Biography of Bianca Jagger

Bianca Jagger is a prominent international human rights advocate. She is the Council of Europe’s Goodwill Ambassador, Chair of the World Future Council and founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. For approximately 25 years, Bianca Jagger has campaigned for human rights, social and economic justice and environmental protection throughout the world.

She was born Bianca Perez-Mora Macias in Managua, Nicaragua in 1950. As a teenager, Ms. Jagger observed the terror Somoza’s National Guard inflicted on the civilian population. She felt powerless, since all she could do was participate in student demonstrations to protest against these massacres. From a young age, she witnessed what John F Kennedy defined as the harshest “common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war”. In the mid-sixties, she left her native country armed with a French Government scholarship to study Political Science in Paris.

In 1971, she married Mick Jagger. A year later she returned to Nicaragua to look for her parents after a devastating earthquake, which destroyed Managua, the capital, leaving 10,000 people dead and further tens of thousands homeless. Although the country received millions of dollars of relief aid from the international community - including $60 million from the US government - thousands were left without medical assistance, food or shelter. Instead, the funds ended up in President Anastasio Somoza’s private bank accounts. It was this ruthless act of pillage that eventually fuelled the Sandinista Revolution.

1979 was the year of her divorce. It coincided with the fall of Somoza. The Sandinistas succeeded in ousting the tyrant. Ms. Jagger joined forces with the British Red Cross to raise funds for the victims of the conflict and flew to Nicaragua to join the International Red Cross and help on the ground.

Two years later, in 1981, Ms. Jagger travelled to Central America, as part of a US Congressional fact-finding mission to visit La Virtud, a UN refugee camp in Honduran territory close to border with El Salvador . During her visit, an armed death squad from El Salvador crossed the border, entered the camp and rounded up about 40 refugees. The refugees’ thumbs were tied behind their backs and they were taken across the border to El Salvador, with the Honduran army’s blessing. Ms. Jagger, the delegation and the relief workers decided to follow the death squads. The families of the hostages joined them and together they ran along a dry river bed for about half an hour, armed only with cameras. During the chase, they were taking photographs.

They all feared that the death squads were going to kill the hostages once they arrived in Salvadorian territory. Finally, they came within earshot of the death squads and the hostages. The death squad turned around and brandishing their M-16's. Fearing for their lives, Ms. Jagger and the relief workers began to shout, “You will have to kill us all,” and, “We will denounce your crime to the world.” There was a long pause. The death squads talked among themselves and, without explanation, turned away, leaving their hostages behind - released and unharmed.

This suspended moment in time was a turning point in Ms. Jagger’s life. She realised the importance of being a witness when innocent people’s lives were at stake and how a small act of courage can save lives and make a difference.

Upon her return to the US, Ms. Jagger testified before The Congressional Subcommittee on Inter American Affairs, to bring attention to the atrocities committed by the Salvadorian government and its paramilitary forces, with the complicity of the Honduran Government.

During the eighties, Ms. Jagger began her long association with several international human rights organisations, most notably with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office for Latin America. She was awarded an honorary Humanities Degree by Stone Hill College, Massachusetts in 1983, for her work on behalf of human rights in Latin America.

In the nineties, as part of her continuing human rights and environmental efforts, Ms. Jagger began to campaign on behalf of indigenous populations in Latin America. She declared a commitment to help save the tropical rain forests of the Western Hemisphere. Her efforts brought her to Nicaragua, Honduras, and Brazil. In 1991 she proved instrumental in stopping a logging concession that would have endangered the Miskito Indians’ habitat on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. A few years, later Ms. Jagger petitioned the Brazilian Federation Courts to demarcate and protect the lands of the Guarani peoples of Brazil.

In 1994, she participated in a similar effort to protect the Yanomami people of Northern Brazil from invasions of their lands by the influx of gold miners, who were polluting the water and causing many deaths among this ancient tribe. The Yanomami are often threatened by rich and unscrupulous land-owners who covet their land. In recognition for her efforts, she was presented the 1994 United Nations Earth Day International award. In 1997, she was the recipient of the Green Globe award by the Rain Forest Alliance, “for her extraordinary conservation efforts and achievements over the past ten years”.

In 1993, Ms. Jagger travelled to the former Yugoslavia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces, as part of their ethnic cleansing campaign.

In July 1995, the United Nations “safe area” of Srebrenica in Bosnia was overrun by Bosnian Serb troops. Some 8,000 civilians (virtually the entire male population) were systematically massacred. Since then, Ms. Jagger has spoken on behalf of the survivors. For many years she campaigned to stop the genocide taking place in Bosnia and, later, to make the perpetrators accountable before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). She has testified on this issue before the Helsinki Commission on Human Rights, the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the International Operations Subcommittee on Human Rights, and the British and European Parliaments.

From 1993 to 1996, she evacuated 22 children out of Bosnia to receive medical care in the United States. She personally evacuated two gravely ill children, Sabina and Mohamed. Sadly, Sabina did not survive the evacuation trip and died in Croatia. Mohamed underwent a successful heart operation in New York; he lived with Ms. Jagger in the US for a year and then returned to his parents in Bosnia. She wrote a decisive essay J’accuse: the Betrayal of Srebrenica, a detailed account of the massacre, which was published world-wide, by The European in the United Kingdom, Courier International and Juriste International in France and Panorama in Italy, among others.

In July 1998, Ms. Jagger travelled to Kosovo with a BBC Newsnight crew. Their aim was to record war crimes perpetrated against the ethnic Albanians, or ‘Kosovars’, who lived in the province and constituted 90% of its population. Repression was the Kosovars daily reality at the time of Ms. Jagger’s visit. Serbian military and paramilitary troops had been uprooting them, leaving over 300 towns and villages destroyed. Over 2,500 ethnic Albanians were killed. Thousands had disappeared. Houses had been burned down and buildings had been gutted by fire. Crops were destroyed, livestock slaughtered. Serbs had systematically raped Kosovar women. Old people and children had been massacred.

Ms. Jagger reported for Newsnight on a pattern of “apartheid” reminiscent of the darkest days of the war she had witnessed in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Serbian and Yugoslav security forces separating men from women and children throughout the province, just as they had done in Srebrenica. Most international organizations and foreign NGOs were withdrawing their staff for “security reasons”.

Ms. Jagger went on to decry the plight of the Kosovars through several articles and lectures; she spoke at the House of Commons in the UK and the European Parliament. She campaigned for the indictment and arrest of President Milosevic and continues to urge the arrest of General Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

Her work on behalf of the countless victims of conflicts throughout the world, and her campaign to evacuate 22 terminally ill children from Bosnia, earned her several awards, among them Amnesty International/USA Media Spotlight Award for leadership “in recognition for her work on behalf of human rights around the world, exposing and focusing attention to injustice”.

In the mid-nineties, Ms. Jagger began campaigning against the death penalty. In 1996, Ms. Jagger filed a clemency petition on behalf of Guinevere Garcia who had been sentenced to death in the state of Illinois, at the request of Amnesty International and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Ms. Jagger made a personal plea to Governor Jim Edgar to commute Guinevere Garcia’s death sentence even though she had waived her right to further appeals after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld their verdict. She fought for Guinevere Garcia’s life, because she believed the question was not whether her wish should be granted, but whether the state of Illinois was justified in carrying out her execution. Guinevere Garcia’s decision to accept her execution was entirely consistent with a pathology born from mental disorder and from physical and sexual abuse; thus Guinevere Garcia’s execution would have constituted nothing less than an act of state sponsored homicide.

Ms. Jagger’s petition called for an act of executive mercy. She gave countless speeches and interviews on the case, using her voice to speak on behalf of Guinevere Garcia. She filed a clemency petition before Governor Edgar and testified before the Penitentiary Review Board. A few hours before the scheduled execution, Governor Edgar announced that he had commuted Guinevere Garcia’s sentence to life imprisonment. Guinevere Garcia “thanked God” and her attorney stated “you could tell that a weight had been lifted from her shoulders”.

On 29 June 1996, Bianca Jagger was made recipient of the “Abolitionist of the Year Award” by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty for “her tireless efforts and heroic dedication in achieving clemency for Guinevere Garcia”.

Since then, Ms. Jagger has campaigned on behalf of many capital punishment cases and she continues to campaign against the death penalty throughout the world.

In 1998, she fought in vain for the clemency of Sean Sellers and Karla Faye Tucker. Sean was the first person in forty years to be executed for a crime committed at age 16. Ms. Jagger continues to urge the US Government to shift its focus away from execution to “the prevention and treatment of sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children, in order to prevent them from succumbing to a life of crime”.

Karla Fay Tucker’s childhood had been one of abuse and forced prostitution. Karla never denied the atrocity of her crime. When Ms. Jagger met her she was 38, and had spent 14 years behind bars. She was no longer the woman who had been sentenced to death in 1984; during her time in prison she underwent a remarkable transformation. She educated herself, became deeply religious and began ministering to others. Karla Fay Tucker was fully rehabilitated. She worked assiduously on the Scare-straight programme to help adolescent drug abusers. She no longer posed a threat to society. All appeals failed: Governor George Bush refused to grant clemency to Karla Fay Tucker and she was executed on 3 February 1998.

In light of these cases, Ms. Jagger continues to this day to denounce the lack of meaningful appellate review in commutation proceedings. She continues to denounce defendants’ poor access to executive clemency and the State’s lack of recognition for the defendant’s capacity for change, rehabilitation and remorse.

In June 2000, Ms. Jagger travelled to Texas to meet with Gary Graham and plead on his behalf with Governor George W Bush. Gary Graham was 17, a minor when he was sentenced to death. He spent 19 years on Death Row for a crime he time and again denied that he committed. He was sentenced to death on the strength of one eyewitness testimony. Evidence, subsequently uncovered, calls into serious question this witness identification. Six other witnesses signed affidavits stating that the killer was not Gary Graham. He could have been saved by The State Board of Pardons and Parole and yet they denied clemency. Gary Graham was executed on 22 June 2000. His final words proclaimed his innocence and the injustice of his sentence: “I am an innocent black man that is being murdered ... It is lynching, what is taking place in America tonight”.

In November of that same year, Ms. Jagger received a Champion of Justice Award, naming her as a “steadfast and eloquent advocate for the elimination of the death penalty in America”. Her articles, lectures and press conferences on the subject continue to challenge a penal system that is unfair, arbitrary and capricious, and jurisprudence fraught with racial discrimination and judicial bias.

Ms. Jagger has also been a strong advocate for Arms Control and Gun Control campaigns. She is committed to supporting women’s rights in the face of prejudice and domestic violence. Her work with former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger was instrumental in establishing Iris House - the East Harlem facility dedicated to providing health and social services to women, which has been a critical component of New York’s response to the AIDS crisis.

In May 2001, Ms. Jagger travelled to Zambia, under the auspices of Christian Aid, to document a devastating tragedy that has left more than 12 million children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in the Sub-Sahara region. She launched Christian Aid’s report on the effect of HIV/AIDS in Africa, urging industrialised nations to fulfil the pledge they had made 30 years ago to donate 0.7% of their Gross National Product to the developing world: “Unless the Industrialized nations come to their rescue, HIV/AIDS will decimate the African Continent.”

Bianca Jagger was in New York on September 11th, 2001. Three days after the terrorist attacks, she visited Ground Zero and paid public tribute to the firemen, policemen and rescue teams who had worked 24/7 to find life amid the rubble. She decried the attacks as crimes against humanity. She cautioned against revenge rather than justice and urged President Bush to act in accordance with International Law. She called for a justice found not in the killing fields of Afghanistan, but in front of an International Court.

In March 2002, Ms. Jagger travelled to Afghanistan with a delegation of fourteen women, organised by Global Exchange to support Afghan women’s projects.

Bianca Jagger in Afghanistan

That same year, in December 2002, Ms. Jagger travelled to India on a Christian Aid mission to shed some light on the HIV/AIDS situation and on the trafficking of children and child prostitution. She visited grassroots organisations in Delhi and Calcutta where she learned about their programmes to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and care for those infected. Speaking to many women and children in the red light district, she learned that for them, safe sex is simply not an option. In Delhi, she met the voluntary Health Association of India, which works with the Indian Government to develop policy on HIV/AIDS. In Calcutta she visited Sanlaap, where she met children who had been trafficked and forced to become sex workers. At Sanlaap Ms. Jagger heard first hand of the stigma faced by people - even children - infected by HIV/AIDS. She visited a shelter called Sneha, which means “affection”, set up by the organisation for children who have been rescued from trafficking. She met 48 girls, from ages 10 to 18, who had been rescued by the police. At the shelter, the girls were living together, learning skills to equip them to earn a living away from the red light districts.
Children who are rescued have to undergo a mandatory HIV/AIDS test. 28 of the 48 girls were already infected with the virus. During her visit, Ms. Jagger listened to horrific stories some of the girls live through in the brothels: stories of unspeakable abuse, cruelty and betrayal. One of the girls was visibly upset, and, after much hesitation, described how men who looked sick, emaciated and who were often covered in with scabs would come to solicit their services at the brothel.

Today, in many countries throughout the world, many believe in the absurd myth that HIV/AIDS can be cured by having sex with a virgin. One of the girls was sobbing inconsolably when she described how the children would beg the madam not to have to sleep with these men, because they believed that they would contract HIV/AIDS. The madam wouldn’t hear their pleas. If they refused to work, they would be abused, beaten and burned with cigarettes. She was talking about herself but she didn’t dare to say it, because she would have had to admit that she had contracted HIV/AIDS. If any of the girls succeeded in escaping and went to the police to seek protection, they were likely to be returned to the brothel by an officer bribed by the madam, and if they returned to their villages their fathers would refuse to take them back.

Ms. Jagger believes governments are failing to address the real ‘terror’ which millions of girls and women face every day.

In January 2003, Ms. Jagger travelled on a fact finding mission to Iraq with a delegation of 32 academics from 28 US Universities. She has been one of the leading voices of the movement against the war in Iraq and was a keynote speaker at the anti-war demonstration 15 February 2003 in Hyde Park. The march that day was the largest political gathering in British history, it was attended by approximately 1,500,000 people.

Ms. Jagger is deeply concerned by the erosion of civil liberties and human rights in the US, the UK and many other nations where anti-terror legislation allows for indefinite detentions without trial and where judges are been excluded from the legal process.

She has denounced George W. Bush’s administration for developing a parallel justice system, circumventing decree by decree the oversight of Congress and the Courts; Secret Military Commissions allow a death sentence without right to appeal. Such proceedings, she has noted, “violate the fundamental rights guaranteed under the US Constitution” and “any curtailment, suspension or elimination of these constitutional liberties weaken rather than strengthen the war on terror”.

Ms. Jagger is a staunch supporter of the International Criminal Court of Justice and the upholding of the rules of the Geneva Convention with regards to the treatment of prisoners. She has participated in numerous television and radio debates related to the war on terror, its victims and its future: most notably on the BBC’s Question Time and Panorama and CNN’s Crossfire. The Bar Human Rights Committee for England and Wales made her their 2001 keynote lecturer at St Paul’s Cathedral, where her speech on the subject of Justice vs. Revenge was widely acclaimed by the media and public alike.

On 16 December 2003, Bianca Jagger was appointed Council of Europe’s Goodwill Ambassador “For the Fight against the Death Penalty”.

On 9 December 2004, Bianca Jagger received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, for “long-standing commitment and dedicated campaigning over a wide range of issues of human rights, social justice and environmental protection, including the abolition of the death penalty, the prevention of child abuse, the rights of indigenous peoples to the environment that supports them and the prevention and healing of armed conflicts.”

On 12 July, Bianca Jagger was elected chair of The World Future Council.

Bianca Jagger is a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for Amnesty International USA and of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch America. Ms. Jagger also serves on the Advisory Board of the Coalition for International Justice. She is a member of the Twentieth Century Task Force to Apprehend War Criminals; a Board member of People for the American Way and the Creative Coalition.

Ms. Jagger has written articles for the op-ed pages of the New York Times(USA), the Washington Post (USA), The Dallas Morning news (USA), the Columbus Dispatcher (USA) the Observer (UK), The Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), The Mail on Sunday (UK), The Sunday Express (UK) The New Statesman (UK), the European (UK),Liberation (FR), Le Journal du Dimanche (FR), Le Juriste International (FR), Panorama (IT) to name a few.