War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
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War Crimes Prosecution Watch Editor-in-Chief Taylor Frank FREDERICK K. COX Volume 13 - Issue 25 INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTER January 21, 2019 Technical Editor-in-Chief Ashley Mulryan Founder/Advisor Michael P. Scharf Managing Editors Sarah Lucey Lynsey Rosales
War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email [email protected] and type "subscribe" in the subject line.
Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.
Contents
AFRICA
CENTRAL AFRICA
Central African Republic
More than 12,000 displaced to ‘roads and forests’ after Bakouma violence (Defense Post) Central African government to meet armed groups in Khartoum for peace talks (Defense Post) Deadly militia attacks in C. Africa ahead of president's visit (Yahoo News) Moscow Wants to Establish Military Base in Central Africa (Albawaba)
Sudan & South Sudan
Why are Foreign Powers Helping an Indicted War Criminal Remain the President of Sudan (Pacific Standard) Sudan protests spread to Darfur as Bashir vows rallies won't force him out
Democratic Republic of the Congo
A Congo War Crimes Decision: What It Means for Universal Jurisdiction Litigation in Germany and Beyond (Just Security) UN urges DR Congo to refrain from violence after election result (Aljazeera) Congo under mounting foreign pressure for vote recount (Reuters)
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SADC calls emergency meeting over disputed DR Congo election (Aljazeera) WEST AFRICA
Lake Chad Region — Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon
Insurgency - 30,000 Displaced in Lake Chad (Daily Trust) Why Lake Chad will continue to fuel terrorism (Daily Trust) Thousands flee north-east Nigeria after devastating Boko Haram attack (The Guardian)
Mali
Malian slaves risk lives to end centuries-old institution, see hope in Trump (Washington Post) Canadian peacekeepers in Mali challenged by geography, shifting violence (Global News) Gunmen attack villages in central Mali, kill 20 people (Seattle Times)
Liberia
Witnesses Fear Testifying Before War Crimes Court without Security (Front Page Africa) Residents of Speaker Chambers’ District Want Him to Agree to War Crimes Court Establishment (Front Page Africa) Bishop Cuffee Wants Citizens Welcome Economic Crimes Court (Liberian Daily Observer) EAST AFRICA
Uganda
8 Uganda Security officers charged with abduction of asylum seekers (Whisper Eye) Managing Life After War: How Young People in Uganda are Coping (The Conversation)
Kenya
Schoolgirls in Kenya to face compulsory tests for pregnancy and FGM (The Guardian) Kenya’s new security conundrum after ousting al-Shabab (Aljazeera) At least 11 dead in Nairobi hotel complex, as evacuations continue (CNN)
Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)
Pastor Who Planned Massacre Of 5000 Tutsi Denied Early Release (KT Press) The schoolgirls who warned of Rwanda's genocide (The Guardian)
Somalia
US attacks on Somalia's al-Shabab increase under Trump (BBC News) Somalia's Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for Nairobi attack (iOL) Somalia assures UN of enhanced security after attack (Horseed Media)
EUROPE
Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber
Court of BiH revoked Judgment to Three Persons responsible of War Crimes (Sarajevo Times) Bosnian Court Upholds Serb Ex-Soldiers’ Acquittals (Balkan Insight) Bosnian Serb Hague Convict Faces New War Crime Trial (Balkan Insight)
file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia
Interpol Issues ‘Red Notice’ for Bosnian Croat War Criminal (Balkan Insight) Croatian General to be Tried Alongside Subordinates, Court Rules (Balkan Insight)
Turkey
Turkey-backed rebels await 'zero hour' to attack Syria's Manbij (Reuters) Turkey deports Dutch journalist Ans Boersma over alleged links to Syrian terror group (Independent)
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
Libya
‘Substantial civilian casualties’ in Derna, UN humanitarian chief ‘deeply concerned’ (UN News)/a> UN experts warn of growing influence of Sudanese armed groups in Libya (The Libya Observer) Rival Militias Clash in Libya’s Capital, Shattering Shaky Calm (Bloomberg)
Iraq
Car bomb blast kills two people in Iraq's Tikrit (Reuters) Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Detained Children Tortured (Human Rights Watch) As Iraq’s Shiite militias expand their reach, concerns about an ISIS revival grow (The Washington Post) Iraq closes camps for displaced, pushes families into peril (Associated Press)
Syria
91 Medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent personnel Documented killed in Syria, and 198 Attacks on Their Related Facilities in 2018 - One Civil Defense Worker Documented Killed, and 11 Attacks on Vital Medical, Civil Defense facilities in December (Syrian Network for Human Rights) Lawyers Take Fight for Syrian Reparations to Dutch Courts (Balkan Insight) At Least 587 Attacks on Vital Civilian Facilities Documented in Syria in 2018, Including 31 Attacks in December (Syrian Network for Human Rights) Syria Rights Monitor Charges U.S. With Negligence and 'War Crimes'—But Wants Troops To Stay And Fix Things (The Daily Beast) Deadly School Attack Was Unlawful: Idlib Attacks Reaffirm Need for Civilian Protection (Human Rights Watch) Syrian army shells areas held by insurgents in northwest (New Jersey Herald) Thousands of Syrians in ‘life and death’ struggle amid harsh conditions in remote desert camp, UN warns (UN News) The Annual Report of the Most Notable Violations of Human Rights in Syria in 2018: The Crushing of the Society and Dismantling of the State (Syrian Network for Human Rights) Syria attack: Blast in Manbij kills US soldiers, civilians (News.Com.Au)
Yemen
Yemen civil war continues unabated as world looks on (The Week) Video: Shocking Suicide Drone Attack on Military Parade Kills Several Soldiers (Newsweek) UN Special Envoy Griffiths Notes Progress In Yemeni Peace Process (UrduPoint)
Israel and Palestine
IDF strikes Hamas posts in Gaza after explosive flown into Israel (The Times of Israel) Five Israeli Soldiers Arrested for Allegedly Beating Detained Palestinians Out of Revenge (Haaretz) Israel Strikes Hamas Targets; Palestinian Woman Said Killed in Gaza Protests (Haaretz) file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Israel's Top Court Won't Rehear Case on Eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem (Haaretz) Palestinian Boy, 14, Dies of Bullet Wounds Sustained in Gaza Border Clashes (Haaretz) Abbas Asks for UN Protective Force Against Israel Prior to Chairing G77 (The Jerusalem Post)
Gulf Region
Saudi prosecutors to seek death penalties in Khashoggi murder case (CBS News) Saudi prosecutors to seek death penalties in Khashoggi murder case (CBS News) No letup in Saudi crackdown on dissent, and no pushback from Trump administration (NBC News) Pompeo Says He Pressed Saudi Leader on War and Rights Abuses (The New York Times)
ASIA
Afghanistan
Marine deemed falsely accused of war crimes is recommended for higher retired rank (Stars and Stripes) New Afghan Defense Minister Should Face Investigation, Sanctions (Human Rights Watch) Human Rights Watch calls for sanctions against new Afghan defense minister (Reuters)
Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal
These Rohingya refugees actually want to return to Myanmar. The difference is they're Hindus (Los Angeles Times) US citizen of Bangladeshi origin arrested for 1971 'war crimes' (Al Jazeera)
War Crimes Investigations in Burma
AA Gathering Evidence of Tatmadaw’s Human Rights Abuses (The Irrawaddy) UNHCR seeks clarification from India after it deports Rohingyas to Myanmar (Business Standard) Malaysia tells Myanmar to assume responsibility for Rohingya (New Straight Times)
AMERICAS
North & Central America
US citizen of Bangladeshi origin arrested for 1971 'war crimes' (Al Jazeera) Navy SEAL charged with war crimes to remain in the brig (Your Navy) Ex-Nazi camp guard deported by US dies in Germany (The Seattle Times)
South America
Former Brazilian mayor starts serving sentence 14 years after ordering murder of Paraguayan radio journalist (Knight Center) Attacks and bodyguards: The price of being a Colombian journalist (AlJazzera) Sex trafficking that starts in South America largely stays there (Reuters)
Venezuela
Venezuelan supreme court judge defects to US (Fox News) Latin America has never seen a crisis like Venezuela before (The Washington Post) With his country in crisis, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro begins another six-year term
file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
TOPICS
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Gambia reconciliation process to look into former leader's abuses (Al Jazeera) Fate of transitional justice bodies hangs in balance (Kathmandu Post) Liberia: Witnesses Fear Testifying Before War Crimes Court without Security (Front Page Africa) Farooq Abdullah promises truth and reconciliation commission in Kashmir if elected to power (Greater Kashmir)
Terrorism
Alleged war criminal named second-in-command of Sri Lanka army (aljazeera) A Congo War Crimes Decision: What it Means for Universal Jurisdiction Litigation in Germany and Beyond (Just Security)
Piracy
New Saudi Initiative Of’ Arab and African Coastal States Of The Red Sea And The Gulf Of Aden’- Analysis (Eurasia Review) Indonesia Denies Ransom Paid to Release Abu Sayyaf Hostage (Eleven Media Group)
Gender-Based Violence
South Sudan’s rape crisis is shockingly unremarkable (The East Africa Monitor) Somali security officers trained on preventing conflict-related sexual violence (Mareeg) Sexual violence a dark secret of War of Independence and Civil War (Irish Times)
Commentary and Perspectives
Human trafficking worsens in conflict zones as militants deploy slaves - UN (Reuters) Human Rights Watch calls for sanctions against new Afghan defense minister (Reuters) Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo clear of war crimes, may return to politics (Reuters)
WORTH READING
Alyssa Wright: Extended Adolescent Development in International Juvenile Justice: Modernizing the U.N. Standards and Norms with Scientific Progress and Law
AFRICA
CENTRAL AFRICA
Central African Republic
file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Cases: Central African Republic
More than 12,000 displaced to ‘roads and forests’ after Bakouma violence (Defense Post) By Fergus Kelly January 7, 2019
The majority of the population – more than 12,000 people – have been displaced by violence in Bakouma in southeastern Central African Republic, the United Nations said on Monday, January 7.
Bakouma, around 110 km (68 miles) from Bangassou, was attacked on December 31 by members of the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic (FPRC), an ex-Seleka militia.
A joint evaluation mission by the U.N. International Organization for Migration and Minusca, the U.N. mission in CAR, to prepare a humanitarian response found that more than 12,000 people, including wounded and sick people and pregnant women, are without shelter on roads and in forests near Bakouma, IOM CAR tweeted on Sunday.
Minusca spokesperson Vladimir Monteiro told The Defense Post that the joint mission entered Bakouma, and Minusca is currently working with humanitarian agencies to locate the displaced people who have fled.
“The majority of the population of this city has fled following the unacceptable and unjustified attack by ex-Seleka FPRC’s militia,” Monteiro said, adding that 90 percent of houses in Bakouma have been looted.
“Only vulnerable people remain in Bakouma which is a source of concern as they can be taken hostages by the armed group,” he said. “Minusca’s priority is to ensure the security of the IDPs.”
Information about what happened in the town is unclear, in part because the telephone lines to the town have reportedly been cut, and because of its relative remoteness.
The town has reportedly been under the control of anti-balaka militias for at least two years.
The anti-balaka is a group of nominally Christian vigilante units set up in 2013 to counter the Seleka coalition of Muslim- majority rebel groups following their ousting of President Francois Bozize. Seleka was officially disbanded within months, but many fighters refused to disarm, becoming known as ex-Seleka.
Since then, violence between rival groups along both religious and ethnic lines has left thousands dead, and CAR is de facto partitioned – anti-balaka in the southwest and ex-Seleka in the northeast.
After days of rumors that ex-Seleka fighters were massing in Nzacko in preparation for an attack on Bakouma, violence began on the night of December 30-31, when members of ex-Seleka militas entered the town, Radio Ndeke Luka and RJDH reported, although there were reports of earlier clashes between ex-Seleka and anti-balaka outside the town.
According to reports, members of the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic (FPRC) and Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) were both involved.
Four people were killed and two seriously injured, according to later reports that also said the telephone network had been cut.
A joint Minusca-Central African Republic Armed Forces (FACa) patrol was sent to restore order and protect the population, Minusca tweeted on January 2.
Monteiro told The Defense Post that the joint patrol arrived in Bakouma after the attack but only Minusca entered the town.
“We told the FPRC’s militia to leave the city and to refrain from these crimes as they contradict the armed group’s participation in the political dialogue under the African Union initiative for peace and reconciliation in the CAR,” he said.
On January 4, Radio Ndeke Luka reported that the FPRC told the local authorities that they had to leave the town. Discussions between the local authorities, Minusca and the FPRC were carried out outside the town.
The order to leave reportedly came from Abdoulaye Hissène and apparently blamed government failure to respect agreements previous agreements.
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Hissène is chairman of the FPRC’s National Defense and Security Council (FPRC-CNDS), but has of late diverged from FPRC leader Noureddine Adam.
Both Hissène and Adam are currently under U.N. sanctions.
On January 5, Radio Ndeke Luka reported that people from the town had prevented the local authorities and Minusca from leaving the area, demanding that the government resolve the crisis, and the joint mission remained about 5 km from Bakouma.
The same day, AFP reported that multiple sources said that the FPRC and the UPC were still present in Bakouma, and that an FPRC member had told them that FACa forces had been “cleared” from Bakouma.
Despite reserves of diamonds, gold, uranium, copper and iron, Central African Republic is one of the world’s poorest countries.
Nearly 700,000 people are displaced, 570,000 have fled the country and 2.5 million are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the U.N.
President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s weak government controls around a fifth of the country and relies heavily on Minusca for support. The rest is controlled by at least 14 different militia groups who often fight each other for control of revenue from extortion, roadblocks or mineral resources.
Bakouma is known for its uranium ore deposit. In 2006, Canadian company UraMin secured the mineral exploitation rights, but the company was bought by the French state-controlled nuclear group Areva in July 2007 for $2.5 billion. Areva later wrote off the purchase after reserves at UraMin’s mines were found to be much lower than first thought. An investigation was launched amid allegations that UraMin had been purchased to court African politicians and secure nuclear power contracts. Areva withdrew from the Central African Republic in 2012.
There are rumors that the government intends to grant mining rights to Russian companies.
Wikileaks in February 2016 released a trove of documents related to mineral rights and mining in CAR, claiming corrupt practices by western and Chinese companies. Wikileaks accused Areva of not looking after local employees, particularly in protecting miners from radiation.
Central African government to meet armed groups in Khartoum for peace talks (Defense Post) January 9, 2017
The African Union said Wednesday, January 9 that long-awaited peace talks between the government of the Central African Republic and militia groups would take place in Khartoum this month.
“Direct dialogue between the CAR government and armed groups [will] be held on January 24 in Khartoum, Sudan, under the auspices of the A.U.,” A.U. ambassador Moussa Nebie tweeted, citing CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
The A.U. launched an “African initiative” to bring peace to the CAR in July 2017. It relaunched talks on Tuesday with U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, A.U. Commissioner for Peace and Security Smail Chergui, officials from the Economic Community of Central African States and foreign ministers from the region.
Majority-Christian CAR descended into violence following the ousting of President Francois Bozize in 2013 by the Seleka, a coalition of mainly Muslim rebel groups.
Seleka was officially disbanded within months, but many fighters refused to disarm, becoming known as ex-Seleka. Many others joined the mainly Christian anti-balaka militia to fight the Seleka, leading to a spiral of violence between groups along religious and ethnic lines.
By the end of 2014, CAR was de facto partitioned – anti-balaka in the southwest and ex-Seleka in the northeast. Touadera’s weak government controls around a fifth of the country and relies heavily on the U.N. peacekeeping mission, Minusca, for support. The rest is controlled by at least 14 different militia groups who often fight each other for revenue from extortion, roadblocks or mineral resources.
Violence by both sides led to thousands of deaths. Nearly 700,000 people are displaced, 570,000 have fled the country and 2.5 million are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the U.N.
Seven peace agreements have been signed since the crisis erupted in 2012, but none has endured. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
In August, the Facilitation Panel of the African Initiative of the African Union met with armed groups, where they agreed 104 demands later presented to the government.
Five issues were “put to one side” by the A.U., including the demand for a general amnesty. Five human rights organizations united in opposition to an amnesty for the armed groups which they said “would be incompatible with the government’s duty to bring those responsible for grave international crimes to justice.”
Diplomats and observers have criticized the process, supported by the U.N. and CAR’s main partners, for inefficiency.
Also in August, Russia and Sudan brokered parallel peace negotiations in Khartoum. Rival ex-Seleka and anti-Balaka armed groups signed a declaration of understanding which said they had decided to “create a common framework for dialogue and action for a real and lasting peace,” and a “national platform,” but some of the signatories have since withdrawn from that process.
A Special Criminal Court has been set up to decide cases of serious rights violations committed in the country since 2003.
Deadly militia attacks in C. Africa ahead of president's visit (Yahoo News) January 10, 2019
Militiamen killed two police officers Thursday in the Central African Republic town of Bambari ahead of a scheduled visit by the country's president, the government said.
The attack came a day after President Faustin-Archange Touadera announced a date for African Union-brokered peace talks with armed groups who control most of the CAR.
Members of the UPC militia and their allies carried out "various attacks" in the town early Thursday, an official statement said.
"Two policemen were killed and another was wounded," Communications Minister Ange-Maxime Kazagui told AFP.
Local papers said 10 people had been killed. It was not possible to confirm this toll.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had treated 30 people for bullet wounds.
MINUSCA, the UN force in the country, sent peacekeepers to the site of the clashes, spokesman Vladimir Monteiro told AFP. Its troops there had come under fire a day earlier, he added.
According to an internal UN report seen by AFP, a combattant called "General Bello," in charge of UPC fighters in Bambari, had been wounded.
Touadera had been scheduled to visit Bambari, located in the centre of the country, on Thursday and Friday to attend ceremonies for World Food Day.
The ceremonies, initially set for last October 16, had already been postponed twice because of unrest and were suspended once more after the latest clashes.
"The seriousness of these attacks is all the more unacceptable" given that on Wednesday the authorities agreed to open talks with the rebels, the government statement said.
Touadera on Wednesday had announced long-awaited AU-backed talks with rebels for January 24 in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
The AU initiative, launched in 2017, has been heavily criticised for its slow pace but nevertheless has the backing of the United Nations.
Further east, the town of Bakouma remains in the hands of another rebel group allied to the UPC, the Popular Front for the Rebirth of CAR (FPRC). The FPRC seized control of the town in late December.
Both groups are offshoots of the Seleka rebel alliance that overthrew the regime of Francois Bozize in March 2013, holding power until 2014.
Touadera's government controls only a slim part of the country, and rival rebel forces regularly clash over diamonds, gold and livestock.
Moscow Wants to Establish Military Base in Central Africa (Albawaba) January 11, 2019
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Moscow is considering the establishment of a military base in the Central African Republic (CAR), where Russian forces are already training local troops as part of a deal with Bangui.
Central African Republic Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that the establishment of a Russian military base is possible under an agreement signed in August between Moscow and Bangui.
“We have not yet spoken about the concrete development of the base, but such a possibility is not excluded in the framework agreement,” Koyara said.
“If the presidents, as supreme commanders and leaders of the nation, decide to deploy the base, then our countries will carry it out,” she added.
She further explained that authorities and armed groups of the Central African Republic are ready for a meeting to discuss the move under the auspices of the African Union.
“Armed groups are ready for a meeting, we are ready for a meeting, all interested parties are ready for a meeting, and now we are waiting for the response from the African Union as a coordinator, when and where it should take place."
“Our population perceives Russia very well. When the talk is about Russia, people understand that this is a full-fledged partner that may change the country’s future. And it is this human support, so to speak from the masses, that suggests that the word ‘partner’ is fully applicable to Russia,” Koyara added.
She said an army training center had already been established in the country with Russia, which could not be considered a military base.
Russia has already deployed light arms and troops to CAR —a member of the United Nations — after obtaining approval from the UN Security Council.
The Central African Republic, a former French colony, has for decades been mired in poverty, hunger and violence due to ethnic and religious conflict between rival militias.
The United States, which has a significant military presence in Africa, has recently launched a new strategy to counter what it calls the ‘predatory’ practices of Russia and China in the continent.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton accused Moscow and Beijing of using “corrupt” and “predatory” practices to gain an economic advantage over Washington in Africa.
“They [China and Russia] are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States,” he added.
China has already provided many countries in Asia and Africa with billions of dollars in aid and loans for roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure projects. It has also set up its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017, where the US also has its main base of operations in Africa.
The US, which already runs 34 military bases across Africa, has in recent years used the presence of Takfiri terrorists to build up its presence across the continent, where it has over 6,000 boots on the ground.
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Sudan & South Sudan
Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in Darfur, Sudan
Why are Foreign Powers Helping an Indicted War Criminal Remain the President of Sudan (Pacific Standard) By Martin Plaut January 10, 2019
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Omar al-Bashir is facing his most serious domestic challenge of his presidency, but the international community continues to back his leadership—despite his violent past.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People on September 1st, 2015, in Beijing, China.
Day after day Sudanese are taking to the streets to protest against the rule of Omar al-Bashir. The president, who himself seized power in 1989 when he led a coup, is facing the most serious challenge in his three decades in power. Fury at sharp rises in the cost of bread and fuel, and allegations of corruption, have fueled the protests.
Thus far the president has managed to resist the anger of his people. But Sudanese have a long history of overthrowing unpopular regimes. Twice before—in 1964 and then again in 1985—revolts led to changes of government. On each occasion the armed forces abandoned the regime and sided with the people. This has not occurred during the current protests for good reasons, as university lecturer and author of Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan Willow Berridge points out:
Al-Bashir's regime clearly learnt from the mistakes of its predecessors. It has created a much stronger National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) as well as a host of other parallel security organisations and armed militias that it uses to police Khartoum instead of the regular army. This set up, combined with various commanders' mutual fears of being held to account for war crimes if the regime falls, means an army intervention will not occur easily as in 1964 or 1985. This is one reason the current uprising has already lasted longer than its precedents.
But the regime's survival cannot simply be seen as a domestic issue. He has strong international allies. The West once reviled Omar al-Bashir as an indicted war criminal. However, more recently they have begun to view him as a source of stability and intelligence in a troubled region. The president also has the backing—both political and financial—of key Arab allies.
ARAB SUPPORT
Sudanese have traditionally been said to look North to Cairo for support. This crisis is no exception. In December, Egypt's foreign minister and intelligence chief visited Khartoum, pledging their support for al-Bashir.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who flew to Sudan with intelligence chief General Abbas Kamel, confidently stated that "Egypt is confident that Sudan will overcome the present situation."
This was followed earlier this month during a reciprocal trip to Cairo by the Sudanese president at which President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi commented that "Egypt fully supports the security and stability of Sudan, which is integral to Egypt's national security."
But political support alone wouldn't be enough to keep the Sudanese regime in power. There is also financial backing from across the Red Sea. In return for Sudan entering the Yemeni war, Khartoum is reported to have received investments worth $2.2 billion. More than 10,000 Sudanese troops are fighting on the Yemeni frontline. Some are said to be child soldiers who were recruited by the Saudis, with offers of $10,000 for each recruit.
OTHER ALLIES
The rehabilitation of al-Bashir in the United States goes back to President Barack Obama's era. As one of the last acts of his office, he lifted a range of U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime. The Central Intelligence Agency's large office in Khartoum was cited as one of the key reasons for his policy shift.
Nor is Washington alone in this view. As Europe battles to restrict the number of Africans crossing the Mediterranean it has seen the Sudanese government as an ally. The "Khartoum Process," signed in the Sudanese capital, is critical to this relationship. In November of 2015 European leaders met their African counterparts in the Maltese capital, Valletta, to try to put flesh on the bones of this agreement. The aim was made clear in the accompanying European Union press release which concluded that:
The number of migrants arriving to the European Union is unprecedented, and this increased flow is likely to continue. The EU, together with the member states, is taking a wide range of measures to address the challenges, and to establish an effective, humanitarian and safe European migration policy.
The summit led to the drafting of an Action Plan that has guided the E.U.'s policy objectives on migration and mobility ever since.
The plan detailed how European institutions would cooperate with their African partners to fight "irregular migration,
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migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings."
Europe promised to offer training to "law enforcement and judicial authorities" in new methods of investigation and "assisting in setting up specialised anti-trafficking and smuggling police units."
These commitments were an explicit pledge to support and strengthen elements of the Sudanese state. A Regional Operational Centre (ROCK) has been established in Khartoum whose chief aim is to halt people smuggling and refugee flows by allowing European officials to work directly with their Sudanese opposite numbers. The counter-trafficking coordination center in Khartoum—staffed jointly by police officers from Sudan and several European countries, including Britain, France, and Italy— will partly rely on information sourced by the Sudanese national intelligence service.
Finally, there is some evidence of Russian involvement in the Sudanese crisis. Russian troops, working for a private contractor, are reported to have been seen on the streets of Khartoum, suppressing the uprising.
Given the range of support for al-Bashir, it isn't surprising that he's managed to resist popular pressure to step down. Much depends on how long demonstrations can be maintained, and how much force the regime is prepared to deploy to crush its opponents
Sudan protests spread to Darfur as Bashir vows rallies won't force him out Middle East Eye January 14, 2019
Calling for peace, freedom, and justice, residents living in Sudan's Darfur region took to the streets for the first time since anti-government protests broke out in the country, adding their voices to ongoing opposition to the rule of President Omar al- Bashir.
Thousands of Darfur residents, including those living in internal displacement camps, called on Monday for Bashir's removal and for an end to the ongoing discrimination many in the region say they face.
Holding up banners reading, "Racist regime" and "Racist system must go now", the protesters also called for an end to the fighting that has displaced thousands across Darfur.
Pro-government militias were quickly mobilised to stop the demonstrations, however.
Sudan's Bashir remains defiant as three killed at anti-government protest Mohamed Badawi, a Sudanese political analyst, said the presence of these militias, such as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is one of the main reasons people in Darfur are hesitant to take to the streets.
“The people of Darfur have had bad experiences with protesting or making any public opposition to the government, as Darfur is now run by the army intelligence units and RSF,” Badawi told Middle East Eye.
“The mobilisation of government militias brings back bad memories of the mass killings that happened during the September 2013 protests," he said, referring to a wave of rallies that were organised against a government decision to end fuel and other subsidies at the time.
Dozens of people were killed after security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to stem those protests, and many others were injured and arrested, Human Rights Watch reported in 2013.
“Even now there is violence, including killings and regular abductions against activists and journalists, but this gets no coverage as there is a complete media blackout in the region," Badawi said.
Protests in several parts of Darfur
Another Sudanese political analyst, Majid Mohamed Ali, said the government’s use of emergency laws, which have been imposed on the five states of Darfur, is one of the main reasons why people in the region took so long to join the nationwide protests.
The current wave of unrest began on 19 December in response to an increase in bread prices, but rapidly grew into a wider call for Sudan's longstanding president to step down after almost three decades in power.
“The fragile security situation and unusual politics, coupled with the emergency laws, has meant the political dynamics and demands [in Darfur] are completely different to the whole country,” Ali said.
However, despite the deployment of RSF forces, the first anti-government rallies went ahead in several parts of Darfur over
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the weekend, including in Nyala, El-Fashir and Genena.
Hundreds of people rallied for the first time in Nyala, the main city of South Darfur, and in El-Fashir, in North Darfur, on Sunday, as police and other security officials fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds.
The protests continued and were especially loud in Nyala on Monday, coming just hours after Bashir visited the city.
Bashir's last visit to Darfur ended in bloodshed, after Sudanese troops clashed with IDPs in South Darfur in September, killing three and injuring more than 20 others.
On Monday, the Sudanese president remained defiant as he addressed a rally of thousands of his supporters, vowing to resist the protesters' demand for him to resign and once again blaming the ongoing unrest on unnamed Western countries.
"The government does not change through demonstrations," Bashir told the crowd.
"The only way to come to power in this country is through the ballot box and we promise to guarantee free and fair elections," he said in his speech, which was broadcast on state television.
"We said we have an economic problem and it is not solved via vandalism," he added.
Protesters arrested amid security crackdown
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kalma camp, less than 20 kilometres from Nyala, rejected Bashir's comments, however, calling on the president to be arrested and tried before the International Criminal Court.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir in 2009 and 2010 on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, in relation to actions allegedly committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2008.
On Monday, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi expressed concern about the ongoing situation in Sudan.
“If the situation deteriorates further there could be displacement [of people] and there could also be external displacement," he told reporters during a visit to Cairo, as reported by Reuters. "But we hope that the situation will be stabilised in a peaceful manner, respecting the lives of the people of course, as soon as possible."
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Democratic Republic of the Congo
Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
A Congo War Crimes Decision: What It Means for Universal Jurisdiction Litigation in Germany and Beyond (Just Security) By Cristian González Cabrera and Patrick Kroker January 11, 2019
The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) in Karlsruhe recently announced in a press release its much-anticipated decision in a Congo War Crimes case. The BGH, Germany’s court of last resort in all matters of criminal and private law, partly overturned a 13-year prison sentence imposed on Ignace Murwanashyaka by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht, OLG) in 2015. Murwanashyaka was the president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR), a Hutu rebel group active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 2000 that has committed heinous crimes against civilians in its quest to topple the current government in Kigali, Rwanda.
The lower OLG had found Murwanashyaka, as well as his vice-president, Straton Musoni, both of whom reside in and
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conducted activities from southern Germany, guilty of leadership of a terrorist group pursuant to §§ 129a and 129b of the German Criminal Code. The OLG had also found Murwanashyaka guilty of aiding four war crimes committed by the FDLR; these charges proceeded under the German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch, VStGB), a criminal statute that prohibits international crimes and allows for prosecutions on the basis of universal jurisdiction. Since both defendants had been in custody since 2009, Musoni has already served his 8-year sentence, while Murwanashyaka remains in detention. Upon review of the OLG’s decision, the higher BGH diverged from the lower court’s opinion on Dec. 20, 2018, and affirmed that the FDLR did not just commit war crimes, but also crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, with respect to the specific defendants’ liability, it upheld the convictions based on leadership of a terrorist group, but overturned Murwanashyaka’s conviction for complicity in war crimes. In doing so, the Court delivered a blow to VStGB international crimes litigation in Germany.
Background
The FDLR case was the first VStGB case ever heard by Germany’s highest court. Germany adopted the VStGB in 2002 pursuant to its obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in order to make international crimes justiciable at the domestic level. Not a single trial took place under the new law during its first five years, leading some critics to label it “a law without application.” Though § 1 of the statute allows for “pure” universal jurisdiction, which is to say prosecutions of crimes with no tangible link to Germany, universal jurisdiction complaints that were filed, including by human rights groups, were not investigated or were ultimately dismissed. This is due to the wide discretion that the Federal Prosecutor enjoys when it comes to extraterritorial VStGB cases (cf. the prosecutor’s discretion in non-extraterritorial cases, § 153f of the German Code of Criminal Procedure).
This inaction began to change in 2008 with the creation of a war crimes unit within the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the subsequent investigations into the FDLR’s leadership and a former Rwandan mayor residing in Germany. With the punishable acts having been committed in southern Germany, the Federal Prosecutor was obliged to initiate investigations according to the official principle (Offizialprinzip, § 152 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure), which obliges the Prosecutor “to take action in relation to all prosecutable criminal offences, provided there are sufficient factual indications.” It was these factors that led to the trial against Murwanashyaka and Musoni before the OLG Stuttgart, which lasted from May 2011 until September 2015.
The War Crimes Counts
In vacating Murwanashyaka’s conviction under the VStGB, the BGH determined that prosecutors had not adequately proven that the defendant aided and abetted war crimes. In 2015, the lower OLG court had found that Murwanashyaka was knowingly complicit in the FDLR’s raiding and pillaging of four villages, which resulted in the deaths of at least 181 people. Specifically, the OLG held that he physically facilitated the war crimes by providing satellite and mobile phones, and that he encouraged the troops to commit the crimes by producing propaganda that knowingly disclaimed, trivialized, and denied the perpetration of war crimes.
The BGH found that the OLG’s findings concerning the link between the supporting acts by the defendant and the actual crimes were insufficient to carry a conviction for aiding and abetting. Specifically, the BGH found that it was unable to appreciate the extent to which Murwanashyaka’s supportive acts in Germany, e.g. his provision of satellite and mobile phones, furthered the specific war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR troops on the ground in the DRC. In this regard, the Court characterized some of the lower court’s findings as “unclear” and “not without inconsistencies,” an exceptionally blunt expression of criticism for a German court. Though the BGH largely upheld the findings of fact on FDLR’s crimes and structure, and even diverged from the lower court in finding that the FDLR committed crimes against humanity, the BGH vacated the findings of fact on the role of the accused in these crimes and structures and the pertinent legal reasoning.
It remains to be seen if the BGH’s full written judgment, which will be released in early 2019, will opine on the requirements to establish complicity in international crimes in more detail. Also outstanding is whether the trial court will convict Murwanashyaka for aiding and abetting in a rehearing that will likely include new evidence. Notably, the Federal Prosecutor had also appealed the trial court’s decision, arguing for a conviction on the basis of Murwanashyaka’s command responsibility per § 4 of the VStGB. The BGH ruled that Murwanashyaka lacked the necessary “effective control” over the troops in the DRC in order to apply the § 4 provision.
The question of command responsibility is now on the table again with the prospect of new evidence. It is difficult to imagine how the prosecutor can secure a conviction on the basis of command responsibility, however, given the BGH’s ruling on aiding and abetting. Though the BGH FDLR decision was admittedly the product of a cumbersome and lengthy process, the Court’s overturning of Murwanashyaka’s war crimes conviction was overall a disappointment for advocates of international criminal law in Germany.
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Other Impediments in the Case
While this aiding and abetting issue is the most recent troublesome development in the FDLR proceedings, it has not been the only one plaguing this unique international crimes case. For example, despite the prevalence of wartime gender-based violence in the region (see the work of the 2018 Nobel Laureate Denis Mukwege), the Court dropped all FDLR sexual violence charges over the course of the proceedings due to corroboration issues. Specifically, the Court expressed doubts as to whether the evidence gathered, which was mainly anonymous victim testimony, was sufficient to buttress a conviction. This raises the question of whether a more meticulous investigation might have led to a court judgment on instances of sexual violence.
Moreover, even though under German criminal procedure law, victims of certain crimes can join the proceedings as a “private accessory prosecutor” (Nebenklage) and gain participatory rights in the trial, no victim availed him- or herself of this mechanism in the case. While victims’ security and pecuniary concerns might have impacted the use of the mechanism, it is also unclear whether German officials informed victims of their full rights, including to legal representation, during the pre- trial investigation. Furthermore, though universal jurisdiction prioritizes deterrence and redress, German authorities failed to develop a robust communication strategy toward victim communities that would bolster these goals. In fact, the Stuttgart court’s press office published updates exclusively in German, suggesting that authorities did not prioritize a victim-centered approach.
The Use of Universal Jurisdiction in Other Situations
As much as the FDLR case was a learning experience for the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, it is to be hoped that the case’s shortcomings do not reverberate beyond the FDLR proceedings. Germany continues to pursue cases under universal jurisdiction in the Syrian context, particularly through “structural investigations” devoted to Syria and Iraq, i.e. broad investigations, without specific suspects, aimed at gathering evidence available in Germany to facilitate future criminal proceedings before German or other courts. There are currently 80 ongoing investigations with specific suspects, about half of them concerning Syria and Iraq. The Prosecutor has also secured war crimes convictions against Syrian non-state actors on the basis on the VStGB.
Armed with the VStGB, a modern code of international crimes, and, since October 2018, a second war crimes unit within Federal Criminal Police, Germany is playing a leading role in the investigation and adjudication of international crimes. Indeed, German civil society, including the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), is pushing for the German Federal Prosecutor to continue pursuing other mass atrocity cases characterized by state impunity. Such appeals have been particularly successful in the context of the Syrian War, where various criminal complaints lodged by ECCHR on behalf of Syrian victims have yielded an international arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Services and perpetrator of, inter alia, torture, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
It is also to be hoped that the lessons from this first trial under the VStGB are appreciated beyond the borders of Germany. Indeed, like German authorities, prosecutors in other European countries have begun to look into allegations of international crimes in Syria pursuant to universal jurisdiction and other related statutes. In November 2018, a French judge issued arrest warrants against Ali Mamlouk, head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, and Jamil Hassan for their roles in torture, enforced disappearances, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Austrian authorities have also initiated investigations into the Syrian Intelligence Services’ role in systematic torture following a criminal complaint submitted by 16 Syrian women and men to the Public Prosecutor in Vienna in May 2018. Probes against Syrian non-state actors have, too, led to investigations, charges, and, in some cases, convictions in places such as Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Finland.
The FDLR decision, while only binding in Germany, may have persuasive influence in these and future international crime proceedings, whether with respect to modes of liability or otherwise. Indeed, it is one very important piece of the international justice movement crystallizing in Europe and beyond.
Looking Forward
The FDLR case represents an important step by German authorities in recognizing a lesson from Nuremberg: when it comes to international crimes, national borders are secondary to impunity. The very fact that a trial took place is remarkable given that international crimes proceedings were unfathomable in most national jurisdictions even just 20 years ago. The BGH even vindicated the role of international criminal law by diverging from the lower court’s opinion and affirming that the FDLR did indeed commit crimes against humanity, not just war crimes.
Despite these successes, the BGH’s decision highlights that the FDLR proceedings leave much to be desired. Whether in the Court’s treatment of modes of liability or sexual violence, or in German authorities’ questionable victim interaction, there is room for improvement. The proceedings also served as a reminder of the inherent difficulties in transnational litigation, particularly as it relates to the collection of evidence overseas and the mutual legal assistance of territorial states (in this case Rwanda and the DRC), both of which were costly, bureaucratic, and time-consuming.
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As international crimes proceedings become more commonplace in Germany and Europe, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction, international justice advocates are hoping that the FDLR proceedings will serve a positive role in the creation of good practices. With the rehearing of Murwanashyaka’s war crimes conviction before the lower court in Stuttgart coming up, it will be seen whether the Court pays heed. After 4 ½ years and 320 trial days for the OLG’s decision of first instance, it is the least the Court can do now for those who have and may continue to suffer as collateral damage of the Congolese Civil War.
UN urges DR Congo to refrain from violence after election result (Aljazeera) By James Bays January 12, 2019
The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has called for calm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo following the announcement of the provisional results of the long-delayed presidential election.
DRC has been witnessing tensions after the country's electoral commission (CENI) declared Felix Tshisekedi the winner of the vote with over 38 percent, ahead of his closest rival Martin Fayulu.
The head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), Leila Zerrougui, also appealed to the Congolese people and the security forces to "exercise calm and restraint in this critical period".
Congo under mounting foreign pressure for vote recount (Reuters) By Stanis Bujakera January 14, 2019
Democratic Republic of Congo faced growing pressure from African neighbors and beyond on Monday for a recount of its contested presidential election in a dispute that threatens more violence in the volatile nation.
The Dec. 30 vote was supposed to herald Congo’s first democratic transfer of power in six decades of independence and a new era after President Joseph Kabila’s chaotic 18-year rule.
But monitoring groups noted widespread irregularities including faulty voting machines and poorly run polling stations, overshadowing talk of democratic progress in the vast country of 80 million people.
Second-place finisher, former Exxon Mobil executive Martin Fayulu, says he in fact won by a landslide with over 60 percent of votes and that the official winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, struck a deal with Kabila to be declared the victor.
Tshisekedi and Kabila deny this.
The International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), a 12-member body including Kinshasa allies Angola and Republic of Congo, expressed “great concern”.
“We suggest that the competent structures consider counting the votes in order to guarantee the transparency of the results,” it added in a statement.
Pressure on Kabila has built since the vote, in part because Congo’s influential Catholic Church said tallies by its 40,000- strong monitoring team show a different winner to that announced by the electoral commission.
SADC calls emergency meeting over disputed DR Congo election (Aljazeera) January 15, 2019
A southern African regional bloc has called for an emergency meeting to discuss the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) disputed presidential election, as a court in Kinshasa began hearing an appeal against the results announced last week.
Opposition candidate Martin Fayulu filed a court challenge over the weekend, demanding a recount, claiming that he won the presidential race with 61 percent of the vote.
But the DRC's electoral commission has said Felix Tshisekedi won 38 percent of the vote and Fayulu 34 percent.
Outgoing President Joseph Kabila's diplomatic adviser, Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that he would attend the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) meeting scheduled on Thursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
It was not immediately clear who else from the DRC would be present or what action, if any, the 16-member bloc - which on Monday called for a recount of the votes - might decide to take. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
On Tuesday, lawyers for Fayulu urged the Constitutional Court to order a recount.
The court, made up of nine judges, is considered by the opposition to be friendly to Kabila, and Fayulu has said he is not confident that it will rule in his favour.
Fayulu has alleged that Tshisekedi's win was the result of a backroom deal between Tshisekedi and Kabila that allows Kabila to maintain control over important ministries and the security services.
Tshisekedi and Kabila deny there was any deal.
The December 30 election was meant to lead to the DRC's first democratic transfer of power, but allegations of fraud cast doubt on the outcome and threatened to reawaken large-scale unrest in the vast central African country.
Recount call
Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) also plans to file a challenge to the results of the legislative election, which took place the same day as the presidential vote, UDPS spokesman Vidiye Tshimanga said.
Although the presidential candidate of Kabila's ruling coalition, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, won only 24 percent of the vote, the coalition took more than 350 of 500 seats in the National Assembly, compared with about 30 for the UDPS.
This could undermine Tshisekedi's ability to live up to campaign promises to break with Kabila's long tenure, which began in 2001 when his father was assassinated.
The DRC's influential Catholic Church has said the presidential results were inconsistent with those gathered by its election observers.
It, however, has not said whom it believes won.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday called on all players in the DRC to respect the outcome of the elections.
In a unanimous statement, the Council "stressed the need for all concerned stakeholders to act in a way that reaffirms the integrity of the electoral process and respects the outcome of the poll, upholds democracy and preserves peace in the country".
The French-drafted statement has been under discussion since last week when the Council met to discuss the outcome of the December 30 poll.
France, Belgium, the United States and Britain have also expressed concern over the result of the polls.
But perceived criticism from inside Africa could hold greater sway, with approval from regional partners critical for the legitimacy of the next president.
The DRC is the world's leading miner of cobalt, a mineral used in electric car batteries and mobile phones, and Africa's biggest copper producer. It also mines gold and diamonds.
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WEST AFRICA
Lake Chad Region — Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon
Insurgency - 30,000 Displaced in Lake Chad (Daily Trust) By Olatunji Omirin and Judd-Leonard Okafor January 10, 2019
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria Edward Kallon, yesterday said over 30,000 internally displaced people have arrived in Maiduguri, mainly from Baga, in recent weeks.
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Kallon said this after a visit to Monguno and to Teachers Village camp for the internally displaced persons.
He expressed concern over the upsurge in violence in the northeast of Nigeria that had forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes.
"Men, women and children displaced from Baga are converging on already congested camps or sites for internally displaced people in Maiduguri or Monguno town. Another attempted attack on Monguno on December 28 displaced more people.
"The impact of the recent fighting on innocent civilians is devastating and has created a humanitarian tragedy," said Kallon, after a visit to Monguno and to Teachers Village camp for internally displaced people in Maiduguri.
"It is heart-wrenching to see so many of these people living in congested camps, or sleeping outside with no shelter. Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict and the United Nations is extremely concerned about the impact that violence in north-east Nigeria, especially in Borno State, is having on civilians." He said.
He added that some 260 aid workers had been withdrawn from Monguno, Kala/Balge and Kukawa Local Government Areas affected by the conflict since November, "affecting the delivery of humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of people. It is the largest withdrawal of aid workers since the international humanitarian response scaled up in 2016."
The agency said while aid workers had started to return to some areas to respond to the urgent and life-saving needs, the lack of a secure operating environment was preventing a return to normal humanitarian activities.
Why Lake Chad will continue to fuel terrorism By Ismail Mudashir January 15, 2019
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday called for more commitment from the international community on redirecting water to the Lake Chad, warning that the about 40 million population in the region will pose adverse migration and security challenges to the world.
Receiving Letters of Credence from the High Commissioner of Canada to Nigeria, Philip Baker, at the Presidential Villa, Buhari said the tragedy of the shrinking Lake Chad will continue to fuel more illegal migrations, banditry and provide willing hands for terrorism since the majority of the people have lost their means of livelihood.
“In the 1920s, an academic rightly predicted that except there’s a redirection of water to Lake Chad, it will dry up.
“Now whenever I go for any global meeting or visit a country, I will always draw the world’s attention to the adverse effect of climate change on the lake, and the resulting negative effects,’’ he said.
Buhari urged the Canadian government to support the on-going efforts to divert water from the Congo River to the lake.
In his remarks, the Canadian High Commissioner commended President Buhari for providing leadership in the country and championing the cause for the replenishing of the Lake Chad Basin. He said that the Canadian Governor General, Julie Payette, had presented a picture taken from space of the vanishing lake to the President when she visited recently.
The president also received Letters of Credence from the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Wendy Campbell Laing, and ambassador of Argentina to Nigeria, Maria Del Carmen Squeff.
Thousands flee north-east Nigeria after devastating Boko Haram attack By Ruth Maclean January 17, 2019
Thousands of people have fled into Cameroon from north-east Nigeria following violent attacks by a faction of the militant group Boko Haram, which looted and destroyed large parts of a major town.
More than 8,000 refugees have crossed the border into Bodo after the attacks on the Nigerian town of Rann on Monday, in which at least 10 people are thought to have been killed. Homes and humanitarian organisations’ buildings were burned down.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it was preparing to help 15,000 people with food, water and medicine. The organisation released photos showing smouldering buildings that had been burned to the ground, and columns of fleeing people crossing a river, their few belongings balanced on their heads.
“What struck me when we arrived was the silence. Usually Rann bustles with life, but yesterday it was eerie and quiet, like a file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
graveyard. The town has been devastated and I was devastated to see it,” said Isa Sadiq Bwala, an MSF nurse.
It was unclear which faction of Boko Haram was responsible, but some sources in the north-east said the attacks were the work of Abubakar Shekau, the militant behind the 2014 abduction of the Chibok girls, who later appeared dishevelled in a video released online vowing to “sell them in the market”. Most of the girls were later freed.
Rann, in the eastern part of Borno, has been the target of several bloody attacks in recent years.
Two midwives who were abducted from Rann in March were later executed by Boko Haram, despite pleas from the International Committee of the Red Cross, their employer, to show mercy. “I’m deeply sadden by the brutality of the latest violence in Rann, Baga and other parts of Lake Chad,” the ICRC’s Mamadou Sow said on Thursday. “To see tens of thousands of already displaced families fleeing again aimlessly for safety in four different countries is devastating. Enough is enough; people are tired and must be protected.”
Andrew Mews, MSF’s country director in Nigeria, said the attacks gave the lie to suggestions of improved stability in the country’s north-east.
“The emergency is not over yet,” said Mews. “There’s been quite a lot of talk that perhaps the situation is stabilised, and that we could start looking at doing more development activities in the north-east, but the reality is the context doesn’t allow that. We wish that was the case.”
Boko Haram launches series of attacks in north-east Nigeria
He said that both the international organisations and the Nigerian authorities needed to stay and ensure a “proper humanitarian response” was delivered.
There has been a pattern of increased attacks in Borno state, the epicentre of the Boko Haram crisis, in recent months, with militants briefly taking over the town of Baga and storming a military base, killing many soldiers and looting weapons. They belonged to the other major Boko Haram faction, Islamic State West Africa Province, which broke off from Shekau’s camp in 2016.
The Maiduguri offices of one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers was raided and its bureau chief arrested after it published what the army said was sensitive information about a planned operation to retake Baga.
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Mali
Malian slaves risk lives to end centuries-old institution, see hope in Trump (Washington Post) By Soumaila Diarra January 13, 2019
Hamey Coulibaly’s neighbors threatened to kill him when he publicly renounced his slave status in September, forcing the father of seven to flee his home in Troukoumbe, a village in the southwestern part of Mali. He now lives in hiding in the West African country’s capital. “How long this suffering will continue?” he said. “I’m worried about the future, about my relatives living in humiliation in my village because I decided to stand against slavery. Only God can help us.”
It seems inconceivable in the 21st century, but Mr. Coulibaly is one of the hundreds of thousands of slaves — the exact number is in sharp dispute — in Mali, living mostly in the country’s southwestern and northern regions. He is a member of the Bambara minority, one of the groups whose members often live in effective lifelong servitude under ethnic Soninke masters. In the north, the Touareg tend to own members of the minority Bella community.
Living under an institution that dates back at least 10 centuries, Malian slaves can’t run for elected office or marry non-slaves and must labor as domestics. “You don’t have the right to be an imam and lead prayers in the mosques, even if you are the most educated in Islamic culture,” said Mr. Coulibaly, who also left his two wives back home.
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Technically illegal, the institution of slavery is hereditary in Mali. Its persistence and the violence against those caught trying to escape servitude reflect the deep-seated roots of the practice, said Idrissa Aklinine, an analyst for the Bamako-based National Coalition of Civil Society, a human rights activist group.
But as experiences of the U.S. and a range of other Western nations show, the practice of slavery can change.
“What’s happening now to slave descendants in Soninke communities must outrage every Malian,” said Mr. Aklinine. “President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita needs to hear from those who denounce slavery. Then he can order his services to investigate the allegations of anti-slavery movements.”
In November, Malian slaves’ hope rose when the Trump administration suspended aid to Mauritania under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, citing the country’s lack of progress in combating slavery.
“We need strong actions, like what the Trump administration did in Mauritania,” said Mr. Aklinine. “World leaders must join with America.”
But officials defended the government’s caution on reforms, arguing that the country is focused on fighting an Islamist insurgency and armed groups of Touareg separatists and does not have the time or resources to tackle the slavery question right now.
“People must understand that the government and the Ministry of Justice are aware of the necessity to pass a law criminalizing slavery,” said Boubacar Traore, a staff member of the Justice Ministry. “The delay, in my viewpoint, may be due to the country’s insecurity and its political instability, which [have been] challenging authorities for several years.”
Dangerous campaign
Mr. Coulibaly’s troubles started last summer when he joined the local chapter of Gambana, a European anti-slavery movement that operates in Mali, Gambia, Mauritania and other West African countries. In September, he traveled with Gambana activists, declaring that they had sloughed off the yoke of slavery while drawing attention to the harsh life they endured.
When he returned home, his neighbors — both masters and slaves who supported traditional bondage arrangements — were angry.
Vandals destroyed his home and held his 80-year-old mother hostage for a day while forcing his brother to pull goat skin — a menial job in Mali that is reserved for slaves. The family suffered another blow when its peanut farm failed because of the local hostility.
“I can’t understand why we are going through all these abuses,” Mr. Coulibaly said. “It seems we are not citizens of the same country.”
The complications are particularly evident in northern Mali, where activists are protesting slavery and where armed separatists have been fighting the central government for more than seven years.
Abdoulaye Mako, the vice president of Temedt, an anti-slavery association based in northern Mali, acknowledged the tense situation and said violence is common in dozens of villages in the region’s southwest.
Mr. Mako’s association decided to sue the ringleaders of mobs who had organized violence against Mr. Coulibaly, his family and other villagers in the region where anti-slavery campaigners have been active. He and other Temedt activists went to Mr. Coulibaly’s village and read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the public square.
The demonstration sparked a riot as locals attacked them with machetes and clubs. “They didn’t want to hear that people are born equal,” said Mr. Mako. “Suddenly, there were murmurs and some started to [batter] slave descendants around them. There was blood everywhere.”
The lawsuit helped lead to the arrest of a man in Bamako who posted an internet video calling for the deaths of anti-slavery campaigners. None of the Troukoumbe villagers has been arrested. Mr. Coulibaly recently heard that a crowd of slave supporters tied up his Gambana colleague Lassa Coulibaly in Kerwane and dragged him on the ground. The colleague survived but suffered serious injuries.
Hamey Coulibaly said he fears what would happen if his masters find him in Bamako. “If they know that I’m living in this place, they will kill me,” he said.
Canadian peacekeepers in Mali challenged by geography, shifting violence (Global News) By Lee Berthiaume file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
January 15, 2019
Distance and geography have been cited as the primary reasons Canadian medical helicopters remained on the ground in northern Mali during two bloody attacks on United Nations peacekeepers last fall.
The Oct. 28 attacks on Ber and Konna by Islamic extremists left two peacekeepers dead and more than a dozen injured on the single bloodiest day for the UN mission in Mali since Canadian peacekeepers arrived at the end of June.
Yet while the main purpose of Canada’s 12-month mission in Mali is to provide helicopter-borne medical evacuations for injured peacekeepers and UN officials, the Canadians were not deployed in that role.
Small Griffon helicopters were used to fly a bomb-disposal team to and from their base in Gao to Timbuktu, near Ber. They also helped refortify the UN camp at Ber by delivering personnel and materials from Timbuktu.
But Canadian mission commander Col. Chris McKenna, whose troops have performed only five medical evacuations since August, says the larger Chinook helicopters specifically configured as flying hospitals were not sent.
For Ber, McKenna said the UN decided to deploy contracted civilian helicopters that were already based in Timbuktu because it is much closer.
“There’s a bunch of contracted aircraft that are right around the theatre that the UN can elect to deploy, and so that would have been the closest asset to that incident,” McKenna said in an interview on Tuesday.
As for Konna, McKenna said the Canadian helicopters would have had to stop to refuel before arriving on the scene, which is why the UN similarly turned to other alternatives.
“You would have to step through somewhere to get gas,” he said. “You’re talking about hours and hours to just get to the incident site and be effective. It would be like launching a medevac chopper out of Ottawa to get to Kingston. It’s far”
The episode underscores two of the main challenges facing both the Canadians and UN officials in Mali, notably the country’s size and a marked shift in the violence from the remote north of the country to the centre and south.
The UN has struggled to address both issues, but a lack of resources means that its presence in much of the country remains sparse while it has faced difficulties shifting focus from the north to the centre.
The escalating violence in the centre has nonetheless emerged as a major point of concern, as outlined by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in numerous quarterly reports on the situation in Mali.
Before they were replaced by the Canadians, German peacekeepers in Mali had complained that red tape and penny-pinching at the UN headquarters in Bamako had at times prevented them from quickly responding to emergencies.
McKenna, whose troops will be replaced by another contingent of Canadians this month, said he had not experienced the same degree of challenges as his predecessors. He attributed that to the advice gleaned from the Germans and improved communications with the UN.
“We’ve had a very good experience here in terms of moving information between the force headquarters and us,” he said.
“And certainly the relationships that my staff and I have built with key decision-makers in Bamako and the closeness with which we’ve maintained those relationships has paid off.”
He also said that despite the extreme weather and harsh operating environment, the Canadian helicopters have held up surprisingly well and the force has managed to meet its requirement to provide round-the-clock medical coverage.
It has also helped ferry numerous UN troops and tonnes of equipment to different parts of the country, most recently to the northern town of Kidal.
Gunmen attack villages in central Mali, kill 20 people (Seattle Times) January 16, 2019
The spokesman for a Tuareg group in Mali says gunmen have attacked two villages in the country’s central Menaka region near the border with Niger, killing at least 20 people.
Mohamed Ag Albachar of the Azawad self-defense group, said Wednesday that armed men attacked two villages on Tuesday,
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about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Menaka. The attackers killed 20 civilians, including elderly people, and some security personnel also died in the attack.
The attack has not been claimed but it bears the marks of jihadists who stage attacks in the region in retaliation against Tuaregs who are fighting against the Islamic State.
Attacks against civilians have increased in Mali’s Menaka area since 2018, when the U.N.’s mission in Mali documented 100 cases of human rights violations there.
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Liberia
Witnesses Fear Testifying Before War Crimes Court without Security (Front Page Africa) By Mae Azango January 10, 2019
Alhaji Tucker was only 10 when the civil war started in Liberia, but he remembers clearly the day rebels fighting with ULIMO K brutally slaughtered his little brother and other family members here. Tucker has vowed to testify against the attackers known as “Senegalese” and “Bility” before a war crimes court but only if he is granted security to protect his life.
“If my security is guaranteed that I am not hunted and killed by warlords, I can testify as a witness, when a war crimes court or a special court is established in Liberia,” says Tucker now 38, and running a youth intellectual forum in his native country.
Tucker is one of thousands of witnesses, who may be called upon to testify before a court if it is established. Many here in Sinje say they are so frustrated by the impunity enjoyed by their killers; they are unafraid of testifying, even if no security is provided.
But others, like Tucker, say security is essential if they are to risk the wrath of the perpetrators who he says he saw rape women, murder and try to recruit him and his childhood friends as fighters.
“If the law can permit me to kill those warlords, I will gladly put them on line and kill them the same way they killed people,” says Tucker. “But the only thing I want the international community to do for me is to provide me security; because those warlords have followers, who could harm me at any time. So without security, I won’t testify because those guys have wealth and can use cash to kill me at any time.”
Witnesses have good reason to be afraid. Some witnesses, testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008, were threatened. Several of the commissioners were harassed and forced into exile. More recently, witnesses, who testified against George Boley in his deportation case in the U.S.A. in 2012, were also threatened.
“Yes, there are a lot of threats against the TRC commissioners and witnesses. I myself nearly became a victim,” says Cllr. Pearl Browne Bull, one of the TRC Commissioners. “One night when I was asleep in Brewerville, I saw a bright light from a taxi, and when I looked outside, I saw a man pointing at my house and telling another man beside him, it was where I lived.”
“So I did not sleep home the following night and when I returned the next morning, they had removed my window and entered my house. They scattered all my things in search of the TRC documents of witnesses’ testimonies.”
Bull said they even went to her Randall Street property and broke in and took away her laptop, thinking the documents were on it, but she had kept all her documents on a backup file in the US.
Cllr. Bull said many of the witnesses faced threats.
“Roland Duo sent people after the little boy who saw him murder a lady, and we had to put him under a tight security protection. Another man who survived the massacre on the Maher Bridge was also targeted by Benjamin Yeatan, but we had a tight security that prevented them harming the witnesses,” says Cllr. Bull.
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For people in Sinje, the threats could be greater. The ULIMO fighters here were mainly from the Mandingo tribe and Muslims like the people here. Mandingoes have been particularly threatening anyone who testifies against a member of their tribe, special anger has been aimed at those who testified against someone from their own tribe or faith. While much of the fighting in the early parts of the war was one tribe against another, people here were shocked when ULIMO, made up of Mandingoes of the Muslim faith, attacked Vai members of the same faith.
For this reason, people here are also willing to testify against the perpetrators regardless of their tribe.
According to Aaron Weah, now of Search for Common Ground and one of the drafters of the original TRC Act in 2005, the first TRC Act provided protection and safe homes for witnesses.
“There was protection for witnesses who testified during the time of public hearings and statements taking in 2006 to 2008. Those witnesses’ names are still being withheld for the next 20 years, as a way of protecting their identities so they’re not harmed in the future,” says Weah.
He says the TRC Act was a quick fix established just for a three-year period to protect witness who had volunteered to testify, and after that it was no longer binding by law. The revised TRC documentation was turned over to the Independent National Commission on Human Rights for implementation. When this reporter reached James Torh, INCHR Head Commissioner, he said he was on his way to the airport and could not speak to the question out of his head.
However, according to the general TRC recommendations specifically recommended that within the first five years that is from July 1, 2009 to July 30, 2014 all direct victim support program must be implemented including memorials, victim support and the process of prosecution.
Witness protection will very likely be part of any war crimes court according to Adama Dempster, of the Civil Society Platform and one of the local players in the establishment of a war crimes court. A demand for security for witnesses was included in the UN Human Rights Council report on Liberian justice issued in July and, Adama said, the government would be obliged to provide such protection.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone provided a case study. “What I witnessed in Sierra Leone, was immediately after the government agreed for a war crimes court, international security under the United Nations spotlight, were deployed in Sierra Leone to provide security for victims and witnesses,” said Dempster. “What is very good about Liberia is that the witnesses and victims are eager to testify but until we can have an approval from the government for a war crimes court to be established they will not get that chance.”
Dempster said he is already sensing a growing fear among potential witnesses who are starting to speak out. People do not trust the government he said but they will have no choice but to hold on until security measures are put in place.
Peterson Sonyah, founder of the Liberia Massacre Survivor Association of Liberia (LMSAL) and a survivor of the St. Peter’s Lutheran Massacre, said witnesses will need security if they are going to testify in court.
“We will not relent until we see this court established in Liberia. Victims will be provided security for witnesses to speak.” He concluded that if Liberia can have a good justice system like Sierra Leone and Rwanda to establish a special court, people put in state power will face justice.
As Tucker is eager to attest to crimes committed against his people, while the question of witness protection remains uncertain, if there will be a world crimes court or a special court established in Liberia.
Residents of Speaker Chambers’ District Want Him to Agree to War Crimes Court Establishment (Front Page Africa) By James Harding Giahyue January 10, 2019
The 14-year civil war spared no part of Liberia. The county of Maryland suffered an especially heavy toll. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report recorded 3,934 victims here, the second highest after Sinoe (5,706).
Some of the events included the October 1994 killing of 24 people by the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, accused of being supporters of the rival Liberia Peace Council. Simon Gyekye, a Ghanaian schoolmaster in Pleebo, was among those killed. The LPC killed Samuel Kawah, former Superintendent of Maryland in 1996. John Hilary Tubman, a prominent businessman in the county, was killed in 1994.
In dozens of interviews with local residents here in Pleebo it is clear that there is strong support in Maryland for the growing national call for justice through a war crimes court. That may put the people out of sync with their Legislative representative,
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Bhopal Chambers, the powerful house speaker who opposes a court. It may also create a challenge for Chambers when he seeks a third term in 2023.
Dr. Chambers voiced his opposition to the court at an August 2018 session of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) saying he preferred “restorative” justice, instead of “retributive” justice. Restorative justice brings resolution through reconciliation between the accused and their victims, while retributive justice punishes criminals for wrongdoing.
Many of the people FrontPageAfrica interviewed in Pleebo called on the speaker to change his position.
“Those that committed atrocities against the Liberian people need to be punished,” said Daniel Morsor, 35, a resident of Pleebo. “That is the only way the wounds [will be healed] and the souls of those who lost their lives will rest in peace. We don’t even want to see them holding government position in this country.”
“If they don’t bring them to the war crimes court, for this country to develop will be very hard,” said William Bono, a 47-year- old businessman.
“If we set up a war crimes court in Liberia it will send a kind of a warning to those who in the future will intend to do similar thing,” added Alex Summerville, 46.
Summerville, Bono and Morsor said they all voted for Speaker Chambers in the 2017 representative elections for the Maryland County Electoral District 2.
Maryland is a stronghold of Speaker Chambers’ party, the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change of President George Manneh. Weah won 81.3 percent of the presidential runoff votes there in the 2017. Speaker Chambers won 57.3 percent in a 10-man race to retain a seat he has held since 2006.
“Dr. Chambers has to agree on it…because people committed crimes and they are still among us,” said Edward Nimely, an inspector with the Pleebo General Market. “He knows that people voted for him so he has to listen to the people,” Nimely, 41, who wears a scar on his buttocks from an NPFL attack here in 1995 that killed two of his brothers.
“We appeal to him to see reason to make sure to enforce it so that this war crimes court can be set up in Liberia,” said Morsor.
The government of Liberia is under immense pressure locally and internationally to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which include the establishment of a war and economic crimes court. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has given the country up to July 2020 to implement a process for seeking justice. In May the House of Representatives received a petition from local advocates to establish the court. And the House of Representatives of the United States of America passed a resolution in November to support the full implementation of the TRC report.
Debate on the Court
Like in Monrovia and other parts of the country, the debate on the court ensues.
There were more voices against the establishment of the court than those in favor at a well-organized debate at the Pleebo Intellectual Forum in the heart of the rapidly urbanizing town with the newly paved road connecting Fishtown, River Gee to Harper, Maryland.
Thirty-five-year-old Mustapha Jalloh voiced the suspicion of many in the room that the push for a court did not come until the new government of George Weah was elected.
“During the regime of former President Ellen Johnson Sierleaf they did not talk about it,” Jalloh told the well-attended forum at a makeshift shop. “They talked about reconciliation, but after this government came in then they brought this war crimes court to start disturbing the development of the Pro-Poor Agenda [for Development and Prosperity].”
“I think what Liberia should be thinking of is development, getting road from Ganta, [Nimba] to Maryland County,” said Dio Williams, 24.“Setting up a war crimes court will not help us. Even today we have Charles Taylor in The Hague. What better is that doing for Liberia? If we carry Prince Johnson—who is the godfather of Nimba County—what good will it do for Liberia?” Williams asked.
Gripman Saytue, an opponent to Speaker Chambers in the 2017 election, charged that the court was a ploy by the international community to undermine the progress he said Liberia was making.
“Liberians who are pushing for the coming of the war crimes court forget to know the genesis of our war,” charged Saytue who finished third to Speaker Chambers with 7.2 percent of the votes. “If they actually got the genesis of our war, they will not be file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
calling for war crimes court. They should go after those who brought those who brought the war on us.
Supporters of the court also made themselves heard.
“This is a war crimes court that is going to address the legacy of [the civil war] of our country,” countered Abel Teewon, 25, a resident of Harper, who voted for the CDC. “The legacy of the Liberian civil war will be brought back to the spotlight and will be investigated fully and people will know exactly what happened and learn from their mistakes.”
Teewon said that not prosecuting warlords set a bad precedent for future leaders and responded to the justice-development point made by the other side of the debate.
“Justice is not against development,” he said. “If justice was against development, then what do you make of the presence of the Supreme Court of Liberia and people are building roads?”
‘…In God’s Hand
In the Pleebo Market community support for the court was overwhelming.
Alfred Nyumah, a 67-year-old nurse, said there was nothing wrong in prosecuting those who bear the greatest responsibility of crimes that were committed during the civil war.
Others like Tom Cooper, 38, who lost two uncles to an LPC attack in 1995 and the 2003 invasion of the Movement for Democracy and Development (MODEL), sit on the fence.
“I leave all matters into God’s hand. I don’t know who killed them…but I want God be the judge.”
Bishop Cuffee Wants Citizens Welcome Economic Crimes Court (Liberian Daily Observer) By David A. Yates January 11, 2019
The founder and general overseer of Christ Evangelical Fellowship Ministry (CEFM- Liberia) Bishop James G. Cuffee has called on Liberians to welcome the establishment of the economic crimes court in the country, rather than the war crimes court
Bishop Cuffee, who spoke to the Daily Observer recently in Monrovia, said that the establishment of the economic crimes court in the country should be for corrupt individuals in both government and public sectors.
He added that when the economic crimes court is organized in the country, it will help curtail corruption in government.
The bishop noted that this is not the time for the establishment of war crimes court in the country, and urged Liberians to focus on the establishment of the economic crimes court.
Cuffee is the proprietor of the Bishop Cuffe Institute (BCI) and National Chairman of the African World Christian Fellowship Liberia-Chapter (AWCF), located in Virginia, Lower Montserrado County.
He further said the establishment of the war crimes court in Liberia will help in no way to bring back to life those who were killed during the country’s 14-year civil crisis.
Bishop Cuffee suggested that the funding that should be used for the establishment of the war crimes court could be used for the development of the country.
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EAST AFRICA
Kenya
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Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Republic of Kenya
Schoolgirls in Kenya to face compulsory tests for pregnancy and FGM (The Guardian) By Rebecca Ratcliffe January 4, 2019
Plans to subject schoolgirls in Kenya to mandatory tests for female genital mutilation and pregnancy are a violation of victims’ privacy, campaigners have warned.
All girls returning to school this week in Narok, Kenya, will be examined at local health facilities as part of a countywide crackdown.
Girls found to have undergone FGM, which is illegal, will be required to give a police statement. Those who are pregnant will be asked to identify the man involved, according to George Natembeya, the Narok County commissioner.
Narok County has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Kenya, while FGM is prevalent among the Maasai community. But campaigners say the tests are humiliating for girls, do not tackle the root causes of teenage pregnancy, and are unlikely to improve prosecution rates for FGM.
“One of the biggest gaps in the prosecution of FGM cases is lack of evidence. It’s not [a lack of] evidence of girls being cut, but evidence of the actual act,” said Felister Gitonga, programme officer of an Equality Now team devoted to ending harmful practices.
Gitonga said that the county’s efforts to tackle FGM were welcome, but added: “We need a different strategy ensuring we respect the girls’ right to privacy and also that we have a clear plan of what we do with the information.
“When we find out that a girl has gone through FGM, what will be the consequences? Will there be psycho- social support? Or does this mean that she will be denied permission to go to school?”
Mandatory examinations risked further victimising girls who have experienced abuse, warned Gitonga.
All forms of FGM were criminalised in Kenya in 2011, as was discrimination against of women who have not undergone the procedure. Failing to report a case to the authorities was also made unlawful, together with aiding the performance of FGM or taking a Kenyan woman abroad to perform the procedure.
The practice is becoming less prevalent across the country, where one in five women and girls aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM.
Campaigners say tackling FGM is crucial to stopping teenage pregnancies and child marriage. “For girls who have undergone FGM, the community believes that those girls become a woman. Therefore every other violation that happens at that point happens [after] the FGM,” said Gitonga. “If they are having sex even with older men the community does not recognise it as defilement.”
In Narok, four in 10 girls become pregnant as teenagers, according to Kenya’s most recent demographic and health survey, produced in 2014.
Efforts to reduce teen pregnancies will fail unless gender-based violence and poverty are addressed, added Gitonga.
“For girls living in informal settlements, it is very hard; there is a risk of sexual violence. Sometimes they have to do sex work to help with educating their siblings. So you need to understand their situation,” she said. “You can’t just punish people for getting pregnant.”
Kenya’s new security conundrum after ousting al-Shabab (Aljazeera) By Zein Basravi January 14, 2019
High-profile attacks in Kenya by the armed group al-Shabab at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013 and a university in Garissa in 2015 killed more than 200 people. The events changed the way the government deploys ground forces and file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
carries out counterterrorism activities.
The Kenyan army took over control of the porous border with Somalia from police. Since then, Kenyan soldiers have spearheaded a large-scale ongoing operation in the Boni National Reserve, pushing al-Shabab fighters back into Somalia, greatly reducing the group's capacity to recruit and operate inside Kenya.
For years, the forest in the national park was easy cover for fighters moving between the countries. Analysts say Kenya's success in taking the fight to al-Shabab has made it a blueprint for dealing with violent groups in the region.
"When you look at the wider international picture, you'll find that starting from the 9/11 attacks in the US, Kenya thought they were clear of this international terrorism, until the threat came to Somalia and even closer, into the border," said Ahamed Mohammed, a retired brigadier-general with the Kenyan army.
"Being one of the major victims … we had to join the global war on terror," he said.
Technological advances
One of the reasons the Kenyan military has been so successful is close cooperation with international allies such as the United States and United Kingdom. Mohammed said advanced surveillance technology has given Kenyan ground forces the ability to monitor the movements and communications of armed groups, even identifying lone-wolf attackers.
"In the last few years there has been very good cooperation," Mohammed said. "International powers bring in the element of technology, which actually even picks out individuals whom you're after … our key benefit has been in the area of intelligence and getting first-hand information."
Once safe havens for al-Shabab, Kenyan security forces have taken back territory across Garissa and Lamu counties.
"We're happy people have been able to move back to their normal ways of life - going to the market, going to their farms and doing [business]," said Joseph Kanyiri, the commissioner of Lamu county.
"We've seen an increase in the number of visitors that we receive in Lamu, where we have pristine tourist destinations. We are equally happy that people who had moved from their farms to temporary internally displaced people camps have gone back to their farms and life is back to normal."
On Monday, a court ruled three men must stand trial on charges they were involved in a deadly attack on a Nairobi shopping mall in 2013. Prosecutors' evidence was accepted by a magistrate linking the three suspects to the days-long siege of Westgate Mall, in which 67 people were killed.
A fourth suspect was freed because of a lack of evidence. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the brazen attack.
Kenyan leaders have little doubt that security has improved in recent years. But many Kenyans still living in camps near the front line say pushing al-Shabab back into Somalia has given way to unforeseen threats closer to home.
'Multi-pronged strategy'
As people fled the conflict zone, armed Kenyan herders took over abandoned farmland to graze their animals and are now threatening anyone who tries to return. While the police and army remain focused on mitigating the external al-Shabab threat, those displaced by fighting are still too afraid to go home.
"When I went back to my farm and the rest of the people came back we were attacked by the herdsmen, [they] beat us," said John Mtemi Mwendwa, a displaced farmer living in the Katsaka Kairo IDP camp.
"They beat me till they smashed my finger and I could not function. I reported the matter to the police and they didn't bother at all. I wrote a statement and pursued the case. I eventually gave up.
"We have not received any help from the government. We are broke… If the government should talk to them and agree on something then we will be able to have peace."
For civilians living in conflict zones, the price of securing Kenya's borders has been high. Many say they lost
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loved ones in the fighting. Survivors say they are struggling to make a future.
Starting over
Katani Nyati is from Maleli village but is still living in an IDP camp. He said people normally save for two years to send their children to school and his plans were derailed by the fighting.
"My children have completed primary school and they have excelled. But now they can't go to high school or even start school from here," Nyati said.
"It's already difficult for me to provide for my family. There is no food [because] it was eaten by the animals. We are now starting life all over again … These are the challenges we are facing and we are stressed."
In the past, al-Shabab preyed on desperate communities to recruit fighters for their cause. Experts warn government complacency could start the cycle of violence over again.
Kenya's current strategy is multi-pronged.
Ground forces carry out military operations while local leaders conduct community outreach and engagement programmes to undercut al-Shabab propaganda in their communities.
Alongside soldiers, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta even thanked civilians in his new year address to the nation for their role in disrupting armed groups.
"Our security services have continued working hard and intelligently," Kenyatta said.
"A big part of their success is coming from citizens stepping up to share information they have, while others take steps to completely delegitimise and de-glorify terrorism among its vulnerable targets for recruitment. As your president, I thank every man and woman who has played a role in our national campaign against violent extremism."
At least 11 dead in Nairobi hotel complex, as evacuations continue (CNN) By Farai Sevenzo and Eliza Mackintosh January 16, 2019
An evacuation of a hotel complex in the Kenyan capital Nairobi is still ongoing, hours after suspected Islamist extremists launched an attack killing at least 11 people, including a US citizen.
Tuesday's coordinated assault by armed gunmen on the Dusit D2 compound, an upmarket cluster of shops and hotel facilities, represents the most high-profile terror attack in the East African country in several years.
Authorities reported that "scores" of Kenyans and foreign nationals had been evacuated from the compound, and that the site had been secured, but sporadic gunfire continued to be heard hours after the all-clear had been given.
A source at the hotel assisting with security called the death toll "conservative" and expected it to rise. "I saw six dead on the footpath exit over the river and five more at the secret garden cafe," said the source. The US state department confirmed a US citizen was killed in the attack, but provided no further details.
Responsibility for the assault, described by police as a "suspected terror attack," has been claimed by Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
Across the capital Wednesday, friends and family of those believed to have been inside the compound during the attack waited nervously to be reunited with their loved ones. The Red Cross has asked families to call into its dedicated tracing hotline for help.
Police asked that residents refrain from sharing unconfirmed news, or images of the ongoing security operation on social media, cautioning about misinformation circulating online.
Before the evacuation, an explosion and gunfire from inside the hotel was heard by an eyewitness near the complex.
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Coordinated attack
The attack began at a bank inside the compound Tuesday afternoon, with an explosion targeting three vehicles in the parking lot, followed by a suicide blast in the Dusit Hotel foyer, where guests sustained severe injuries, Joseph Boinnet, inspector general of Kenya's national police service, told reporters.
Heavy gunfire and an explosion sent people running for their lives. Footage from the scene showed armed officers escorting office workers and injured people to safety as the sound of shots rang out. Cars in the compound could be seen aflame as a helicopter flew overhead.
Kenyan anti-terror units, other law enforcement agencies and ambulances rushed to the scene on Riverside Drive in Nairobi's Westlands affluent neighborhood as people with bloodied clothes could be seen fleeing the complex. Nearby, students from the University of Nairobi's Chiromo campus were evacuated onto the street.
"As we were leaving, there were gunshots all over the place," Evans Ng'ong'a, who was inside the complex, told CNN. "Attackers jumped over the fence and started shooting after the explosion."
Ng'ong'a shared videos and photos on Twitter of an ongoing police operation.
International response
US Ambassador to Kenya Bob Godec condemned the attacks in a series of tweets and offered US assistance. He confirmed that all embassy personnel are safe.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also condemned the attack and expressed "his solidarity with the people and government of Kenya," according to a statement. The UK High Commissioner to Kenya, Nic Hailey, tweeted that his team "will be working through the night to support the Kenyan authorities as they respond to this horrific attack and support any Brits who need our help."
The attack drew immediate comparisons to the 2013 Westgate mall attack in Nairobi when Al-Shabaab extremists killed 67 people at the luxury shopping center.
Tuesday marks the three-year anniversary of an Al-Shabaab attack on the El Adde military base, which left more than 140 Kenyan soldiers dead.
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Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)
Official Website of the ICTR
Pastor Who Planned Massacre Of 5000 Tutsi Denied Early Release (KT Press) By Jean de la Croix Tabaro January 4, 2019
The Helsinki Court of Appeals on Friday denied genocide convict Pastor Francois Bazaramba’s request for early release from his life imprisonment citing the seriousness of his crimes.
Bazaramba is serving a life sentence since his conviction in 2012 for his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Following his arrest in 2007, lengthy investigations and subsequent trials, Bazaramba was found guilty of killing several people, ordering the killing of seven Tutsis and inciting massacres.
According to Bazaramba’s trial document, at the time of the genocide, he was a pastor in the Baptist church in the community Nyakizu in the Southern Province. Bazaramba was an active member of the MDR Power
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(Republican Democratic Movement), representing the Hutu extremists.
He was in close collaboration with Ladislas Ntaganzwa, mayor of the town of Nyakizu and a notorious genocide suspect who is standing trial in Rwanda after he was arrested in Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) in 2017.
Bazaramba enjoyed considerable public influence in the Maraba sector. During the course of the events, he is believed to have planned and carried out the massacre of more than 5’000 persons who were trying to run away from the atrocities.
In 2003, Bazaramba arrived in Finland, where he sought asylum. In April 2007, he was put in detention, according to an order of the District Court of Porvoo, while the National Bureau of Investigation carried out an investigation on allegations of war crimes.
In February 2009, Finland dismissed the request of Rwandan authorities to extradite Bazaramba to Rwanda, giving an excuse that he would not receive a fair trial. However, several other countries sent suspects to be tried in Rwanda.
On 1 June 2009, after a long investigation, the Finnish General Prosecutor Office charged Bazaramba with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In order to hear the testimonies of the high number of witnesses residing outside Finland, the Helsinki Court of Appeals held some court sessions in Rwanda and in Zambia.
On 11 June 2010, the Eastern Uusimaa District Court in Finland sentenced Bazaramba to life imprisonment for participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
He was found guilty of committing acts with the intention to “destroy in whole or part the Rwandan Tutsis as a group”.
The court found that Bazaramba had facilitated the acquisition and distribution of materials used in torching Tutsi homes.
In addition, the court said he had spread anti-Tutsi propaganda and incited “killings through fomenting anger and contempt towards Tutsis”.
The court also agreed with the claims of the prosecution that Bazaramba had organized roadblocks and night patrols to oppress the Tutsi population.
The court ruled that Bazaramba had directly ordered or urged others to kill five Tutsis.
On 30 March 2012, the Helsinki Court of Appeals upheld Bazaramba’s conviction, confirming the sentence of life imprisonment. Bazaramba manifested the intention to appeal such decision in front of the Finnish Supreme Court. On 22 October 2012, the Finnish Supreme Court confirmed his sentence of life imprisonment.
The Court of Appeal hearing his request for early release ruled that he had not met the conditions for early release.
Rwanda has expressed disappointment on early release of Genocide convicts either from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda or from countries.
Lastly released is Colonel Simba Aloys.
“Let agree that early release helps the convicts, but we had agreed that before early release is decided, Rwanda should be consulted to see of the early release is fair.” said Ahishakiye Naphtal, the executive secretary of Ibuka, the umbrella of Genocide survivors association.
“Our concern is that this consultation is never done and those convicts do not deserve early release because they are not appologetic of their attrocities. The basis to grant them early release is quite unfair.”
The schoolgirls who warned of Rwanda's genocide (The Guardian) By James Dacre January 14, 2019
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The 16-year-old schoolgirl Alphonsine Mumureke said she was in the cafeteria of the Catholic boarding school Kibeho College, Rwanda, when she heard a voice “soft as air and sweeter than music”. She saw a beautiful woman – neither white nor black – floating above the floor in a flowing seamless dress, with a veil that covered her hair. She wore no shoes, just like Alphonsine and her classmates.
“Who are you?” Alphonsine asked. “I am the mother of the word,” replied the woman, whom Alphonsine immediately recognised as the Virgin Mary. Then she issued a terrible warning: Rwanda was going to become a hell on Earth in a conflict that would see the picturesque rivers of Kibeho village run red with blood.
It was 28 November 1981, and when Alphonsine reported what she had seen, her friends ridiculed her, her teachers scolded her and her village shunned her. But then another two students, Anathalie and Marie Claire – the three became known as “the Trinity” – insisted they too had been visited by the Virgin Mary and given the same apocalyptic warning.
Kibeho is a small parish nestled in Mubuga, the “land of the seven hills” in eastern Rwanda. It is the most famine-prone region of one of the world’s poorest countries, but so beautiful that locals say: “God comes on holiday here.”
Of course we now know that, a decade after the Trinity’s terrible visions, Rwanda was riven by a terrible genocide. During 100 days in 1994, up to a million of Rwanda’s population of just over seven million were murdered by the ruling Hutu government in an attempt to exterminate the Tutsi tribe.
Thousands of people were slaughtered in their churches, their decapitated bodies dumped into rivers. Colleagues, neighbours, friends and even family members slaughtered one another. Kibeho itself suffered two massacres. Thousands of citizens were brutally killed in the parish church and, a year later, on the esplanade where the apparitions had taken place. Most of the college’s students were murdered.
In 2001, after a 20-year investigation by the Vatican – and seven years after the genocide – the pope certified the apparitions as authentic. Tens of thousands of pilgrims now travel to Kibeho each year in search of benediction.
The extraordinary story of these three schoolgirls inspired my friend, the American playwright Katori Hall, to write Our Lady of Kibeho. I first worked with Katori in New York in 2006. Katori’s background as a journalist and an actor bring a rare sensibility to her plays, which combine a reporter’s eye for a good story and historical detail together with an understanding of how to craft characters that only an actor can experience. Back in London, I staged the world premiere of her play The Mountaintop, about the life and death of Martin Luther King, which went on to become the surprise winner of the best play award at the 2010 Oliviers and is now one of the most produced new plays in the US.
For Katori, Kibeho College symbolised the defining role the Catholic church has played in Rwanda’s education system and political life over the last century, including shaping its ideological divisions. It was the church that had helped implement the disastrous “racial” nationwide census, distinguishing Hutu from Tutsi in every neighbourhood.
Alone in their community, Alphonsine, Anathalie and Marie Claire understood the lessons that scripture offered against the growing hatred of their times. Young and powerless, their warnings went unheeded. Survivors of the tragedy describe burning churches, streets clotted with corpses, starving livestock, mass graves, lost orphans and famine and disease everywhere – the very things described by the three girls when recounting their terrible visions.
Fergal Keane, a BBC correspondent in Rwanda in 1994, found it difficult to capture the horror of what happened. “In writing about Rwanda, I am conscious that my words will always be unequal to the task … What I encountered was evil in a form that rendered me inarticulate.”
Most historical accounts of the genocide focus on either society or the state, the former exploring the longstanding racism in Rwandan society and the latter documenting the complex power struggles in government and the ways in which propaganda radiated from the capital to the provinces and inspired the violence. While Katori’s play touches on the political, economic and social, it is more interested in how religion can influence the personal and political behaviour of a nation.
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What makes Katori’s play so moving is that it takes place at a time before the genocide, when there is still space for optimism in the lives of the schoolchildren it depicts.
Some of those children who survived have helped Katori in researching her play. They have noted that the power of Our Lady of Kibeho lies in its ability to stay true to the perspectives of Alphonsine, Anathalie and Marie Claire. Despite rumblings of the growing divide between Hutus and Tutsis, we lose ourselves in this story of these three young women who want to change the world they will inherit.
Whether the visions that they described were real or not, the schoolgirls’ testimony highlighted the daily injustices that they saw around them. Theirs was a protest against the moral, social and political decay of their community – a reminder that sometimes young people can sense tragedy ahead in a way that adults are incapable of.
In turbulent times when the voices of young people are so often ignored, Katori and I hope that the UK premiere of this extraordinary play will spark a conversation on ways to heal our own political, racial and religious divides.
On a summer morning in 2003, many of those who had participated in the genocidal killings walked out of prison into the sunshine, singing hymns, their freedom granted by the president. Survivors watched as those who had killed their families and friends returned to their villages, reoccupying homes that had been empty for almost a decade. Today, Rwandans continue to confront on a daily basis the pain of memory, the power of reconciliation, the challenges of redemption and forgiveness and the ineradicability of loss. Two words hover over the nation’s collective psychology: never again.
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Somalia
US attacks on Somalia's al-Shabab increase under Trump (BBC News) By Tomi Oladipo January 7, 2019
Donald Trump's presidency has coincided with a sharp rise in US-led airstrikes in Somalia and the trend is set to continue in 2019.
In a speech in December outlining the US' Africa policy, President Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton said "terrorists operating in Africa have... repeatedly targeted US citizens and interests".
He gave the impression that there would be no let up in the struggle against militant Islamist groups, such as the Somalia-based al-Shabab, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda.
In March 2017, the Pentagon received White House approval to expand its fight against the militants in the Horn of Africa nation.
Commanders now no longer require high-level vetting to approve strikes on al-Shabab in "areas of active hostilities" in Somalia.
"It allows [us] to prosecute targets in a more rapid fashion," said General Thomas Walhauser of US Africa Command (Africom).
The move has seen increased attacks by aircraft, as well as the first public deployment of US boots on the ground since 1993 to "advise and assist" Somali government troops.
Africom has now carried out at least 46 confirmed airstrikes in Somalia in 2018, following the previous record of 38 in 2017, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ).
Some single strikes have focused on large groups of militants. For example, about 60 were killed on 12 October around Harardere in the central Mudug region, in what was the largest airstrike of its kind in nearly file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
a year.
Other strikes focused on individuals, such as the lone militant targeted and killed six days earlier in Kunyo Barrow in southern Somalia.
Compared to previous years, 2017 and 2018 marked a significant increase in US action against al-Shabab.
In fact, a BIJ tally reveals that at least 538 people have been killed in these airstrikes since the beginning of 2017 - far more than the previous 10 years combined - although not every strike was recorded to have killed someone.
Africom says the "airstrikes reduce al-Shabab's ability to plot future attacks, disrupt its leadership networks, and degrade its freedom of manoeuvre within the region". This shows that every trace of the group is considered a threat.
As noted by the Long War Journal, the strikes are part of a wider pattern that has ranged from targeting top commanders to the rank and file who make up the group's visible presence on the ground.
'Militants adopt new tactics'
But apart from one senior al-Shabab commander, Ali Mohamed Hussein, killed in a joint US-Somalia military raid in the southern Lower Shabelle region in August 2017, few have been significant enough to be named by the US since Mr Trump approved the expansion of military operations in Somalia.
Al-Shabab militants, like other jihadist groups, are well aware of the threat from the skies.
According to a senior regional security official, the fighters now avoid congregating in large groups. They move in units of three or four and only converge to carry out attacks, including on bases of African Union troops and Somali government forces.
Despite the increased strikes, al-Shabab's core capabilities remain solid.
The group has not lost control of territory in central and southern parts of Somalia, where it is trying to set up its own administration, including raising taxes from the local population.
These are vast areas - far larger than the urban centres that the federal government controls in the same regions.
Bill Roggio and Alexandra Gutowski of the Long War Journal conclude that this reflects al-Shabab's primary goal, adopted from al-Qaeda, which is "to overthrow local governments and create emirates which will eventually coalesce into an Islamic caliphate".
US 'adheres' to laws of conflict
The jihadist group has displayed its confidence through attacks such as the ambush last June on a combined force of Somali, Kenyan and American troops in Jamame town in southern Somalia, in which a US special forces soldier was killed.
Despite the insistence of the Somali government and Amisom that the group has been eliminated from the capital, Mogadishu, one of its leaders, Ali Dhere, was recently photographed hosting a charity event near the city.
Al-Shabab still mounts occasional forays into neighbouring Kenya's border regions carrying out ambushes and explosive attacks on security forces, and it often publishes videos documenting these incidents as part of its media operation.
The group sometimes responds to Ethiopian, Kenyan and US airstrikes by claiming that the casualties were innocent civilians, but from the US action over the past two years, there are no independent records of civilians killed.
Meanwhile, at least 32 have been injured in areas held by the militants, according to BIJ statistics.
In a statement to the BBC, Africom spokeswoman Becky Farmer noted that the US military command for Africa "has not discovered or assessed any civilian casualties resulting from our operations over the last two
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years".
She added: "In fact, [we go] to extraordinary lengths to reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties, exercising restraint as a matter of policy that regularly exceeds the restrictions of the law of armed conflict."
There are still vivid memories of America's disastrous exit during its last major military action in Somalia in 1994.
At the time, two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu.
In the ensuing battle, hundreds of Somalis were estimated to have died. Some 18 Americans and two UN soldiers were killed.
However, the Pentagon would consider the option of airstrikes today to be far less risky to US troops and possibly more effective in taking out targets.
As a result, the campaign is unlikely to be affected by the recent announcement of an impending reduction of US troops in Africa.
So far, the increased airstrikes have not given the US, the Somali government and AU troops the upper hand. Al-Shabab will be content to retain its vast geographical control.
Even if its commanders are taken out in targeted strikes, the group has established a system to replace them and to continue the conflict for the foreseeable future.
Somalia's Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for Nairobi attack (iOL) By Mel Frykberg January 15, 2019
Nairobi – The Al-Shabaab Islamist group in Somalia on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an ongoing attack in the Kenyan capital, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist activities.
The Al-Qaeda-linked group said it was behind the attack, which has seen a blast and gunfire at the DusitD2 hotel and office compound in the Nairobi suburb of Westlands, according to a brief announcement via its news agency.
Kenyan security officials meanwhile, have evacuated a number of people from the hotel.
The injured have been rushed to hospital as special forces cordon off the area, according to numerous media reports
The incident began in the afternoon in the Westland district of the capital which also houses a bank and a number of offices. Local television showed smoke rising from a compound in the district of the city, which houses the Dusit hotel, as well as offices.
While Nairobi police commander Philip Ndolo reported it could possible be a robbery, police spokesman Charles Owino told AFP that a terrorist attack couldn’t be ruled out.
“All police teams, including anti-terror officers have been dispatched to the scene where the incident is. As of now, we are treating it as anything, including the highest attack,” said Owino.
Kenya has been battling Al-Shabaab militants for a number of years following its military intervention in Somalia in October 2011 to fight the organisation.
The group has since carried out numerous attacks in Kenya targeting both civilians and the military.
On April 2, 2015, an Al-Shabaab attack killed 148 people at the university in Garissa, in eastern Kenya. On 21 September 2013, armed gunmen attacked the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, killing at least 69 people and injuring more than 175.
Somalia assures UN of enhanced security after attack (Horseed Media) January 16, 2019
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Somali government on Tuesday assured the United Nations of increased security following the Jan. 1 mortar attack on its compound that left three injured.
Ahmed Isse Awad, minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, expressed the government’s commitment to support the UN staff to make their life in Somalia easy.
“The Somali government is committed to protecting the UN and ensuring their safety and security,” Awad said in a statement issued after a meeting in Mogadishu with senior UN officials following the mortar attack on the UN compound.
Awad toured the sites damaged by the shelling and reassured the UN of his government’s unwavering support and commitment to their safety and protection.
“My second purpose of the visit was to reassure the UN leadership in Somalia and the larger family of the UN of the support of the Somali government. We are here to support the UN, to cooperate with them and to support the execution of their mandate without hindrance,” he pledged.
Raisedon Zenenga, deputy special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, lauded the minister for his reassurance on security.
“We are very much appreciative of his visit. We appreciate the expression of support for our work,” said Zenenga.
Seven mortar shells were fired on the afternoon of New Year’s day targeting the African Union Mission in Somalia base camp, but all of them failed to hit the intended target.
Two UN staff members and a contractor were injured during the indirect attack after the mortars landed inside the UN compound. The terrorist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.
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EUROPE
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber
Official Court Website [English translation]
Court of BiH revoked Judgment to Three Persons responsible of War Crimes (Sarajevo Times) January 3, 2019
In the criminal case against the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović, the Appellate Division Panel of Section I for War Crimes at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a decision granting the appeal filed by defense counsel for the accused Elvir Muminović, and, along the same line, applied Article 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also in relation to the accused Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović, so the judgment delivered by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina No. S1 1 K 023906 17 Kri of 5 July 2018 is revoked, and a trial is ordered before the Appellate Division Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The trial judgment of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, No. S1 1 K 023906 17 Kri of 5 July 2018, found the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović guilty of the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians under Article 142(1) as read with Article 22 of the adopted Criminal Code of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (CC SFRY), so that, in application of Articles 33, 38 and 41 of the
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CC SFRY, they are sentenced as follows: the accused Elvir Muminović to 6 (six) years of imprisonment, and the accused Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović to 5 (five) years of imprisonment each.
Within the same judgment, pursuant to Article 198(2) of the CPC BiH, in conjunction with Articles 200 and 202 of the Law of Obligations, also granted was the compensation claim put forward by the aggrieved party, so the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović are now under the obligation to jointly and severally pay the aggrieved party the total amount of 50,000.00 KM as non-material damage compensation, within 30 (thirty) days of the day when the judgment became final, under the threat of enforcement.
The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH duly filed an appeal from the judgment on the grounds of the decision on the sanction, and moved the Panel of the Court’s Appellate Division to revise the contested Trial Judgment by imposing on the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović a sentence of imprisonment lengthier than the one imposed under the trial judgment.
Defense counsel for the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović duly filed appeals from the trial judgment on the grounds of essential violations of the criminal procedure provisions, violation of the Criminal Code, incorrectly and incompletely established state of facts, decision on the criminal sanction and the claim under property law, and moved the Appellate Panel to grant the appeals and revoke the contested judgment, or revise it by acquitting the accused.
The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH filed a response to the appeals lodged by defense counsel for the accused, moving the Appellate Panel to dismiss the appeals as ill-founded.
The respective defense counsel for all accused filed responses to the Prosecutor’s Office’s appeal, moving the Court to dismiss it as ill-founded.
At a session of the Appellate Panel held on 30 November 2018, pursuant to Article 304 of the CPC BiH, the Prosecutor and defense counsel for the accused Elvir Muminović, Samir Kešmer and Mirsad Menzilović briefly presented their appeal grievances and their respective responses to the appeals filed.
Bosnian Court Upholds Serb Ex-Soldiers’ Acquittals (Balkan Insight) By Lamija Grebo January 10, 2019
The state court in Sarajevo confirmed the acquittals of Bosnian Serb ex-soldiers Rade Vlasenko, Drago Koncar and Milan Krupljanin of killing Bosniaks in Prijedor in 1992.
The Bosnian state court’s appeals chamber on Thursday upheld last year’s verdict finding Rade Vlasenko, Drago Koncar and Milan Krupljanin not guilty of killing two Bosniaks - Rajifa Memic and her mother, Radifa Kurtovic - in the Barakovac neighbourhood in Prijedor in June 1992.
They were also acquitted of killing two other Bosniaks in Barakovic, and two more in Kalata near Prijedor.
But the court ordered a retrial for Vlasenko over one accusation of which he was acquitted last July.
In the verdict last July, Vlasenko was cleared of taking three prisoners from the Trnopolje camp in the summer of 1992 and killing one of them.
The court said that Vlasenko had already been tried for this crime in a separate case and acquitted, so he could not be put on trial for it twice.
But the appeals chamber ruled that this incident was not part of the earlier trial.
In a separate case, Vlasenko and Koncar were also acquitted in 2017 of crimes against humanity in Prijedor.
Bosnian Serb Hague Convict Faces New War Crime Trial (Balkan Insight) By Albina Sorguc January 11, 2019
The Bosnian state court on Friday confirmed an indictment charging war crimes convict Dragoljub Kunarac with committing further crimes in the Foca area in 1992.
The state prosecution told BIRN that now that the indictment has been confirmed, the state court will decide on whether the case will be transferred to Germany or whether a trial in Sarajevo will be requested. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Kunarac, alias Zaga and Dragan, is currently serving a 28-year sentence after being convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
He was jailed by the UN court for multiple rape and the enslavement of two women - the first-ever case in which an international war crimes court treated sexual violence as a crime against humanity.
The Bosnian prosecution accuses him of the persecution of the Bosniak civilian population in the Foca area.
“Kunarac has been charged, in his capacity as commander of a Bosnian Serb Army special unit, with having participated, in collaboration with other uniformed and armed members of Zaga’s [Kunarac’s] Unit, in the murder of at least six people, torturing and causing severe physical pain and mental suffering to captured civilians, and deportations of the Bosniak civilian population from the villages and hamlets of Kobilja Ravan, Luke and Falovici-Podpece on July 27 and 28, 1992, in connection with the persecution,” the prosecution alleged in the indictment.
He has also been charged with participating in setting houses and other property on fire.
In February 2017, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals refused a request for Kunarac’s early release.
“Although Kunarac has served two-thirds of his sentence as of November 1, 2016, the concrete circumstances of his case, including the gravity of the crimes, as well as the fact that Kunarac has not demonstrated sufficient signs of rehabilitation, prevail against his early release at this stage,” judge Theodor Meron said in his decision.
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Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia
Interpol Issues ‘Red Notice’ for Bosnian Croat War Criminal (Balkan Insight) By Emina Dizdarevic January 8, 2019
Interpol has issued a ‘red notice’ for the arrest of former Croatian Defence Council fighter Jozo Djojic, who was found guilty of committing a war crime in Odzak in 1992 but failed to turn up to serve his sentence.
An Interpol red notice, the closest mechanism to an international arrest warrant, has been issued for Jozo Djojic after he did not turn up to start serving his six-year-sentence for raping a woman in Odzak in July 1992 during the Bosnian war.
Djojic’s lawyer Kenan Ademovic told BIRN that he had no knowledge that his client, who has both Bosnian and Croatian passports, was the subject of an Interpol wanted notice.
“This is the first I heard of it. I never spoke to him after the verdict,” said Ademovic.
The Bosnian state court appeals chamber in February 2018 sentenced Djojic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council’s 102nd Brigade, to six years in prison.
The Bosnian justice ministry confirmed to BIRN that Croatia had been asked to take over the enforcement of Djojic’s sentence.
“We can confirm that the judiciary of Croatia had been asked by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to take over the verdict to which Djojic was sentenced in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said the ministry.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia have signed agreements which allow for sentences passed in one country to be taken over by the neighbouring state, but in war crimes cases these procedures are often controversial.
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Last year, the Croatian authorities took over the enforcement of the sentence given to former Bosnian Croat battalion commander Marko Radic, who was convicted of war crimes in Mostar region, but in doing so reduced his sentence from 21 to 12-and-a-half years in prison.
The Croatian decision caused anger among war victims’ associations, which filed a criminal complaint against the Bosnian minister, Josip Grubesa, who signed off on the request to allow Radic to serve his jail time in Croatia.
In Serbia, legal procedures to take over the enforcement of former Bosnian Serb general Novak Djukic’s 20- year sentence have continued for the past several years, while Djukic has remained free.
Djukic was convicted in 2014 in Bosnia and Herzegovina of ordering an attack that killed 71 people in the town of Tuzla in 1995.
Croatian General to be Tried Alongside Subordinates, Court Rules (Balkan Insight) Anja Vladisavljevic January 11, 2019
Croatia’s Supreme Court abolished a decision to separate the war crimes trial of 1990s Croatian general Branimir Glavas from cases against his subordinates, which means crucial evidence against him will still be valid.
Croatia’s Supreme Court and the state attorney’s office confirmed to BIRN on Friday that the war crimes trial of Croatian MP and 1990s general Branimir Glavas will not be held separately from the cases against five of his subordinates.
Zagreb-based NGO Documenta has claimed that by trying to separate the cases, the court was clearing the way to acquit Glavas because it would have resulted in the removal from Glavas’s case file of statements in which his subordinates accuse him of the crimes.
Drazen Matijevic from the state attorney’s office told BIRN that “the Supreme Court by its decision, actually changed the decision of Zagreb’s County Court that separated the proceedings against B. Glavas from the case of the other defendants and ordered that a single procedure will be conducted, just as it had been conducted so far”.
Zagreb County Court must now try Glavas alongside the others, according to the Supreme Court decision, which was handed down on December 8, but only publicised by media in recent days.
Glavas, who is currently free and politically active as an MP in the Croatian parliament, was prosecuted for the killings of Serb civilians in 1991.
He was initially convicted of ordering the executions of seven, mostly Croatian Serb civilians in Osijek in 1991, as a commander of the city’s defence forces. The court established that he founded and armed a special military unit known by various names - the Protective Troop or Branimir’s Osijek Battalion - and acted as its effective commander.
But in 2009, in the day his verdict was read out at Zagreb County Court, sentencing him to ten years in prison, he fled to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.
When the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict, lowering the sentence to eight years, the Bosnian state court sent him to prison.
But in 2016, Croatia’s Supreme Court quashed Glavas’s first-degree verdict, and in October 2017, his trial started again before Zagreb County Court.
In July 2018, the court ordered a retrial for Glavas, separating his case from the case against five of his subordinates – a decision that was challenged by the state attorney’s office, resulting in the recent Supreme Court decision to reverse it.
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Turkey file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Turkey-backed rebels await 'zero hour' to attack Syria's Manbij (Reuters) By Khalil Ashawi January 16, 2019
Rebel commander Adnan Abu Faisal and his army are encamped near the frontline in northern Syria, waiting to launch an offensive on his home city of Manbij.
But they are not the ones who will decide whether to march on the strategically important city, held for more than two years by Kurdish forces supported by the United States.
The decision will depend on Turkey, the main backer of Abu Faisal’s group, and on how contacts evolve between Washington and Ankara over the United States’ plans to withdraw forces from Syria, a move set to reshape a major theater of the war.
The United States and Turkey are allies both in the NATO defense alliance and in the fight against Islamic State, but Ankara sees the Kurdish YPG forces that helped the U.S.-led coalition drive IS out of Manbij in 2016 as a security threat.
The YPG fear the U.S. withdrawal will open the way for a threatened Turkish attack into northern Syria, including Manbij, but U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Turkey of “economic devastation” if it goes ahead with the attack.
Abu Faisal’s fighters are awaiting orders near Jarablus, a town held by Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies about 35 km (22 miles) south of Manbij. The frontline in the area runs through open farmland where wheat and corn are usually grown.
“We are ready with our forces ... for ‘zero hour’ to begin any military action,” Abu Faisal, whose forces have more than 300 vehicles including pickup trucks and armored vehicles provided by Turkey, told Reuters.
“Preparations are going at full speed,” he said.
Abu Faisal, 36, was an army captain before Syria’s civil war began in 2011 but defected from the Syrian army in 2012 to join the fight against President Bashar al-Assad.
Abu Faisal helped wrest control of Manbij from the Syrian army early in the conflict but fled when it was seized by Islamic State in 2014 and has not set foot there since then.
The YPG have also left Manbij but retain influence over the Kurdish-allied groups that hold the city 30 km (20 miles) from the border with Turkey.
Manbij lies near the junction of three separate blocks of territory that form spheres of Russian, Turkish and, for now, U.S. influence.
The U.S. military pullout will not only leave Kurds exposed to possible confrontation with Turkey but will also open the way for the expansion of Russian and Iranian sway into the areas that U.S. forces will be leaving.
The U.S. military deployed into Syria as part of the fight against Islamic State but officials later indicated wider objectives included containing Iran, Assad’s main regional ally.
Late last month, the YPG called on Assad’s forces to protect Manbij from attack by Turkey. Syrian government forces, which are backed by Russia, answered the YPG appeal by deploying outside Manbij.
Abu Faisal’s rebel fighters, backed by Turkish forces, made their own advance towards the city the same day but stopped short of an attack. Since then, Turkey has been engaged in diplomatic contacts with Washington and Assad’s Russian allies.
The Kurds who control swaths of northern Syria have turned to Russia and the Syrian government since Trump’s announcement, hoping to secure a deal that keeps Turkey at bay and preserves their autonomy within a reformed Syrian state.
Theresa May's government wins no confidence vote Abu Faisal said “political understandings” would determine whether an attack went ahead, reflecting the influence of foreign powers in the Syrian conflict. A
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political solution that spared blood would be welcome, he added.
For Abu Faisal, the YPG — People’s Protection Units — is no less of an enemy than IS or Assad.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 34-year insurgency in Turkey for Kurdish political and cultural rights, mostly in southeastern areas near Syria.
A top Kurdish politician told Reuters this month the Kurds had presented Moscow with a road map for a deal with Damascus.. Syria’s deputy foreign minister has said he is optimistic about renewed dialogue with the Kurds.
A deal between Damascus and the Kurds would piece back together the two largest chunks of Syria and leave one corner of the northwest under the control of anti-Assad insurgents who have been driven out of many of the areas they once held.
Abu Faisal — head of the opposition’s Manbij Military Council in exile — says it would be a catastrophe if Assad were allowed to recover Manbij. He warned this would trigger yet more displacement of civilians fleeing a return of Assad’s rule.
His priority is to secure the return home of Manbij residents who have been living either as refugees in Turkey or in nearby areas of northern Syria that are controlled by Turkey and its Syrian allies.
“There cannot be acceptance of any political solution or military solution except with the return of these displaced people to their city,” Abu Faisal said.
“Our goal is to reassure the people of Manbij that its people will run the affairs of this city,” he said.
Turkey deports Dutch journalist Ans Boersma over alleged links to Syrian terror group (Independent) By Borzou Daragahi January 17, 2019
Turkey deported a Dutch journalist on Thursday after receiving a report from her own government linking her to a Syrian militant group listed as a terrorist organisation.
Ans Boersma, 31, writes about Turkey and Syria for Het Financieele Dagblad, the Netherlands’ main business daily, among other papers. She was detained on Wednesday after appearing at a government office to renew her residency. She was not allowed to go home, and instead hustled quickly to the airport.
Awaiting her departure, she tweeted: “And then suddenly you are in the plane back to the Netherlands. Declared an unwanted person in Turkey.”
Fahrettin Altun, spokesperson for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said in a statement that the “deportation was in no way related to her journalistic activities during her stay in Turkey”. He instead said the move was due to allegations from authorities in The Hague that Ms Boersma was under investigation for ties to Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian jihadi group with al Qaeda links that now calls itself Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
The Dutch prosecutor confirmed that Ms Boersma “is a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation into terrorism” but that she is not suspected of a “terrorist crime”. The prosecutor said she was not detained on arrival in Amsterdam and the Netherlands had not requested her deportation from Turkey.
Mr Altun said authorities had received intelligence from the Dutch police alleging Ms Boersma had links to a designated terrorist organisation and requested information about her movements in and out of Turkey.
He tweeted: “The Netherlands told Turkey that the reporter, who was deported today, had links to Jabhat al- Nusra.
“We acted on intelligence from the Netherlands and took a precautionary measure. If a credible foreign government agency tells you that one of their citizens has links to terrorism, you don’t take any chances. The Dutch authorities alone are in a position to explain why they arrived at that conclusion.”
Nusra’s successor organisation controls much of Syria’s northwest Idlib province, where it has largely defeated rebel groups backed by Turkey and is girding itself for war against forces loyal to Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Though designated by many governments as a terrorist organisation, it has never been linked to attacks in the west, focusing on its quest on toppling the Assad regime.
Turkey has been accused of seriously backsliding on press freedom in recent years and has been described as one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists. But Turkish authorities recently renewed Ms Boersma’s press credentials, and insisted privately as well as publicly that her coverage had nothing to do with her expulsion.
Netherlands has not suffered a deadly terrorist attack in years thanks in part to what experts describe as aggressive policing and surveillance of citizens, especially those who travel to Turkey, which has been seen as a gateway to battlefields in Syria and Iraq where militant groups operate.
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MIDDLE EAST AND NORTHERN AFRICA
Libya
Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
‘Substantial civilian casualties’ in Derna, UN humanitarian chief ‘deeply concerned’ (UN News) January 11, 2019
Increasing hostilities in the oil-rich city of Derna are becoming an increasing source of concern said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya on Friday, following an intensification in fighting which has resulted in “substantial civilian casualties”.
“I am deeply concerned by the escalation of hostilities in the eastern city of Derna and the consequent further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in parts of the city”, said Maria Ribeiro.
ISIL, or Da’esh, terrorist fighters took over Derna in 2014, leading to a succession of battles for control of the city, involving the Shura Council of Mujahideen, a coalition of pro-sharia law Islamist militants, the Libyan national army and local militias.
In addition to substantial civilian casualties, Ms. Ribeiro said that recent intense fighting has reportedly resulted in deteriorating infrastructures and services, leaving some civilians without basic food, water and urgent lifesaving medical care for families and the wounded.
“I firmly call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to the affected civilians in the old city”, she underscored, urging all conflict parties to respect and protect civilians and civilian facilities, and to “strictly adhere to their obligations under International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.”
Since armed conflict erupted in Libya in 2011, during the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, some 200,000 people have been internally displaced.
Back in December, a trauma hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, was hit and before that media reports said that Da’esh had claimed responsibility for attacking the Foreign Ministry in the capital, Tripoli.
In November, fighting between armed militia damaged a Tripoli hospital for Women and Childbirth, resulting in a doctor being shot and a three-day halt to non-emergency medical services.
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Meanwhile, migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya in what Ghassan Salamé, the head of the UN political mission there (UNSMIL), told the Security Council last month was a “hidden human calamity”.
UN experts warn of growing influence of Sudanese armed groups in Libya (The Libya Observer) By Safa Alharathy January 14, 2019
The United Nations group of experts on Sudan said that the Darfur armed groups have reinforced their presence in Libya, some of whom had participated in the military operations carried out by the so-called Dignity Forces.
"These groups are involved in mercenary activities and others, such as smuggling, establishing illegal checkpoints, and banditry," UN group of experts clarified in their report.
They also warned that the groups could become an integral part of the conflict if their presence was protracted in Libya.
Rival Militias Clash in Libya’s Capital, Shattering Shaky Calm (Bloomberg) By Saleh Sarrar January 16, 2019
Sporadic clashes broke out on Tripoli’s southern outskirts early Wednesday between rival militias, killing at least one person in a flare-up of violence in the war-ravaged North African nation.
The Tripoli Protection Force, which is loyal to the United Nations-backed central government, was forced to strike back after a rival militia failed to comply with a deal to withdraw from the Qasr Ben Gashir area south the capital, according to a statement issued by the state’s media office.
At least one person was killed and 17 other injured in the fighting, Health Ministry official Malek Marseet said by phone.
The United Nations mission in Libya warned in a statement against breaches to a ceasefire concluded in September and said that “any party initiating a confrontation will be held fully responsible.”
Earlier clashes had pitted the TPF against the 7th Brigade, which hails from the city of Tarhouna, south of Tripoli. The TPF said it had to respond in order to protect civilian lives and property.
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EAST AFRICA
Uganda
Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in Uganda
8 Uganda Security officers charged with abduction of asylum seekers (Whisper Eye) By Joses Sen January 13, 2019
Eight Ugandan security officers have been charged in a military court with abducting and illegally repatriating Rwandan asylum seekers to Kigali, a prosecutor said on Wednesday. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
The men, among them a military colonel and seven police officers, are suspected of involvement in forcibly handing over former security officer Joel Mutabazi and his brother Jackson Kalemera to Kigali in 2013.
The two men had been granted asylum in Uganda and Human Rights Watch at the time accused the Kampala of having “utterly failed” to protect Mutabazi, who was at “serious risk” of persecution in his home country.
“The eight officers, one a military officer and seven police officers appeared before the general court martial and were charged with abducting and repatriating Rwandan asylum seekers from Uganda without authorisation,” military prosecutor Major Raphael Magezi told AFP.
Arrested in June 2018, the eight were present at the court hearing, which took place on Tuesday, he said.
After being sent back to Kigali, Mutabazi – who was formerly one of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s bodyguards – was imprisoned on terrorism and murder charges and is currently serving a life sentence.
And his brother Kalemera disappeared after charges against him were dropped in 2015.
Opposition dissidents believe he was murdered.
Ugandan political scientist Mwambutsya Ndebesa told whisper eye media team that the court case was a further sign of frosty relations between Uganda and Rwanda.
“It is a warning sign to Rwanda to stay away from meddling in Uganda’s internal affairs,” he said.
There have long been complex ties between the two countries, with Uganda hosting Rwandan refugees since an outbreak of ethnic violence in 1959 in which thousands of Tutsis were killed or fled the country.
Managing Life After War: How Young People in Uganda are Coping (The Conversation) By Teddy Atim January 14, 2019
For over two decades between 1986 and 2006, northern Uganda experienced a prolonged conflict pitting government forces against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. The conflict, the longest of Uganda’s post independence struggles, was rooted in the colonial legacy of divide-and-rule. This was often along ethnic and regional lines.
The conflict had a devastating impact on the population. People were killed, maimed, displaced, tortured, abducted and raped. At the height of the conflict, nearly 2 million people were displaced in the two most conflict affected sub regions – Acholi and Lango.
A study found that approximately 100,000 people were killed during the conflict, with another 60,000 to 100,000 abducted by the LRA. Some never returned, most of whom are presumed dead. The study further conservatively estimates that 24,687 individuals were victims of wartime sexual violence and that approximately 3,000 - 8,000 households in the regions have children born of these wartime sexual violence.
These crimes were life-changing and the individuals and their households in the region bear long term physical, emotional, social and economic scars.
Research from northern Uganda shows that young people who experienced or witnessed war crimes, especially those who suffered multiple war crimes, find it hard to regain time lost from schooling. They also experienced challenges maintaining good relations with their families and society in the post-conflict period.
Considering the enduring long-term effects of conflict it’s not surprising that conflict interventions have tended to focus on vulnerability, marginalisation and trauma. But in doing so they may obscure some important factors.
My long-term research in northern Uganda explored how the conflict affected the recovery of young people in the post-conflict period. I found that poverty, as well as societies that were deeply patriarchal, complicated their recovery process.
My research echoes similar findings in studies from other post conflict settings. These also show that
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broader social and economic conditions – particularly strict patriarchal societies – make it hard for young people to reintegrate into their families and society. These conditions inhibit survival strategies, limit choices and constraining decisions around rebuilding lives. This is particularly true for women survivors of wartime sexual violence and their children born of war.
What I found
One of my key findings debunked the idea that “recovery” is linear or that the end of conflict “normalises” experiences of war crimes. Youth socio-economic recovery is not linear and will take time.
Post conflict recovery is largely driven by the assumption that as soon as conflict ends, normality returns. The assumption posits that people are able to move forward in an upward trajectory in the aftermath of conflict. The reality is far more complex. For example, years after the conflict in northern Uganda ended, young people who suffered multiple war crimes were still struggling to regain education and social status within their communities. And having little or no education affected their productivity, livelihoods, and earning potential – impacts that will likely be passed on to their children.
Similarly, the experience of sexual violence, particularly against young women both during and after conflict, complicated their lives and bred stigma which persisted and was amplified over time.
My findings demonstrate that young people’s lives don’t recover steadily following conflict. Recovery is often followed by periods of deterioration. And improvements can be small or intangible. Progress is likely to take a long time and for generations.
Another key finding was that broader social, cultural, economic, and political conditions also have a major impact on recovery. For example, the ability of young people to recover from conflict seemed largely linked to broader patriarchal gender norms within society as well as levels of impoverishment. An exclusive focus on war experiences misses these nuances.
A patriarchal society sets the conditions under which young women and men renegotiate their place in their families and society. These norms determine what access, opportunities and resources are available to young people to navigate their everyday lives and plan for their futures.
The third major insight was that more attention needs to be given to individual vulnerabilities and agency. While the conflict heightened individual vulnerability and complicated the recovery process, these factors didn’t entirely erase young people’s agency. Some youth were able to effectively and positively manoeuvre even within the limitations of their circumstances.
For example, women with some economic independence and own physical space, were able to negotiate their inclusion and acceptance in post-conflict society. That said, while some women’s choices led to positive outcomes, other women’s choices had negative effects, particularly when attempting to challenge patriarchy. They risked being locked out of family and social support systems as a result of their choices.
Going forward
Young people’s post-conflict reality calls attention to events beyond their war crimes experience. This includes the need to address the socio-cultural and economic environment prior, during and after conflict. Paying attention to these conditions provides a rich insight into their complex lives as they dictate and define access to opportunities and choices in the post-conflict period.
Finally, while suffering war crimes and experiencing conflict causes vulnerability, young people are not devoid of agency. It is important to look at every instance of progress or agency rather than reinforcing their vulnerability.
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Iraq
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Grotian Moment: The International War Crimes Trial Blog
Car bomb blast kills two people in Iraq's Tikrit (Reuters) By Ghazwan Hassan January 8, 2019
A car bomb killed two people and injured six in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Tuesday, the military said.
The blast - described by the military as a "terrorist attack" - occurred at a checkpoint at the northern entrance to Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad.
The two dead were police officers, according to a local police source and a hospital source. In its statement, the military referred to the two dead only as civilians.
The wounded included two soldiers, a police officer and three civilians, according to the police source.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in Tikrit, the hometown of late dictator Saddam Hussein which was controlled by Islamic State militants in 2014-15.
Iraq declared victory over Islamic State in December 2017 after two years of fighting. However, IS militants have continued to carry out insurgent-style attacks on security forces across the country.
Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Detained Children Tortured (Human Rights Watch) January 8, 2019 The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq is torturing children to confess to involvement with the Islamic State (ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today.
The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq is torturing children to confess to involvement with the Islamic State (ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today.
Children told Human Rights Watch that in 2017 and 2018, security officers, known as Asayish, used beatings, stress positions, and electric shock on boys in their custody. Most said they had no access to a lawyer and they were not allowed to read the confessions Asayish wrote and forced them to sign.
“Nearly two years after the Kurdistan Regional Government promised to investigate the torture of child detainees, it is still occurring with alarming frequency,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Kurdistan authorities should immediately end all torture of child detainees and investigate those responsible.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 boys, ages 14 to 17, charged or convicted of ISIS affiliation, at the Women and Children’s Reformatory in Erbil in November 2018, and three boys who had recently been released. The reformatory, a locked detention center encircled by high walls and concertina wire, is one of three facilities holding children in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
At the time of the visit, reformatory staff reported that 63 children were being held at the facility for alleged terrorism-related offenses, including 43 who had been convicted. Human Rights Watch also interviewed staff, relatives of some of the children, and two 18-year-olds who had also been arrested and detained.
Sixteen of the 23 children said that one or more Asayish officers had tortured them during interrogation at Asayish facilities, beating them all over their bodies with plastic pipes, electric cables, or rods. Three boys said that the officers used electric shocks. Others described being tied into a painful stress position called the “scorpion” for up to two hours. Several boys said the torture continued over consecutive days, and only ended when they confessed.
Four other boys said Asayish threatened them with torture during interrogation. “If you don’t tell us the truth, I will call the guys and they will beat you and break your bones,” a 17-year-old boy recalled his interrogator telling him.
Several boys said that they had joined and worked with ISIS or received religious or military training. One worked as a driver, another as a cook. Only one said that he had participated in fighting against Iraqi military forces in Nineveh governate. Others said that they had no personal involvement with ISIS, although family members were involved. Some said that neither they nor their family were involved. Human Rights Watch was not able to independently assess their possible involvement with ISIS.
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All but one of the boys interviewed said they eventually confessed. Most said they had no choice to stop the torture, and many said they had lied. “My confession says that I joined ISIS for 16 days, but actually, I didn’t join at all,” said a 16-year-old boy. “I said 16 days to stop the torture.”
Most of the boys said that their interrogators told them what they should confess. “First they said I should say I was with ISIS, so I agreed,” said a 14-year-old boy. “Then they told me I had to say I worked for ISIS for three months. I told them I was not part of ISIS, but they said, ‘No, you have to say it.’” He said that after two hours of interrogation and torture, he agreed.
None of the boys said that they were allowed to read the confession Asayish wrote for them and forced them to sign. Most only learned what it said when it was read out in court.
At least five boys said they told an investigative or trial judge that their confession was produced under torture, but that the judges appeared to ignore their statements. The boys said terrorism suspects are brought before an investigative judge, typically while in Asayish custody, and that the judge may then order the suspect’s transfer to the detention center pending trial before a three-judge panel.
The methods of torture the boys described, as well as their accounts of inadequate counsel and scarce communication with family members, were similar to the accounts of 17 boys held for alleged association with ISIS at the same detention center who spoke with Human Rights Watch in December 2016. In 2017, the regional government promised to establish an investigative committee in conjunction with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq to address the allegations.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Dr. Dindar Zebari, the regional government’s coordinator for international advocacy, requesting comment on the new findings. Zebari responded on December 18 that security officials are not permitted to torture detainees, and that if detainees are tortured, they have a right to make a formal complaint. He also stated that detainees have the right to request a lawyer, that families are notified if a child is detained, and that child detainees can call their families with Asayish present. He did not provide any information regarding the investigative committee or any other measures taken to investigate Asayish officers implicated in torture.
International human rights and humanitarian law prohibit torture and other ill-treatment. Children should only be detained as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. International law regarding children and armed conflict calls on states to assist children illegally recruited by armed groups or forces, including providing appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration. Children charged with criminal offenses have the right to legal assistance and a prompt determination of their case. They also have the right not to be compelled to give testimony or confess guilt, and statements derived from torture cannot be used as evidence in court.
Kurdish regional authorities should not arrest any child without credible evidence of criminal activity and should establish rehabilitation and reintegration programs for children who may have been involved with ISIS. Authorities should ensure that there is a clear legal basis for detaining any child, and that the child is promptly taken before a judge to rule on the legality of their detention.
The Kurdish government should ensure that any child charged with criminal offenses has legal representation, including during their interrogations, and contact with their family. The authorities should take immediate action to end all use of torture and coerced confessions, and to investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible. Judges learning of torture should transfer the child to a different facility, ensure that adequate medical care is provided, and order a retrial if a coerced confession was used.
“Many of these children have already been scarred by conflict and ISIS abuses,” Becker said. “Instead of achieving justice, torture and coerced confessions only compound their suffering and contribute to further grievances.”
Treatment of Children
None of the boys were brought before a judge within 24 hours of their initial detention, as required by the regional government’s penal code. Most said they saw a judge several days after their arrest. Most were transferred to the reformatory within 15 days of arrest, but several were detained in Asayish custody for between two and five months, they said.
Most of the children interviewed said they were arrested at checkpoints entering the Kurdistan Region, often because their name was on a security list of ISIS suspects, while others were arrested at camps for file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
internally displaced people. Many boys believed their name appeared on a security list because a family member was affiliated with ISIS, their name was similar to another suspect’s, or people from their village had reported their family because of unrelated grievances.
Only four of the boys appeared to have legal representation. Some had no idea whether they had a lawyer, and most were unaware of their right to legal representation. Some reported that reformatory staff had told them that lawyers were only available if they could pay. Two boys met with a lawyer hired privately just once before their trial, and two others said that they saw someone whom they believed was a lawyer for the first time only at their trial. Even then, they had little to no interaction with the lawyer, and if the lawyer spoke to the judge, it was in Kurdish, which they did not understand.
They said their trials lasted only 5 or 10 minutes. They said no witnesses appeared at their trials, and none were aware of any evidence presented apart from their confession. Most of those convicted received sentences of six or nine months in detention.
None of the boys said they were allowed to communicate with their families while in Asayish custody. Once at the reformatory, children were allowed family visits before trial, but most said they were denied phone calls until after sentencing. For some detainees, the inability to make phone calls meant that their families had no idea where they were. One boy said he had been detained for nearly two years without contact with his family. Reformatory staff said that the Asayish determines whether detainees can receive visits or phone calls.
Torture, Lack of Legal Counsel, Unfair Trials
Torture
“Samir,” whose real name, like those of other boys interviewed, is withheld to protect his security, was arrested by military forces at a checkpoint in late 2017, when he was 16. He said:
There were three [Asayish] officers. They bound my hands behind my back, one from above and one below. They beat me with a stick and they gave me 5 to 10 electric shocks. They put the pads on my left shoulder and on my stomach. And while they gave me the shocks, they were beating me with a rod. They did this three days in a row. I was in the room for hours, with them coming in and out and taking breaks. On the third day I confessed. They said to admit to two months with ISIS. I did, but it was a lie. I was never with ISIS.
“Tahir,” 17, said that Asayish officers applied electric shocks to his body during his interrogation in late 2017 at the Asayish headquarters, General Security Directorate, also known as Asayish Gishti. He said that Asayish interrogated and tortured him for three days:
My hands were bound and there were six or seven officers in the room. They were all hitting me. They hit my legs and upper arms. Each day they gave me five electric shocks in a row, on my arms, chest, and upper legs. They said, “You need to say you were with ISIS, even if you weren’t you need to say it.” On the third day, I confessed to [being with ISIS for] four days. They said, “You need to say more.” I didn’t say more, I refused to.”
“Hussein” was arrested by security forces at a checkpoint in late 2017, when he was 14. He said he was held for five months at Asayish headquarters and that during interrogation:
They [Asayish officers] beat me all over my body with a plastic water pipe, and then tied my hands like a scorpion [one arm over the shoulder, and the other behind his back] for two hours. They asked me about ISIS, saying, “You have to confess you are ISIS.” They forced me to confess that I worked with ISIS for one month. They also said I should say I used Kalashnikovs [AK-47s], M16s, and PKCs [machine guns].
He said none of it was true, but that Asyasish officers told him that if he didn’t confess, they would keep torturing him and would use an electric cable.
Admitting to ISIS involvement did not preclude being tortured. “Jabar,” 17, said that when the Peshmerga, the regional government’s military, asked him about ISIS involvement, he immediately admitted that he had joined ISIS and worked as a driver for three months. He said Asayish still interrogated him using torture, demanding the names of ISIS commanders and friends who had joined ISIS. He said that Asayish officers beat him on his back with a plastic pipe for 40 minutes and tied him in the “scorpion” position for an hour. He said he didn’t know the names of any commanders but gave the names of his friends. He said after the interrogation, he was unable to lie on his back for a week.
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Several boys said they were not beaten, but that Asayish threatened them with torture. “Nasim,” a 17-year- old arrested at a checkpoint in late 2018, said that during his interrogation Asayish officers said, “If you say you didn’t join, we will send you to the PMF [Baghdad-backed Popular Mobilization Forces] and they will kill you.” He told Human Rights Watch he had not been involved with ISIS but confessed to the interrogators and agreed to say that he had spent 15 days with ISIS. “They said that wasn’t enough, so I said 30 days.” A week later, he saw an investigative judge, who asked him if his confession was correct. “I said yes, because I was afraid if I didn’t, they might torture me or do something to me.”
“Sadoon,” 17, said the Asayish interrogated and beat him several times in late 2018 at Asayish headquarters. “Several times they said to me, ‘If you don’t confess, I will take you outside and beat you until you confess. We won’t bring you to the reformatory until you confess.’”
“Shamal,” 16, said the Asayish arrested him in early 2018 when he accompanied his mother to Erbil. At first, he denied any ISIS involvement. He said that when ISIS came to his community, his family took their sheep and left the area. He said that Asayish officers interrogated and beat him:
I think there were three officers, but I was blindfolded, so I am not sure. They kept saying, “You are ISIS,” and hit me many times with long rods. On the second day, the same thing happened, so finally that day I confessed. They said to say that I was with ISIS for six months, but I said no, that I would only confess to two months.
Legal Assistance
“Samir” was tried in mid-2018. He said:
Maybe there was a female lawyer for me, I’m not sure. During my case she was speaking to the judges in Kurdish. She never spoke to me and did not meet me before or after trial.
“Sami,” 17, arrested in mid-2018, said:
Here in prison, they come by, the staff, with lists of lawyers, and say how much it would cost to get one. You cannot get a lawyer for free. I am too scared to ask for a lawyer when I go to the judge. They may punish me with a longer sentence.
Trials
Most of the boys said that their trial lasted no more than 5 or 10 minutes. They said the judge typically read their confession and asked if they had joined ISIS. Although the judges spoke Arabic to the boys, they generally spoke Kurdish to others in the courtroom and among themselves.
“Khalef,” 14, described his trial in August:
At the trial, the judge asked if I was ISIS or not. I said I wasn’t. He read my confession. I said my confession came from torture, but the judge didn’t say anything. He sentenced me to six months. The trial lasted about 10 minutes.
“Shamal,” 16, was arrested in early 2018 and tried five months later. He said that when he appeared before an investigative judge, he told the judge he had confessed under torture. “The judge just nodded and told me to leave the room. He didn’t order a medical exam or anything like that.” The judge confirmed his charge and two months later, he was tried before three judges. He had no lawyer, but again told the judges that he had been tortured. “They ignored it.”
As Iraq’s Shiite militias expand their reach, concerns about an ISIS revival grow (The Washington Post) By Tamer El-Ghobashy Mustafa Salim January 9, 2019
Iraq’s large and well-armed Shiite militias are now running many of the Sunni areas they helped liberate from the Islamic State, fostering local resentments that could fuel a resurgence of support for the extremist group.
After winning nearly a third of the seats in parliamentary elections last year, the Shiite militias, including several ideologically aligned with Iran, are enjoying unprecedented military and political power in Iraq.
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Their ascension has raised concerns among Iraqi politicians, Sunni residents and U.S. officials that the militia leaders are creating a parallel state that undermines Iraq’s central government and revives the kind of Sunni grievances that underpinned the Islamic State’s dramatic rise three years ago.
During the fight to oust the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State, Shiite militias mobilized to secure holy places and then grew into effective front-line fighters involved in nearly every important battle. They gained legal status in Iraq under the banner of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), bringing 50 militias and approximately 150,000 fighters under nominal government control.
Now, with major combat over, the militias — some with roots dating back to the Saddam Hussein era, others that emerged to fight U.S. occupation after 2003 and yet others that formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State — are setting their sights on political and economic goals.
They are fanned out across Iraq’s Sunni heartland, including the provinces of Anbar, Salahuddin and Nineveh, home to Iraq’s most-populous Sunni city of Mosul. In Sunni towns, the militias have established political and recruitment offices and operate checkpoints along major roads (and even smaller interior pathways), levying taxes on truckers moving oil, household goods and food.
Some militiamen have engaged in “mafia-like practices,” several Iraqi and U.S. officials said, demanding protection money from both large and small businesses, while shaking down motorists at checkpoints to permit them to pass.
The militias are also deciding which Sunni families are allowed to return to their homes following battles against the Islamic State, say analysts who study the groups. In several towns, militia leaders have compelled local councils to invalidate the property rights of Sunnis on the grounds that they supported the Islamic State. The practice has led to major demographic changes in traditionally mixed Sunni-Shiite areas such as Hilla and Diyala.
With 1.8 million displaced Sunnis still living in camps and in overcrowded shelters, militia efforts to prevent them from returning home contribute to possible radicalization, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst who advises Iraq’s government and foreign aid agencies. The militias “are an obstacle to the stability of these areas because they are banning the return of internally displaced people,” he said.
Iraqi politicians have proposed significantly reducing the ranks of the militias and either absorbing them into the regular police and army units or designating the PMF as an auxiliary force to be called on during national emergencies.
Powerful militia leaders have resisted such suggestions, arguing that the success of these forces in evicting the Islamic State shows they are essential to Iraq’s national security. They also provide jobs for thousands of Shiites who would otherwise struggle in Iraq’s stagnant economy, their leaders say.
Farmland lies barren
The Sunni town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, has emerged as a striking example of militia dominance.
In November 2017, Islamic State militants were run out of Qaim by Iraqi security forces and allied Shiite militias. A month later, Iraq’s leadership declared total military victory over the Islamic State — prompting a wave of optimism throughout the country and, in particular, among Qaim’s wheat and produce farmers. They returned to the town in droves, eager to resume livelihoods that had been on hold for more than three years.
But Shiite militiamen declared the approximately 1,500 farms in Qaim to be a security zone, preventing the farmers from coming back.Today, 1,000 acres of farmland remain barren. The terrain is dotted by ruined farming equipment and armed men. Banks that lent the farmers money before the Islamic State occupation — and suspended repayments during that period — have come calling.
“Their existence has disabled the economy in Qaim,” said Rabah Assi, a farmer who has had to rely on the far less lucrative practice of sheep herding to survive.
The militias, in particular the Kitaeb Hezbollah group that dominates Qaim, also control the roads in and out of the strategic town and a border crossing with Syria just south of Qaim. They use it to move their militiamen into Syria to fight alongside forces aligned with Iran, which supports the embattled Syrian government. With the Trump administration now planning to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the
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influence of Iran and its aligned militias could grow even more in that country.
In addition, militiamen have established a second, improvised border crossing used to import cheap produce and goods from Syria to sell in Qaim’s markets, said veteran lawmaker Mohammed al-Karbouli. He said Kitaeb Hezbollah and other Shiite groups have mostly refrained from abusive practices, which were common several years ago. Karbouli and others in town credit the militias with maintaining security, but describe the calm as uneasy.
Sunni tribal leaders have lobbied the militiamen to leave the farms and allow the farmers to resume their work but have been rebuffed. Farmers complain that the ban is not a security measure, but rather a move to ensure the militias have a market for the goods they are smuggling from Syria.
“Now, it’s an agricultural season and . . . we are losing money,” said farmer Sabah al-Sanad, referring to the winter rains.
The presence of Kitaeb Hezbollah and the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq also make life uncomfortable for the U.S. military, which maintains a small outpost in Qaim, known as Station 22, where military advisers are training Iraqi army forces and helping them control the border. Iraqi and Western officials say they worry Iran could use the militias to confront U.S. forces in Qaim should current tensions between Washington and Tehran escalate.
Gains for the militias
Under Iraqi law, the PMF is a security force separate from the Iraqi armed forces and police and is technically under the command of the prime minister. In practice, the groups answer to the leaders of individual militias.
Iraq’s new prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, has shown little sign of wanting to rein them in. He has given the militias concessions his predecessor, Haider al-Abadi, resisted and has repeatedly spoken of the militias as a valued part of the country’s political and security establishment.
“If that is your plan, that’s going to lead to instability,” warned a Western official based in Baghdad, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the militias. “Some Sunnis have bought into it for the time being, because they say we don’t really have a choice.”
But Shiite militia control over the lives of Sunnis will surely prompt some to seek common cause with the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, the official said.
In November, PMF militias secured a major political victory. Abdul Mahdi agreed to a draft proposal that would put PMF salaries on the same scale as those of Iraq’s police and regular armed forces and double the annual budget of the militias to $2 billion.
Abdul Mahdi has also been unable to block the nomination of PMF leader Falih Alfayyadh as interior minister by a parliamentary faction of militia leaders, a move that has been repeatedly challenged by other lawmakers as well as by Moqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shiite cleric whose electoral ticket won the most seats in parliament.
A senior commander in the U.S.-backed Counterterrorism Service said Abdul Mahdi’s moves have emboldened the militias while undermining Iraq’s national security. The commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve working relationships with the militia leadership, said PMF troops are not as well trained as regular Iraqi forces and are not equipped to guard borders and maintain a regular security presence inside cities.
The sectarian nature of the militias also prevents them from effectively conducting intelligence work, which relies on building trusted relationships with Sunni communities.
“And it is no secret that the most powerful militias are not loyal to Iraq’s religious or civilian authorities,” the commander said. “They will put Iran’s interests first.”
Karbouli, the lawmaker from Qaim, said that the military and electoral gains achieved by the Shiite militias have entrenched them in Iraq’s power structure and that their influence will be hard to roll back.
“The PMF say that they are part of Iraqi armed forces, but the fact is they are being controlled by their own
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political parties,” he said. “In the current circumstances, it will be very hard to keep their weapons in the control of the state. No one can control them, not even Superman.”
Iraq closes camps for displaced, pushes families into peril (Associated Press) By Philip Issa January 10, 2019
Iraq is closing its camps for the displaced in the country's western Anbar province, a little over a year since it fought its last battle against the Islamic State group, but well before it's gotten a handle on reconstruction. The closures are casting vulnerable families into a maelstrom of peril. Many cannot return home since they have been accused by their tribes of collaborating with IS. Others worry there is no work or housing to return to. Stragglers are being sent to two tightly-controlled camps, deep in Anbar.
When IS militants swept through north Iraq in 2014, they triggered a migration and displacement crisis unprecedented in Iraq's history as millions fled their homes.
Some 1.8 million people out of Iraq's population of 38 million are still waiting to return home.
[back to contents]
Syria
91 Medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent personnel Documented killed in Syria, and 198 Attacks on Their Related Facilities in 2018 - One Civil Defense Worker Documented Killed, and 11 Attacks on Vital Medical, Civil Defense facilities in December (Syrian Network for Human Rights) January 6, 2019
SNHR has released its monthly special report that documents violations against medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent personnel, and their respective facilities by the parties to the conflict in Syria, which documented the death of 91 medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent personnel in Syria, and 198 attacks against their respective facilities in 2018.
The report stresses that saving the wounded is now widely perceived in Syria as a dangerous profession that might lead to death, in light of the blatant violations of international humanitarian law that affect medical personnel and facilities.
According to the report, the Syrian regime was once again responsible for perpetrating the majority of crimes against medical personnel and facilities, with regime forces carrying out raids on hospitals and abducting wounded people undergoing treatment, as well as targeting hospitals and other medical facilities using shells, missiles, and barrel bombs. Regime air and ground forces have also bombed civil defense facilities and international humanitarian insignia repeatedly, killing many of their personnel.
The report notes that while the other parties to the conflict have also perpetrated similar violations, this has been to a lesser extent and in smaller numbers than the regime. ISIS members raided makeshift hospitals and dispensaries and abducted some of the wounded, doctors, and paramedics. Also, ISIS barred some doctors from practicing under their proscriptive, discriminatory laws. Meanwhile, Coalition forces (international coalition and SDF) have targeted a number of hospitals and other medical facilities.
The report adds that violations against medical and civil defense personnel affect not only those individuals, but also have a devastating effect on the lives of people in need of the medical care services, treatment, and rescue services they provide. Consequently, these violations result in the deaths of many more of the wounded and those trapped under the rubble of buildings destroyed in bombing.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of SNHR, says:
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“Attacks on medical and civil defense centers as well as medical and civil defense personnel, are considered a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes given the indiscriminate, and in many cases, deliberate, targeting of protected objects. All of this has only deepened the suffering of the wounded and injured and is one of the main reasons behind the displacement of the Syrian people as it sends a very clear message: there is no safe area, or red line, including hospitals – you either flee or perish.”
According to the report, December saw the death of one Civil Defense rescue worker. As was the case in the preceding months, the second half of 2018 saw the lowest death toll amongst medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent personnel since the outbreak of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011.
The report notes that the first third of 2018 was the most dangerous period documented during this year for medical and Civil Defense personnel, and their related facilities, due to the sharp escalation in military operations by Syrian-Russian forces on the three de-escalation zones (specific areas in the north of Homs governorate, parts of Daraa and Quneitra governorates, and the Eastern Ghouta in Damascus Suburbs governorate) which resulted in agreements according to which those areas’ residents were forcibly displaced. As a result of these factors, the first third of the year saw acts of killing against workers in the health sector which accounted for 68 percent of the total death toll amongst individuals in this category in 2018, and 66 percent of the record of attacks on medical and rescue facilities. The last eight months of the year saw an increase in the frequency of bombings around medical facilities and Civil Defense facilities – mostly in the north of Syria – in addition to kidnappings of medical personnel in light of the security chaos in those areas.
The report adds that the Syrian-Russian alliance is by far the primary culprit, ahead of any other parties, in terms of violations committed against the health sector last year, being responsible for the death of 74 percent of the death toll among health sector workers, and perpetrating 81 percent of the total attacks documented on vital facilities in the same sector.
The report records that 91 medical, civil defense, and Red Crescent personnel were killed in 2018 at the hands of the main parties to the conflict in Syria, with 54 of this number killed by Syrian Regime forces. Another 13 are believed to have been killed by Russian forces, two by ISIS and two at the hands of the Kurdish Self-Management forces, while four were killed at the hands of International Coalition forces, and 16 at the hands of other parties.
The report details the victims in 2018, with Syrian Regime forces killing two doctors and 11 nurses, four of whom were women, as well as six paramedics, 20 Civil Defense personnel, one Red Crescent personnel and 14 medical personnel, including one woman. Meanwhile, Russian forces killed three doctors, including one woman, as well as one paramedic, eight Civil Defense personnel and one woman from the medical personnel.
According to the report, ISIS killed two doctors, including one woman. The Self-Management forces killed one pharmacist and one Civil Defense rescue worker. International Coalition forces killed three nurses, including one woman, and one paramedic. Other parties killed three doctors, including one woman, one nurse, one paramedic, one pharmacist, eight Civil Defense personnel and two medical personnel.
The report also documents 198 attacks on vital medical, Civil Defense, and Red Crescent facilities in 2018. Of these, 105 attacks were perpetrated by Syrian Regime forces including 60 on medical facilities, three on ambulances, 37 on Civil Defense centers, and five on Red Crescent centers.
According to the report, Russian forces perpetrated 56 attacks in this category in 2018, 25 of which were on medical facilities, 14 on ambulances, and 17 on Civil Defense centers. Self-Management forces perpetrated two attacks on medical facilities, while International Coalition forces carried out five attacks on medical facilities. Others parties carried out 30 attacks, 16 on medical facilities, seven on ambulances, three on Civil Defense centers, and four on Red Crescent centers.
The report, also provides the death toll of December, with one Civil Defense rescue worker documented killed at the hands of other parties.
The report documents 11 attacks in December on vital medical centers, Civil Defense centers and Red Crescent centers, seven of which were at the hands of the Syrian Regime forces, and all of which targeted Civil Defense centers and vehicles, Other parties perpetrated four attacks, two of which were on ambulances and two on medical facilities.
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The report stresses that the attacks constitute grave violations of Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254 which state that indiscriminate attacks must be ceased. Also, the crime of willful killing constitutes a violation of Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute, meaning that these attacks qualify as war crimes.
The report adds that the attacks documented in this report constitute violations of Security Council resolution 2286 which states that attacks and threats against the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment should be ceased, along with all attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities.
The report calls on the Security Council to take additional steps following its adoption of resolutions 2139 and 2254. Also, the report stresses that the Syrian case should be referred to the International Criminal Court and all those who were involved should be held accountable, including the Russian regime whose involvement in war crimes has been repeatedly proven.
In addition, the report calls for the implementation of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” norm, especially after all political channels have been exhausted and proven fruitless despite all the agreements, as well as Cessation of Hostilities statements and Astana agreements. The report stresses that action should be taken under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, and that the “Responsibility to Protect” norm, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly, should be implemented.
The report calls on the European Union and the United States of America to support the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism that was established in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 71/248, adopted on December 21, 2016, and to establish local tribunals that enjoy universal jurisdiction, and address the war crimes perpetrated in Syria.
Also, the report calls on the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to launch investigations into the incidents included in this report and previous reports. The report stresses that the SNHR is willing to cooperate and provide more evidences and data.
Furthermore, the report calls on the Syrian regime to stop treating the Syrian state as a private family property, end its terrorization of the Syrian people through killing the teams that provide medical, aid and rescue services, as well as to cease bombing hospitals, protected objects, and civilian areas, to respect the customary humanitarian law, and, lastly, to assume full responsibility for all the legal and material repercussions, and to fully compensate victims and their families from the Syrian state’s resources.
Additionally, the report calls on the Russian regime and international coalition forces to launch investigations into the incidents included in the report, to make the findings of these investigations public to the Syrian people, and hold all who were involved accountable.
Further, the report calls on the states supporting the SDF to apply pressure on these forces in order to compel them to cease all of their violations in all the areas and towns that are under their control, and to cease all forms of support, including weapons.
Lastly, the report calls on the armed opposition factions to ensure the protection of civilians in all areas under their control and to launch investigations into the attacks that have resulted in civilian deaths. The report also stresses that armed opposition factions should distinguish between military and civilian targets and abstain from any indiscriminate attacks.
Lawyers Take Fight for Syrian Reparations to Dutch Courts (Balkan Insight) By Lamija Grebo January 7, 2019
Lawyers in the Netherlands are preparing to bring at least four cases before Dutch courts seeking damages on behalf of a number of Syrian citizens for pain and suffering caused during the Syrian war, the latest European bid to bring a measure of justice to a conflict that has killed an estimated 500,000 people.
With coordinated international action stymied by division on Syria between the major world powers, individual legal teams and prosecutors in a number of European states have taken up the challenge of seeking justice for crimes committed during more than seven years of war.
They base their efforts in the principle of universal jurisdiction, whereby a state or international body can claim jurisdiction over the perpetrator of a crime regardless of where that crime was committed.
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Ahmed Z., an attorney at the Syria Legal Network, an initiative of the Netherlands-based Nuhanovic Foundation and the War Reparations Centre at Amsterdam University, said that he was collecting evidence and locating witnesses and potential suspects in the Netherlands.
In a telephone interview, Z. said they were “about to file” several cases against individuals who worked for the Syrian state but had since left.
“We are still talking to the victims,” Z. told BIRN. “We are still considering and collecting information on these cases.”
Given Syria is not a member state of the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, the court has no jurisdiction to investigate Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, unless instructed to by the United Nations Security Council.
But there, Syria has veto-wielding allies in Russia and China, also ruling out the kind of ad hoc tribunal that tried war crimes in the likes of Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Cambodia.
Instead, individual cases have been pursued in Sweden, Germany and France, largely based on evidence smuggled out of the country and the witness testimony of some of the thousands of Syrians who have made their way to safety in Europe since a 2011 uprising against Assad spiraled into a brutal civil war.
In the latest development, in November, a French court issued arrest warrants for three senior Syrian intelligence officials: the director of the Syrian Intelligence Agency, Ali Mamlouk, his deputy Abdel Salam and aviation chief Jamil Hassan, who is also sought by Germany on accusations of war crimes.
They are wanted in connection with the detention and subsequent disappearance of two French-Syrian nationals.
Z. said the creation of a tribunal for Syria “is impossible.”
“We have political problems as Russia is putting a veto on any discussion of international investigations into war crimes at the United Nations,” he told BIRN. “So we are focussing on the local judiciary to get reparations.”
Besides searching for witnesses, Z. said he was also seeking out “potential perpetrators who have settled in the Netherlands.”
But victims, he said, are often reluctant to speak out publicly, “out of fear for their families or because they think it could jeopardise their efforts to seek asylum.”
The United Nations created the International Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011 to probe alleged violations of human rights, and five years later the UN General Assembly voted to establish the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, or IIIM, to investigate violations of international law in Syria, but their effectiveness is limited.
IIM and national prosecutors often rely on evidence gathered by civil society organisations, media and other non-governmental organisations, including the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, CIJA.
“The point of establishing the Commission was to do what we can to process those crimes while the wars are still ongoing and the political will at the international level is non-existent,” said Nerma Jelacic, head of external relations and communications at the CIJA.
“What we are seeing in Syria has not been seen before,” Jelacic told BIRN. “I am not only referring to the use of chemical weapons and modified bombs, which are even worse than those fired at [the Bosnian capital] Sarajevo, but I am speaking about the approach to torture, about huge organised systems, detention camps, prisons, above and below ground.”
Cases being brought in Europe often rely on archival records and evidence collected by the CIJA to bring to justice “those who are trying to disguise and present themselves as refugees in Europe,” said Jelacic.
In total, around 70,000 people were granted asylum status in the Netherlands between 1 January 2014 and 1 July 2016, while two thirds of them, 44,000, were Syrians, according to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
NOTE: Ahmed Z. asked that his surname be withheld because he fears it could affect his asylum claims.
At Least 587 Attacks on Vital Civilian Facilities Documented in Syria in 2018, Including 31 Attacks in December (Syrian Network for Human Rights) January 8, 2019
SNHR announced today that it had documented at least 587 attacks on vital civilian facilities by the parties to the conflict were documented in December.
The report notes that Syrian regime forces, then Syrian-Russian alliance forces, are once again far ahead of all other parties in targeting vital civilian facilities – especially in the areas under the control of the armed opposition, and to a lesser degree in ISIS-held areas, adding that repeated attacks on thousands of vital facilities have been recorded, which proves conclusively that these facilities were deliberately destroyed or severely damaged in attacks which included hundreds of massacres.
As the report shows, while other parties committed similar violations to varying degrees, these were never on the massive scale of the crimes by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian forces.
The report includes attacks that have been documented, including deliberate incidents of bombardment that targeted civilian structures and facilities, instances of looting, and attacks that left such structures and facilities largely or wholly non-functional and prevented them from fulfilling their purpose in serving civilians despite the lack of any pressing military necessity in attacking these structures, none of which were being used for any combat purposes by any party which might conceivably have justified other parties in the conflict targeting them.
This report draws upon the ongoing monitoring of news and development by SNHR team, and on accounts by survivors, eyewitnesses, and local media activists, in addition to analyzing a large number of videos and pictures that were posted online or sent by local activists.
According to the report, December saw a rise in the number of attacks on vital civilian facilities compared to the previous two months, with the highest number of attacks once again being perpetrated by Syrian Regime forces, which carried out 13 such attacks, all within the fourth de-escalation zone.
The report adds that in the first quarter of 2018, 60 percent of the total number of attacks on vital civilian facilities were documented following the military escalation witnessed in the three de-escalation zones (specific areas within the northern Homs governorate, parts of the Daraa and Quneitra governorates, and the Eastern Ghouta in Damascus Suburbs governorate) which caused extensive destruction and led to the forced displacement of those areas’ residents, and to these areas being controlled by Syrian Regime forces. The report notes that while the last nine months witnessed an unprecedented increase in the frequency of bombings, most of these have been in the northern Syria region which had broken free from the control of Syrian Regime forces, with this increase in bombing accompanied by attacks on vital civilian facilities. The report also adds that Syrian-Russian forces committed 73 percent of the attacks on vital civilian facilities during this period, once again putting it far ahead of any of the other parties of the conflict in Syria in this category as in others, with 68 percent of these attacks targeting medical facilities, schools, mosques and markets.
The report documents 587 attacks on vital civilian facilities in 2018, which were distributed according to the perpetrators as follows: 292 attacks by Syrian Regime forces, 131 attacks by Russian forces, six by ISIS, five by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, seven by factions of the Armed Opposition, 21 by International Coalition forces, 10 by Kurdish Self-Management forces, and 115 by other parties.
The report also gives details of the vital facilities attacked in 2018, which were distributed: 139 infrastructures, 132 vital medical facilities, 121 places of worship, 115 vital educational facilities, 50 communal facilities, 17 refugee camps, nine International Humanitarian insignias, four vital cultural facilities
The report documents at least 31 attacks in December, including 13 attacks by Syrian Regime forces. In addition, ISIS was responsible for one attack, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham for two attacks, International Coalition forces for six attacks, and other parties for nine attacks.
The report provides a breakdown of the vital facilities that were attacked in December, as follows: 11 infrastructure facilities, nine vital educational facilities, six places of worship, four vital medical facilities, file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
and one communal facility.
The report highlights only the most notable incidents, adding that the complete details of all the incidents documented are stored on the SNHR database. Additionally, the report notes that the incidents documented are only the bare minimum due to the many practical challenges involved in the documentation process.
The report stresses that Syrian-Russian-Iranian forces have violated Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254 through use of indiscriminate bombardment, in addition to violating articles 52, 53, 54, 55, and 56 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, as well as rules 7 through 10 of customary international humanitarian law. The report adds that Coalition Forces (the international coalition and SDF) have carried out attacks that caused significant damages to civilian facilities. In most cases, these attacks also resulted in losses that involved casualties. There are strong indicators suggesting that the damage was excessive compared to the anticipated military benefit.
In addition, the report notes that the other parties involved in the conflict have also carried out attacks that targeted civilian structures, which also resulted, in some cases, in loss of lives. These violations might qualify as war crimes. However, these violations don’t fit the criteria to qualify as crimes against humanity, as with the Syrian regime and pro-regime forces.
The report calls on the Security Council to take additional action following the adoption of resolutions 2139 and 2254. Also, the report stresses that the Syrian crisis should be referred to the International Criminal Court and all those involved in perpetrating crimes should be held accountable, including the Russian regime whose involvement in multiple war crimes has been conclusively proven.
In addition, the report calls for the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect (R2P)’ norm, especially after all political channels have been exhausted, including all agreements, as well as Cessation of Hostilities statements and Astana agreements. The report stresses that action should be taken under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and that the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ norm, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly, should be implemented.
The report calls on the European Union and the United States of America to support the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism that was established in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 71/248, adopted on December 21, 2016, and establish local tribunals that enjoy universal jurisdiction, while effectively addressing the war crimes perpetrated in Syria.
Also, the report calls on the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to launch investigations into the incidents included in this report and previous reports. The report stresses that SNHR is willing to cooperate and provide further evidence and data.
Additionally, the report calls on the Russian regime and international coalition forces to launch investigations into the incidents included in the report, to make the findings of these investigations public to the Syrian people, and to hold all those who were involved accountable.
Furthermore, the report calls on the states supporting the SDF to apply pressure on these forces in order to compel them to cease all of their violations in all the areas and towns under their control, and to cease all forms of support, including weapons.
Lastly, the report calls on armed opposition factions to ensure the protection of civilians in all the areas under their control, and to launch investigations into the attacks that have resulted in civilian casualties. Additionally, armed opposition factions should take care to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and cease any indiscriminate attacks.
Syria Rights Monitor Charges U.S. With Negligence and 'War Crimes'—But Wants Troops To Stay And Fix Things (The Daily Beast) By Roy Gutman January 11, 2019
Amid reports that the United States withdrawal of troops from Syria already has begun, a leading Syrian human rights group is accusing President Donald Trump of, at a minimum, “an attitude of negligence and indifference.”
Alleging possible war crimes among the offenses committed by the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition, the report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (PDF) called on the U.S. to “reassess its decision on the withdrawal of U.S. troops.” Basically it is arguing that much of what’s broken is the Americans’ file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
responsibility to fix, no matter how savage the enemy they were up against.
The analysis of the political impact of U.S. plans is scathing, and comes just as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sought to clarify and ennoble Trump administration decisions in the region that have been seen as capricious and confusing.
“We learned that when America retreats, chaos often follows. When we neglect our friends, resentment builds. And when we partner with enemies, they advance,” Pompeo told an audience in Cairo on Thursday. “The good news is this: The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much needless suffering.”
Nothing could be farther from the picture given by the SNHR report, which concludes “from a human rights perspective, U.S. forces cannot simply leave after four years of military intervention without contributing to the resolution of cases that are still pending, some of which occurred as a direct result of the military intervention.”
Trump, evidently frustrated by the intractable nature of the Middle East battlefield, announced the Syria pullout December 19 against the wishes of Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned a day later, and over the protests of many in Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham. Since then Graham and National Security Advisor John Bolton have tried to dilute or even reverse the impact of the decision, but it appears that argument is over.
On Thursday, Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, confirmed the U.S. has started “the process of our deliberate withdrawal” from Syria, adding: “Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss specific timelines, locations, or troop movements.”
“Over the past four years, the U.S.-led Coalition have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, many of which constitute war crimes, including attacks which caused civilian deaths, including women and children,” the SNHR report declared.
But the U.S. is in a self-congratulatory mood.
“President Trump empowered our commanders in the field to strike ISIS quicker and harder than ever before. And now 99 percent of the territory ISIS once held is liberated,” Pompeo said in Cairo. “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians. Nations in the global coalition should all be enormously proud of this achievement. Together we have saved thousands of lives.”
SNHR, for its part, is calling for compensation for the nearly 3,000 civilians it said were killed in the U.S.-led war against Islamic extremists. Citing its own database, it said 2,984 civilians had been killed in coalition actions, including 932 children and 646 women. The U.S.-led coalition acknowledges killing a total of 1,139 civilians in Iraq and Syria since 2014 but has not published detailed figures comparable to those of the rights group.
The civilian toll is an aspect of the American deployment largely missing from the national debate over Trump’s abrupt decision to pull the 2,000 or so Special Operations Forces. The main focus has been on the fate of the Kurdish YPG militia, the People’s Protection Units, which functioned as the U.S. military’s ground force capturing cities ISIS had occupied in Syria.
But the Qatar-based human rights group, echoing the position of the Turkish government, calls the YPG a “radical organization” affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. The YPG was “effectively appointed to govern massive areas” after they’d cleared them of ISIS’s presence. Yet, one year later, the U.S. had made “little effort” to achieve democratically elected local governance and work to achieve political and social stability in the region.
Areas cleared by the YPG “have not even seen the removal of rubble or the rehabilitation of the most important vital facilities such as hospitals, schools and markets,” and most of the displaced population have not returned to their homes.
“President Trump has made the decision to bring our troops home from Syria,” Pompeo told his audience. “We always do and now is the time, but this isn’t a change of mission. We remain committed to the complete dismantling of ISIS – the ISIS threat – and the ongoing fight against radical Islamism in all of its forms.”
From the SNHR perspective withdrawal of the 2,000 Special Operations Forces “reflects an attitude of
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negligence and indifference to the Syrian issue and constitutes an additional appeasement of Russian expansionism.” The report noted that Russia last spring had abandoned a 2017 agreement with the U.S. to set up a deconfliction zone in southern Syria.
Its most biting criticism was over the U.S. failure to establish strong local and democratic governance in the former ISIS areas.
“The United States, which had multiple opportunities to contribute to the process of democratic change and to help the Syrian people to build a modern democratic state to take its place alongside civilized advanced democracies, has squandered these opportunities,” the group said.
The American failure to establish a strong political structure in the territory it’s deserting “will leave vast tracts of land not only at risk of an expansion by ISIS, but more dangerously, to the expansion by Iranian militias,” it said.
On Wednesday The Daily Beast asked U.S. Central Command and the State Department for comment on the main conclusions of the SNHR report but has received no response.
The report was written by Fadel Abdul Ghani, a 38-year-old civil engineering graduate from Homs who founded the Syrian network in 2011. Its work has been cited frequently in annual human rights reports published by the State Department.
Ghani said one quarter of Syria — Hasakah, Deir Ezzor and Raqqa provinces — are now under YPG control, backed by the United States, and the biggest single question was their fate.
“What is their future? Who will rule them?” he asked. “This is an American responsibility.”
Withdrawing without determining the future rule could lead to “a long civil war between Arabs and Kurds.” The people “will not accept rule by extremists who don’t represent the Kurds,” he said. He predicted that the YPG will hand over the region to the Assad government.
The other issue, he said, is accountability and compensation for the civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes or by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG-dominated Kurdish-Arab ground force, during the four and a half years since the U.S. intervened in Syria.
Ghani said he could back up his assertion that the U.S. had committed war crimes with a carefully compiled database. He said here are “hundreds” of examples of disproportionate responses to military attacks and a failure to distinguish between civilian and military objects. “Each time you shell without distinguishing between fighters and civilians and it leads to loss of lives, it’s a violation,” he said.
Other organizations have also raised concerns about possible U.S. war crimes in Syria.
The U.N. Commission of Inquiry into Syria report gave an example in March 2017 where a Coalition aircraft targeted ISIS fighters in a village in Aleppo, killing up to 25 people, of whom 13 were civilians, nine of them children. Local sources said ISIS fighters had forced the civilians into the house as hostages, according to the commission. But the U.S.-led Coalition claimed that one civilian was “inadvertently killed as a result of the blast following the strike.”
The airstrike “raises concerns regarding the proportionality and precautions in attacks under international humanitarian law,” the U.N. commission said.
In March 2017, The Daily Beast reported that at least 29 civilians at a prayer meeting in Al Jinah, Idlib, northern Syria had been killed in a U.S. airstrikes. The U.S. Central Command claimed to have killed “several terrorists” from Al Qaeda.
After a weeks-long investigation, Human Rights Watch concluded the U.S. warplane had hit a mosque. “U.S. Authorities’ failure to take adequate precautions,” was the report’s subtitle. The “failure to understand the most fundamental aspects of the target and pattern of life around the target raises the question whether officers were criminally reckless in authorizing the attack,” HRW wrote in its report.
But the Pentagon after an internal inquiry concluded that the U.S. warplane had killed two dozen Al Qaeda fighters and possibly one civilian.
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in U.S.-led anti-ISIS campaigns. SNHR estimates the civilian death toll from U.S.-led Coalition bombing at 2,934. But Airwars, a British-based monitoring group, estimates the death toll in Syria at a minimum of 4,919 for that period — a significantly higher figure. The U.S. Central Command has not yet provided a figure.
In Raqqa alone, SNHR says 1,785 civilians were killed either by Coalition bombing or by YPG-led ground force operations. That’s well over half the overall total for civilians killed in four years. Airwars estimated the total at 2,100. The Pentagon has not provided its figure.
How to explain the discrepancies? “It points to systematic flaws in a military system highly depending upon what’s observable from above – even while most civilians continue to die in unobservable spaces below,” Alex Hopkins of Airwars told The Daily Beast by email. “The U.S. and its allies need to pay far more attention to the voices of communities directly affected by their military actions.”
Russia, unlike the U.S., does not acknowledge civilian casualties, but the number of civilian casualties attributed to Russia is twice that of the U.S.: 6,231 from the time Russia entered the war in September 2015 through September 2018, according to SNHR. Airwars estimates the number at a minimum of 12,713 (and possibly as high as 19,327).
SNHR’s database has names, locations, photos and other details of civilians killed, Ghani told The Beast. He said U.S. Central Command has never contacted his group and never agreed to a meeting. He criticized CENTCOM for “a strategy of admitting some incidents, denying others,” not doing an adequate investigation and not following through by holding its officers responsible for their mistakes. He said he was unaware of any compensation for the victims for those incidents that have been admitted.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond when asked if any compensation had been paid out.
Deadly School Attack Was Unlawful: Idlib Attacks Reaffirm Need for Civilian Protection (Human Rights Watch) January 11, 2019
A November 24, 2018 attack by Syrian government forces near an elementary school that killed six children, a teacher, and a student’s mother, appears to have been unlawful and indiscriminate. All parties to the conflict, including the Syrian-Russian military alliance and non-state armed groups, should ensure that children and civilians are protected from any attack.
The ground-launched attack in the town of Jarjanaz, in Idlib governorate, was with a Russian-made 240mm mortar system, which fires a large high-explosive projectile that is designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks,” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue. It also wounded as many as 10 children, at least two of whom lost limbs, and three adults. Launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in death or injury to civilians, or an attack in the knowledge that it will cause excessive incidental civilian loss, injury or damage, when committed with criminal intent, can amount to a war crime.
“This horrific attack on Jarjanaz is a small glimpse of what an all-out offensive on Idlib without strict measures to protect civilians could mean for thousands of children,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “In light of recent upheavals in the province, it is essential for Russia to pressure Syrian government forces to halt such blatantly unlawful attacks and for all parties to the conflict to make protecting civilians a priority.”
About 3 million people remain in Idlib, over half of whom have fled fighting elsewhere in Syria. It is one of the last major areas controlled by anti-government groups. Despite a ceasefire agreement between government and anti-government armed groups in Idlib governorate since September 17, both parties have carried out artillery attacks. In November and December, there were at least eight attacks on Jarjanaz, which residents say was under the control of the Turkey-backed anti-government National Liberation Front at the time of the November 24 attack. In January, the area was taken by Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham, an anti- government group known to be close to al-Qaeda. In-fighting among the anti-government factions has also caused civilian casualties.
Witnesses said that between 12:45 and 1 p.m. on November 24, three projectiles hit the area near al-Khansaa elementary school, on the southwestern outskirts of Jarjanaz, causing massive explosions. Photographs shared with Human Rights Watch by witnesses and online videos posted within hours of the attack show
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remnants of Russian-made 3F2 “Gagara” rocket-assisted 240mm mortar projectiles.
Al-Khansaa elementary school operated with two shifts, the first for children ages 6 to 9 and the second, which began at 11 a.m., for children ages 8 to 13, school administrators said. Roughly 200 children in the second shift were at the school when the first artillery round exploded at around 12:45 or 12:50 p.m. on Saturday, a school-day in the area, school officials told Human Rights Watch.
Next to the school is a teacher-training college with another 250 students, attended by women ages 19 and older. All remained inside the college during the attacks and none were wounded, said school officials and a civil defense volunteer whose father works at the college.
Human Rights Watch spoke via WhatsApp with seven witnesses to the attack, including three staff members at the school, a store-owner who lives nearby, a local media activist, and two civil defense volunteers who arrived at the school to evacuate the wounded. All asked not to be named, fearing reprisals by government forces. Human Rights Watch also reviewed photographs and videos the witnesses shared, and videos and images of the attack posted online.
Witnesses said they could not hear the mortars being fired but that the explosions were extraordinarily loud, which is consistent with the range and destructive power of rocket-assisted 240mm mortar projectiles. “The sound was louder than barrels or MiG bombs,” one resident said, referring to the improvised barrel bombs, dropped by Syrian helicopters and to conventional high-explosive bombs dropped by fixed-wing Russian-made aircraft.
All the witnesses Human Rights Watch interviewed affirmed that no military objects were in Jarjanaz or near the school, although Human Rights Watch could not independently verify this. A media activist said that residents had not permitted “armed groups to cross through [Jarjanaz], no convoys, and there are no military headquarters. The headquarters are in agricultural lands far away from the town.” A school official affirmed that “there have been no military centers or headquarters in Jarjanaz” since the conflict began in 2011.
The lack of a military presence in or near the school, or the surrounding area would make such attacks on civilians indiscriminate and possibly deliberate. Even if the attacks had targeted a military objective, the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in a populated area should be avoided due to the foreseeable harm to civilians, Human Rights Watch said.
“There is no excuse for attacking civilian structures like schools, yet Syrian forces continue to maim and kill schoolchildren with impunity,” said Van Esveld. “Stopping indiscriminate attacks is an important first step to protect those most vulnerable.”
The Weapons Used
The rocket-assisted mortar projectiles used in the attack have a maximum range of up to 20 kilometers, with a high-explosive warhead weighing 46 kilograms with wide area destructive effect. Each projectile weighs 239 kilograms and requires a team of at least five to load and fire from 240mm mortars that are either towed or mounted on a carrier vehicle.
Human Rights Watch documented the Syrian military’s devastating use of 240mm mortars in indiscriminate attacks on the city of Homs in 2012, and the use of a rocket-assisted 240mm cluster munition projectile containing submunitions in an attack on a school in the Damascus suburb of Douma in 2015. None of the armed opposition groups in Syria are known to have used the 240mm mortar system.
The November 24 Attack
The first projectile landed about 550 meters northeast of the school, destroying a four-room house whose owners were not home. About eight minutes later, the second projectile exploded in the street about 30 meters northwest of the school, killing Rawea Abdel Rezzek al-Dugheim, 30, and her son, Hussein, 11, a student, who were in a car. Staff members said the blast shattered school windows and that several panicked students and a teacher who lived nearby ran out of the school to adjacent agricultural fields.
Two or three minutes after the second explosion, the third projectile hit the same agricultural area, about 75 meters west of the school, two school officials said, killing the teacher, Khadija al-Dabaan, age 30 or 33, who was pregnant; brothers Iyad and Abdelghani al-Dugheim, 10 and 11; Othman Ahmad al-Dabaan, 9; and two girls, Nijmeh al-Dabaan, 12, and Asmaa al-Khattab, 12, who had run out of the school. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
The third attack wounded 10 children, of whom 9 were students, according to residents and rights monitors, including the teacher’s 20-month-old son, whom she was carrying and whose left leg was cut off; a 10-year- old boy whose right leg was cut off; another student; and a boy who was coming to bring his sister home from school; a woman who came to pick up her children; a 50-year-old resident, whose abdomen and spine were wounded, partially paralyzing him; and Maarouf Ibrahim al-Jabban, a civil defense volunteer, wounding his vertebrae and spine.
Attacks continued later that day, and the next. F.D., a media activist who filmed the attacks at the school in Jarjanaz, told Human Rights Watch that “there was shelling every two hours.” A 3-year-old girl, Amina al- Dibo, was killed by artillery shelling at 2:30 a.m., and her 5-month-old brother was wounded, residents and rights groups reported.
Two school officials said that they and many other residents had fled Jarjanaz due to the ongoing attacks. One school official said that the town was hit by more artillery attacks on November 25 and 26: “There is no one left. If there are no citizens and there are no students, who will open the schools?”
An attack on September 10 hit the al-Quds primary school and the adjacent al-Nidhal secondary school in Jarjanaz, wounding five students and causing the schools to close for three days, according to rights monitors and another school official, H.D. Residents said that another attack, on November 2, killed eight people, all civilians. Among the fatalities, Syrian rights monitors identified two children, Mustafa al- Khatoun, 15, and Mohammad al-Ezo, 10.
Witness Accounts
A senior school administrator, H.D., said that after the first attack, he stood at the main entrance to the school to try to prevent the children from leaving:
In training sessions, we’re told that staying inside [during an attack] is safer than being outside. At the same time, however, glass had shattered and people were fainting. Parents arrived to take their children, they were scared. And when they arrived, the second attack came. The second and third [rounds] hit barely a few meters away from the entrance. ... No day was like [November] 24. A father, a mother, they came to get their children, and to see them die in front of their eyes? A hundred meters apart, but they couldn’t reach each other. This is going to affect everyone in Jarjanaz, the entire education sector.
M. D., who owns a shop in the main market of Jarjanaz, said he began driving home on his motorcycle after the first explosion, and that his home was near the school, where the second explosion hit while he was on his way.
I arrived at the school entrance. Children were screaming -- mothers, all of them crying. Remains all over. An arm. A leg. Guts. You can’t describe it, some had lost a leg, some lost an arm, some were screaming. These is nothing more hideous. The first person I saw was my brother. He had been hiding behind a wall, but it was fate. He was hit by a [metal fragment]. It seems he was trying to head toward our home to hide, but he didn’t make it. He was in Grade 5. I went to him, removed his backpack, and carried him to a vehicle and they took him away.
I stayed to help the civil defense, and suddenly the third [projectile] fell, about 10 meters west, injuring a lot of people, including a guy from the civil defense. Whoever wasn’t hit in the second attack, was in the third. I don’t know what to say. It tears your heart apart. Children begging me, “Uncle please pull us out, we need help.”
F. D., the media activist, said he was “worried the school was targeted” after hearing the second attack, and drove toward the site.
Two minutes after the second, the third [shell] fell while I was on my way. The second one fell in the street, in front of a home, damaging it and destroying two vehicles. The civil defense arrived to rescue people and pull out the children, [whose bodies were] in pieces, with their backpacks. What I saw was horrible. On the right, people asking for help, crying. On the left, also, people asking for help. From the front, people crying and sobbing. I looked to the left and saw a vehicle that was destroyed with a woman and child killed. […]
The third [mortar projectile] had exploded] in a field and killed the students who had been running away from the school through the agricultural lands, as they were scared to run away in between the houses. One had no leg. Another lost half his head. Another one, part of him was gone. They were all torn apart and yet
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had their backpacks on their shoulders. Blood was all over the place. Artillery shelling. I felt lost. It was horrible. I’ve seen a lot. But similar to this, nothing.
M.J., a civil defense worker from the Talmenes center, drove to the school in a pickup truck accompanied by an emergency vehicle to evacuate casualties from the second projectile. He suffered a back injury from the blast wave from the third projectile:
When I got out of the pickup, I walked a few meters toward the place where the second [projectile] fell. When the third fell, the pressure, it threw me onto the truck. I remember there were two girls, students walking toward me. I hit the truck and fell down on the ground. The two girls fell down in front of me. I tried to pull one of them, barely got to her, but couldn’t due to my injury. My back, my leg, didn’t let me pull her. The girl died. I survived.
A.I., who works at the school, heard the first projectile detonate, but said the second explosion caused children to “start screaming”:
The sound of the explosion, it’s the first time we hear something like that, it was huge, very, very terrifying, and very harmful. We tried to control the situation. We put everyone in between two buildings. We closed the doors, we didn’t want to let them go outside. Some, however, left along with the teacher, and the second [projectile] fell where they were, 25 meters away. The school was the target.
Syrian army shells areas held by insurgents in northwest (New Jersey Herald) By Albert Aji and Zeynep Bilginsoy January 12, 2019
Artillery shelling by government forces pounded parts of the northwestern Idlib province on Saturday, thwarting an infiltration attempt by militants as tension rises in the region following victories by al-Qaida-linked militants against Turkey-backed opposition fighters, Syria's state news agency reported.
The violence came as officials in neighboring Turkey said efforts are being exerted to maintain stability in Idlib.
SANA said the shelling focused on the areas of Zarzour near the border with Turkey and Tamanaa near Maaret al-Numan that was taken this week by al-Qaida-linked militants from Turkey-backed opposition fighters. It reported casualties among the militants.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government shelled six areas in and near Idlib province.
Earlier this month, members of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, or HTS, took over control of Idlib province and the surrounding countryside after forcing rival insurgents to accept a deal for a civil administration run by HTS in their areas.
The developments threaten to derail a cease-fire in the area reached in September between Turkey and Russia that averted a potentially catastrophic Syrian army assault on Idlib.
The deal required jihadist groups to vacate a frontline buffer zone, a move that was never implemented by al-Qaida-linked militants.
Earlier Saturday, Turkey's defense minister met with commanders and the head of the country's intelligence services in the southern Hatay province bordering Syria's restive Idlib.
"All efforts are being made to continue stability and the ceasefire in line with the Sochi agreement," said Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, referring to a September agreement between Turkey and Russia to set up a buffer zone in Idlib. "Our close cooperation with Russia on this issue continues," the minister said.
Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said Turkish troops dispatched from units across the country were undergoing training at the border in Hatay.
The Syrian government has repeatedly threatened to launch an offensive to recapture Idlib province, which is packed with 3 million people, including many who were displaced from other parts of the country.
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deal.
In the capital Damascus, the Foreign Ministry sent two letters to the U.N. Secretary-General and the President of the U.N. Security Council over Israel's airstrikes that hit areas south of the city the night before.
"This treacherous aggression comes within the framework of Israeli attempts to prolong the crisis in Syria," the ministry said.
Israel did not comment on the airstrikes, the first this year, that Syrian state media said hit a warehouse near Damascus International Airport without inflicting casualties.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes targeted an area near the airport while others hit the area of Kiswa, which is home to positions and storage sites for Iranian and Hezbollah forces allied with Syria's government.
Israel's outgoing army chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, told The New York Times in an interview published Friday that Israel "struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit." Eisenkot retires on Sunday.
Israel's government approved a change in tactics in January 2017, stepping up air strikes in Syria, Eisenkot was quoted as saying. Israel's air force dropped 2,000 bombs in 2018 alone, he said.
Thousands of Syrians in ‘life and death’ struggle amid harsh conditions in remote desert camp, UN warns (UN News) January 15, 2019
Conditions in a makeshift Syrian camp near the border with Jordan are “increasingly desperate” and “have become a matter of life and death”, United Nations officials warned on Tuesday, after at least eight children died there from extreme cold and a lack of medical care.
The development comes as the newly appointed UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pederson, arrived in Damascus, for his first meeting with the Government, since taking over from veteran UN negotiator Staffan de Mistura.
In a message on Twitter, the Norwegian diplomat said he was “looking forward to productive meetings” in the Syrian capital, which has been hit by seven years of fighting that has left hundreds of thousands dead.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Hervé Verhoosel echoed a warning from UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that children only months old are succumbing to the harsh winter conditions in the Rukban settlement at the south-western border of Syria with Jordan, which last received aid in November.
“The United Nations remains seriously concerned about the increasingly desperate conditions for more than 40,000 people staying at the Rukban site” he said. “The majority are women and children, who have been staying at the site for more than two years in harsh conditions with limited humanitarian assistance, access to medical care and other essential services.”
Amid security concerns, Jordan closed its border with Syria at Rukban as tens of thousands of Syrians arrived at the camp, fleeing expanded Russian and United States-led coalition air strikes against areas held by Islamic State of Iraq and the levant (ISIL) terrorists in central and eastern Syria.
Following the delivery of joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid to Rukban in November, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that “colleagues returned shocked from what they saw on the ground, reporting grave protection issues, increasing food insecurity and no certified medical doctors among the stranded population”.
Mr. Lowcock warned then that “without sustained access, the situation of tens of thousands of Syrians – stranded in the harshest desert conditions – will only further deteriorate as the winter cold sets in”.
Echoing that message today, Mr. Verhoosel reiterated the call by WFP and the UN “for a second inter-agency convoy with critical assistance to take place as soon as possible”, urging “all parties to ensure safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to people in need, in line with their obligations under international
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humanitarian law”.
The plight of those stranded in Rukban dates is not new, but the harsh winter and lack of regular supplies have made the situation much worse, according to UNICEF’s Geert Cappelaere, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Needs for assistance in Rukban are beyond urgent,” he said in a statement. “They are extremely acute and have become a matter of life and death.”
Mr. Cappelaere stressed: “Once again, UNICEF calls on all sides to urgently facilitate a humanitarian convoy to Rukban, including mobile health clinics, so that lifesaving supplies and services can be delivered.”
In eastern Syria, meanwhile, heavy violence in the Hajin area of Deir-Ez-Zor Governorate has displaced 10,000 people since December, the UNICEF official warned.
“Families seeking safety face difficulties leaving the conflict zone and wait in the cold for days without shelter or basic supplies,” he said. “The dangerous and difficult journey has reportedly killed seven children, most of them under a year old.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Syria “the ongoing fighting in Hajin is taking a heavy tall on civilians”, with those staying having no access to humanitarian aid due to extreme insecurity, and “those leaving undertaking an arduous journey to escape the violence”.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, OCHA added that “many of those arriving to Al Hole are extremely exhausted” and called upon all parties to the conflict to take measures to protect civilians.
The last time the United Nations had access to Rubkan was in November, where an inter-agency convoy, jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, delivered food, medical and other assistance.
The Annual Report of the Most Notable Violations of Human Rights in Syria in 2018: The Crushing of the Society and Dismantling of the State (Syrian Network for Human Rights) January 16, 2019
SNHR has released its annual special report for the year 2018 which was entitled: “The Crushing of the Society and Dismantling of the State”. The report documents the most notable violations of human rights by the main parties to the conflict in Syria during the last year.
The 80-page report contains a record of the major events that took place in Syria in 2018, and sheds light on the most significant political and military developments that occurred on the Syrian scene in 2018. In addition, the report details the most notable local agreements that resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents from their cities, towns and villages. The report, also, includes annual comparisons between the most notable patterns of human rights violations for 2017 and 2018. In addition, the report evaluates the fallout from the conflict with regard to the distribution of areas of control in 2018, which saw a significant expansion of the territories controlled by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance forces at the expense of factions of the Armed Opposition.
The report notes that the SNHR issued nearly 137 reports throughout 2018 concerning several types of the most significant human rights violations, which contained nearly 310 first-person accounts from those injured in attacks and other survivors, paramedics, and “central signal” operators, all of which were collected through speaking directly with eyewitnesses, rather than being cited from any open sources.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of SNHR, says:
“Since 2011, the Syrian regime has perpetrated various forms of brutal violence against society, including the arrest and torture of tens of thousands, and the killing of hundreds of thousands of others, along with the displacement of half of the Syrian people, which has been an intentional and deliberate goal of this ruling authority in order to crush society, punish it and subject it to the rule of the family, forever. Consequently, there is a complete termination of any opportunity or even any idea of a new popular movement due to the high cost paid by the community for demanding freedom, dignity and political pluralistic transition. However, the ruling family hasn’t cared about the material or human cost in order to achieve this brutal goal, even if this causes the dismantling of the entire Syrian state”
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According to SNHR’s database, 6,964 civilians, including 1,436 children and 923 women (adult female), were documented as being killed at the hands of the parties to the conflict in 2018. Of this total, 4,162 civilians, including 713 children and 562 women, were killed by Syrian regime forces, and 467 civilians, including 169 children and 51 women, were killed by Russian forces. 2018 saw also the death of 417 civilians, including 175 children and 90 women at the hands of International Coalition forces.
Further, the report records that Kurdish Self-Management forces killed 285 civilians, including 29 children and 26 women, while extremist Islamist groups killed 478 civilians; of this total, ISIS killed 446 civilians, including 82 children and 41 women, while 32 civilians, including seven children and one woman, were killed by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham.
The report documents that factions of the Armed Opposition, in 2018, killed 84 civilians, including 14 children and seven women, all of whom were either killed by executions, indiscriminate shelling, or torture. Lastly, the report records that 1,107 civilians were killed in attacks whose perpetrators could not yet be identified, or in attacks by border guards affiliated with neighboring countries – Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
According to the report, 2018 saw approximately 7,706 cases of arbitrary arrest, including 504 children and 699 women (adult female). The Syrian Regime was responsible for the arrest of nearly 5,607 of these individuals, including 355 children and 596 women. Extremist Islamist groups arrested at least 755 individuals, divided into 338 arrested by ISIS, including 28 children and 13 women, and 417 individuals were arrested by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, including 15 children and three women. The total number of detainees arrested and imprisoned by factions of the Armed Opposition was nearly 379 individuals, including 23 children and 13 women, while Kurdish Self-Management forces arrested 965 individuals, including 83 children and 74 women.
The report states that 976 individuals were documented as being killed under torture in 2018, including 951 individuals who died due to torture at the hands of Syrian Regime forces, and nine in detention centers of factions of the Armed Opposition, while one woman died due to torture at the hands of ISIS.
The report also outlines the most significant violations against medical personnel by the parties to the conflict, through acts of killing of medical personnel and targeting of medical facilities in 2018, documenting the deaths of 53 medical personnel and 108 attacks on medical points and facilities. The Syrian-Russian alliance was responsible for the majority of these violations, killing at least 38 medical personnel and carrying out 85 attacks on medical facilities and clinics.
In addition, the report states that 24 media workers were killed in 2018, with 63 percent of this total killed by Syrian Regime forces and their Russian allies. The report also documents six attacks in which chemical weapons were deployed in 2018, in Idlib and Damascus Suburbs governorates, all by the Syrian regime. Meanwhile, cluster munitions were deployed in 13 attacks, with seven of these carried out by Syrian Regime forces, and the remaining six by Russian forces. According to the report, Incendiary weapons were used in 28 attacks on Syrian territory last year, with 11 of these attacks carried out by Syrian Regime forces, and 14 by Russian forces, while the remaining three attacks in this category were launched by International Coalition forces. The report also notes that at least 3,601 barrel bombs were dropped by Syrian Regime forces in 2018.
As the report details, 2018 was another year of massive waves of forced displacement, with hundreds of thousands of people forced to leave their homes and land by military operations launched by the parties to the conflict, especially the Syrian-Russian forces, which were by far the main parties responsible for the displacements. The report states that nearly 670 thousand people were subjected to forced displacement in 2018, including 134,000 who were forcibly displaced as a result of agreements and truces which contravene international humanitarian law.
The report stresses that the UN Security Council must take additional steps following the adoption of Resolution 2254, which states unequivocally that all parties should: “… immediately cease any attacks against civilians and civilian objects as such…”. Also, the report states that the Security Council should refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and hold all perpetrators accountable, including the Russian regime whose involvement in war crimes has been proven.
The report calls on the Security Council to ensure the security and safety of millions of dispossessed Syrian refugees, especially women and children, who have been displaced to countries worldwide, and to ensure their safety from arrest, torture or enforced disappearance if they choose to return to areas controlled by
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the Syrian regime.
The report also recommends that the relevant United Nations agencies make greater efforts to provide humanitarian and food aid and medical assistance in the areas where fighting has ceased, and to camps of internally displaced persons, and to follow up with the States that had pledged to make necessary contributions.
The report emphasizes that the OHCHR should submit a report to the Human Rights Council and other organs of the United Nations on the incidents mentioned in this report since these attacks were perpetrated by the parties to the conflict.
Moreover, the report calls upon the international envoy to Syria to condemn the perpetrators of the crimes, including massacres, and those who were primarily responsible for dooming the de-escalation agreements to failure, and to redirect the peace process to its natural course after Russia’s attempts to distort it and to place the Constitutional Commission prior to the transitional government.
The report calls on the international community to take steps at the national and regional levels to form alliances to support the Syrian people, to protect them from the daily killing, and to lift the siege, as well as to increase support for relief efforts.
The report further calls for the implementation of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) norm, after all political channels through the Arab League’s plan and then Mr. Kofi Annan’s plan were exhausted, proving as fruitless as the Cessation of Hostilities statements and Astana agreements that followed. Therefore, steps should be taken under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, and the norm of the “Responsibility to Protect”, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly, should be implemented. In the current situation, the Security Council is still hindering the protection of civilians in Syria.
The report demands the Syrian regime end its indiscriminate shelling and targeting of residential areas, hospitals, schools and markets, stop its torture that caused the death of thousands of Syrian citizens in detention centers, reveal the fate of some 82,000 Syrian citizens arrested by the security services after concealing their fate to date, and comply with UN Security Council resolutions and customary humanitarian law.
The report stresses that the Russian regime should launch investigations into the incidents included in this report, make the findings of these investigations public for the Syrian people, and hold the perpetrators involved accountable. Also, the Russian regime should compensate all the damaged centers and facilities, rebuild and rehabilitate them, and compensate all the victims’ families, who were killed by the current Russian regime, as well as compensating all the wounded. The report further adds that the Russian regime, as a guarantor party in the Astana talks, should take steps to stop the wrecking of de-escalation agreements, and apply pressure on the Syrian regime in order to end all indiscriminate attacks, and should begin making progress with respect to the detainees’ issue by revealing the fates of 82,000 forcibly disappeared persons by the Syrian regime.
The report calls on the international coalition forces to unequivocally acknowledge that some of their bombardment operations have resulted in the killing of innocent civilians. The report calls on international coalition forces to launch serious investigations and take speedy steps to compensate and apologize to the victims and others who were affected.
Lastly, the report calls on the states supporting the SDF to apply pressure on these forces in order to compel them to cease all of their violations in all the areas and towns under their control, and urges these states to cease all forms of support, including weapon and otherwise.
Syria attack: Blast in Manbij kills US soldiers, civilians (News.Com.Au) January 16, 2019
An explosion struck near a patrol of the US-led coalition in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, killing and wounding more than a dozen people, a Syrian war monitoring group and a local town council said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 people were killed including nine civilians and others were wounded in the blast.
An Islamic State-affiliated website said the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber, and that at least five file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
US-backed Syrian fighters were among the dead.
This comes as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence claimed that the Islamic State “caliphate has crumbled” and the militant network “has been defeated.”
His comments were made during in a speech at the State Department shortly after the explosion.
Mr Pence defended President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Critics say the pullout is premature.
He says the withdrawal will be “orderly and effective” and that the U.S. will stay in the region to make sure IS does not regroup.
Videos released by local activists and news agencies showed a restaurant that suffered extensive damage and a street covered with debris and blood.
Several cars were also damaged.
Another video showed a helicopter flying over the area.
The Kurdish Hawar news agency, based in northern Syria, and the Observatory, which monitors the war through activists on the ground, reported two US troops were among the casualties.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, citing unnamed local sources, said a number of US soldiers were injured in the blast and that the US military evacuated soldiers by helicopter.
The Observatory and the Kurdish-led Manbij Military Council, which runs the town, said the blast occurred near a restaurant near the town’s main market.
The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurahman also said the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber but didn’t immediately have any further details.
It was not the first time that forces of the US-led coalition were subjected to attacks in the area, although they have been rare.
In March last year, a roadside bomb killed two coalition personnel, an American and a Briton, and wounded five in Manbij.
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Yemen
Yemen civil war continues unabated as world looks on (The Week) By Aron Koshy January 7, 2019
With the start of a new year, it is, perhaps, time to take a look at the world's worst humanitarian crisis at the moment: The civil war in Yemen.
Since the civil war 'phase' of the Yemen conflict started in 2015, at least 6,660 civilians have been killed and 10,563 injured according to a UN report. A large number of these casualties have been caused by the air strikes launched by a coalition of gulf states led by Saudi Arabia.
What is the Yemen civil war?
The Yemen civil war had its origins in the insurgency launched in the north of the country by Shia fighters led by Hussein al-Houthi in 2004. The insurgency remained dormant during the opposition protests against the rule of dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, which began in 2008, before turning, effectively, into a sectarian 'Shia vs Sunni' conflict in the early years of this decade.
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The ongoing civil war, between the internationally recognised government of Yemen and the Houthis, erupted in 2015 with the intervention of the Saudi-led coalition. The Saudi coalition entered the conflict to stem the growth of Iranian influence in the country; Tehran had armed and supported the Houthis.
The Saudi coalition, which consisted of forces from Sunni nations like Egypt and the UAE, was backed by the US, UK and France.
Situation in Yemen
The situation in Yemen has all the makings of a humanitarian crisis. The civil war has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Yemeni citizens and injuries to numerous others. The victims get injured or killed daily due to the fighting that takes place between the rival forces while they go out to buy daily essentials or fetch water from the wells.
According to the UN, the crisis has worsened with a famine threatening nearly 13 million people in Yemen. International charity Save the Children claimed in November 2018 that nearly 85,000 children have died of starvation in Yemen since the civil war began in 2015.
The reason that famine is looming over Yemen has been attributed to the Saudi coalition's blockade of all the humanitarian aid going into Yemen. On the pretext of blocking arms supplies to the Houthi forces from Iran, the Saudi coalition has strangled all means of transportation in and out of the Houthi- controlled areas.
The US has been blamed for being unable, or unwilling, to stop the Saudi involvement in the Yemen conflict. While the US military has stopped providing in-flight refuelling for Saudi fighter jets operating over Yemen, Washington still provides training and military assistance to the coalition members.
The UN has also failed to provide a peaceful solution to the conflict in Yemen with its attempts at advocating for a humanitarian corridor on the Hudaydah–Sana’a highway in December last year not being effective.
War crimes
UN investigators had recently accused the Saudi-led coalition of multiple war crimes like launching air strikes on civilian targets, torture, rape of civilians and use of child soldiers. The UN has claimed Saudi and UAE air strikes have caused the largest number of civilian casualties. The Saudi forces were noted as being uncooperative with investigators on questions over their targeting procedures. The coalition has also been accused of failing to consult its own 'no strike list', which includes over 30,000 places in Yemen such as refugee camps and hospitals.
The response
Beyond the UN, no government or organisation has done much to alleviate the plight of the Yemeni people. The Saudi coalition has continued to perform air strikes in Yemen despite facing growing criticism and outrage from the international community.
The West has been reluctant to crack the whip on the Saudi coalition over the Yemen civil war given the intricacies of oil politics and the need to contain the spread of Iran's influence in the region.
Video: Shocking Suicide Drone Attack on Military Parade Kills Several Soldiers (Newsweek) By David Brennan January 10, 2019
Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked a loyalist military parade Thursday, using a suicide drone that killed at least six soldiers and injured another 12.
The audacious attack, which was captured on video by a bystander, targeted the al-Anad base in the country’s southern Lahj Province, the BBC reported.
Among those injured were Army Chief of Staff General Abdullah al-Nakhi and Lahj Governor Ahmed Abdullah, according to Sky News Arabia.
The video—published by Agence France Presse—appears to show a single drone buzzing down a covered stand in which military personnel were sitting. It then exploded high above the structure, showering file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
those below with shrapnel and debris. As troops scatter in confusion, at least one man can be seen with blood pouring from a wound to the back of his shoulder.
The Houthi-backed Al-Masirah television station said the attack had targeted officials of the Saudi Arabia-led alliance, which is fighting the Houthis on behalf of the Yemeni government. Local hospital sources confirmed the casualty figures to AFP.
According to the Middle East Eye, the al-Anad facility is Yemen’s largest air base. It served as a headquarters for U.S. drones in Washington’s campaign against Al-Qaeda in Yemen until March 2014, when it was captured by the Houthis. Loyalist forces retook the base in 2015 with the assistance of the Saudi-led coalition.
The Houthis have regularly used drone and missile attacks in their war against the Yemeni government and its well-armed Saudi-led backers. They vowed in November to halt such attacks to adhere to a United Nations-brokered cease-fire around the strategic port city of Hodeidah, but tensions have risen once more over how to implement the deal.
Yemen’s information minister, Moammar al-Eryani, said the drone attack showed the Houthis are “not ready for peace.” He called on “the international community to stand by the legitimate government and force the militias to give up their weapons and pull out of the cities.”
As many as 56,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project—an independent monitoring group. The United Nations' estimated toll is far lower at around 10,000, though this figure has been disputed. Millions more have been left starving as airstrikes destroy vital infrastructure and military campaigns cut key supply routes.
The Iranian-backed Houthis make up around one-third of the Yemeni population and follow a Shiite Islam sect known as Zaydism. Former rulers of the country, the tribe was deposed in the early 1960s.
After six unsuccessful uprisings between 2004 and 2009 and following the upheaval of the Arab Spring, the Houthis left their heartland in the northwest of the country and seized the capital Sana'a in September 2014, forcing President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to agree to a power-sharing deal.
Plans to federalize the country led to further violence, with the Houthis seizing the presidential compound and establishing an interim revolutionary government over which they had full control. When Hadi escaped from house arrest in 2015, full-scale civil war erupted.
The Saudi-led coalition joined the war in 2015, arguing that the Houthis are a proxy force for Riyadh’s arch-rival Iran. The United Arab Emirates is also a key member of the alliance.
Western nations, including the U.S. and U.K., have given the coalition significant logistics and intelligence support, despite suggestions that its widespread and reckless airstrikes constitute war crimes. Support includes supplying state-of-the-art weaponry and assisting in airstrike target selection.
UN Special Envoy Griffiths Notes Progress In Yemeni Peace Process (UrduPoint) By Fahad Shabbir January 12, 2019
UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths in an interview with Sputnik noted progress in the settlement of the military conflict between the country's government and the rebel Houthi movement.
"We had people on the ground on the 22nd of December, this was eight days after the Stockholm agreement. The team was there by then and they have been there ever since. So I think we're making progress and the Security Council very much in consensus came to the same conclusion ... We're making progress let's stick with it," Griffiths said.
The UN envoy noted it was difficult to establish a ceasefire across the whole Al Hudaydah area, which saw violent clashes for years, under the truce agreement recently reached by the Yemeni warring parties in Sweden, since this deal was the first agreement of such kind concluded by the parties in two years.
Griffiths noted that the members of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC), including both conflicting sides, which is in charge of overseeing the truce implementation, were working in Al
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Hudaydah.
"I hope we will get operational plan for the deployment in the next day or two ... The parties are voluntarily committed to this, and they keep saying that they will do that, so we hope that it will work," Griffiths pointed out.
When asked if the so-called Astana format, which is used for the Syrian crisis settlement, could be used for the resolution of the Yemeni conflict, Griffiths said he did not think the Yemeni peace process needed this option.
"We have a perfectly straightforward arrangement which the UN and myself, in this case, mediate between the parties, and there will be more rounds of negotiations in the coming months. Diplomats are present as they were in Sweden, and as they happen in all rounds of previous negotiations before my time. And so it strikes me that we don't have a problem of format, what we have is a challenge of will to make agreements happen," the diplomat explained.
In December, the Yemeni warring parties met for the UN-sponsored talks in Stockholm. Apart from reaching the deal on the ceasefire in Al Hudaydah, they agreed to implement various humanitarian measures, including the exchange of prisoners of war and setting up humanitarian corridors.
The Yemeni conflict has been raging since 2015. The government has been supported by an international Saudi-led coalition in the war. The conflict has brought the country on a brink of humanitarian catastrophe. Moreover, UN experts suggested that all the involved parties might have been complicit in war crimes.
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Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Official Website of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon In Focus: Special Tribunal for Lebanon (UN)
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Israel and Palestine
IDF strikes Hamas posts in Gaza after explosive flown into Israel (The Times of Israel) By Judah Ari Gross January 6, 2019
The Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip on Sunday in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said.
On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a drone-like glider device, landing in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon.
In retaliation for the cross-border attack from Gaza, Israeli military helicopters attacked two observation posts east of Khan Younis that are controlled by the coastal enclave’s Hamas rulers, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“IDF attack helicopters struck two military positions belonging to the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza
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Strip in response to the balloon-borne explosive device, which was launched by a model drone,” the army said.
In addition to the posts near Khan Younis, Palestinian media reported that the IDF had attacked targets near Jabalia, in northern Gaza, and in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, in the central Strip. The IDF refused to comment on those reports.
The military did not say who it believed flew the bomb into southern Israel, but said it held Hamas responsible as the rulers of Gaza.
“The IDF will continue to act in defense of the citizens of Israel and against terrorism from the Strip,” the army said.
Though similar to a drone in appearance, the balloon-borne device was apparently not capable of flight.
The name of a Gazan engineering college was printed on the side of the model drone.
Police said the device exploded as a bomb disposal robot examined it. The drone lookalike was then carried away.
“No injuries were caused; the investigation continues,” police said.
It was not immediately clear how the device made it across the border without being shot down by the IDF.
The police reiterated calls to Israelis to contact law enforcement if they see suspicious objects.
The discovery came after a week-long lull in airborne arson attempts from Gaza.
Gaza protesters have launched hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel over the past nine months, sparking fires that have destroyed forests, burned crops, and killed livestock. Thousands of acres of land have been burned, causing millions of shekels in damages, according to Israeli officials. Some balloons have also carried improvised explosive devices.
Five Israeli Soldiers Arrested for Allegedly Beating Detained Palestinians Out of Revenge (Haaretz) By Yaniv Kubovich January 10, 2019
The military police arrested an Israeli platoon commander and four combat soldiers Wednesday under suspicion of beating two Palestinian detainees whom they had caught.
One of the detainees was so badly pummeled that he could not be interrogated, and needed medical care.
The investigators interrogated them and will ask a military judge to extend their arrest.
The military police is checking whether the soldiers were motivated by revenge following the shooting attack in Givat Assaf, where two soldiers from their battalion were killed.
In November, military prosecutors charged a soldier from the Home Front Command’s rescue unit with assaulting a blindfolded, handcuffed Palestinian detainee.
In September, a Palestinian died after being beaten by the Israeli military, according to testimony, although the IDF denied the claim.
Israel Strikes Hamas Targets; Palestinian Woman Said Killed in Gaza Protests (Haaretz) By Jack Khoury January 13, 2019
Israel struck two Hamas targets on Friday after violent protests at the fence separating Israel and the Gaza Strip, in which Gaza authorities said a Palestinian woman was killed and at least 14 other people were wounded by Israeli fire.
Some 13,000 people gathered near the fence at several points, where they burned tires, threw stones and
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tossed explosive devices and grenades toward Israeli troops, the military said. One soldier was lightly wounded by a stone.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian attempted a stabbing in Kiryat Arba, a West Bank settlement near Hebron, and was shot and wounded, the military said.
The protests came a day after a delegation of senior Egyptian intelligence officials began holding talks with senior members of Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip with the goal of preventing an escalation of violence both inside the Gaza Strip and along the border fence with Israel.
The delegation met on Friday with the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh. On Thursday they met with senior Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip Ahmad Halas and other Fatah officials.
The Egyptian delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip from Israel via the Erez crossing because of the growing tensions between Hamas and Fatah, after the Palestinian Authority pulled its employees from the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The PA government is also threatening to take further steps against the Hamas government in Gaza.
Hamas also criticized the cancellation of the third cash payment by Qatar to the group, which uses the money to pay the salaries of its officials, as unemployment payments and grants to those injured in the incidents along the border.
Hamas views these funds as the direct result of the fighting along the fence and the weekly protests, so freezing these funds can be expected to lead to an escalation of the violence and confrontations on the part of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The talks with the Egyptian delegation on Friday will also have an impact on the scope of the marches along the border fence that are scheduled to begin Friday afternoon, said sources within Hamas.
Israel's Top Court Won't Rehear Case on Eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem (Haaretz) By Nir Hasson January 13, 2019
The Supreme Court refused Thursday to rehear the case of a Palestinian family facing eviction from its East Jerusalem home in favor of Jewish settlers.
The Sabbagh family, numbering some 40 people, has been ordered to leave its home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood by January 23. The court had previously upheld the eviction, but the family had asked it to rehear the case with an expanded panel of justices.
The Sabbaghs are refugees from Jaffa, where their original family home still stands. But under Israeli law, Palestinians — unlike Jews — cannot reclaim property abandoned during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.
Since 1956, the Sabbaghs have lived in Sheikh Jarrah, in a building built on land owned by Jews prior to 1948. In 2003, a company called Nahalat Shimon, which is registered overseas, bought the land from its original Jewish owners. The company’s Israeli representative, veteran settler activist Tzahi Mamo, then began proceedings to evict the Palestinian residents.
In 2009, the company managed to evict three Palestinian families from the neighborhood, but this sparked international protests, as well as ongoing weekly protests in the neighborhood. The protests halted further evictions for a time, but about six months ago, another family was evicted.
The Sabbaghs have been fighting eviction proceedings since 2008. In November, the Supreme Court rejected their final appeal, which sought to reopen the question of whether the original Jewish owners actually owned the land, based on documents the Sabbaghs’ lawyer obtained from Ottoman archives in Turkey. Justices Daphne Barak-Erez, Yael Willner and Alex Stein refused to even discuss the substance of this claim, saying it was made too belatedly, given that the land was registered in Nahalat Shimon’s name 15 years ago.
The Sabbaghs then asked Supreme Court President Esther Hayut to rehear the case, including the land ownership issue, with an expanded panel of justices. But on Thursday, Hayut turned down this request, saying the original ruling contained no legal innovation or anything else that would justify a rehearing.
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Hayut’s decision is expected to pave the way not just for the Sabbaghs’ eviction, but also for the eviction of many other families in the neighborhood. The Sabbaghs were thought to have the best chance of winning a court case, given the documents they had obtained.
“Once again, families from Sheikh Jarrah are facing eviction and a second refugeehood,” said the family’s lawyer, Sami Ersheid. “In Israeli courts, which refrain from hearing the residents’ just and substantive arguments, people are sentenced to refugeehood on procedural grounds.”
The eviction is “the first practical result of the Supreme Court’s decisions, which have effectively allowed Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan’s Batan al-Hawa to be emptied of its residents,” added Eyal Raz, a left-wing activist who has been helping the Sabbaghs, referring to another East Jerusalem neighborhood. “This is move with enormously destructive ramifications, which should and still can be stopped.”
Palestinian Boy, 14, Dies of Bullet Wounds Sustained in Gaza Border Clashes (Haaretz) By Jack Khoury January 14, 2019
A 14-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot by Israeli forces during protests along the Gaza-Israel border on Friday has died, Gaza's Health Ministry announced on Monday morning.
Abd a-Rauf Ismail Salehah was hit in the head by live fire in clashes east of Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip. He was taken to hospital in critical condition and was pronounced dead on Monday.
Authorities in Gaza said on Friday that a Palestinian woman was killed by Israeli fire during violent clashes along the border, and over 10 other people were wounded. Some 13,000 people gathered near the fence at several points, where they burned tires, threw stones and tossed explosive devices and grenades toward Israeli troops, the Israeli military said. One soldier was lightly wounded by a stone.
Palestinian authorities said on Sunday that Anwar Mohammed Qadih, 33, who was severely wounded by Israeli fire east of Khan Yunis last month, succumbed to his wounds.
Israel struck two Hamas targets after Friday's protests, and a projectile was fired at Israel from Gaza on Friday overnight. In response, Israeli aircraft struck subterranean Hamas targets on Saturday night, the military said.
The protests came a day after a delegation of senior Egyptian intelligence officials began holding talks with senior members of Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip with the goal of preventing an escalation of violence both inside the Gaza Strip and along the border fence with Israel.
The delegation met on Friday with the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, to discuss the growing tensions between Hamas and Fatah and the cancelation of the third cash payment by Qatar to Hamas. On Thursday they met with senior Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip Ahmad Halas and other Fatah officials.
Abbas Asks for UN Protective Force Against Israel Prior to Chairing G77 (The Jerusalem Post) By Tovah Lazaroff and Khaled Abu Toameh January 14, 2019
The United Nations must provide the Palestinians with an international protection force, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in New York on Monday, a day before taking over the chairmanship of the Group of 77, the largest bloc of United Nation member states.
Abbas held talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and briefed him on the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue and “dangerous Israeli violations” against Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, the PA’s official Wafa news agency reported.
During the meeting, Abbas stressed the need to implement the UN General Assembly and Security Council’s resolutions, “particularly the secretary-general’s report regarding providing international protection for the Palestinians, as well as his reports concerning the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, specifically with regards to the illegal Israeli practices and the settlements.”
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In June 2018, the General Assembly adopted a resolution that called on Israel to refrain from the use of excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force against Palestinians.
It also deplored the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli civilian areas and requested the UN secretary-general to submit a report outlining proposals on ways to ensure the safety of Palestinians, including an international protection mechanism.
The report, which was submitted in August 2018, calls, among other things, for a more robust UN presence on the ground and the deployment of UN observers to report on protection and the well-being of Palestinians, as well as providing local mediation, especially at checkpoints and areas close to the settlements.
The UN Resolution 2334, which was adopted in December 2016, stated that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has no “legal validity.”
The meeting in New York was attended by PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat, PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki, Abbas’s diplomatic affairs adviser Majdi al-Khaldi and PLO Ambassador to the UN Riad Mansour.
Also on Monday, Abbas met with UN General Assembly president María Fernanda Garcés of Ecuador and briefed her, too, on the latest developments in the Palestinian arena.
In October, the UN General Assembly held a special vote to temporarily elevate the Palestinians’ status at the UN, so that it could take over the rotating chairmanship of the G77 for 2019.
The move provides the Palestinians with an emotional boost, as their efforts to attain UN membership remain stymied.
The Palestinians have the status of a non-member state at the UN, and would have been disqualified from the chairmanship without a vote.
The G77, however, has recognized Palestine as a member state since 1976.
The group of developing nations, the G77, was first created in 1964 to advance the economic interests of developing countries, but has since expanded to include 134 of the UN’s 193 member states.
Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley attacked the Palestinian chairmanship of the G77, stating that “the Palestinians are not a UN member state or any state at all.”
She added at the time that the move encouraged “the illusion held by some Palestinian leaders that they can advance their goals without direct peace negotiations. In fact, today’s vote does nothing to help the Palestinian people.”
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Gulf Region
Saudi prosecutors to seek death penalties in Khashoggi murder case (CBS News) January 3, 2019
Saudi prosecutors will seek the death penalty for at least five people in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom's state media reported on Thursday as 11 suspects attended their first court hearing. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing and did not name the suspects. However, a statement from prosecutors said the suspects attended the hearing with their lawyers.
The statement also said that prosecutors sent a request to Turkey for evidence that Ankara has collected
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over the Oct. 2 slaying of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
"No response has been received to date and the Public Prosecutor's Office is still waiting for an answer," the statement said.
Officials in Turkey could not be immediately reached for comment. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Khashoggi's killing.
Khashoggi had written columns critical of Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The kingdom initially denied Khashoggi was killed, but changed its story and acknowledged his slaying weeks later.
The royal family continues to deny that any senior members -- most notably the crown prince or his father King Salman -- had knowledge of the operation to kill Khashoggi.
While President Donald Trump has declined to pin the murder on anyone higher up than the suspects named by Saudi Arabia, the CIA has intelligence which substantiates an assessment that the crown prince himself ordered the killing.
Mr. Trump's decision not to reprimand the Saudi leadership over the U.S.-based journalist's killing prompted significant backlash in Washington for the Senate to pass bi-partisan measures blaming Crown Prince Salman for the crime and calling on the president to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Turkish media has published pictures of members of the crown prince's entourage at the consulate ahead of the slaying. Khashoggi's body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found.
Qatar rules out ties with war ‘criminal’ Assad (Middle East Online) January 14, 2019
Qatar's foreign minister ruled out on Monday the possibility of re-opening an embassy in Damascus, in line with some other Gulf countries, calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a war criminal.
"Normalisation (of relations) with the Syrian regime at this stage is the normalisation of a person involved in war crimes, and this should not be acceptable," said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani at a Doha press conference.
Al-Thani said the reasons why Assad -- who was elected unopposed in 2000 and has stayed in power during nearly eight years of civil war -- was excluded from the international community are still in place.
He added that Damascus under Assad should not be allowed back into the Arab League -- its membership was suspended in 2011 -- as "the Syrian people are still under bombardment... by the Syrian regime".
His comments come after Gulf neighbours the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced late last month they reopened their Damascus embassies.
The UAE's foreign minister Anwar Gargash tweeted that his country was doing so in part because of the influence of Iran and one of Qatar's strongest allies, Turkey, in Syria.
Tehran has been a staunch supporter of Assad's government and has expanded its military footprint in Syria throughout the course of the conflict.
That move also emphasised the foreign policy differences between the three Gulf states.
For the past 19 months Qatar has been in a deep diplomatic dispute with the UAE and Bahrain, in part over the direction of Doha's regional foreign policy in recent years.
Qatar has been instrumental in the Syrian civil war supplying weapons to rebel groups, according to institutions such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Syria's opposition leader Nasr al-Hariri has pleaded with Arab leaders not to rebuild relation with Assad as his government now controls almost two-thirds of the country following military backing from Russia
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and Iran. Al-Thani was speaking at a press conference announcing Qatar had agreed to commit $20 million (17.5 million euros) to an African Union fund to help cover costs to return illegal African refugees stranded in crisis-hit Libya in north Africa to their home countries.
AU chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said the money was vitally needed.
"I hope this is the beginning for a solution to a very, very difficult issue," he said.
"Since last year, we have brought back 30,000 migrants from Libya to their own countries, but the number is bigger than that."
The issue of migrants departing from Libya, particular to Europe, has become a major political and social headache for several countries.
Italy's interior ministry said this month that some 23,270 people landed in Italy in 2018, most of whom had set off from Libya.
No letup in Saudi crackdown on dissent, and no pushback from Trump administration (NBC News) By Dan De Luce January 14, 2019
Saudi Arabia shows no sign of easing up on its crackdown against dissent and the Trump administration remains reluctant to punish the kingdom over its alleged abuses, including the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, former U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and human rights groups told NBC News.
In the run-up to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Riyadh on Sunday, the Trump administration expressed praise for the kingdom’s role in the region and issued no warnings of any further sanctions over the Khashoggi case — or other reported rights abuses.
Pompeo met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the palace for about 45 minutes on Monday, though it was unclear how much was one-on-one and how much included officials.
In a speech Thursday in Cairo, Pompeo spoke of restoring U.S. leadership in the region but did not mention human rights or refer to the killing of Khashoggi. The CIA has assessed that bin Salman ordered his murder.
Experts and former officials say Pompeo’s failure to address human rights abuses broke with a decades- long American diplomatic tradition and represented a missed opportunity to deliver a tough message that Washington would not turn a blind eye to the trampling of civil liberties in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the Middle East.
“They've made it clear they're going to stand behind MBS,” said Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch, referring to the crown prince.
While Pompeo and other U.S. officials might privately convey to Riyadh their concerns over Khashoggi’s murder, Prasow said it’s hard to see how that would have an effect “because Mohammed bin Salman has a very strong basis to assume that the U.S. will not alter its behavior regardless of what he does.”
Before arriving in Riyadh, the secretary of state said Sunday the U.S. would ensure there is "full and complete" accountability for Khashoggi’s murder.
"We will continue to talk about that and make sure we have all the facts so that they are held accountable certainly by the Saudis but by the U.S. as well where appropriate," Pompeo said in Doha.
Bin Salman has denied any role in the death and Saudi authorities have put 11 suspects on trial for the killing.
But the U.S. government believes the crown prince remains in communication with Saud al-Qahtani, an adviser to bin Salman who the CIA suspects organized the assassination of Khashoggi. The Washington Post first reported the two were in contact. Qahtani was fired from his post in the wake of the Khashoggi killing.
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2018, the kingdom launched a sweeping crackdown on all forms of political criticism, targeting activists, women’s rights advocates, academics and prominent clerics, according to human rights groups and former U.S. officials.
Even in a country with a dismal human rights record, the government’s clampdown in recent years has marked a dramatic plunge into repression, with dozens — possibly hundreds — imprisoned and tortured for actions that might have earned them a brief detention in the past, according to human rights groups and former U.S. officials.
“Saudi Arabia has always been a gross violator of human rights, but the level of repression under Mohammed bin Salman and the reach of the kingdom’s security services and their willingness to follow citizens around the world seems to have increased significantly,“ said Philippe Nassif of Amnesty International.
The campaign has coincided with the rise of bin Salman in the kingdom’s leadership, culminating with his elderly father, King Salman, naming him crown prince in June 2017. The crown prince, or MBS, has portrayed himself as a visionary reformer but he has shown an intolerance for criticism or independent- minded public figures. His adviser, Qahtani, who oversaw a cyber security office, also played a pivotal role in the repression, rights groups and U.S. officials say.
The long list of political prisoners currently behind bars includes a group of women’s rights activists who pushed for an end to the ban on women driving. The activists were rounded up shortly before the ban was lifted last June.
Four of them have been subjected to torture, sexual harassment and sexual assault, according to Human Rights Watch and other rights advocates, which cited informed sources that asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
Saudi authorities allegedly administered electric shocks, whipped the women on their thighs, and forced them to hug and kiss, Human Rights Watch said.
Following the interrogations, the women allegedly showed physical signs of torture, including difficulty walking, uncontrolled shaking of the hands, and red marks and scratches on their faces and necks.
Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations. But Saudi officials also initially denied Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate in Istanbul.
An independent Saudi group that monitors human rights in Saudi Arabia, ALQST, reported that two of the detained female activists saw the crown prince’s longtime adviser, Qahtani, in the building where the torture was being carried out.
The imprisoned female activists include Samar Badawi, who campaigned for women’s voting rights and an end to male guardianship laws that require women to obtain permission from a male family member before traveling abroad, obtaining a passport or getting married. In 2012, the State Department gave her the U.S. International Women of Courage Award, which was presented by then-first lady Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Even the mother of the Saudi crown prince has had her movements restricted at times, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News earlier this year. The officials said intelligence showed MBS has often blocked her from seeing the king and even put his mother under house arrest for a period, as he feared she could undermine his grab for power.
Saudi Arabia’s official discrimination against women surpasses that of other conservative Islamic countries in the Gulf, rights advocates say, and recent cases of young Saudi women seeking asylum abroad have highlighted their plight.
Eighteen-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun barricaded herself in her hotel room in Bangkok this month to avoid being deported. She appealed for asylum on Twitter, saying she was fleeing abuse by her family.
The U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees took up her case and eventually Canada granted her asylum, with Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland greeting her after she landed in Toronto on Saturday, introducing her as “a very brave new Canadian.” Although Saudi Arabia has never allowed anything
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approaching freedom of expression, under the crown prince’s influence, the space for permissible public debate has come under unprecedented pressure. Saudi authorities are now requesting the death penalty for relatively routine cases of political dissent and public figures have faced punishment in some cases not for critical remarks, but merely for failing to rally behind the regime, experts said.
Salman al-Awda, a cleric with a large following, was allegedly punished because he failed to follow an order from Saudi authorities to tweet a specific text to support the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, his relative told rights organizations. Instead, he called for reconciliation with Qatar.
“Dissent today is not about voicing your opposition to policies or opposition to the regime. If you’re a public figure it becomes about you not actively supporting the regime,” said Yasmine Farouk, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A Saudi group that tries to track political prisoners, Prisoners of Conscience, estimated last September that there are more than 2,600 Saudi dissidents in detention.
Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Apart from imposing sanctions on 17 individuals over the Khashoggi murder, President Donald Trump has signaled no plans to review the U.S. alliance with Riyadh, suspend any arms sales or pursue any more punitive measures. Instead, the president has touted the importance of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, citing its purchases of U.S. military hardware, its oil riches and its strong opposition to Iran.
Former U.S. officials and regional experts say failing to put Saudi Arabia on notice could end up backfiring badly, and produce yet more violent extremism. By choking off any avenue for peaceful dissent, the Saudi regime could incubate future terrorists, who will seek to target both the Saudi royal family and its patrons in Washington, Farouk said.
But the Khashoggi killing, along with Saudi Arabia’s disastrous military campaign in Yemen, has triggered outrage among both Republican and Democrats in Congress that could have long-term consequences for the kingdom. Lawmakers from both parties have vowed to push for legislation that would cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, impose mandatory sanctions for those responsible for Khashoggi’s death and require a U.S. government report on perpetrators of war crimes in Yemen.
Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Congress is committed to holding Saudi Arabia to account and that lawmakers would be watching closely for how Pompeo handles his visit to Riyadh. “I sincerely hope he refuses to play fast and loose with language giving the Saudis a free pass on these critical issues,” Menendez told NBC News. “He should not use his visit as another empty photo op.”
Pompeo Says He Pressed Saudi Leader on War and Rights Abuses (The New York Times) By Edward Wong January 14, 2019
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he pressed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on Monday on a range of thorny issues — including war, murder, diplomatic rifts and human rights abuses — that have weakened the American-Saudi alliance and increased tensions among Arab nations.
At the same time, Mr. Pompeo reaffirmed the two nations’ shared goal of opposing Iranian policies in the Middle East.
“I want to talk to you about a couple of places we’ve been,” Mr. Pompeo told Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, at the start of their morning meeting at the royal palace. “We think we learned a lot along the way that will be important going forward.”
Prince Mohammed, apparently sensing the delicate political situation, said, “We’ll try to add more positivity to your trip, as much as we can. And we’ll try to cooperate more.”
Mr. Pompeo has been traveling through the Arab world since leaving Washington on Jan. 7, and Saudi Arabia is the most important stop on the trip.
At each stop, Mr. Pompeo has talked about the importance of countering Iran, a country whose Shiite
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Muslim government is often at odds with the Sunni Muslim rulers of many nations in the region.
“We certainly talked about our effort to counter Iranian malign influence,” Mr. Pompeo said at a news conference at the airport before flying to Oman, his final stop.
Saudi Arabia is Iran’s main rival and an old American ally — as well as the United States’ biggest buyer of arms — though Prince Mohammed’s actions are roiling the region and unsettling the kingdom’s relationship with the United States.
On Monday morning, Mr. Pompeo left Al Faisaliah Hotel in central Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with a list of problems to discuss with Prince Mohammed and his father, King Salman.
The list included the killing by Saudi agents in October of Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken Saudi dissident who lived in Virginia; the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, a crucial military partner of the United States; and the Saudi-led air war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with many Yemenis starving.
The United States Embassy in Riyadh wrote on Twitter that Mr. Pompeo and Prince Mohammed had agreed Monday on the “need for de-escalation and adherence” to agreements reached at peace talks in Sweden over the Yemen war.
Mr. Pompeo insisted on upholding the cease-fire and pullback of forces in the port city of Hudaydah, the embassy said. “A comprehensive political solution is the only way to end the conflict,” it said.
Human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia are also under the international spotlight. On Sunday, The New York Times published an Op-Ed by Alia al-Houthlal, the sister of a women’s rights activist imprisoned in Riyadh, Loujain al-Houthlal, beseeching Mr. Pompeo to ask Prince Mohammed for the release of her sister.
Ms. Houthlal wrote that her sister had been tortured in prison, and that a close associate of the prince, Saud al-Qahtani, who has been implicated in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, was present at several torture sessions.
Over the weekend, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, an 18-year-old Saudi woman who had fled the kingdom, arrived in Canada after being granted asylum there.
She has talked of the plight of women in Saudi Arabia and the oppressive system of male guardianship over women, despite Prince Mohammed’s promotion of more liberal social policies in some areas.
Mr. Pompeo said he had spoken to Prince Mohammed about concerns over the imprisonment of women’s rights activists. “Their commitment was that the process, the lawful judicial process here, would take place,” he said. “They understand the concerns that some have.”
But many of the most prominent activists being held have not been charged with any crimes, making it unclear what process Mr. Pompeo was referring to. Critics also question the independence of the judiciary in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s few absolute monarchies, where few trials are open to the public or the news media.
Amid the growing criticism of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump has voiced his backing of Prince Mohammed, 33, who has secured power in the kingdom by ousting his rivals, including detaining other members of the royal family in the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.
But many other American officials, including in the State Department, Pentagon, C.I.A. and Congress, have been more circumspect and increasingly view the prince as an unreliable partner.
The visit with Prince Mohammed on Monday was the first for Mr. Pompeo since an emergency trip in October, as the diplomatic crisis over the murder of Mr. Khashoggi was ballooning. In his previous visit, Mr. Pompeo flew to Riyadh and posed for photographs in which he shook hands with the prince and smiled, drawing intense criticism for the images of bonhomie.
Since then, Mr. Pompeo has had regular calls with the prince, said a former American official.
Mr. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit team while visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, Turkish officials have said. The C.I.A. assessed that Prince Mohammed had ordered file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
the killing.
President Trump has declined to endorse that finding and has said the United States would continue its relationship with Saudi Arabia and with the prince, who is close to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in- law and main Middle East adviser.
Mr. Pompeo said at the Monday news conference that both the prince and his father, King Salman, acknowledged in separate meetings at the palace that the Saudi government needed to show accountability for the murder. Yet Mr. Pompeo declined to answer a question about how his demands square with the C.I.A.’s conclusion that Prince Mohammed was behind the assassination.
Middle East experts working in the State Department have concluded that the Saudis have not met the threshold of accountability yet.
A Saudi court has begun trial proceedings for 11 suspects in the Khashoggi case, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of them. In October, the government said it had arrested 18 people, and it is unclear what has happened to the other seven.
The Saudi government has also removed a few senior officials from their posts, including Mr. Qahtani, the close associate of the prince who directed the kingdom’s social media efforts.
When pressed by a reporter about Prince Mohammed’s conduct, Mr. Pompeo ultimately said that Saudi Arabia’s “leaders are going to act in their country’s interests.”
“That’s their obligation, the same way mine is to act in America’s best interests,” he said. Given the darkening views on Saudi Arabia in the West, it will be difficult for the Trump administration to avoid scrutiny of the relationship, and for Prince Mohammed to overhaul his image, said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“There’s a narrative that a dictatorship is emerging where there was once a monarchy,” he said. “This is a very, very damaging narrative.”
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ASIA
Afghanistan
Marine deemed falsely accused of war crimes is recommended for higher retired rank (Stars and Stripes) By John Vandiver January 4, 2019
A retired Marine Corps officer whose career was damaged after his unit was falsely accused in 2007 of war crimes in Afghanistan should have his rank elevated and be awarded back pay for damages, a Navy board has determined.
The Navy’s Board for Correction of Naval Records determined there were extensive errors in performance reports for Maj. Fred Galvin stemming from a 2007 firefight in Afghanistan and a separate review in 2011. As a result, Galvin was passed over for promotion to lieutenant colonel.
The board, in an October ruling that was approved Wednesday by the Navy, recommended that Galvin be assigned the retired rank of lieutenant colonel and receive commensurate back pay.
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The next step is for a special selection board to assemble and make a final determination on the promotion, according to the Navy board’s report.
Galvin said his ultimate hope is to return to uniform after being forced into retirement in 2014.
“I would like to continue to serve,” Galvin said. “God bless the people on this (board) for standing up for us. This is a huge step forward.”
For a decade, the Marines of a special operations unit called Fox Company have been dogged by allegations of misconduct in connection with the death of civilians in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Galvin and his company were cleared of wrongdoing by a military court of inquiry. But members of the unit struggled to clear their reputations, which they say were tarnished by initial news reports of civilian carnage and a lack of subsequent support from the Marine Corps.
“These Marines didn’t do anything wrong,” Galvin said in a phone interview Friday. “But nobody in uniform has ever stood up and said these Marines didn’t kill civilians. Nobody in uniform ever stood up for us.”
The 2007 incident in Afghanistan involved Marines patrolling in the Bati Kot district when their six- vehicle convoy was attacked by a car bomb and then ambushed. A firefight ensued and news stories quickly surfaced that the Marines had targeted and killed as many as 19 Afghan civilians.
“We saw no civilians killed at all,” Galvin said during a congressional hearing in 2017 focused on clearing the names of Marines.
At the time of the ambush, the U.S. military was under pressure to minimize civilian casualties as part of its campaign against the Taliban. The incident sparked a street protest, condemnation from former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and threatened to complicate the war effort.
The Marines were pulled out of the country and the Pentagon publicly apologized for the incident even though an investigation was underway.
While the Marines were later cleared, some of their careers suffered, including Galvin’s.
In addition to correcting performance reviews from the 2007 incident, the Navy board also called for another correction in Galvin’s record from 2011 when he was relieved of duty for questioning his commander’s excessive use of ordnance during a deployment in Afghanistan. The incident resulted in a career-ending performance review.
“The commanding officer made a judgement call. I questioned him and he relieved me for questioning the judgment of a commanding officer,” Galvin said.
The Navy board determined that Galvin was correct to challenge the commanding officer’s “demonstrated disregard for Marines and Afghan civilians through his choice of weapons systems,” the report said.
“Punishing a Marine for doing the lawful and morally correct thing is simply unjust,” the Navy board said.
Meanwhile, Galvin said the Corps’ continued failure to speak up publicly in defense of Marines is damaging.
“When this kind of stuff happens it is a moral hazard,” Galvin said. “God bless these people on the panel for standing up. This is a huge step forward.”
New Afghan Defense Minister Should Face Investigation, Sanctions (Human Rights Watch) By Brad Adams January 12, 2019
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s appointment in December of Asadullah Khalid as defense minister should have rung alarm bells not only in Kabul, but in the capitals of Afghanistan’s major donors. That it didn’t says a lot about how little human rights matter to an increasingly shaky government, and to donors looking file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
for an exit from the long Afghan war.
Credible evidence of serious human rights abuses and war crimes linked to Khalid have followed him throughout his government career. Reports first came to light during Khalid’s tenure as governor of Kandahar – a time when thousands of Canadian troops were based in the province. An official internal Canadian document described the allegations of human rights abuses attributable to Khalid as “numerous and consistent.” Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin testified to a Canadian parliamentary commission in 2009 that Khalid perpetrated enforced disappearances and held people in private prisons. The testimony included evidence of Khalid’s personal involvement in the torture of detainees. Chris Alexander, a senior Canadian official working with the United Nations in Afghanistan at the time, alleged that Khalid ordered the killing of five UN workers in a roadside bombing in Kandahar in April 2007.
There is also strong evidence directly implicating Khalid in acts of sexual violence against women and girls when he was governor of Ghazni and Kandahar. Khalid allegedly threatened his victims, saying “they would be killed and their families destroyed if they told anyone what had happened.”
Ghani’s opportunistic and callous move in appointing Khalid appears aimed to score short-term gains in the upcoming presidential election. Khalid had enjoyed the protection of former President Hamid Karzai; in 2009 a US official described Khalid as a “bag man” for the role he played buying votes for Karzai’s 2009 re-election effort.
The Afghan government has proved unwilling to criminally investigate Khalid, but Afghanistan’s donors can act. The US and Canada have authority under their respective Magnitsky laws to impose sanctions on any foreign official against whom there is credible evidence of responsibility for serious human rights abuses. These sanctions include freezing their assets and banning them from entry. The European Union and other donors should impose similar sanctions to send a clear message that returning a known human rights abuser to a position of authority is simply unacceptable.
Human Rights Watch calls for sanctions against new Afghan defense minister (Reuters) January 13, 2019
International rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged major donors to impose sanctions on Afghanistan’s newly appointed acting defense minister over alleged war crimes and human rights abuses.
President Ashraf Ghani’s decision last month to appoint the fiercely anti-Taliban Asadullah Khalid prompted an outcry from human rights organizations which accuse him of being involved in assassinations, torture and illicit drug business while serving as governor of Ghazni and later of southern Kandahar in 2005 and 2008.
“Credible evidence of serious human rights abuses and war crimes linked to Khalid have followed him throughout his government career,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Saturday.
Brad Adams, Asia Director at HRW called on donors including the United States and Canada to impose sanctions on Khalid, freeze his assets and ban him from entry.
“The European Union and other donors should impose similar sanctions to send a clear message that returning a known human rights abuser to a position of authority is simply unacceptable,” he said.
Khalid, , who barely survived a Taliban suicide attack shortly he took over the National Directorate for Security in 2012, denies the charges and says they are politically motivated.
An uncompromising opponent of the Taliban, Khalid accuses Pakistan of aiding the insurgent group, which Pakistan denies.
His appointment and that of fellow Taliban critic Amrullah Saleh as interior minister come amid growing momentum in talks between U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban representatives, who have resisted U.S. pressure to include Ghani’s government.
Critics say Khalid’s appointment will only complicate peace efforts after 17 years of conflict. It has also fueled accusations that Ghani was trying to neutralize potential opponents by bringing them onto his side
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ahead of the election.
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Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal
These Rohingya refugees actually want to return to Myanmar. The difference is they're Hindus (Los Angeles Times) By Vidya Krishnan January 6, 2019
In the world’s largest refugee camp, where 1.1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees reside, 105 families have been stranded — caught in a war that was not theirs.
Unlike the rest of the refugees, these families are Rohingya Hindus — a small minority within a minority that had lived peacefully for generations in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state alongside Muslims and members of the Buddhist majority.
In the violence that engulfed Rakhine beginning in August 2017 — when Rohingya Muslim militants attacked police checkpoints and the army responded by killing or maiming thousands of Muslim civilians — 99 Hindus were killed and burned in mass graves. The Hindu villages were attacked by members of a militant group called the Arakhan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, that was also responsible for the attacks against the police.
Hindus who survived fled in the only direction they could: across the Naf River and into Bangladesh’s sprawling refugee camps meant for Rohingya Muslims, the very people they blame for the violence against them.
Fifteen months into the crisis, the Hindus’ minority status has sharpened: While Rohingya Muslims have categorically rejected a plan that would repatriate the refugees, Hindus are ready to return to Myanmar, a view that has placed them at odds with the vast majority of people in the camps.
In May 2018, the United Nations struck a deal with the Myanmar government under which refugees would be allowed to return to Rakhine, although not necessarily to their original villages, many of which have reportedly been razed or occupied by Buddhists. The deal was widely criticized for not meeting the Rohingya Muslims’ main demands: a restoration of citizenship rights that they have been denied for decades, freedom of movement and guarantees of safety.
Within hours, the Hindu families were packed and ready to go. But many Muslim refugees protested the terms by striking from jobs they hold as teachers, health workers, translators and builders in the camps. Human rights group assailed the plan as unworkable.
The United Nations refugee agency has shelved the plan — a welcome move for the majority of refugees, but one that has pushed the Hindus to the edge of their endurance.
“We were told the repatriation process will begin Nov. 11,” said 50-year-old Jushna Pal, a mother of five. “We were told to be ready. Our bags have been packed since then.”
Muslims make up the vast majority of the more than 1 million ethnic Rohingya who once lived in Rakhine. Although many families trace their ancestry in Rakhine back several generations, Myanmar regards Rohingya Muslims as Bangladeshis who migrated there illegally and has denied them citizenship, freedom of movement and other basic rights, and frequently subjected them to state-backed violence. Hindus, by contrast, still hold citizenship in Myanmar and enjoyed greater rights there.
On Aug. 25, 2017, the same day that militant attacks on police checkpoints left 12 officers dead, masked assailants attacked the Hindu village of Fakirabad in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township. An Amnesty International report found that the attackers “robbed, bound, and blindfolded [villagers] before
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marching them to the outskirts of the village, where they separated the men from the women and young children.”
The report described the attackers as members of ARSA and said they later executed 53 Hindus, starting with the men. Another 46 Hindus were believed to have been killed in an attack in another village, Amnesty International said.
Far more widespread massacres occurred in Muslim villages, leading the U.N. to declare the Myanmar military campaign as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” More than 800,000 Rohingya fled across the border to Bangladesh, joining refugees who had fled earlier rounds of violence and swelling the populations of the makeshift camps along the southeastern border.
In Bangladesh, the more than 400 Hindu refugees, most of them children, live in a settlement known as Hindu Camp just outside one of the 27 refugee settlements that make up the sprawling Kutupalong and Balukhali complex. The Bangladesh government segregated the Hindus, who live under around-the-clock security in the only camp to have a constant police presence.
Families living in Hindu Camp are suspicious of outsiders and cagey with journalists. They detest their Rohingya Muslim neighbors, blaming them for their losses, for spawning the ARSA group and for opposing the repatriation plan.
The animosity is mutual: Many Rohingya Muslims accuse Hindus of benefiting from the violence, alleging that Hindu families that stayed behind took property and livestock that had belonged to Muslims. In September 2017, weeks after the mass arrivals into the camps, two Hindus were killed and nine admitted to hospitals after violence broke out between the refugees.
“It is terrifying to live like this,” said Shishu Sheel, a 32-year-old leader in the Hindu Camp. “We are under threat because we don’t blame the Myanmar government for the violence. It goes against the testimonies given by Rohingya Muslims.”
Bangladesh’s Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commission, which is responsible for the camps, said repatriating Hindus and not Muslims is not an option.
“We treat all refugees the same way and will not be prioritizing repatriation of the Hindu refugees over Rohingya Muslims,” said Shamimul Huq Pavel, the commission official who oversees the Hindu Camp.
The Hindu families have appealed to the Indian government for help, but so far New Delhi has provided only humanitarian aid and words of concern. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has also taken a tough line regarding Rohingya Muslims who fled to India, describing the estimated 40,000 refugees as a security threat and deporting a dozen of them back to Myanmar despite the threats against them.
Officials in India’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Sheel said the Hindu refugees expected more from Modi, a nationalist whose party has built a strong voter base by emphasizing the supremacy of India’s majority religion.
“India is a land for all Hindus. Mr. Modi is a Hindu. Why is he not helping us?” Sheel said.
The Hindu families say they are growing increasingly desperate and that if help doesn’t come soon, they will consider trying to sneak back across the Naf River into Myanmar, despite their fears of leaving their camp and of being shot or captured at the border by Myanmar soldiers who might mistake them for Muslims.
“We cannot live like this any longer,” said 35-year-old refugee Madhuram Pal. “The Muslim families are being prioritized, but no one is telling us when we will be sent back.”
US citizen of Bangladeshi origin arrested for 1971 'war crimes' (Al Jazeera) By David Bergman January 7, 2019
A United States citizen of Bangladeshi descent has been arrested in Bangladesh for allegedly committing war crimes, including "murder and rape", during the
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country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Mohamed Jubair Monir, 62, was arrested despite official documents purportedly showing he was only 13 when Bangladesh was liberated.
His family also claims he did not live in the country for most of the duration of the nine-month war.
Monir was picked up by the police on December 19 from his house in a village in Sunamganj district in north Bangladesh and is being held in Keraniganj jail on the outskirts of capital Dhaka.
His family said he was arrested on political grounds after meeting a leader from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) who contested the national elections held last month.
"Monir has been swept up in the hysteria of the recent Bangladeshi election, which has been widely condemned for their irregularities and human rights violations," said Jason Emert, the family's lawyer.
"[He] is innocent of the crimes and must be released immediately. His politically motivated arrest is an affront to the already tarnished democratic process in Bangladesh."
War crimes tribunal
Monir will be tried by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), a national court established by Bangladesh in 2010 to prosecute those accused of war crimes in 1971.
Bangladesh was formed in 1971 following a war with Pakistan since the then East Pakistan, initially called East Bengal, believed power was concentrated in the West.
An estimated 300,000 to three million people were killed and some 200,000 women raped during the war, cases related to which are now being heard by the ICT.
But the tribunal has been widely criticised by rights groups for lack of due process and bias, with one calling for the trials to be "suspended" because of "well-founded fears about fundamental unfairness in the pre-trial and trial stages".
The tribunal has convicted 75 men, sentencing 53 of them to death. Six of those death sentences have so far been carried out.
Prosecutor Zead-ul-Malum told Al Jazeera that Monir was accused of "killings, confinement, rape, arson, and looting" in the areas of Shala and Derai in Sunamganj during the 1971 war.
"He was a member of the Razakar Bahini," he said, referring to the force established by the Pakistani military to fight those who supported the creation of an independent Bangladesh.
Malum denied the prosecutors were targeting people linked to the opposition political parties.
"When we prosecute, we are guided by law and due process," he stated. "I will not prosecute anyone because of their politics. But those who committed crimes during 1971 will be prosecuted, whatever their political beliefs."
Malum said the investigation was almost over. "We are verifying some of the materials we have collected."
Monir's daughter Srabon Monir told Al Jazeera her father was a small businessman who had been living in the US since 1982 and became a US citizen in 1991.
"He rents two stores in Brooklyn in New York, where he lives and owns two farms, but he also has some business interests in Bangladesh, including an office block, a rice mill and a fishery," she said.
She said her father left New York on November 18, 2018 to travel to Bangladesh and was due to return on January 7.
"I received a call on December 18 from my uncle to say he had been arrested. I was shocked," she said.
'He was 13 years old in 1971'
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Srabon shared with Al Jazeera copies of her father's birth certificate, his US naturalisation certificate and passport to show he was born on January 3, 1958 and had just turned 13 when the war started.
"How could he have committed war crimes when he was 13 years of age?" she asked.
Srabon also said for most of the nine-month war, her father was not living in East Pakistan [later Bangladesh], where the conflict took place.
"Since 1969, when he was 11, he had been living with his uncle in Lahore in [then West] Pakistan, going to school there, and did not return to Bangladesh until October 1971, two months before the war ended," she said, though she did not have any evidence to back her claim.
On Monir's age and location during the 1971 war, ICT prosecutor Malum said, "He may claim this. If they have any facts, his lawyer can come forward to the tribunal."
Srabon acknowledged her grandfather, Abdul Khalique Monir, a well-known local politician in 1971, collaborated with the Pakistani military during the war and this could explain why the tribunal investigators arrested her father.
"I have been brought up with this story, that is also well-known in the area, that after the Pakistan military surrendered on December 16, 1971, pro-independence forces killed my grandfather along with 96 other men, all of whom had given themselves up," she told Al Jazeera.
Malum said allegations of this kind should be given to the tribunal.
Meanwhile, the US consular authorities have not been allowed to meet Monir, who is expected to be brought before the ICT for the first time on January 20.
"Embassy officials should meet Monir as soon as possible and not allow the tribunal to hold him as a hostage," his US lawyer Jason Emert said.
"They should demand the unconditional release of Monir, an American citizen, and see to it that he is able to return home to his family in the United States at once," he added.
Monir was arrested 11 days before the Bangladesh national elections - widely considered to have been rigged - when opposition activists were routinely harassed by the police with many people arbitrarily arrested.
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War Crimes Investigation in Burma
AA Gathering Evidence of Tatmadaw’s Human Rights Abuses (The Irrawaddy) By Moe Myint January 3, 2019
Arakan Army (AA) spokesperson U Khine Thukha told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that the group is gathering evidence of human rights abuses committed by Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) soldiers and violations of the Geneva Convention during the ongoing skirmishes in northern Rakhine State and Chin State’s Paletwa Township.
The AA spokesperson pointed out that Tatmadaw columns are stationed in Buthidaung Township’s Say Taung Village, camped in a Buddhist monastery situated in an actively contested area in northern Rakhine. According to him, Tatmadaw soldiers are carrying out arbitrary arrests of civilians, are shelling artillery into the village and they have used villagers as human shields in the battlefields.
The AA’s online information page announced on Tuesday that they have already collected some evidence
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connecting the Tatmadaw soldiers with human rights violations and they will submit it to the international organizations. It also urges locals and civil society groups to file complaints with the AA if the Tatmadaw soldiers target civilians in the conflict zone.
On Jan. 1, a police force information Facebook page, Ye Zarni, posted information stating that while unit No. 8 of the border police and a military column were temporarily stationed in a monastery in Say Taung, Buthidaung Township, they were ambushed by 30 AA rebels and one police officer was seriously injured in the chest. After 10 minutes on fighting, the AA rebels retreated and the Tatmadaw column went after them. According to the police information page, no villagers were wounded in the fight.
The post did not elaborate on whether AA fighters fired into the village or the fighting took place at the outskirts of the village.
AA spokesperson U Khine Thukha explained that the fighting had, in fact, erupted in an area between Kan Pyin and Say Taung villages. Say Taung resident U Maung Tun Lin confirmed that fighting broke out near his village and some bullets struck the homes of villagers. According to his explanation, the monastery is situated on a hilltop which is close to a densely forested area with the village located the foot of the hill.
Ma Nwe Ni Win, a resident of Say Taung village, said bullets had struck her home during Tuesday’s fighting and that a bullet head was found inside her friend’s house. No villagers were wounded during the fighting.
“I saw some holes in my house when I get back home. No one was killed because everyone had already fled to a hillside when we heard gunfire,” said Ma Nwe Ni Win.
The AA spokesperson said, “Whenever the Burmese military come into the village, they always station [themselves] at monasteries and schools. In fact, international laws strictly prohibit an army from encamping in such public places and religious buildings.”
U Khine Thukha accused the Tatmadaw of deliberately firing into Kan Pyin Village during Tuesday’s clashes which caused the entire population on Kan Pyin Village to flee to neighboring villages. He said that around 20 heavy artillery shells, fired by the police and government troops stationed in Kun Taung, landed in Say Taung. Similarly, in separate battles in on Wednesday in Kyauktaw Township and Paletwa Township over the Chin State border, Tatmadaw units launched missiles towards the villages. AA information, based on firsthand accounts of displaced locals, says that some locals from Paletwa’s Adaung Wa Village were killed by howitzer shells on Wednesday. He urged for the international human rights organizations to look into the alleged crimes against the Rakhine community on the ground.
“They intentionally target civilians. It could even be said to be racially targeting the Rakhine. So my question is, what if there were Burmese villages in the conflict zone? Would they also fire shots in that way? Deliberately targeting civilians is obviously indicating the fact that, despite repeatedly citing union spirit, their actions show a lack of union spirit.”
As the AA and police information pages issue updates, both sides remain silent on causality numbers. Some locals claim that dozens of Tatmadaw soldiers were killed in recent clashes. When The Irrawaddy phoned a brigadier general from the military’s commander-in-chief’s office for clarification on Wednesday, he declined to comment on the matter and denied the allegations of abuses over the phone.
“As is the nature of fighting, there will surely be casualties. I cannot provide details,” said the brigadier general.
Video footage which was captured by a resident of Sin Khone Taing, a Rohingya village close to Yae Gaung Chaung and Say Taung villages, includes commentary in the Rohingya language describing the Tatmadaw troops passing through their village. Translations of the commentary says the military column briefly came into Sin Khone Taing village carrying five wounded soldiers.
The video was posted to Facebook on Tuesday on the profile named Sayad Hussin alongside text stating that the soldiers said they were hungry and requested food from the Rohingya villagers. It says the military soldiers admitted that some of their troops were killed during the fighting.
Last December, the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing promised members of the Myanmar Press Council that he will ask border affairs ministers to be more open with the media. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Despite this, when The Irrawaddy attempted multiple times to contact Col. Phone Tint, the Rakhine State border affairs minister, he did not answer calls. In addition, Western Command’s Col. Win Zaw Oo’s phone was switched off during repeated attempts by The Irrawaddy to contact him.
The AA has said they have no plans to reveal the number of government military causalities in order not to defend the massive offensives of the army. He declined to provide the number of government battalions and light infantries that the AA has been facing in northern Rakhine since the end of monsoon season.
“Although I cannot say the number of battalions, I’m pretty sure that they have halted operations in northern Shan recently in order to pour [more troops] into northern Rakhine. Surprisingly, they are also bringing ordinary police and border police into the battlefield for security reasons. This is an attempt to complicate the situation.” said U Khine Thukha.
Based on updates from the AA, The Irrawaddy has learned that the conflict zone is broadening, as AA and government troops continue to fight in at least five townships—Rathedaung, Buthidaung, Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun and Chin State’s Paletwa. The AA updates have made no mention of the mine attack on Rakhine State’s chief minister’s convoy on the Yangon-Sittwe highway in Mrauk U Township on Tuesday.
According to local non-profit organizations, more than 4,000 people in four townships are currently displaced and local relief groups are giving humanitarian assistance to the IDPs (internally displaced persons). Some members of relief groups operating in Paletwa Township told The Irrawaddy that military officers are not allowing aid in the form of rice bags into the area.
UNHCR seeks clarification from India after it deports Rohingyas to Myanmar (Business Standard) January 5, 2019
The UN is "very concerned" over India sending back Rohingya refugees to Myanmar without the world body's refugee agency ascertaining if they are voluntarily returning, according to an official here.
"Whenever any family is returned, we want to make sure that the nature of their return was voluntary and UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) was not able to assess the voluntary nature of that return. So we are very concerned about this," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq on Friday.
The UN maintains that conditions are not safe for the Rohingyas to return home.
Asked if Guterres would intervene and talk to Indian leaders about it, Haq indicated that there were no immediate plans for him to get involved.
"There are movements on the ground about which they (UNHCR) are concerned, but they are in charge of this particular file and we will see how it goes with their efforts," Haq said.
A Rohingya family of five -- parents and three children -- was sent back to Myanmar on Thursday.
The Indian authorities said that the family had entered the country illegally in 2014, or in 2013, according to the UNHCR. They had been detained by India since then.
The family was registered with the UNHCR as refugees. It was among the second group to be repatriated to Myanmar in the last four months.
"Despite repeated requests, the UNHCR did not receive a response from the Indian authorities for access to the family to assess the voluntary nature of their decision to return," Haq said.
The UNHCR said in a statement from Geneva that it regretted India's decision to repatriate the Rohingyas to Myanmar and said it "continues to request access and seek clarification on the circumstances under which the return has taken place".
About 18,000 Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers are registered with the UNHCR in India.
The UN has even opposed an agreement last October between Myanmar and Bangladesh for the the return of refugees as it says they will not be safe back home.
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More than 700,000 Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since August 2017 are living in camps in Bangladesh. The exodus began after attacks on Myanmar security forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army led by the Pakistan-born Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi.
The security forces and vigilantes launched retaliatory attacks against Rohingyas and destroyed many of their villages and property.
The UN called the attacks on the Rohingyas that led to their fleeing Myanmar a case of "ethnic cleansing".
Malaysia tells Myanmar to assume responsibility for Rohingya (New Straight Times) By Kalbana Perimbanayagam January 6, 2019
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said it is not right that neighbouring countries such as Malaysia are saddled with the responsibility to care for the Rohingya, as they are Myanmar people who have been denied citizenship.
She urged the international community to pressure Myanmar into assuming responsibility for the Rohingya, specifically by having Myanmar accept the community back to the country and restoring their rights.
“The global community must play a role in pressuring Myanmar to take responsibility for its own people and give the Rohingya their rights.
“Myanmar should not leave other countries, especially its neighbours, with this responsibility,” she said at the closing ceremony of the Humanitarian Laboratory 2.0 event on tackling the Rohingya crisis at the International Islamic University (IIUM) on Sunday.
Wan Azizah said Malaysia is firm in its stand that Myanmar must allow the Rohingya to return to their homeland in peace.
She said as of Nov last year, there were 81,764 Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, up from 52,569 in 2015 when the religious violence in Rakhine State was at its peak.
The government, she said, is making all efforts to ensure that the refugees here are in good condition, such as by giving them access to healthcare, education and work opportunities.
“The cooperation between the government and NGOs via a shared responsibility concept can also improve the existing mechanism to help the Rohingya community in the long run,” she said.
Commenting on the Humanitarian Laboratory 2.0 event, organised by MERCY Malaysia, Dr Wan Azizah said the laboratory, which discussed access to healthcare, education as well as protection accorded to refugees, was timely.
“This is in line with the government’s aspiration to ensure that existing humanitarian works are improved, especially in areas related to education, healthcare and employment,” she said.
Prior to her speech, Syed Hamid representing the Humanitarian Laboratory 2.0, had presented a resolution achieved during the lab session to Dr Wan Azizah.
At the same event, Media Prima Bhd (MPB) also presented a RM412,350 donation, courtesy of the Media Prima-Rohingya Humanitarian Fund.
The donation was presented by Mohamed Jawhar to Dr Ahmad Faizal, witnessed by Dr Wan Azizah.
On behalf of Media Prima, Mohamed Jawhar thanked everyone who contributed to the fund and for their concerns for the Rohingya.
"Since it was launched in Nov 2016, the Rohingya - Media Prima Humanitarian Fund has accumulated RM0.761 million.
"The money were handed over in stages to NGOs involved in helping the Rohingya refugees. This has been a continuous effort which we also promote through the various media channels and venues." he
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said.
Meanwhile, Dr Ahmad Faizal said in line with its 20th anniversary, MERCY Malaysia is planning to embark on a second round of the Humanitarian Lab 2:0 initiative.
"Although it's a big step, we will try."he said.
[back to contents]
AMERICAS
North & Central America
US citizen of Bangladeshi origin arrested for 1971 'war crimes' (Al Jazeera) By David Bergman January 7, 2019
A United States citizen of Bangladeshi descent has been arrested in Bangladesh for allegedly committing war crimes, including "murder and rape", during the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Mohamed Jubair Monir, 62, was arrested despite official documents purportedly showing he was only 13 when Bangladesh was liberated.
His family also claims he did not live in the country for most of the duration of the nine-month war.
Monir was picked up by the police on December 19 from his house in a village in Sunamganj district in north Bangladesh and is being held in Keraniganj jail on the outskirts of capital Dhaka.
His family said he was arrested on political grounds after meeting a leader from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) who contested the national elections held last month.
"Monir has been swept up in the hysteria of the recent Bangladeshi election, which has been widely condemned for their irregularities and human rights violations," said Jason Emert, the family's lawyer.
"[He] is innocent of the crimes and must be released immediately. His politically motivated arrest is an affront to the already tarnished democratic process in Bangladesh."
War crimes tribunal
Monir will be tried by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), a national court established by Bangladesh in 2010 to prosecute those accused of war crimes in 1971.
Bangladesh was formed in 1971 following a war with Pakistan since the then East Pakistan, initially called East Bengal, believed power was concentrated in the West.
An estimated 300,000 to three million people were killed and some 200,000 women raped during the war, cases related to which are now being heard by the ICT.
But the tribunal has been widely criticised by rights groups for lack of due process and bias, with one calling for the trials to be "suspended" because of "well-founded fears about fundamental unfairness in the pre-trial and trial stages".
The tribunal has convicted 75 men, sentencing 53 of them to death. Six of those death sentences have so far been carried out.
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Prosecutor Zead-ul-Malum told Al Jazeera that Monir was accused of "killings, confinement, rape, arson, and looting" in the areas of Shala and Derai in Sunamganj during the 1971 war.
"He was a member of the Razakar Bahini," he said, referring to the force established by the Pakistani military to fight those who supported the creation of an independent Bangladesh.
Malum denied the prosecutors were targeting people linked to the opposition political parties.
"When we prosecute, we are guided by law and due process," he stated. "I will not prosecute anyone because of their politics. But those who committed crimes during 1971 will be prosecuted, whatever their political beliefs."
Malum said the investigation was almost over. "We are verifying some of the materials we have collected."
Monir's daughter Srabon Monir told Al Jazeera her father was a small businessman who had been living in the US since 1982 and became a US citizen in 1991.
"He rents two stores in Brooklyn in New York, where he lives and owns two farms, but he also has some business interests in Bangladesh, including an office block, a rice mill and a fishery," she said.
She said her father left New York on November 18, 2018 to travel to Bangladesh and was due to return on January 7.
"I received a call on December 18 from my uncle to say he had been arrested. I was shocked," she said.
'He was 13 years old in 1971'
Srabon shared with Al Jazeera copies of her father's birth certificate, his US naturalisation certificate and passport to show he was born on January 3, 1958 and had just turned 13 when the war started.
"How could he have committed war crimes when he was 13 years of age?" she asked.
Srabon also said for most of the nine-month war, her father was not living in East Pakistan [later Bangladesh], where the conflict took place.
"Since 1969, when he was 11, he had been living with his uncle in Lahore in [then West] Pakistan, going to school there, and did not return to Bangladesh until October 1971, two months before the war ended," she said, though she did not have any evidence to back her claim.
On Monir's age and location during the 1971 war, ICT prosecutor Malum said, "He may claim this. If they have any facts, his lawyer can come forward to the tribunal."
Srabon acknowledged her grandfather, Abdul Khalique Monir, a well-known local politician in 1971, collaborated with the Pakistani military during the war and this could explain why the tribunal investigators arrested her father.
"I have been brought up with this story, that is also well-known in the area, that after the Pakistan military surrendered on December 16, 1971, pro-independence forces killed my grandfather along with 96 other men, all of whom had given themselves up," she told Al Jazeera.
Malum said allegations of this kind should be given to the tribunal.
Meanwhile, the US consular authorities have not been allowed to meet Monir, who is expected to be brought before the ICT for the first time on January 20.
"Embassy officials should meet Monir as soon as possible and not allow the tribunal to hold him as a hostage," his US lawyer Jason Emert said.
"They should demand the unconditional release of Monir, an American citizen, and see to it that he is able to return home to his family in the United States at once," he added.
Monir was arrested 11 days before the Bangladesh national elections - widely considered to have been rigged - when opposition activists were routinely harassed by the police with many people arbitrarily
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arrested.
Navy SEAL charged with war crimes to remain in the brig (Your Navy) By Carl Prine January 10, 2019
A Navy judge in San Diego on Thursday denied a request by a SEAL accused of murdering a prisoner of war to leave the brig until he begins trial next month.
Navy Region Southwest spokesman Brian O’Rourke told Navy Times that Capt. Aaron Rugh issued a ruling that keeps Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher, 39, behind bars until his trial begins.
It’s slated to start on Feb. 19 at Naval Base San Diego and Gallagher, a husband and father, has been incarcerated at the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar since his arrest on Sept. 11 at Camp Pendleton, where he was receiving treatment for a traumatic brain injury incurred in combat overseas.
Military prosecutors contend that Gallagher is a callous murderer who stabbed to death the defenseless and wounded teenage detainee on May 3, 2017, near the Iraqi city of Mosul. He also stands accused of gunning down unwitting civilians with his sniper rifle, bragging about racking up kills and threatening to intimidate and publicly out SEAL buddies who complained to superiors and investigators about him.
But the highly-decorated Gallagher and his supporters contend he’s innocent, the victim of a smear campaign ginned up by a small group of malcontents in his SEAL platoon, and predict the 19-year Navy veteran will be vindicated at his court-martial trial.
One of Gallagher’s defense attorneys, retired Marine Phillip Stackhouse, told Navy Times that the military criminal justice system leans against defendants like the highly-decorated SEAL.
He pointed to the prosecution handing prosecutors between 1,500 and 1,700 pages of “hearsay and double hearsay statements” during Gallagher’s Friday arraignment — including messages investigators contend reveal the SEAL trying to strong arm witnesses — and the government’s decision to keep any of the accusers off the stand for defense attorneys to question.
“We are disappointed, but not surprised due to the low legal burden, by the government refusing to put a witness on the stand, and the defense being denied the right to call any witnesses to the allegations,” Stackhouse said in an email.
“The court recognized Eddie’s record of excellent service as evidenced by the testimony of several senior, current and former SEAL Team members. The court also acknowledged Eddie’s strong support network of family, friends, and well-wishers. However, it was not enough when the complaining witnesses refused to be questioned by the defense and the government refused to bring them to court.”
Stackhouse insists that Gallagher isn’t a flight risk and never tried to obstruct justice, but prosecutors have raised troubling allegations of Gallagher’s conduct at home and abroad, including evidence that he used his victim’s corpse as a prop at a hasty reenlistment ceremony in Mosul and mugged for snapshots with the knife he allegedly used to stab the detainee to death.
Gallagher’s supporters have called for President Donald J. Trump to personally intervene in the matter and end the prosecution.
The White House has remained mum on whether officials will review Gallagher’s case.
Ex-Nazi camp guard deported by US dies in Germany (The Seattle Times) By David Rising January 10, 2019
Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived an unassuming life in New York City for decades until his past was revealed and he was deported to Germany last year, has died, German media reported Thursday. He was 95.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Westfaelische Nachrichten newspapers independently quoted German officials saying Palij died Wednesday in a care home in the town of Ahlen.
U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, who lobbied for Germany to take Palij, said he had been informed of the death. He credited U.S. President Donald Trump with seeing through Palij’s August 2018 deportation file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
after it had been stalled for a quarter-century.
“It would have been upsetting to many Americans if he had died in the U.S in what many viewed as a comfortable escape,” Grenell told The Associated Press.
Palij was the last Nazi facing deportation from the United States when he was taken from his Queens home on a stretcher and put on a plane to Germany.
“An evil man has passed away. That, I guess, is a positive,” said Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, who had led protests at Palij’s home.
Dov Hikind, a longtime New York lawmaker who fought for Palij’s deportation, said the death brings “the closure survivors of the Holocaust needed.”
From the time American investigators first accused Palij of lying about his Nazi past, it took 25 years for his removal from United States, despite political pressure and frequent protests outside his home. He was not prosecuted in Germany and spent his last months in the nursing home.
“While his case was always a race against time, the saddest part is that Palij outlived the victims of his horrific crimes by seven decades,” said Jon Drimmer, the former deputy director of the U.S. Justice Department office that found Palij and pursued his deportation.
Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now in Ukraine, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from postwar Europe.
He told immigration officials he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory.
Palij said he never served in the military. In reality, the U.S. Justice Department said he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at the Trawniki training camp, southeast of Lublin in German-occupied Poland.
When investigators knocked on his door in 1993, he told them: “I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.”
According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that “committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others” and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, “a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers.”
Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.
Palij eventually acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.
The U.S. lacks jurisdiction to prosecute such cases since the crimes were not committed in the United States and the victims were not Americans. Instead, it has focused on revoking the U.S. citizenship of suspects and deporting them — or extraditing them if another country is seeking to prosecute them.
A judge stripped Palij of his U.S. citizenship in 2003 for “participation in acts against Jewish civilians.” He was ordered deported a year later. But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his now-late wife, Maria.
After a diplomatic push, the U.S. finally persuaded Germany last year to take Palij. However, German investigators concluded there was not enough evidence of wartime criminal activity to bring charges against him.
“Good riddance to this war criminal,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said after Palij’s deportation was announced.
Palij had managed to live quietly in the U.S. for years as a draftsman and then as a retiree until a fellow former guard told Canadian authorities in 1989 that Palij was “living somewhere in America.”
Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first
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confronted him in 1993. It wasn’t until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion.
Palij suggested at one point during the interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, “If you don’t show up, boom-boom.”
As his case languished, his continued presence in New York City outraged many, especially members of the Jewish community. The frequent protests outside his home featured chants such as “Your neighbor is a Nazi!”
In 2017, all 29 members of New York’s congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.
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South America
Former Brazilian mayor starts serving sentence 14 years after ordering murder of Paraguayan radio journalist (Knight Center) By Alessandra Monnerat January 14, 2018
Almost 15 years after ordering the murder of Paraguayan radio host Samuel Romã, former Brazilian mayor Eurico Mariano will begin serving his 17-year prison sentence.
Mariano, a former mayor of Coronel Sapucaia in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, was convicted by a Brazilian judge of hiring men that murdered Romã on August 10, 2007, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color reported that Mariano fled to Capitán Bado, Paraguay where he hid for more than a decade under the protection of an armed group.
In 2017, Mariano was captured by Interpol in Capitán Bado, according to ABC Color. He was extradited to Brazil on Jan. 11.
Mariano was handed over to Brazilian authorities at the airport in Asunción, Paraguay's capital, according to portal G1. He was transported by plane by Brazilian Federal Police to Ponta Porã, in Mato Grosso do Sul, where he must serve his sentence.
According to information from ABC Color, Mariano was in jail in Tacumbú, Asunción during his extradition process. The order to send him to Brazil was signed on Sept. 15 by Judge Alcides Corbeta.
Radio host Samuel Romã was shot outside his house in Coronel Sapucaia, Brazil on April 20, 2004 by four men on two motorcycles, according to CPJ. He was the owner of Rádio Conquista FM, based in neighboring Capitán Bado, where he presented the program "A Voz do Povo."
According to CPJ, Romã was a fierce critic of local government, and had denounced Eurico Mariano for financial irregularities. The communicator also warned of alleged involvement of the region's authorities with organized crime.
Attacks and bodyguards: The price of being a Colombian journalist (AlJazzera) By Mathew Di Salvo January 15, 2019
Leiderman Ortiz's mother, sister, brother and nephew were visiting him in Caucasia in May 2010 when a loud blast went off outside the house where they were asleep.
"I jumped out of my bed and started shouting, 'Stay down, don't move'," Ortiz said.
"My poor mother was screaming. She was terrified."
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Unlike many others who have been targeted by the regular grenade attacks in Caucasia, a small city about 670km north of the Colombian capital Bogota, Ortiz isn't a criminal. He writes about them. And the 2010 attack was the third of at least five known attempts or suspected attempts on the 45-year-old's life.
The first occurred in 2009 in Medellin when he was leaving an office and an armed individual was waiting for him. Ortiz saw the individual and called the police. The next year, the 2010 grenade attack occurred. Two days after that attack, another grenade was thrown into his garden. The following year, at least two suspected hitmen were paid to follow Ortiz, but his security team prevented any attacks.
Covering a city that has always been at the heart of Colombia's conflict and criminal activities is no easy task - and many people would prefer Ortiz was dead.
Ortiz founded the La Verdad del Pueblo, translated as The Truth of the Town, independent newspaper two decades ago with the goal of exposing the crime and corruption that plagues his hometown.
He runs the paper alone, exposing crimes and pictures of high-profile gangsters, stories about polluted rivers and updates on local politics.
Threats against reporters are abundant in the country, and Ortiz's work in one of the most dangerous regions makes him a regular target. He travels with four armed bodyguards, paid for by the Colombian state, which provides protection to individuals under the threat of political violence, and his family now never visits.
"Of course it's tiring [having the constant protection]," Ortiz said. "But I have to go on."
Murder rate soared
Born and raised in Caucasia, with a population of 100,000, Ortiz grew up around crime and corruption.
Uncomfortably humid, dusty and loud, Caucasia is the capital of Bajo Cauca, a subregion in the north of the Antioquia department. A key hub of the cocaine trade, Antioquia was home to much of the violence during Colombia's half-century of war.
Rich in gold and coca, a key ingredient of cocaine, rural Bajo Cauca has always been a desirable spot for right-wing paramilitaries, leftist rebel groups and drug traffickers to base themselves.
There were 139 murders in Caucasia last year, according to local media, accounting for a little less than half of the total number of homicides that took place across Bajo Cauca.
The violence is so out of control and Colombia's new president, Ivan Duque, travelled to the area in the first two months of his presidency for an emergency meeting with security forces to analyse the situation.
The landmark 2016 peace deal between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government led to the armed group to putting down their weapons, paving the way for a power struggle between other rebel groups to gain control over Bajo Cauca's illegal economies - mainly gold and coca.
Many frustrated former members of the FARC, disillusioned with the peace deal, have also rearmed and returned to the areas they once occupied.
The 'bunker'
Aptly named the 'bunker', Ortiz's modest home, surrounded by shops, sits in the middle of Caucasia. It is equipped with four surveillance cameras, a bulletproof front door and windows and three-metre walls with barbed wire. It is in the bunker where he puts together La Verdad del Pueblo every month.
The first edition of the paper was released in 1999. Today, about 2,000 copies are circulated around Bajo Cauca each month. It's also accessible online. A typical edition features corruption in the city hall, the naming and shaming local members of the BACRIM (criminal bands) or politicians involved in child abuse cases.
One of Ortiz's latest scoops aided police in catching a teenager allegedly involved in the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl.
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According to Ortiz, the citizens of Caucasia trust him more than police - many of whom reportedly have links with the BACRIM - and will regularly provide him with tips, including pictures or addresses of the latest gunman or thief.
"Yes, I feel proud and satisfied they [the people of Caucasia] can reach out to me," he said. "But it's also sad that there is so little trust in the authorities."
Whether Ortiz is chasing a story or shopping, he is always accompanied by his security team and travels in a blacked-out bulletproof 4X4, followed by another car.
Ongoing dangers
The dangers Ortiz faces are common for journalists throughout Colombia, which ranks eighth on the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Global Impunity Index. The index examines the 14 countries where more than 82 percent of the perpetrators in the murders of 324 journalists have gone unpunished.
Fifty-one journalists have been killed in Colombia since 1992, and 39 of those murders are still unsolved, according to the CPJ.
Despite the 2016 peace deal, threats against journalists have increased, with a string of recent threats against prominent journalists in 2018 following the election of the new president, Ivan Duque, who campaigned on a promise to overhaul the peace deal.
Journalists reporting in the regions once occupied by the FARC are particularly vulnerable and the region of Antioquia has seen the most threats against reporters.
Colombia's Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) NGO has acknowledged the seriousness of the situation.
"The situation with aggression against the press is getting worse and it's very worrisome," said Luisa Fernanda Isaza, coordinator of Defense and Attention to Journalists at the FLIP.
"For some journalists, reporting on the BACRIM is one of the subjects which generates the most self- censorship," she told Al Jazeera.
She added it is difficult to cover as reporters have been attacked just for mentioning the subject of the BACRIM.
In April 2018, two Ecuadorian journalists from the daily Quito-based El Comercio newspaper and their driver were kidnapped and killed by a FARC dissident group at the Colombia-Ecuador border while reporting on drug-related violence.
Their tragic story highlights the increasing dangers of reporting in hotly contested regions following the peace deal, areas that often generate the most important stories in the country.
"Unfortunately his [Ortiz's] situation is far too common in Colombia and throughout the region," Natalie Southwick, the CPJ's programme coordinator for Central and South America and the Caribbean, told Al Jazeera.
"We've seen journalists reporting in post-accord regions face ongoing threats of violence for continuing to report there. The threat of violence, especially in smaller communities, does tend to lead to self- censorship."
But reporting in Colombia has been dangerous for decades.
"With or without the presence of guerrillas, it will always be tough," Ortiz said.
Last year saw the 19th anniversary of the death of the widely-loved activist, comedian and journalist, Jaime Garzon, who was was shot five times while driving to work in Bogota on August 13, 1999.
A day after the anniversary of his death, a former top official of Colombia's now-disbanded intelligence agency was sentenced to 30 years in prison for instigating Garzon's murder.
But for Ortiz, and many others in Colombia, this is merely motivation.
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"The truth is, I do it because, first and foremost, I really enjoy the job," he said.
"It's a big passion of mine [journalism] and every day I am motivated more and more."
Sex trafficking that starts in South America largely stays there (Reuters) By Anastasia Moloney January 15, 2019
Women and girls in South America are more likely to become victims of sex trafficking inside their own or neighboring countries than to be trafficked across continents, officials said on Tuesday, urging cooperation among regional governments.
The sexual exploitation of women and girls remains the most common form of human trafficking in South America, and most victims identified in the past two years came from within their own country or region, according to latest figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
“The trend nowadays is that there’s an increase in trafficking within the region of South America, to neighboring countries, especially with those that we share land crossings,” said Gilberto Zuleta, project coordinator for the UNODC in Colombia.
“Countries in the region have to coordinate efforts to strengthen their capacity to identify victims and prosecute,” he told reporters in Bogota.
In Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela, local criminal networks running sex-trafficking rings are increasingly targeting destitute Venezuelan women and girl migrants fleeing their homeland, according to state prosecutor Mario Gomez.
“Sex slavery can’t be the only way to survive for these people,” Gomez said.
“The number of (victims) is very big in places where there is a lot of sex tourism and at the border. However, there’s no census that allows us to determine the number of people involved.”
Over the past year, local authorities have found dozens of Venezuelan women forced into prostitution living in “inhumane conditions,” often in basements in Colombia’s tourist cities, with little food and their documents seized, Gomez said.
So far about three million Venezuelans have fled economic collapse and food and medicine shortages in their homeland.
The mass exodus of people is likely to continue after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for another 6-year term last week amid global criticism that his leadership is illegitimate due to a last year’s disputed election.
“This continued migration of Venezuelan women and teenagers, we have to confront it by giving opportunities,” Gomez said.
Venezuelan women were also being lured into sexual exploitation in Colombia by their friends, often those already forced to work as recruiters and prostitutes by criminal gangs.
“It’s the Venezuelans themselves who are roping in other women,” Gomez told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Gomez said he was also concerned about Colombian and Venezuelan women being lured by false promises of earning big salaries abroad - only to be trafficked into forced prostitution in nearby Caribbean islands, including Trinidad and Tobago.
Adriana Herrera, a children’s rights expert at Colombia’s inspector general’s office, said growing numbers of teenage girls from Colombia and Venezuela were working as prostitutes along motorways in parts of the country.
“Truck drivers pay for and sexually abuse underage girls along the highways,” said Herrera, who called on truck driver associations to help combat the problem. “We know it’s a practice that goes on and we’re working on it.”
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Venezuela
Venezuelan supreme court judge defects to US (Fox News) By Hollie McKay January 7, 2019
A Venezuelan Supreme Court justice who was a strong supporter of the socialist regime there defected to the United States with his family over the weekend, claiming to object to President Nicolas Maduro's upcoming second term in office.
“We are in the presence of an autocracy that has condemned to death anyone who opposes this particular vision of power,” Christian Zerpa told Miami-based broadcaster EVTV over the weekend, adding the ailing country’s high court has merely become an extension of Maduro’s close-knit judiciary circle.
Several members of the high court were appointed in 2015, around the same time Venezuela’s economic and social crisis began its downward spiral. Over the past three years, the once prosperous oil-rich nation has been gripped by unfathomable levels of hyperinflation, starvation and dire poverty – prompting more than three million to flee to neighboring nations.
Maduro is slated this week to take the oath in front of the Supreme Court and begin another six-year term, despite protests from most of the international community – including the U.S. – which believes that last year’s elections were a farce. So come Thursday, the U.S. will be among other countries who do not recognize the Venezuelan government's authority.
Zerpa, who is one of several Venezuelans under sanction by the Canadian government, said he left because he no longer wanted to be part of legitimizing Maduro’s rule, and is now “willing to collaborate with U.S officials investigating corruption and human rights abuses.”
In response to his defection, the court said Zerpa was fleeing accusations of sexual harassment.
Despite the mass migration crisis of those leaving Venezuela in desperation for food, work, and medical supplies, the Maduro regime blames the United States and disgruntled opposition members for trying to create an “economic war,” but denies that large-scale catastrophe is engulfing the country.
Latin America has never seen a crisis like Venezuela before (The Washington Post) January 9, 2019
The epic political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is due to pass a new juncture Thursday when President Nicolás Maduro is sworn in for a second six- year term. His first saw an implosion unprecedented in modern Latin American history: Though his country was not at war, its economy shrank by 50 percent. What was once the region’s richest society was swept by epidemics of malnutrition, preventable diseases and violent crime. Three million people fled the country. Yet Mr. Maduro, having orchestrated a fraudulent reelection, presses on with what the regime describes as a socialist revolution, with tutoring from Cuba and predatory loans from Russia and China.
If there is any light in this bleak picture, it is that Venezuela’s neighbors are edging toward more assertive action to stem a crisis that, with the massive flow of refugees, threatens to destabilize several other countries. Last week, 13 governments, including Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Canada, issued a statement declaring Mr. Maduro’s presidency illegitimate and threatening sanctions. Peru imposed travel and banking restrictions on Mr. Maduro and his cabinet, and several countries said they would recognize the opposition-controlled National Assembly as Venezuela’s only legitimate institution.
Unfortunately, that is unlikely to move the regime. Mr. Maduro has already survived challenges that usually topple governments, including months of mass street protests in 2017 and inflation that soared to 1 million percent last year. That’s partly because critical shortages of food, water, medicine and power
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have kept many Venezuelans preoccupied with day-to-day survival, while the availability of refuge in neighboring countries has provided an escape valve. But Mr. Maduro, like Hugo Chávez before him, has not hesitated to employ crude repression. A report issued Wednesday by Human Rights Watch said it had documented 380 cases of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of government opponents since 2014, including at least 31 cases of torture. That includes dozens of military personnel suspected of coup- plotting.
Like three administrations before it, the Trump White House has struggled over how to respond to the Chavistas. The Treasury Department has steadily expanded sanctions, which now apply to some 70 people and cut off Venezuela’s access to U.S. banks. But though President Trump has sometimes talked of military intervention, he has rightly refrained from that, as well as from lesser measures, such as a boycott of Venezuelan oil. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been urging Latin American governments to act, but not all are cooperating. Mexico, under its new leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declined to join the collective condemnation of Mr. Maduro and is sending a diplomat to his inauguration.
As conditions continue to deteriorate — the International Monetary Fund is forecasting that inflation could rise in 2019 to 10 million percent — Mr. Maduro may finally be toppled by dissidents inside the regime or a new popular uprising. If not, the pressure Venezuela is putting on its neighbors will escalate. One recent study by scholars at the Brookings Institution concluded that 5 million more refugees may pour across the borders. The region has never seen a crisis like this: a steadily escalating catastrophe with no solution — either from inside or outside — in sight.
With his country in crisis, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro begins another six-year term By Paula Newton and Stefano Pozzebon January 10, 2019
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro begins another six years in power Thursday with a collapsing economy that shows no sign of bottoming out and a threat from some Latin American neighbors who say they will not recognize his government.
And still, there are few in or outside of Venezuela who are predicting Maduro's downfall in 2019 or beyond.
"It seems that Maduro has gained the upper hand in terms of his control over the key institutions in the country, including the military, which is most key. So, in the near term it seems unlikely that anything from that aspect is going to happen," says Richard Francis, director of sovereign ratings at Fitch Ratings.
It is an insight long held by Taina Nieves, who has just returned to Venezuela's capital Caracas after scouring both Peru and Columbia for a better life and is more disillusioned than ever.
"Now that that man will remain in power, prices will go up again. He'll most likely raise the minimum wage, but that means the prices on everything go up also. So we'll be stuck in the same situation," Nieves said.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit 10 million percent in 2019. The Maduro regime continually raises the minimum wage, fueling ever more inflation, so every raise actually buys Venezuelans less and less every month.
"It's a very, very difficult situation with the economy falling by nearly 50% since 2013. It's the largest decline we've seen, and outside of a war, since the fall of the Soviet union, it's a huge, huge, huge economic crisis," Francis said.
Maduro blames what he calls US economic terrorism for Venezuela's misery and as recently as Wednesday declared that he was battling an American-led coup to overthrow his government.
The Trump administration continues to try and pressure Maduro using targeted financial sanctions. The latest sanctions, announced this week by the US Treasury Department accuse Maduro insiders of using the currency exchange market to skim millions in illicit profits.
"Our actions against this corrupt currency exchange network expose yet another deplorable practice that Venezuela regime insiders have used to benefit themselves at the expense of the Venezuelan people," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Through nearly a decade of mismanagement, Venezuela has squandered its profound oil wealth, leaving its economy in tatters and Latin America reeling from an unprecedented mass exodus of migrants in search of food and medicine.
The UN estimates as many as 3 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014.
The Lima Group, a regional bloc trying to coax the Maduro regime into democratic reform declared Maduro's new mandate 'illegitimate' in a statement. They urged the President to transfer power to the National Assembly until new elections could be held.
The May election that returned Maduro to power was largely discredited. Turnout was historically low according to official figures and the vote was boycotted by opposition groups.
For Nieves, a new presidential mandate means only one thing: "I think things will get worse," she says.
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TOPICS
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Gambia reconciliation process to look into former leader's abuses (Al Jazeera) By Amandla Thomas- Johnson January 8, 2019
When Ebrima Chongan was confronted by a cadre of mutinying soldiers near Banjul on July 22, 1994, it was a matter of shoot or die.
A former commander of the Gendarmerie, he knew some of the men coming towards him and what they were capable of - hours before they were his subordinates.
But now they had torn off their berets and joined a mutiny led by another one of his trainees, a young colonel called Yahya Jammeh.
"I opened fire," he said. "They scattered."
Chongan recounted on Monday his experiences of the coup that brought Jammeh to power at the first hearing of a commission set up to discover the truth of his brutal rule.
For 22 years, between 1994 and 2016, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, torture, and wholesale massacres became state policy. They were most often carried out with impunity.
Chongan would later endure arbitrary detention, solitary confinement in a mosquito-ridden cell, beatings with rifle butts and a crude mock execution.
Other victims, witnesses and even perpetrators are expected to come forward to testify at the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which has broad powers to administer compensation to victims and, crucially, suggest alleged perpetrators for prosecution.
The 11-member commission drawn from all the major regions, and which includes a bishop and an imam will begin at the causes before taking up Jammeh's oppression, which included the hunting of alleged witches and wizards, his bogus HIV-cure programme, the persecution of sexual minorities, and the silencing of the media.
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A session will be devoted to the "Junglers" - the shadowy paramilitary group said to be behind many of the atrocities.
With Jammeh now gone and with him the excuses and cover-ups that had left victims and their families in the dark, they now feel it is time for truth and justice.
“We demand that light be shed. They really have to give us facts and do their homework,” said Baba Hydara, whose father, journalist Deyda Hydara and cofounder of The Point newspaper, was killed in December 2004.
Deyda Hydara was pursued by two taxis after a late night at work while he was dropping off two colleagues. As he drove down a quiet back street, one of the taxis drew close. Shots rang out. Hydara slumped over on his steering wheel as his car veered off into a nearby ditch.
Baba blames the regime's Junglers for the killing of his father, whose vociferous newspaper columns denouncing regime excesses earned him the ire of state authorities.
Hydara, who now copublishes The Point, said he wants the full chain of Jammeh's command to be held accountable.
"Everyone, even the drivers that drove the taxis, must face justice,” he said.
The TRRC forms just one part of an ambitious attempt by Jammeh's successor, President Adama Barrow, to transform The Gambia's political culture and society in a way that makes a return to violence and dictatorship all but impossible.
Under the slogan of "Never Again", human rights workshops at schools, town hall meetings, and listening exercises in far-flung villages will run parallel to the TRRC.
“The idea is that if you empower the people to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens, then it will be difficult for governments to violate their rights with impunity,” said Baba Jallow, executive secretary of the TRRC, an academic and journalist who recently returned to The Gambia after 17 years in exile.
Women's issues are a salient feature of this strategy. Women-only listening circles will provide a safe space for victims to recount their experiences, while sexual violence training will help communities to understand the needs of victims.
Such training is needed, said Zainab Rilwan Lowe, cofounder of the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations, because "a culture of silence" prevents victims of sexual violence from coming forward.
“Women suffered most when the men were arrested and they had to take responsibility for the children," added Rilwan Lowe, whose brother has been missing since 2006.
As victims at the hearing looked on at Ebrima Chongan swearing an oath on the Quran before giving his testimony, some are hoping to see Yaya Jammeh do the same in a court of law.
Since 2017, he has been hosted in Equatorial Guinea by ruler Teodoro Obiang, who stands accused of a similar record of atrocities.
Equatorial Guinea has never signed the statute of the International Criminal Court, making Jammeh's extradition dependent on Obiang. A video circulated online last week of Jammeh dancing beside Obiang at a lavish ball on New Year's Eve, wearing his customary billowing white robe and matching kaftan, could be a sign that he is there to stay.
That's unless lawyer Reed Brody has his way. Dubbed the "dictator hunter" for his part in the successful prosecution of Chadian leader Hissene Habre, Brody has been collecting witness testimonies as part of the Jammeh2Justice campaign.
“I think that the TRRC can lay the groundwork for holding Jammeh and his henchmen to account. When it is finished we're going to have a much more complete picture of not only the abuses that were committed but also what was Jammeh's personal role in those abuses.”
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With The Gambia still going through the transition process, Brody has sought to bring a case against him in Ghana for the murder of a group of 54 West African migrants en route to Europe, of which the majority were Ghanaian.
“We've been working with the government of Ghana to investigate that massacre and to consider the possibility of Jammeh's prosecution in Ghana, not as an ultimate solution, but as a way of beginning the accountability process while The Gambia gets ready to do that.”
As much as victims support the TRRC process there is some unease the Gambian government has left open the possibility for perpetrators to receive amnesties.
While the commission has agreed to consult families on this, Baba Hydara already knows that he wants those responsible for his father's death to feel the full force of the law.
"Amnesty can only encourage further impunity,” he said.
“I'm not here to give amnesty to someone who made grandchildren never meet their grandad, who made a wife lose her husband, and who made kids lose their fathers.”
Fate of transitional justice bodies hangs in balance (Kathmandu Post) By Binod Ghimire January 9, 2019
Just as the extended mandate of two transitional justice bodies is set to expire in a month, there seems to be little progress in achieving consensus among parties on various issues, which could delay the process of finalising amendment to the Transitional Justice Act, a lack of which would stall the entire transitional justice process.
Second-rung leaders from the major parties, who are in regular consultations, are yet to reach an agreement on the future of the two transitional justice bodies—Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP). The commissions were formed on February 9, 2015—almost a decade after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which formally ended the decade-long civil war in the country.
Though the conflict victims and human rights activists are divided on several issues, they have a common voice against the transitional justice bodies and want their restructuring. So far, the two commissions have done precious little when it comes to investigating war-era cases of human rights violations even though 63,000 complaints have been registered with them.
The two commissions, which are hamstrung by a lack of law and resource crunch, have met with severe criticism for their failure to effectively carry out their work.
Against this backdrop, cross-party leaders are not sure whether to continue with the commissions in their existing form or restructure them. But for either of the options, the existing Transitional Justice Act needs to be amended.
Sources at the Ministry of Law and Justice claim that unlike in the past, the officials in the ministry “now don’t have a leading role in drafting the law”. They say cross-party leaders are “working to finalise” the amendment draft “through consensus”.
“We know cross-party leaders are working, but we don’t know how close they are [on reaching a deal],” said a senior official at the ministry on the condition of anonymity.
Ramesh Dhakal, secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, who was actively involved in drafting the amendment while he was at the Law Ministry last year, told the Post that since transitional justice process is not only a legal but also a political and technical issue, all the parties must forge a common understanding before drafting the law.
Along with the prosecution, truth-seeking, reparation, and assurance of non-repetition of cases are other important aspects of transitional justice. That’s why it is more of political and technical issue than just a legal one.
Sources say just while the future of two commissions hangs in the balance, major parties are still non-
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committal on the prosecution aspect.
There was huge controversy last year when the government in its zero draft of the amendment bill recommended reduced sentences for the perpetrators by 75 percent and putting the convicts into community services instead of jail term. And this was outright rejected by the conflict victims.
Now, the parties have a daunting task of finding a solution which is acceptable to all, especially the conflict victims who are the major stakeholder.
The situation has been further complicated now with the changed political landscape of the country. The erstwhile Unified CPN-Maoist has now merged with the erstwhile CPN-UML to form the Nepal Communist Party, which is now currently at the helm of the government. The other main party to this entire transitional justice saga is the Nepali Congress.
NC leader Ramesh Lekhak, who is currently involved in negotiations, said cross-party leaders had held some rounds of talks but with no significant progress as such. “We have had some discussions but there is no remarkable achievement,” said Lekhak. “Our party wants the government to come up with its vision first.”
Parties are also undecided over the demands of victims’ associations backed by a large section of human rights advocates to establish “a credible mechanism” with the participation of all stakeholders to take the transitional justice process forward.
Conflict Victims’ Common Platform on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to Law Minister Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, demanding their meaningful participation in drafting of the law and immediate formation of a new mechanism.
It must be noted that all conflict victims are not in favour of any such mechanism. This has put the parties in further predicament. Dhakal said they were preparing to resolve all the issues. “Necessary legal steps will be taken before February 9,” he told the Post.
Lekhak said the top leadership had held discussions on various issues but “serious discussions” were yet to take place. He, however, said he expected the future course of the transitional justice process would be decided before February 9, the day the terms of the two commissions expire.
Liberia: Witnesses Fear Testifying Before War Crimes Court without Security (Front Page Africa) By Mae Azango January 10, 2019
Alhaji Tucker was only 10 when the civil war started in Liberia, but he remembers clearly the day rebels fighting with ULIMO K brutally slaughtered his little brother and other family members here. Tucker has vowed to testify against the attackers known as “Senegalese” and “Bility” before a war crimes court but only if he is granted security to protect his life.
“If my security is guaranteed that I am not hunted and killed by warlords, I can testify as a witness, when a war crimes court or a special court is established in Liberia,” says Tucker now 38, and running a youth intellectual forum in his native county.
Tucker is one of thousands of witnesses, who may be called upon to testify before a court if it is established. Many here in Sinje say they are so frustrated by the impunity enjoyed by their killers; they are unafraid of testifying, even if no security is provided.
But others, like Tucker, say security is essential if they are to risk the wrath of the perpetrators who he says he saw rape women, murder and try to recruit him and his childhood friends as fighters.
“If the law can permit me to kill those warlords, I will gladly put them on line and kill them the same way they killed people,” says Tucker. “But the only thing I want the international community to do for me is to provide me security; because those warlords have followers, who could harm me at any time. So without security, I won’t testify because those guys have wealth and can use cash to kill me at any time.”
Witnesses have good reason to be afraid. Some witnesses, testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008, were threatened. Several of the commissioners were harassed and forced into
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exile. More recently, witnesses, who testified against George Boley in his deportation case in the U.S.A. in 2012, were also threatened.
“Yes, there are a lot of threats against the TRC commissioners and witnesses. I myself nearly became a victim,” says Cllr. Pearl Browne Bull, one of the TRC Commissioners. “One night when I was asleep in Brewerville, I saw a bright light from a taxi, and when I looked outside, I saw a man pointing at my house and telling another man beside him, it was where I lived.”
“So I did not sleep home the following night and when I returned the next morning, they had removed my window and entered my house. They scattered all my things in search of the TRC documents of witness’s testimonies.”
Bull said they even went to her Randall Street property and broke in and took away her laptop, thinking the documents were on it, but she had kept all her documents on a backup file in the US.
Cllr. Bull said many of the witnesses faced threats.
“Roland Duo sent people after the little boy who saw him murder a lady, and we had to put him under a tight security protection. Another man who survived the massacre on the Maher Bridge was also targeted by Benjamin Yeatan, but we had a tight security that prevented them harming the witnesses,” says Cllr. Bull.
For people in Sinje, the threats could be greater. The ULIMO fighters here were mainly from the Mandingo tribe and Muslims like the people here. Mandingoes have been particularly threatening anyone who testifies against a member of their tribe, special anger has been aimed at those who testified against someone from their own tribe or faith. While much of the fighting in the early parts of the war was one tribe against another, people here were shocked when ULIMO, made up of Mandingoes of the Muslim faith, attacked Vai members of the same faith.
For this reason, people here are also willing to testify against the perpetrators regardless of their tribe.
According to Aaron Weah, now of Search for Common Ground and one of the drafters of the original TRC Act in 2005, the first TRC Act provided protection and safe homes for witnesses.
“There was protection for witnesses who testified during the time of public hearings and statements taking in 2006 to 2008. Those witnesses’ names are still being withheld for the next 20 years, as a way of protecting their identities so they’re not harmed in the future,” says Weah.
He says the TRC Act was a quick fix established just for a three-year period to protect witness who had volunteered to testify, and after that it was no longer binding by law. The revised TRC documentation was turned over to the Independent National Commission on Human Rights for implementation. When this reporter reached James Torh, INCHR Head Commissioner, he said he was on his way to the airport and could not speak to the question out of his head.
However, according to the general TRC recommendations specifically recommended that within the first five years that is from July 1, 2009 to July 30, 2014 all direct victim support program must be implemented including memorials, victim support and the process of prosecution.
Witness protection will very likely be part of any war crimes court according to Adama Dempster, of the Civil Society Platform and one of the local players in the establishment of a war crimes court. A demand for security for witnesses was included in the UN Human Rights Council report on Liberian justice issued in July and, Adama said, the government would be obliged to provide such protection.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone provided a case study. “What I witnessed in Sierra Leone, was immediately after the government agreed for a war crimes court, international security under the United Nations spotlight, were deployed in Sierra Leone to provide security for victims and witnesses,” said Dempster. “What is very good about Liberia is that the witnesses and victims are eager to testify but until we can have an approval from the government for a war crimes court to be established they will not get that chance.”
Dempster said he is already sensing a growing fear among potential witnesses who are starting to speak out. People do not trust the government he said but they will have no choice but to hold on until security measures are put in place.
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Peterson Sonyah, founder of the Liberia Massacre Survivor Association of Liberia (LMSAL) and a survivor of the St. Peter’s Lutheran Massacre, said witnesses will need security if they are going to testify in court.
“We will not relent until we see this court established in Liberia. Victims will be provided security for witnesses to speak.” He concluded that if Liberia can have a good justice system like Sierra Leone and Rwanda to establish a special court, people put in state power will face justice.
As Tucker is eager to attest to crimes committed against his people, while the question of witness protection remains uncertain, if there will be a world crimes court or a special court established in Liberia.
Farooq Abdullah promises truth and reconciliation commission in Kashmir if elected to power (Greater Kashmir) January 12, 2019
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said that he will announce a truth and reconciliation process to probe killings if his party is elected to power with a majority in the upcoming assembly elections.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a party function in Anantnag, Abdullah who represents Srinagar-Budgam constituency in the Parliament, said his son and NC vice president Omar Abdullah had already asked for a truth and reconciliation commission.
“We hope that God brings our party into power strongly and we don’t have to stand on crutches (referring to coalition). This (probe) will be a great thing that we will announce on the very (first) day when the new government takes over that we will appoint such a commission (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and see to it that the results are brought before the people not only in Jammu and Kashmir but in rest of the world,” said Abdullah when asked by a journalist whether his government will seek a probe into 2016 killings.
Abdullah also said that his party wouldn’t support ‘Operation All-out’ launched against the militants.
“How can we support where there is suppression? It is not a question of ‘all out’. We don’t want our people to suffer that they will be beaten in their homes. That has never been part of National Conference’s policy,” he said when asked whether his party will support ‘Operation All-out’.
He said that his party was not going to support any violence or violation of human rights.
“Everyone is free, we live in a free country. And therefore we as a government we will have to see that freedom of people expression is not curbed,” said Abdullah.
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Terrorism
Alleged war criminal named second-in-command of Sri Lanka army (aljazeera) January 10, 2019
Silva took part in a massive assault in 2009, during which the Sri Lankan army committed gross abuses against civilians.
Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena has appointed a general accused by the United Nations of war crimes to the country's second-highest army ranking, evoking an outcry from rights groups.
Major General Shavendra Silva was accused of committing war crimes during the civil war in Sri Lanka, which ended after 37 years in 2009.
Silva took part in a massive assault on Tamil Tiger separatists in the war, during which the Sri Lankan army committed gross abuses against civilians.
Silva formally assumed the duties of his new position on Thursday, the army said in a statement.
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"Major General Shavendra Silva was named by a United Nations investigation for his part in commanding the 58 Division, which was the unit responsible for repeated and deliberate attacks on hospitals, food distribution queues and displacement camps in 2009, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths in a matter of months," a statement by the organisation said.
According to Yasmin Sooka, the executive director of ITJP, Silva could and should be arrested if he ever travels abroad in his current role.
"Sri Lanka now has a chief of army staff who risks arrest every time he travels abroad, if any country is foolish enough to give him a visa," said Sooka.
The statement added that "there is more than enough evidence to charge him for international crimes should the opportunity arise".
"This is arguably the most wanted man in Sri Lanka. A decade on, tragically, he is being promoted instead of standing trial."
A number of Sri Lankan army generals have been denied visas to travel to Western nations over their alleged role in attacks against civilians.
According to rights groups, at least 40,000 ethnic Tamils were killed by government forces during their final push to defeat the separatist rebels.
Sri Lanka's successive governments have resisted calls for an independent investigation into the conduct of troops during the final months of the conflict.
President Sirisena came to power in January 2015, promising justice for war victims but his administration has been accused of dithering ever since.
Sirisena, unlike his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa, agreed to investigate war crimes but no generals have stood trial or been brought to justice.
A Congo War Crimes Decision: What it Means for Universal Jurisdiction Litigation in Germany and Beyond (Just Security) By Christian Gonzalez Cabrera and Patrick Kroker January 11, 2019
The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) in Karlsruhe recently announced in a press release its much-anticipated decision in a Congo War Crimes case. The BGH, Germany’s court of last resort in all matters of criminal and private law, partly overturned a 13-year prison sentence imposed on Ignace Murwanashyaka by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht, OLG) in 2015. Murwanashyaka was the president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR), a Hutu rebel group active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 2000 that has committed heinous crimes against civilians in its quest to topple the current government in Kigali, Rwanda.
The lower OLG had found Murwanashyaka, as well as his vice-president, Straton Musoni, both of whom reside in and conducted activities from southern Germany, guilty of leadership of a terrorist group pursuant to §§ 129a and 129b of the German Criminal Code. The OLG had also found Murwanashyaka guilty of aiding four war crimes committed by the FDLR; these charges proceeded under the German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch, VStGB), a criminal statute that prohibits international crimes and allows for prosecutions on the basis of universal jurisdiction. Since both defendants had been in custody since 2009, Musoni has already served his 8-year sentence, while Murwanashyaka remains in detention. Upon review of the OLG’s decision, the higher BGH diverged from the lower court’s opinion on Dec. 20, 2018, and affirmed that the FDLR did not just commit war crimes, but also crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, with respect to the specific defendants’ liability, it upheld the convictions based on leadership of a terrorist group, but overturned Murwanashyaka’s conviction for complicity in war crimes. In doing so, the Court delivered a blow to VStGB international crimes litigation in Germany.
The FDLR case was the first VStGB case ever heard by Germany’s highest court. Germany adopted the VStGB in 2002 pursuant to its obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
order to make international crimes justiciable at the domestic level. Not a single trial took place under the new law during its first five years, leading some critics to label it “a law without application.” Though § 1 of the statute allows for “pure” universal jurisdiction, which is to say prosecutions of crimes with no tangible link to Germany, universal jurisdiction complaints that were filed, including by human rights groups, were not investigated or were ultimately dismissed. This is due to the wide discretion that the Federal Prosecutor enjoys when it comes to extraterritorial VStGB cases (cf. the prosecutor’s discretion in non-extraterritorial cases, § 153f of the German Code of Criminal Procedure).
This inaction began to change in 2008 with the creation of a war crimes unit within the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the subsequent investigations into the FDLR’s leadership and a former Rwandan mayor residing in Germany. With the punishable acts having been committed in southern Germany, the Federal Prosecutor was obliged to initiate investigations according to the official principle (Offizialprinzip, § 152 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure), which obliges the Prosecutor “to take action in relation to all prosecutable criminal offences, provided there are sufficient factual indications.” It was these factors that led to the trial against Murwanashyaka and Musoni before the OLG Stuttgart, which lasted from May 2011 until September 2015.
In vacating Murwanashyaka’s conviction under the VStGB, the BGH determined that prosecutors had not adequately proven that the defendant aided and abetted war crimes. In 2015, the lower OLG court had found that Murwanashyaka was knowingly complicit in the FDLR’s raiding and pillaging of four villages, which resulted in the deaths of at least 181 people. Specifically, the OLG held that he physically facilitated the war crimes by providing satellite and mobile phones, and that he encouraged the troops to commit the crimes by producing propaganda that knowingly disclaimed, trivialized, and denied the perpetration of war crimes.
The BGH found that the OLG’s findings concerning the link between the supporting acts by the defendant and the actual crimes were insufficient to carry a conviction for aiding and abetting. Specifically, the BGH found that it was unable to appreciate the extent to which Murwanashyaka’s supportive acts in Germany, e.g. his provision of satellite and mobile phones, furthered the specific war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR troops on the ground in the DRC. In this regard, the Court characterized some of the lower court’s findings as “unclear” and “not without inconsistencies,” an exceptionally blunt expression of criticism for a German court. Though the BGH largely upheld the findings of fact on FDLR’s crimes and structure, and even diverged from the lower court in finding that the FDLR committed crimes against humanity, the BGH vacated the findings of fact on the role of the accused in these crimes and structures and the pertinent legal reasoning.
It remains to be seen if the BGH’s full written judgment, which will be released in early 2019, will opine on the requirements to establish complicity in international crimes in more detail. Also outstanding is whether the trial court will convict Murwanashyaka for aiding and abetting in a rehearing that will likely include new evidence. Notably, the Federal Prosecutor had also appealed the trial court’s decision, arguing for a conviction on the basis of Murwanashyaka’s command responsibility per § 4 of the VStGB. The BGH ruled that Murwanashyaka lacked the necessary “effective control” over the troops in the DRC in order to apply the § 4 provision.
The question of command responsibility is now on the table again with the prospect of new evidence. It is difficult to imagine how the prosecutor can secure a conviction on the basis of command responsibility, however, given the BGH’s ruling on aiding and abetting. Though the BGH FDLR decision was admittedly the product of a cumbersome and lengthy process, the Court’s overturning of Murwanashyaka’s war crimes conviction was overall a disappointment for advocates of international criminal law in Germany.
While this aiding and abetting issue is the most recent troublesome development in the FDLR proceedings, it has not been the only one plaguing this unique international crimes case. For example, despite the prevalence of wartime gender-based violence in the region (see the work of the 2018 Nobel Laureate Denis Mukwege), the Court dropped all FDLR sexual violence charges over the course of the proceedings due to corroboration issues. Specifically, the Court expressed doubts as to whether the evidence gathered, which was mainly anonymous victim testimony, was sufficient to buttress a conviction. This raises the question of whether a more meticulous investigation might have led to a court judgment on instances of sexual violence.
Moreover, even though under German criminal procedure law, victims of certain crimes can join the proceedings as a “private accessory prosecutor” (Nebenklage) and gain participatory rights in the trial, no victim availed him- or herself of this mechanism in the case. While victims’ security and pecuniary file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
concerns might have impacted the use of the mechanism, it is also unclear whether German officials informed victims of their full rights, including to legal representation, during the pre-trial investigation. Furthermore, though universal jurisdiction prioritizes deterrence and redress, German authorities failed to develop a robust communication strategy toward victim communities that would bolster these goals. In fact, the Stuttgart court’s press office published updates exclusively in German, suggesting that authorities did not prioritize a victim-centered approach.
As much as the FDLR case was a learning experience for the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, it is to be hoped that the case’s shortcomings do not reverberate beyond the FDLR proceedings. Germany continues to pursue cases under universal jurisdiction in the Syrian context, particularly through “structural investigations” devoted to Syria and Iraq, i.e. broad investigations, without specific suspects, aimed at gathering evidence available in Germany to facilitate future criminal proceedings before German or other courts. There are currently 80 ongoing investigations with specific suspects, about half of them concerning Syria and Iraq. The Prosecutor has also secured war crimes convictions against Syrian non-state actors on the basis on the VStGB.
Armed with the VStGB, a modern code of international crimes, and, since October 2018, a second war crimes unit within Federal Criminal Police, Germany is playing a leading role in the investigation and adjudication of international crimes. Indeed, German civil society, including the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), is pushing for the German Federal Prosecutor to continue pursuing other mass atrocity cases characterized by state impunity. Such appeals have been particularly successful in the context of the Syrian War, where various criminal complaints lodged by ECCHR on behalf of Syrian victims have yielded an international arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Services and perpetrator of, inter alia, torture, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
It is also to be hoped that the lessons from this first trial under the VStGB are appreciated beyond the borders of Germany. Indeed, like German authorities, prosecutors in other European countries have begun to look into allegations of international crimes in Syria pursuant to universal jurisdiction and other related statutes. In November 2018, a French judge issued arrest warrants against Ali Mamlouk, head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, and Jamil Hassan for their roles in torture, enforced disappearances, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Austrian authorities have also initiated investigations into the Syrian Intelligence Services’ role in systematic torture following a criminal complaint submitted by 16 Syrian women and men to the Public Prosecutor in Vienna in May 2018. Probes against Syrian non-state actors have, too, led to investigations, charges, and, in some cases, convictions in places such as Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Finland.
The FDLR decision, while only binding in Germany, may have persuasive influence in these and future international crime proceedings, whether with respect to modes of liability or otherwise. Indeed, it is one very important piece of the international justice movement crystallizing in Europe and beyond.
The FDLR case represents an important step by German authorities in recognizing a lesson from Nuremberg: when it comes to international crimes, national borders are secondary to impunity. The very fact that a trial took place is remarkable given that international crimes proceedings were unfathomable in most national jurisdictions even just 20 years ago. The BGH even vindicated the role of international criminal law by diverging from the lower court’s opinion and affirming that the FDLR did indeed commit crimes against humanity, not just war crimes.
Despite these successes, the BGH’s decision highlights that the FDLR proceedings leave much to be desired. Whether in the Court’s treatment of modes of liability or sexual violence, or in German authorities’ questionable victim interaction, there is room for improvement. The proceedings also served as a reminder of the inherent difficulties in transnational litigation, particularly as it relates to the collection of evidence overseas and the mutual legal assistance of territorial states (in this case Rwanda and the DRC), both of which were costly, bureaucratic, and time-consuming.
As international crimes proceedings become more commonplace in Germany and Europe, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction, international justice advocates are hoping that the FDLR proceedings will serve a positive role in the creation of good practices. With the rehearing of Murwanashyaka’s war crimes conviction before the lower court in Stuttgart coming up, it will be seen whether the Court pays heed. After 4 ½ years and 320 trial days for the OLG’s decision of first instance, it is the least the Court can do now for those who have and may continue to suffer as collateral damage of the Congolese Civil War. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
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Piracy
New Saudi Initiative Of’ Arab and African Coastal States Of The Red Sea And The Gulf Of Aden’-Analysis (Eurasia Review) By Prasanta Kumar Pradhan January 16, 2019
A meeting of the foreign ministers and representatives of seven coastal countries of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden – Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia – was held in December 2018 in Riyadh. An extremely significant outcome of the meeting was the decision to establish a new entity in the region – the Arab and African Coastal States of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (AARSGA) – to coordinate and cooperate on political, economic, security, cultural and environmental issues.
Besides, and as stated earlier, a number of regional contenders of Saudi Arabia have stepped up their engagement with the countries in the region. In recent years, Turkey has expanded its relationship with Sudan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Sudan in 2017 and both countries have signed a number of agreements including on security, trade and investment. Importantly, as per an agreement, Turkey would be rebuilding the Sudanese port of Suakin on the Red Sea. Both countries have also conducted joint military exercises and Turkey also provides training to the Sudanese police officers. Also, in the Gulf of Aden, Turkey has a strong presence in Somalia with its largest overseas military base located in Mogadishu.
Besides Turkey, Qatar is also strengthening ties with Sudan. For Sudan, Qatar is the most supportive country in the region. Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim has supported Sudanese President Omer Al Bashir who is facing popular protests. Qatar has signed a military agreement with Sudan and is a key investor in the country. Qatar also enjoys immense goodwill as it mediated between Sudan and the Darfur rebels. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo had visited Doha in 2017 and again in 2018.
In this backdrop, the recent Saudi initiative is an effort to build bridges across the Red Sea with its western neighbourhood as it faces compounding challenges in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi military operations in Yemen against the Houthi rebels have not yielded desired results. Rather, it has faced global criticism as it has been accused of causing civilian deaths and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the country. The cracks within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that began with the diplomatic boycott of Qatar in June 2017 also continue to widen. The unity of the GCC, the regional organisation where Saudi Arabia once played the most dominant role, is now under severe stress. Further, Qatar has been strengthening ties with Iran and Turkey – two major regional challengers of Riyadh.
The regional geopolitics is getting redefined post the Qatar crisis: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan on one side, and Qatar, Turkey and Iran on the other. Thus, with the GCC as an organisation divided, Qatar swiftly moving closer to Iran and Turkey, and the Houthis fighting stubbornly in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is looking westward to establish a new regional arrangement. The formation and successful operationalisation of such an entity would likely bring a new dimension to the geopolitics in the region.
Indonesia Denies Ransom Paid to Release Abu Sayyaf Hostage (Eleven Media Group) January 16, 2019
The Philippines-based armed group, Abu Sayyaf, recently released an Indonesian hostage who was featured in a viral video pleading for his life, but Jakarta denies that ransom was paid to the kidnappers to secure his release.
The fisherman, identified as Samsul Saguni, was turned over to Philippine authorities on Tuesday afternoon after spending four months in the hands of a splinter cell of the Abu Sayyaf group, a Foreign Ministry official confirmed on Wednesday.
"Samsul Saguni is currently at the Westmincom [Western Mindanao Command] military base in Jolo, southern Philippines, where he is undergoing a health checkup while awaiting a flight to Zamboanga
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city,” said Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, the ministry’s director for overseas citizen protections.
Iqbal denied his side had paid ransom to secure Samsul’s release, saying that kidnappers would often resort to disseminating videos as threats because their demands weren’t met.
“It’s precisely because they didn’t get what they want that they seek to pressure [those involved] through viral videos,” he told reporters.
In a video circulated on Jan. 5, Samsul was seen begging for his life as he knelt in a hole in the ground while armed men in military fatigues pointed guns to his head.
He was previously mistaken for another Indonesian hostage, Usman Yusof, who had managed to escape from the clutches of the armed group in December.
Samsul and Saguni were abducted in September last year as they fished in waters off Gaya island in Malaysia’s Sabah region.
Iqbal assured that the team at the Indonesian Embassy in Manila would work to bring Samsul home once the Philippine authorities handed him over.
The ASEAN Regional Cooperation Agreement for Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia, or ReCAAP, considers the waters that make up the Sulu-Sulawesi corridor south of the Philippines, east of Malaysia and north of Indonesia one of the most dangerous maritime regions in the world.
Between 1995 and 2013, 41 percent of incidents of piracy occurred in Southeast Asia, with the corridor being one of the major hot spots, according to ReCAAP.
The latest ministry records show that as many as 36 Indonesians had been held hostage in the southern Philippines since 2016. Only two remain captive, it says.
Indonesia initiated trilateral maritime patrols with the Philippines and Malaysia in mid-2016 in hopes of stemming the tide of kidnappings.
However, Iqbal noted that only Manila had assisted in rescue operations. “The hostages were taken away in Malaysian waters, but Malaysia has been completely absent in the process of their release,” he said.
The Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) suggested in its most recent study that related parties should eschew a military approach and instead work on “good intelligence” that includes interrogating the link between Abu Sayyaf and migrant communities in and around Sabah.
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Gender-Based Violence
South Sudan’s rape crisis is shockingly unremarkable (The East Africa Monitor) January 4, 2019
According to new figures from the United Nations, over 1,100 people have suffered sexual violence in South Sudan this year, the highest figure since 2015. Pramila Patten, the UN’s senior-most expert, says rape and abuse is being used by both government troops and rebel militia to “degrade, shame and humiliate” entire communities in the country’s ongoing civil war. Her comments are backed up by reports of various high-profile atrocities across South Sudan, notably a 10- day spree of attacks in November, which saw 125 women and girls beaten, whipped and sexually assaulted in the northern town of Bentiu.
Yet perhaps the most shocking thing about these reports is that they’re really not that shocking. All too often, war provides the pretext for appalling acts of sexual violence, not just in South Sudan and its conflict-ridden neighbours, but around the world. These countries typically share a particular set of risk factors, which both facilitate such violence and force the victims, rather than the perpetrators, to bear its stigma for the rest of their lives.
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The primary risk factor is a chaotic melange of competing tribal and ethnic groups, which creates a culture of vengeance in which each community wants to humiliate the others, by any means necessary. Then there is the refusal of national governments to recognize sexual violence – often because their own troops are perpetrating it. Refugee crises, combined with concomitant famine and disease, overwhelm the aid groups and prevent them from shielding vulnerable people. Finally, when the attack has happened, anachronistic value systems stop the survivors from speaking out.
South Sudan serves as an unfortunate exemplar of this mephitic mixture. The country’s 60 ethnic groups are represented by a litany of factions in a five-year civil war which has normalized violence and detonated the rule of law. The conflict has left more than one in three people displaced, a crisis which has swamped the aid stations and forced many women to undertake dangerous journeys in search of supplies. If these women are ambushed, as they were in Bentiu – where victims were picked off as they went to fetch emergency supplies – South Sudan’s stultifying patriarchy, typified by the custom of families marrying off their girls in exchange for cattle, means they face further violence if they tell anyone.
So, the ceaseless sexual assaults continue unchecked, even when atrocities like Bentiu (or the auctioning of a girl’s virginity via Facebook) come to light. The authorities’ attitude was typified by the ‘minister of information’ for Northern Liech, the state which comprises Bentiu, who responded to November’s reports by saying they were simply “not true” and claiming that “women’s rights top our list” of priorities.
Familiar story
For women in neighbouring Congo, a country once labelled the rape capital of the world by the UN, such empty pledges will be all-too-familiar. The country’s government has announced ambitious action plans to curb sexual violence, yet the problem remains unsolved. In a single province, the southerly Kasai, 2,600 people suffered sexual violence in the space of just 16 months leading up to September 2018.
Again, the factors are familiar. Congo has been locked in conflict for 20 years, and the country’s slide into de factodictatorship under Joseph Kabila has brought a fresh spike in violence.In addition to dealing with 4.5 milliondisplaced people, relief workers are facing a fresh outbreak of polio and the second- biggest Ebola epidemic in history (Congo has now suffered 10 Ebola outbreaks since 1976, when the disease was named for one of its rivers). Even if the Congolese government had the resources to address the rape crisis, it lacks the will to do so; international observers suggest the government’s own troops have waged a campaign of rape against local woman to punish and subdue rebellious communities. Global indifference to the conflict – several aid agencies have described Congo as the world’s most neglected crisis – means no one has called the government to account.
At least, for the Congolese, long-delayed recent elections promise a more peaceful future. But for those living in the third member of middle Africa’s war-torn triangle, the situation is even bleaker. The five- year conflict in Central African Republic shows no sign of abating, and some aid officials even predict an escalation to full-scale war. Sexual violence is inflicted upon both sexes, as evinced by reports that rebels, who control 80% of the country, have raped and mutilated scores of men and boys. Far from stemming this tide, it is alleged that UN troops are actually contributing themselves, taking advantage of the chaos to inflict their own assaults at checkpoints and aid stations. In such an environment, it’s no surprise that many survivors are denied basic healthcare, let alone justice.
Decades of agony
Indeed, history suggests that any semblance of redress will be a long time coming. Fifty years on the Vietnam war, campaigners are still demanding recognition of the women raped by South Korean troops during the conflict. Far from being treated as the victims they were, these women were slut-shamed and even thrown in jail during the post-bellum period. The children fathered by their attackers were labelled Lai Dai Han, or ‘mixed blood’, bullied by both their peers and the victorious Communist soldiers. Despite the protests, the South Korean government has yet to even acknowledge the crimes its troops committed, let alone apologize.
At least the international coverage around Bentiu has moved the needle somewhat, raising the hope that future victims, and their children, won’t have to wait so long. But as Patten has saidabout the atrocity, global outrage is not enough. The international community must put pressure on war-torn countries such as South Sudan to end the stigma around war rape and start punishing the perpetrators, no matter
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whose side they’re on. After years of deadly silence, it’s time to start treating sexual assault in conflict as what it really is: a war crime.
Somali security officers trained on preventing conflict-related sexual violence (Mareeg) By John Snow January 6, 2019
Somalia has adequate expertise to tackle conflict-related crimes, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) recently launched an intensive training programme on sexual violence for security officers in the federal member states.
This week, 30 officers drawn from police, intelligence, military, and gender office, concluded a four-day training programme in Jubbaland State on reporting, investigating and prosecuting conflict-related sexual violence cases.
Conflict-related sexual violence cases are still high in Somalia, with the main perpetrators being members of illegal armed groups among them Al-Shabaab and its affiliates.
Speaking at the training session, AMISOM Protection Officer, Gloria Jaase Nkundanyirazo, called for concerted efforts to combat the vice, which she noted, targeted women and children.
“We want security personnel to be role models and advocate for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and also push for laws that protect women and children in conflict and post-conflict situations,” said Ms. Nkundanyirazo.
The officer stressed the importance of strengthening the capacity of national institutions to ensure accountability for past crimes and deterring future offenses.
Her sentiments were echoed by Inspector Bernard Azagiszaba, AMISOM Community Policing Advisor, who urged Somali national security officers to work closely with residents in addressing sexual violence cases.
“By the end of this session, they (Somali national security officers) should be able to go back into their communities and educate their community members that conflict-related sexual violence is a bad practice and should not be encouraged in our societies. It is a war crime,” said Inspector Azagisnaba.
Nadifa Sheikh Omar, a Gender Advisor to the President of Somalia, said Islam abhors any form of violence, adding that the perpetrators of sexual violence should be shunned by all peace-loving Muslims.
“We have discussed many topics including the view of Islam on violence and what the Islamic teachings say about violence against mankind. They (Somali national security forces) were able to grasp the concepts of the training based on the teachings of Islam and not a western ideology imposed on them,” noted Ms. Omar.
One of the participants, Omar Abdulkadir Abdi, a Jubbaland security officer, thanked AMISOM for organizing the training, saying the knowledge gained will be applied to protect women, children and other vulnerable groups from war crimes.
“I am very happy to have participated in this course because it is about the prevention of sexual violence against women particularly in areas of conflict. We may be deployed to new areas anytime hence we shall be able to practice how to guard against such acts,” said Mr. Abdi.
The officers were urged to be role models in their communities and always maintain high discipline standards when dealing with civilians in their areas of operation.
“We want them (Somali national security officers) to be good role models and to not only advocate for the victims of conflict-related sexual violence but also push for laws that protect women and children against sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations,” said Ms. Nkundanyirazo.
The training program will also be held in other federal states as AMISOM continues to transfer security responsibility to Somali national security forces.
Sexual violence a dark secret of War of Independence and Civil War (Irish Times) By Linda Connolly January 10, 2019
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As Ireland enters a new phase of centenary commemorations, a glimpse into the more horrific aspects of the War of Independence and Civil War is anticipated. During armed conflicts, women’s bodies also become battlefields and Ireland’s revolution was no different.
Transgressive violence was perpetrated against women but it disappeared from public discourse after the Civil War due to conservative attitudes towards women, sex and sexuality in the new State, combined with a desire to forget the worst atrocities of the war. The absence of a truth or reconciliation process ensured any violence that was perpetrated against women during the revolution could be concealed or forgotten.
The forced shorning of women’s hair was widespread. Elizabeth Bloxham, a Cumann na mBan activist, recalled in her Bureau of Military History witness statement: “These were the days when girls were roughly searched and had their hair cut off by British soldiers.” Peg Broderick-Nicholson from Galway described how she was called out from her bed and had her hair cut “. . . to the scalp with very blunt scissors”. Irish rebels meted out this punishment in equal measure.
The sexual justification for “bobbing” women was described by Leo Buckley, of the Cork no 1 Brigade, IRA: “I remember at the time, young girls from Cork going out to Ballincollig to meet the British soldiers. We curbed this by bobbing the hair of persistent offenders. Short hair was completely out of fashion at the period and the appearance of a girl with ‘bobbed’ hair clearly denoted her way of life.”
Policing sexuality
The “way of life” remark indicates policing women’s sexuality was a motive behind such shearing. In another incident, Michael Higgins of Belclare, Galway, recalled how holy water was evocatively thrown as the hair of a young woman was forcibly cut for passing on information to an RIC officer she was considered close to.
For decades, historians of the Irish revolution either completely omitted discussion of attacks on women or considered them “lenient” punishment, with men presumed to have experienced the worst atrocities of the revolution.
This is in stark contrast to the histories of much larger wars conducted in Belgium, France and Germany and civil wars elsewhere, including in Spain and Greece, where the head shaving of women has sparked immense debates about the sexual, gender and power relations exhibited by this form of punishment.
Hair shorning was and is a serious assault. Frequently, it hurt and traumatised women because of the force involved. Mary Alleway, for example, active in the Youghal branch of Cumann na mBan, described in her military service pension application how she was beaten by British troops and had her hair cut off, while her house was raided several times. The public humiliation and stigma of having a scalped head within the community followed. First-hand accounts reveal that hair could also be pulled and roughly handled with other injuries and harassment also inflicted (such as cuts from shears or razors, physical assault, beatings, shouting/verbal abuse, undressing, dragging, mob behaviour and sexual assault or rape).
In May 2018, the Military Service Pensions Collection project published new files in relation to 1,442 people online. Asylums, institutionalisation and nervous breakdowns feature in pension applications along with reports of gender-based and sexual violence.
Delia Begley from Ennis suffered a nervous breakdown after attending men who were wounded while making explosives in 1919 and which later saw her in the care of the Sisters of Charity religious order. Mollie O’Shea, active in the Cumann na mBan Kerry no 1 brigade, suffered lifelong insanity after the revolution. Mollie suffered a nervous breakdown after her brother was killed in what is considered the Civil War’s worst atrocity, the blowing up of eight anti-Treaty prisoners by Free State troops in Ballyseedy, Co Kerry, in 1923. The file details the trauma suffered by Mollie during the Civil War, including an “outrage” after which she was “very ill”.
Gang rape
Margaret Doherty from Foxford, Co Mayo, was one of the women in Ireland’s revolution subjected to a horrific gang rape by “three masked National Army members”. Margaret’s application made on her behalf states she died in 1928 in “the mental hospital” in Castlebar as a consequence of her ordeal. file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
In all these cases, the detrimental impact of violence on the physical and mental health of the women is clear. Other documented cases of transgressive violence include the gang rape of a Mrs Biggs in Co Tipperary by anti-Treaty men and the murder of 45-year-old Kate Maher in Dundrum, Co Tipperary, last seen in the company of British soldiers from the Lincolnshire regiment, in the local pub.
Kate was found dead with extensive vaginal wounds and a blow to the head with a blunt instrument, and nobody was found guilty in a military investigation. The Cork’s War of Independence Fatality Register notes that Bridget Noble from Castletownbere first had her hair cropped as a warning before she was ultimately killed by the IRA for not ceasing to be an informer.
The experience of women must be considered if the commemoration of the War of Independence and Civil War is to seriously address the most difficult questions of the past. The question of the scale of violence against women, when compared to larger-scale wars or World Wars, is a moot point. Gender- based violence occurred and it is an aspect of the revolution that has been hidden, suppressed and denied for too long.
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Commentary and Perspectives
Human trafficking worsens in conflict zones as militants deploy slaves - UN (Reuters) By Kieran Guilbert January 7, 2019
Human trafficking is becoming more “horrific” in conflict zones, where armed groups keep women as sex slaves and use child soldiers to spread fear, the United Nations said on Monday, warning of widespread impunity.
From girls forced to wed to boys made to cook and clean, militants are using trafficking as a tool to boost their control in areas where the rule of law is weak, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report.
The use of children as soldiers and suicide bombers in nations such as Colombia and Nigeria, and the sexual enslavement of Yazidi women by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, have grabbed headlines and sparked global anger in recent years.
Yet police and prosecutors are often not equipped to deal with the recruitment and exploitation of children by extremist groups - while global convictions of traffickers remain very low - according to the UNODC’s annual report on human trafficking.
“Trafficking is found in connection with most armed conflicts,” said Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UNODC. “In situations characterized by violence, brutality and coercion, traffickers can operate with even greater impunity.”
“Child soldiers, forced labor, sexual slavery - human trafficking has taken on horrific dimensions as armed groups and terrorists use it to spread fear and gain victims to offer as incentives to recruit new fighters,” he said in a statement.
Fedotov said the award of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to Nadia Murad - a former Islamic State sex slave turned Yazidi activist and U.N. ambassador - was an “important recognition” and urged the world to stop the use of rape as a weapon of war.
The UNODC’s report said that while countries are finding more victims - mostly women trafficked for sex - and convicting more traffickers, the total number of convictions remained very low in many nations - especially in Africa and the Middle East.
“In some countries ... there appears to be hardly any risk for traffickers to face justice,” the report said.
About 40 million people worldwide are living as slaves - trapped in forced labor or forced marriages - according to a landmark estimate by Australian rights group the Walk Free Foundation and the U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO). file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Yet campaigners say more and better data is needed to track progress in pursuit of a U.N. target of ending modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030 as many victims around the world - including child soldiers - are going uncounted.
“Sound information and a solid base of evidence for our policies are two of the most important things to fight this disgusting crime in the most efficient way possible,” Karin Kneissl, Austria’s foreign minister, said at the report launch.
“We simply need to know what it actually is we are dealing with,” she added.
Human Rights Watch calls for sanctions against new Afghan defense minister (Reuters) By Hamid Shalizi January 13 2019
International rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged major donors to impose sanctions on Afghanistan’s newly appointed acting defense minister over alleged war crimes and human rights abuses.
President Ashraf Ghani’s decision last month to appoint the fiercely anti-Taliban Asadullah Khalid prompted an outcry from human rights organizations which accuse him of being involved in assassinations, torture and illicit drug business while serving as governor of Ghazni and later of southern Kandahar in 2005 and 2008.
“Credible evidence of serious human rights abuses and war crimes linked to Khalid have followed him throughout his government career,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Saturday.
Brad Adams, Asia Director at HRW called on donors including the United States and Canada to impose sanctions on Khalid, freeze his assets and ban him from entry.
“The European Union and other donors should impose similar sanctions to send a clear message that returning a known human rights abuser to a position of authority is simply unacceptable,” he said.
Khalid, , who barely survived a Taliban suicide attack shortly he took over the National Directorate for Security in 2012, denies the charges and says they are politically motivated.
An uncompromising opponent of the Taliban, Khalid accuses Pakistan of aiding the insurgent group, which Pakistan denies.
His appointment and that of fellow Taliban critic Amrullah Saleh as interior minister come amid growing momentum in talks between U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban representatives, who have resisted U.S. pressure to include Ghani’s government.
Critics say Khalid’s appointment will only complicate peace efforts after 17 years of conflict. It has also fueled accusations that Ghani was trying to neutralize potential opponents by bringing them onto his side ahead of the election.
Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo clear of war crimes, may return to politics (Reuters) By Stephanie van den Berg and Ange Aboa January 15, 2019
The International Criminal Court acquitted former Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo of war crimes on Tuesday and ordered his release to the joy of dancing supporters and frustration of victims of atrocities.
His freedom and possible return home could shake up the 2020 presidential poll in francophone west Africa’s largest economy and the world’s biggest cocoa producer.
President Alassane Ouattara’s camp has said he may reconsider a decision not to run if long-time rivals Gbagbo and former president Henri Konan Bedie were to stand.
In the latest high-profile defeat for ICC prosecutors at the Hague, presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser said they failed to prove accusations against Gbagbo and co-defendant Charles Blé Goudé, a former youth file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
leader.
Gbagbo, 73, and Goudé, 46, hugged after the verdict. In custody for seven years after French troops flushed him out of a presidential bunker, Gbagbo could be freed as soon as Wednesday.
His wife, Simone Gbagbo, told Reuters he would return to Ivory Coast, but declined to comment on whether he might plan to stand for president next year.
“Wait for him to arrive and you can ask him all the questions,” she told Reuters at her home in Abidjan thronged with celebrating supporters.
Rights groups said the verdict denied justice to victims of the December 2010-April 2011 post-election conflict, when Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by Ouattara and about 3,000 people died.
“How can you free someone who has killed our children and our husbands?” shopkeeper Salimata Cisse, 33, said, amid a crowd of unhappy women in the commercial capital Abidjan.
ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office held the right to appeal and intended “to make submissions on the matter” at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Outside the court, dozens of Gbagbo supporters, many of whom came by bus from Paris, broke into cheers and dancing.
“Ooh-la-la!,” said Gbagbo supporter Olivier Kipre in Abidjan, where people gathered in Gbagbo shirts to watch proceedings on big screens. “I’m so joyful. I will become crazy today because I didn’t believe he would be released.”
Some threw themselves to the ground or burst into tears, while taxis in a pro-Gbagbo enclave tooted horns.
Gbagbo was the first former head of state tried at the ICC.
ICC prosecutors also lost big cases against Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Congolese ex-vice president released last year after his war crimes conviction was overturned, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who had charges dropped in 2015.
Prosecutors have only won three war crimes convictions over the past 15 years. This time, they failed to show Gbagbo’s speeches directly incited crime, judge Tarfusser said.
Gbagbo had faced four counts including murder, rape, persecution and other inhumane acts.
“Forces loyal to both Gbagbo and Ouattara were responsible for shocking violence,” said Jim Wormington, of Human Rights Watch.
In the wake of his acquittal, Gbagbo’s return to the Ivorian political arena in some capacity is all but certain, said Economist Intelligence Unit analyst Adeline VanHoutte.
“Whether he will decide to run in the 2020 presidential election is unclear, but either way, he will have a large influence on the outcome of these elections,” she said.
He rose to prominence as a Marxist firebrand lecturer who challenged the autocratic rule of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast’s first post-independence president. That got him imprisoned for two years in 1971.
He took asylum in France during the 1980s but came back and led protests that forced the old ruler to allow multi-party democracy in 1990 with an election that Gbagbo lost.
Ten years later, Gbagbo supporters helped oust military coup leader General Robert Guei and then took the presidency.
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WORTH READING
Extended Adolescent Development in International Juvenile Justice: Modernizing the U.N. Standards and Norms with Scientific Progress and Law Alyssa Wright December 27, 2018
In light of recent research about the prolonged period of adolescent development and its subsequent impact on youth crime, there is room to improve how we understand international juvenile justice today.
By using this research and demonstrating the effect it has had on case law and statutory law, I argue that there is an opportunity for the international human rights community to modernize juvenile justice standards and expand the jurisdiction of juvenile law to include young adults into their mid-twenties. Failure to do so is a de facto violation of the spirit of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the human rights of juvenile justice youth.
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War Crimes Prosecution Watch Staff
Founder/Advisor Dean Michael P. Scharf
Editor-in-Chief Taylor Frank
Managing Editors Sarah Lucey Lynsey Rosales
Technical Editor-in-Chief Ashley Mulryan
Senior Technical Editors Lysette Roman Jaclyn Cole
Associate Technical Editors Demari Muff Kurt Harris Kristin Lyons
Emerging Issues Advisor Judge Rosemelle Mutoka Contact: [email protected]
Africa
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Central African Republic Amy Kochert, Senior Editor David Codispoti, Associate Editor
Sudan & South Sudan Amy Kochert, Senior Editor George Kamanda, Associate Editor
Burundi Alexandra Hassan, Senior Editor Timothy Anderson, Associate Editor
Democratic Republic of the Congo Amy Kochert, Senior Editor Elizabeth Connors, Associate Editor
Kenya Elen Yeranosyan, Senior Editor Emily Hoffman, Associate Editor
Libya Alex Lilly, Senior Editor Jessica Sayre Smith, Associate Editor
Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) Elen Yeranosyan, Senior Editor Luke Palmer, Associate Editor
Mali Alexandra Hassan, Senior Editor Asako Ejima, Associate Editor
Lake Chad Region Alexandra Hassan, Senior Editor Abby McBride, Associate Editor
Somalia Elen Yeranosyan, Senior Editor Angela Kengara, Associate Editor
Uganda Elen Yeranosyan, Senior Editor Luke Palmer, Associate Editor Matthew O'Connor, Associate Editor
Europe
Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Section Mary Preston, Senior Editor
Julia Ozello, Associate Editor
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Mary Preston, Senior Editor Benjamin Boggs, Associate Editor
Domestic Prosecutions in the Former Yugoslavia Mary Preston, Senior Editor Alexander Peters, Associate Editor
Middle East and Asia file:///C/Users/mulry/Documents/WCPW/Volume%2013/Issue%2025%201.21/Full%2025.html[1/23/2019 6:05:58 PM] War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 13, Issue 25 -- January 21, 2019
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia Morgan Austin, Senior Editor Ariana Pike, Associate Editor
Special Tribunal for Lebanon Mary Preston, Senior Editor Andrea Shaia, Senior Associate Editor
Iraq Alex Lilly, Senior Editor Gloria Neilson, Associate Editor
Afghanistan Morgan Austin, Senior Editor Ariana Pike, Associate Editor
Syria Alex Lily, Senior Editor Tyler Portner, Associate Editor
Bangladesh Estefanía Sixto Seijas, Special Senior Editor Amanda Makhoul, Associate Editor
War Crimes Investigations in Burma Estefanía Sixto Seijas, Special Senior Editor Elizabeth Safier, Associate Editor
Yemen Morgan Austin, Senior Editor Emma Lawson, Associate Editor
Israel/Palestine Morgan Austin, Senior Editor
Matt Casselberry, Associate Editor
Americas
North and Central America Morgan Austin, Senior Editor Shannon Golden, Associate Editor
South America Amy Kochert, Senior Editor
Topics
Terrorism Alayna Bridgett, Senior Editor John Collins, Associate Editor
Piracy Alayna Bridgett, Senior Editor Nicole Divittorio, Associate Editor
Gender-Based Violence Estefanía Sixto Seijas, Special Senior Editor Rachel Adelman, Associate Editor
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Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
Alayna Bridgett, Senior Editor Sophia Billias, Associate Editor
Commentary and Perspectives
Alayna Bridgett, Senior Editor Courtney Koski, Associate Editor
Worth Reading
Taylor Frank Andrew Schiefer, Associate Editor
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