Overview

Throughout the development and implementation of Martus, Benetech has worked with NGOs around the world to gather feedback to improve the usability and performance of the software. These NGOs have found that Martus is a secure, well-designed, useful solution to their documentation and communication needs.

		Burma - Security Colombia - Security Sri Lanka - Flexibility The Philippines - Information Sharing Guatemala - Safety

Burma

While the recent abuse of political protestors has focused attention on the immediate humanitarian crisis in Burma, a group of exiled Burmese activists have been working diligently for years to quietly document the ongoing human rights violations of the Burmese military dictatorship.

Since 2004, Benetech's Human Rights Program has partnered with a group of ten Thailand-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have formed the Network for Human Rights Documentation - Burma (ND-Burma). This community of human rights activists plays an important role in bearing witness to the ongoing struggle against repression in Burma.

Burmese officials have committed hundreds of thousands of human rights violations including killings, forced labor, forced relocation, rape, political imprisonment and the extortion of businesses and individuals to finance their regime. The ruling junta has developed a series of prisons and holds dissenters in harsh conditions with no due process. ND-Burma member groups struggle to collect sensitive data without compromising the safety of witnesses.

ND-Burma monitors a variety of vulnerable groups in Burma including political prisoners, ethnic minorities and women. Members include The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) which maintains an extensive network of families and friends of political prisoners who provide updates on the health and status of those prisoners. The Palaung Youth Network Group (PYNG) and the Palaung Women's Organization (PWO) receive email reports from their members based in a mobile office across the border in China about Palaung compatriots. Burma Issues (BI) uses walkie-talkies and a code language to transmit to their colleagues in Thailand information from internally displaced Karen people in Burma.

Each of the ND-Burma member groups has devised unique and creative ways to collect and preserve testimony from those inside the country. These narrative reports are used to support advocacy efforts, preserve the social memory of witnesses and help build a foundation for an eventual democratic transition in Burma.

Benetech's HRP has helped ND-Burma build a common framework to effectively share and protect the information that they gather. Due to the unstable political situation, difficult geography and limited training and skills of the local staff, ND-Burma has encountered significant logistical and technical challenges in documenting human rights abuses. The groups collect and move information at great risk to themselves and to those whose stories they document. Unsecured e-mails and walkie-talkie communications can be easily compromised and intercepted by Burmese, Thai or Chinese intelligence agencies. Limited budgets force ND-Burma members to depend on outdated and unreliable computers. Many ND-Burma organizations use pirated software and cannot afford virus protection programs leaving their computers vulnerable to crashes and viruses that destroy valuable information.

In an effort to overcome these challenges, ND-Burma is using Benetech's secure information management tool, Martus, to capture testimony from victims and witnesses. The Martus software is used by human rights workers around the world to protect sensitive information and shield the identity of victims and witnesses who provide testimony on human rights abuses. Martus is the Greek word for witness.

Martus is free and open source software that lets users create a searchable and encrypted database and back up this data remotely to their choice of publicly available servers. Martus provides a common template for organizing the information collected in narrative testimonies.

When an Internet connection is available, Martus automatically backs up the collected information bulletins to a remote server of the user's choice. In the event that data is lost or that the computers are stolen, the data can be retrieved from the Martus server without fear of the data having been compromised. Strong encryption makes the data stored in Martus inaccessible to those without the proper password, including Benetech staff.

This data sharing strategy allows members of the ND-Burma group to securely collect and selectively release data to a common database of information.

More than 1,500 unique reports have been entered into an encrypted Martus database by groups in the network. Among the most active Martus users are ND-Burma groups gathering testimony about the economic extortion of rural people and businesses who are coerced into financing the Burmese regime.

Benetech's HRP has over 15 years experience working with human rights advocate groups to provide the tools and technical assistance for the preservation of information. The ND-Burma data collection project is expected to continue in the long-term, leading eventually to a country-wide human rights monitoring network in a transitional, then democratic Burma. This work has been supported by a variety of funders including the Open Society Institute. Benetech continues to provide ongoing Martus training and technical infrastructure support to the ND-Burma member organizations.

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Colombia

In Colombia, violence and human rights abuses are not a thing of the past. Individuals and groups working to fight human rights abuses must take precautions to ensure personal safety and the security of their data. In August 2005, several incidents occurred that demonstrate Martus’ role in information and personal security.

EQUITAS, the Colombian Interdisciplinary Team for Forensic Work and Psychosocial Services, concentrates on recovering the remains of the many people disappeared during Colombia's complex and violent internal conflicts.

Recently, a member of the EQUITAS staff was assaulted multiple times. Each attack focused on obtaining her computer. In one incident, her taxi was hijacked in Medellin. She and her taxi driver were taken to a remote location where her computer, cell phone and other property was stolen, but she and the taxi driver were released unharmed.

Fortunately, EQUITAS has been among the most innovative Martus adopters. Many of EQUITAS' documents were secured by Martus. Whoever stole EQUITAS' computer got nothing but encrypted bits for the data stored in Martus, and EQUITAS was able to recover their materials from a Martus backup server to their new computer.

Human rights groups are all about information. In Colombia and elsewhere, stealing computers is an increasingly common method of trying to suppress human rights activities. Martus helps to safeguard that information from loss or theft and thus protect the safety of individuals and groups working to obtain information and battle against human rights abuses.

Thank you to EQUITAS for permission to share their experiences with Martus.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a region in which the flexibility of Martus has proved extremely important. There are both long-term and immediate needs. The ceasefire agreement created a pressing need to monitor human rights violations and assure compliance.  In the longer term, there is a need to preserve, document and analyze human rights violations data that has been collected by Sri Lankan NGOs over the past twenty years of civil unrest. Since 1983, the Sri Lankan government has fought three wars with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north and east of the island. In the late 1980s, the LTTE fought a separate war with the Indian Peace Keeping Forces while the government suppressed a violent insurrectionist movement in the south of the island. Each of these conflicts has been characterized by wide-scale human rights violations, with more than 60,000 people killed and many more injured or subjected to other human rights abuses.

In February 2002, the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement. This was a major accomplishment, opening the door for negotiations and a broader peace process leading to the eventual settlement of the Sri Lankan conflict. In the context of the ceasefire agreement, there was an immediate need to support efforts by human rights organizations to monitor human rights violations occurring in the north and east of the island. Accurate monitoring of the agreement by both governmental and nongovernmental organizations is crucial to ensuring compliance. In addition, effective monitoring can limit human rights abuses, increase public confidence and sustain support for the peace process, preventing a return to the terrible and destructive warfare and human rights abuses of the last two decades. The two samples below are examples of NGOs using Martus to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their monitoring efforts.

Human Rights Commission

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) engages directly with government agencies on behalf of victims, supports human rights applications filed before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, investigates and publishes reports on human rights incidents and prepares and submits reports directly to the President for tabling before Parliament. The HRC has a main office in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, and 10 regional offices, including five regional offices in the north and east. The HRC plays an important role in monitoring human rights violations in the north and east, thereby ensuring a reduction in the number of violations and greater compliance with the ceasefire and subsequent agreements. However, HRC procedures for data-gathering, collation and storage were too slow and insecure to enable it to effectively perform this role. The HRC historically relied mainly on faxes, mail, in-person meetings and paper files to collect, transmit and secure its data. Like many human rights organizations worldwide, it needed a better solution to enable it to effectively monitor and report on human rights abuses and to promote an environment in which differences can be resolved peacefully, allowing broad-based economic development to take place.

To solve this problem, Martus was installed at the main HRC office in Colombo and at field office locations in the north and east. Field office staff can utilize Martus to create text bulletins on human rights abuses, save and encrypt the bulletins on their computers and transmit the encrypted bulletins through their Internet connections to a remote backup server. The human rights monitoring unit at the HRC main office can connect to the server via the Internet to retrieve, search and review the bulletins, monitor the human rights situation in the north and east and prepare situation and other monitoring and analytical reports.

Martus was also installed in the HRC main office to assist the HRC in monitoring media and Internet coverage of human rights violations under the ceasefire and subsequent agreements. HRC staff can now prepare Martus bulletins based on newspaper reports and Internet postings (local language reports can be summarized, and scanned copies of the full article can be attached to each bulletin; Internet postings can be copied and pasted into Martus bulletins). The HRC can use the collated bulletins to monitor media coverage of the human rights situation in the north and east, and prepares periodic and issue-specific reports.

	Lakmali Dasanayake of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies of Sri Lanka demonstrates Martus at Vehilihini Development Center Empowered Women's Forum in Moneragla.

Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies

Headquartered in Colombo, the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) is an umbrella organization of over 50 different NGOs throughout Sri Lanka. For the past three years, CHA has run an email desk program linking offices in cities in the north and east that had been under control of the Tamil Tigers. These offices have been outposts for CHA to monitor the human rights situation in regions that have been closed to travel or that were hard to reach during the civil war.

Previously, the email desks feared leaks of sensitive information when transmitting information from the field to the capital due to the risk of surveillance; such fears limited their effectiveness. CHA can use Martus to link the email desks in Ampara, Batticoloa, Trincomolee and Vavuniya securely with its headquarters in Colombo. With the security that the encrypted Martus system provides, the email desks can securely communicate civil and political rights abuses and other critical news to CHA headquarters, where much of the advocacy and decision-making take place. (This feature was added at the request of CHA during development.)

"After being involved in the initial brainstorm for the design of the software, I am happy that Martus is living up to its promise, allowing CHA to secure and share sensitive human rights information. I am training our regional offices as fast as I can so that everyone at the NGO that I work for has access to this program that will help us help others."

LAKMALI DASANAYAKE, PROGRAM OFFICER
CONSORTIUM OF HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

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The Philippines

Martus was introduced in 2003 in the Philippines in coordination with The Asia Foundation. The Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is an independent agency created by the 1987 Philippine Constitution to promote and protect human rights. The CHR maintains a nationwide network of 15 regional offices and six subregional offices. Despite this impressive infrastructure, progress is slow in the fight to prevent human rights abuses in the Philippines. One of the most significant barriers to improvement is the lack of efficient information collection, organization and sharing across the commission and the network of human rights organizations in the country. The CHR and independent human rights NGOs do not have any effective tools for easily managing, sharing and safeguarding information on human rights violations. The ability to easily generate and share information on specific abuses and trends would facilitate the process of investigation, prosecution, assistance and advocacy by the commission and the network of human rights NGOs.

	Social justice activists assist one another while learning to use Martus to document abuses.

To this end, Benetech and The Asia Foundation have partnered to bring the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System to civil society organizations in the Philippines. The objective of this project is to strengthen the capacity of the CHR and the domestic human rights community to monitor the abuse of human rights. One goal is to increase communication and information sharing between organizations. Taking advantage of the opportunity to use Martus to assist with data dissemination, the CHR and NGOs are linked through a network in which each NGO serves as a clearinghouse for the data of the organization’s human rights monitors, and chooses which information the CHR will be permitted to view.

This sharing mechanism enables monitors located throughout the Philippine Islands (Visayas, Basilan, Mindanao, etc.) to back up data and have it reviewed by their NGO headquarters in Manila. Once reviewed, the NGO can then decide to upload the data with direct viewing rights for the CHR. This occurs without giving full viewing rights to the general public – and can be broadened to include other specific audiences.

	A training session with NGOs in the Philippines.

The training sessions brought together CHR and NGO staff members from Manila and regional offices from all around the Philippines. The training consisted of attendees including CHR board members (appointed by President Arroyo), technical staff and monitors in addition to independent NGO leadership and monitors. For each organization represented, this was an opportunity to discuss monitoring effectiveness, documentation methods and reporting skills. The training program included sessions devoted to integrating new methods of conducting human rights monitoring to improve reporting and advocacy, including how to implement and incorporate Martus in their work to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

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Guatemala

In Guatemala, the vast majority of human rights abuses from the long civil war – which ended in 1996 – remain unprosecuted. This includes murders, massacres and other war crimes on a vast scale. A UN-sponsored commission found that more than 200,000 people were killed during the conflict, most by extrajudicial executions and acts of genocide.

The effort to investigate these abuses and bring criminals to justice is hampered by a continuing campaign targeted at those challenging the establishment. In recent years, witnesses, judges, journalists and NGO staff have been targeted. The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala recorded 171 cases of threats and attacks on human rights advocates between July 2000 and June 2001, concluding that they were the result of "systematic action." In a joint statement in June 2002 from Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and Human Rights Watch, the three groups called on the Guatemalan government to stop an apparently coordinated campaign of violence and intimidation against human rights NGOs.

The widespread impunity for past abuses has been a major factor in this wave of new abuses currently sweeping Guatemala. A number of NGOs in Guatemala have used Martus to help protect and secure information collected about past and more recent crimes.

Claudia Samayoa, independent human rights investigator and former director of Fundacion Rigoberta Menchu Tum

Ms. Samayoa is involved in the creation of a network for protection for human rights activists. Her objective is to facilitate communication between various human rights groups and to emphasize issues of security. She has worked to document 220 cases of attacks on activists, and over the last two years has seen an increase of about 10 cases per month. Most of the cases are from Guatemala City, where there are about 100 human rights NGOs. About 200 of the 220 cases she mentioned have been reported to police – it is difficult to convince victims to file formal complaints, but her efforts have helped to build a credible record of crimes. It may take as much as twenty years before such cases will be heard, but she knows that the information will be secure when the time comes.

Ms. Samayoa is especially determined to show through her work that there is a coordination of attacks against activists. She classifies what part of civil society is being attacked (environmental workers, those working with disabilities, etc.) and charts connections she finds to political activities. For example, she observes a consistent increase in attacks that occur before an international organization or UN official comes to Guatemala.

Ms. Samayoa has used Martus to maintain security of the data she collects and to safeguard her work by backing it up in another location. She had used PGP (a tool for secure email) in the past but found it too frustrating.

Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH)

CALDH is an important member of the group of NGOs pursuing the charge of genocide against former Guatemalan president General Rios Montt. As one of the collectors of evidence and formation of legal strategy, CALDH, like many Guatemalan NGOs, is concerned for the security of its information. Other groups have already had files and computers stolen from offices, so it is taking advantage of the offsite backup that Martus servers provide to secure its information.

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For more information on groups using Martus to meet their documentation and information security needs, contact info@martus.org.