009, from chicagotribune. com. Lega l Information Institute (2009). EMTALA. Retrieved November 9, 2009, from www. emtala. com/law/index. html. Parrington, M. , Denny, D. , Haeuser, J. , & Barto, J. (2005). GO the Distance. Marketing Health Services, 25(4), 20-24. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database. Retrieved November, 10 2009, from University of Phoenix, HCS 427-Health Care Management Strategies, Course materials.

The Baader Meinhof Gang

The Baader Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, was one of the most active militant left-wing groups of postwar West Germany that gained prominence in the 1970s and 80s. Like may other radical communist groups of its time, it was formed with the objective of overthrowing social and political order to give rise to a totalitarian socialist state. Although the group described itself as a ‘Communist Urban Guerilla Group engaged in armed resistance’ its use of arms and weaponry quickly gained it the reputation of being one of the most deadly terrorist groups in Europe at that time.By the end of the 70s the group was responsible for over 30 killings and a series of bombings and kidnappings that aroused severe social and political unrest in the country. The Backdrop of Social & Political Unrest The formation of the Baader Meinhof Group or Gang can be traced back to the social and political instability in West Germany in the late 1960s. As in many industrialized nat ions, young students and workers disillusioned with the ‘oppressive’ regimes of the capitalist government began to stage massive protests.Their objective was to fight for freedom and human rights and they brought issues such as anti-imperialism, racism and the Vietnam War to the forefront of radical politics. The ‘German student movement’ as it was later termed was fuelled by a series of events that took place in the arena of German politics. In 1956, the Communist Party of Germany was banned. Government positions were occupied by ex-Nazis resulting in anger and frustration at the ineffectiveness of de-Nazification after World War II.The media was considered biased as it was controlled by anti-radical conservatives. The mid 1960s saw the merging of the country’s two major political parties- the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) to form a new government. This was referred to as the ‘gran d coalition’ in Germany in 1966, with a former Nazi, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, as chancellor. This development was received with outrage from the radicals who viewed it as a collusion of capitalist power as a convenient way to block out the left-wing opposition parties.Since 95% of the Bundestag (West German Parliament) was controlled by the coalition, a new opposition party was formed called the Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (APO) or Extra Parliamentary Opposition, with the objective of carrying out political activity and protests independent of the government. The APO provided a platform for student radicals to wage resistance against the coalition and played a central role in the German student movement.What started out as peaceful demonstrations turned into violent protests on June 2, 1967 when the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, visited West Berlin. During one such demonstration outside the opera house where he was visiting, German student, Benno Ohnesorg was shot i n the head and killed. The police officer responsible for the shooting was later acquitted. Outrage of the radicals led to the creation of a new militant group called ‘Movement 2 June’, named after the date of Ohnesorg’s death.Formation of The RAF It was against the backdrop of this social and political environment and the impact of Ohnesorg’s death that led to the formation of an alliance between Thorwald Proll, Horst Sohnlein, Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader. Together they detonated home made bombs in several Frankfurt department stores to protest against the Vietnam War. All four were subsequently arrested on April 2, 1967 and later convicted of arson and sentenced to three years imprisonment.Three of the members including Baader and Ensslin managed to escape during a special parole for political prisoners. Baader was soon recaptured, while the remaining members fled to France and Italy and hid underground. During his stay in prison, Andreas Baader ga ined permission to write a book on ‘organizing young people on the fringes of society’. For this he was granted the privilege of visiting a library accompanied by uniformed armed guards. It was during one such library visit in 1970 that Baader managed to escape with the help of left-wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof.It was here that the Baader-Meinhof duo came together, referring to their alliance as the Red Army Faction. Soon after, several members of the group went to Jordan where they received training in the use of arms by a military camp run by the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Rise of the RAF Hereafter the RAF slowly grew to become one of the most prominent left-wing militant groups in West Germany and was engaged in numerous killings, bombings and robberies in attempt to get their message across through force.It attracted members and supporters from several other radical groups across the country such as the ‘Revolutionary Cells’, ‘Move ment 2 June’, the ‘Situationsists’ and the ‘Socialist Patients’ Collective’. Its rules and mission were partly modeled after a revolutionary group in Uruguay called the ‘Tupamaros Movement’ which succeeded in bringing guerilla war against imperialist oppression, under Che Guevara’s government, from rural areas to metropolitan cities. To avoid capture, most members operated under code names and carried out terrorist activities under a single contract.In June 1972, Baader was recaptured along with his accomplice Jan-Carl Raspe, followed by his girlfriend Ensslin and later Meinhof. Although kept in solitary confinement in a high security prison – Stammheim Prison in Stuggart, the group members devised a means of communicating with one another through letters delivered through their lawyers. With the core members of the group in prison, the group’s activities were taken over by a second generation of militants who se aim now was to secure the release of its leaders.This led to some of the worst terrorist attacks in the group’s history. The German Autumn On April 24, 1975, the RAF occupied the German Embassy in Stockholm where it demanded the release of its leaders in return for the freeing of hostages. When the German government refused, the RAF murdered two of the hostages. Baader and his fellow accomplices were finally put on trial in May 1975 – one of the most long drawn out and costly trials in West German history.Exactly a year later in May 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was found dead in her prison cell after an apparent suicide in which she had hung herself with a rope of towels. As the trial progressed, a number of high profile attacks took place. These involved the killing of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback at a traffic signal, along with his driver and body guard, by two members of the RAF in April 1977. Three months later, in July 1977, Juergen Ponto, the CEO of Dresdner Ba nk was shot and killed outside his home in the German town of Oberursel.The following September, Hans Martin Schleyer, head of the German Association of Employers and one of the most powerful industrialists in the country, was kidnapped after his driver and bodyguards were shot dead by RAF militants. After taking Schleyer hostage, the RAF demanded the release of eleven prisoners including the leaders of the RAF at Stammheim Prison. Under the advice of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the government decided not to accede and instead set up a crisis committee to investigate the whereabouts of Schleyer.Before the situation could be resolved, another attack took place which marked the culmination of terrorist activities associated with the RAF. This attack took place in October 1977 when Lufthansa flight 181 from Majorca to Frankfurt was hijacked by a group of Arabs who appeared to have close links with the RAF as they also demanded the release of the same prisoners as in the Schleyer case. T he crisis committee again refused to give in to the hijackers demands, after which the flight captain was murdered and his body disposed of on a runway.A rescue operation was quickly put in motion led by under-secretary Hans Jurgen Wischenewski, during which the elite force of the German Federal Police were finally able to free the aircraft by shooting down all four hijackers. Shortly after, success of the rescue operation, with not a single passenger hurt, was made public by the media. The same night, three of the imprisoned RAF members – Baader, Ensslin and Raspe were found dead in their cells in what appeared to be a planned and collective suicide.The same night Schleyer was shot dead and the location of his executed body was communicated to the French press the following day. It was this string of bloody events that is frequently referred to as the German Autumn (Der Deutsche Herbst) The Downfall The ideology behind the 70s killings is still unclear and by the end of the 1970s the group’s sole objective appeared to be the release of its imprisoned leaders. The second generation of RAF members remained active in the 1980s gaining some East German support in the form of shelter and funding.The group continued to target prominent industrialists and executives and in 1985 murdered Ernst Zimmerman, CEO of a German engineering company. This was followed by a bombing at a US airforce base near Frankfurt which killed three. Seimen’s executive, Karl-Heinz Beckurts was killed by a car bomb in 1986. In 1989, Duetsche Bank chairman, Alfred Herrhausen was also killed by a car bomb planted by the RAF. As attacks continued throughout the 1980s and early 90s, the RAF attracted increasingly fewer supporters and less sympathy from the left.Its popularity quickly waned after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and after a long silence the group announced its dissolution in April 1998. References Alpert, Jane. (1987) The Baader-Meinhof Group: The Inside S tory of a Phenomenon. Translated by Anthea Bell. London: Bodley Head. Becker, Jillian. (1977) Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Katsiaficas, George. (1987) The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968. Boston: Beacon Press.