Another world is possible / CHRONICLE 2001

.WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MAJORITY WORLD

JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC
Click a month above to read an alternative view of the key events of that month.

BANGLADESH The High Court, which includes Bangladesh’s first female judge, rules that fatwas – religious edicts issued by Muslim clergy – are illegal. Rural clergy issue dozens of fatwas each year, mainly against women. In October 2000 the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance stated that most fatwas in Bangladesh were an attempt ‘to stifle any efforts to emancipate women’.

CHILE Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia removes the immunity which has long enveloped former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The court declares, after reviewing the results of psychological testing, that Pinochet is mentally fit to stand trial for human-rights violations by his government, which took power with a military coup in 1973.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Laurent Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is assassinated by one of his own military officers. His son, Joseph, is installed as the new leader – with the backing of Angola and Zimbabwe.

ECUADOR An oil tanker runs aground and leaks 700,000 litres of heavy oil fuel into a bay on San Cristóbal Island in the Galapagos. Oil sinking to the ocean floor destroys algae that are vital to the food chain – thus threatening marine iguanas, sharks, birds that feed off fish and other species in the unique ecology of the Galapagos Islands.

PHILIPPINES The government of President Joseph Estrada collapses as more than a quarter of a million people take to the streets to protest against his acquittal in an impeachment trial. The Catholic Church swears in Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the new President.

RUSSIA European Union external relations commissioner, Chris Patten, warns that the 300 nuclear reactors and thousands of spent fuel rods in the Arctic Kola Peninsula form the world’s biggest nuclear graveyard, an immediate and extreme danger to both Russia and Europe.

Martin Adler / Panos Pictures

SIERRA LEONE/GUINEA War spreads further into Guinea. Revolutionary United Front rebels continue to attack and forcibly conscript Sierra Leonean refugees. The UNHCR attempts to relocate some of the 328,000 refugees from Sierra Leone living in Guinea from border areas to camps further inland, despite fears that this will extend the fighting even further.

BURMA Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic leader who is effectively under house arrest, confirms that she has been engaged in talks with the senior members of the military junta since October – for the first time in more than five years. The junta releases over 115 political prisoners prior to visits from the European Union and the United Nations.

SAUDI ARABIA A UN committee decides that ‘narrow interpretations of Islamic texts by State authorities are impeding the enjoyment of many rights protected under the Convention (on the Rights of the Child)’. Saudi Arabia became a state party to the convention in 1996. The committee finds that children are subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, ill treatment and torture.

WORLD The annual World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland. Lines of riot police prevent globalization protesters from approaching the security zone around the Forum – they organize a parallel discussion of their own. In Porto Alegre, Brazil (winner of a UN Habitat prize for best-governed city in the world), a distinctively anti-élitist conference is held by the Social Forum.

AFGHANISTAN Over 300 unarmed men and some civilian women and children are massacred by Taliban forces after they recapture Yakaolang, in Bamiyan province, from Hezb-e-Wahdat troops.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA Former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic surrenders to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia after learning that she has been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

TANZANIA Riots, which leave at least 17 people dead, break out in Zanzibar. There are accusations of vote-rigging and intimidation during October’s nationwide presidential elections, which returned President Benjamin Mkapa to power.