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War Crimes Prosecution Watch Editor-in-Chief Taylor Frank FREDERICK K. COX Volume 13 - Issue 23 INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTER December 26, 2018 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

Children hurt as another displaced persons camp attacked in CAR (Sight Magazine) France ships 1 400 assault rifles to Central African Republic army (SABC News) Central African football official Ngaïssona faces war crimes trial (BBC) Anti-Balaka militias quit Central African disarmament program over war crimes arrest (Defense Post) Calls for inquiry into UN peacekeepers’ role in massacres in Central African Republic (Sight Magazine) UN extends Central African Republic peacekeeping mission (Seattle Times)

Sudan & South Sudan

U.S. imposes targeted sanctions on three people for fuelling South Sudan conflict (Sudan Tribune) South Sudan holdout alliance pledges to bring justice for victims (Sudan Tribune) Spate of Sexual Violence (Human Rights Watch)

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Congo arrests army colonel in connection with killing of U.N. monitors (Reuters) Nobel Peace prize winners seek justice for war rape victims (Thomson Reuters Foundation News) UN reports hundreds of human rights violations as security situation in North Kivu deteriorates (Relief Web) WEST AFRICA

Mali

We Used to be Brothers (Human Rights Watch) New law will reinforce the culture of impunity for human rights violations (Amnesty International)

Liberia

FPA Editor Describes Liberians Opposing War Crimes Court as ‘Rebels’ (Front Page Africa) House Judiciary Chair Favors War Crimes Court, Removal of Tenured Posts (Liberian Daily Observer) The Call for War Crimes Court Needs Clarity for Public Understanding (Liberian Daily Observer) EAST AFRICA

Uganda

Human Rights Watch Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Human Rights Watch)

Kenya

Kenya wants Luis Ocampo probed on cases against six (Daily Nation) Kenya welcomes ICC probe on Ocampo’s misconduct (The Star)

Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)

A victory for international law? (Deutsche Welle) 5 to stand trial, Danish man extradited (Daily Nation) German court partially overturns war crimes verdict for Rwandan (Reuters)

Somalia

Bloody rivalry erupts between al-Shabab, IS group in Somalia (Associated Press) Deadly Baidoa clashes over Robow arrest (BBC News) Somalia uproar continues after arrest of former al-Shabab No. 2 who was running for office (NBC news) 62 al-Shabab fighters in Somalia killed in two days of airstrikes, U.S. military says (The Washington Post)

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Bosnia Indicts Serb Ex-Military Commander For Wartime Killings (RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty) Hague Prosecutor: Croatian Govt “Blocking” War Crimes Cases (Balkan Insight) Bosnia Charges Serb Ex-Fighter with Zvornik War Crime (Balkan Insight) Bosnian Serb Ex-fighters Cleared of Murdering Family (Balkan Insight) Bosniak General Pleads Innocent to Wartime Crimes (Balkan Insight)

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia U.N. War Crimes Courtroom Displayed in Sarajevo to Preserve Tribunal’s Legacy (U.S. News)

Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

Hague Prosecution ‘Summons Senior Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas for Interviews’ (Balkan Insight) Hague Court Dismisses Appeal Against Radicals’ Trial in Serbia (Balkan Insight) Bosnian Serb Ex-Officer Goes on Trial in Croatia (Balkan Insight)

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

Libya

Militia forces Libya’s NOC to declare force majeure on biggest oilfield (Reuters) Modern Day Slavery: A Black Man Can Be Bought for $400 in Libya (The African Exponent) Haftar’s forces attack a town near Libya’s Misrata (The Libya Observer)

Iraq

A Powerful Mechanism To Respond To The Atrocities Perpetrated In Iraq And Syria (Forbes) ISIS systematically destroyed Yezidi farms during onslaught - new report (Amnesty International UK) Amnesty says ISIL 'annihilation' of rural Iraq is a war crime (Aljazeera) Why US forces must step in to save Iraqi Christians from extinction (The New York Post)

Syria

No Fewer than Eight Massacres Documented in Syria in November 2018: Including Six at the Hands of International Coalition Forces (Syrian Network for Human Rights) Chicago woman believed to have been tortured, killed in Syria: Human rights group (ABC News) Syrian man charged in Germany with war crimes (The Washington Post) Damascus Accuses US, French, Turkish Troops, Allies of Plundering Antiquities (Sputnik News) Thousands Flee Bombs and Hunger in Eastern Syria (Eye Witness News) Syrian state seizing opponents' property, rights activists say (Al-Jazeera) Fresh US-led airstrikes leave 17 Syrian civilians dead in Dayr al-Zawr (PressTV) Accused War Criminals Meet in Damascus as Arab Bloc Moves Away From Snubbing Assad (CNS News)

Yemen

Documents reveal Australia's secret arms deals with nations fighting Yemen's bloody war (ABC News) Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (ABC News) In Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen, No Refuge on Land or Sea (The New York Times)

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Prosecutor Norman Farrell Ends Working Visit to Lebanon (Special Tribunal for Lebanon) Lebanon set to get new government in days (The Morung Express)

Israel and Palestine

UN Commission Probing Gaza Border Fatalities Nearly Finished Collecting Testimonies (Haaretz) Netanyahu: Israel Will Build West Bank Settlements Despite ICC Pressure (The Jerusalem Post) IDF Reservists to File Complaint Against Hamas, PLO to ICC (The Jerusalem Post) Hamas spokesman praises ‘heroic’ West Bank terror attack (The Times of Israel) Israeli army razes home of prominent Palestinian activist (Aljazeera) Israel Could Face ICC Charges if Bill Expelling Terrorist Families Passes, Expert Warns (The Jerusalem Post) IDF Begins Demolishing Home of Barkan Factory Attack Assailant (Haaretz) PA Condemns Israel for 'Assault, Aggression and Terrorism' (The Jerusalem Post)

Gulf Region

Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Saudi Arabia condemns US Senate 'interference' (British Broadcasting Corporation) In Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen, No Refuge on Land or Sea (The New York Times)

ASIA

Afghanistan

Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (ABC Australia) Trump’s input muddies case of Green Beret (The Star) War hero or murderer? Trump weighs in on military case (The Japan Times)

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

Don't vote for war criminals Prime minister urges people (The Daily Star) Oikya Front pledges to continue trial of war criminals (Dhaka Tribune) BNP manifesto silent on war crimes trials (bdnews24.com)

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

EU demands ICC to seek UNSC directives on Rakhine situation (New Age) House says Myanmar crimes against Rohingya are genocide (CNN) U.N. Security Council mulls Myanmar action; Russia, China boycott talks (Reuters)

AMERICAS

North & Central America

Ex-inmates: Torture rife in prisons run by Yemen rebels (The Tribune) El Mozote massacre: Waiting for justice nearly 40 years later (Al Jazeera) 'I didn't expect it to take this long': Omar Khadr in court seeking to ease bail conditions (National Post)

South America

Argentina Dirty War: Two former Ford executives jailed (BBC News)

Venezuela

Russia sends 2 nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela (AP) Maduro says Venezuela's civil militia grows to 1.6 million members (Reuters)

TOPICS Truth and Reconciliation Commission

There’s no confusion, says Law Minister Dhakal (The Himalayan Times) Tutu to be honoured at TRC anniversary event (News24) ‘Establishment of War Crimes Court Requires Effective Communication’ (Liberian Daily Observer) The Call for War Crimes Court Needs Clarity for Public Understanding (Liberian Daily Observer)

Terrorism

Sheikh Hasina's fight against Islamic terror might help her keep power in Bangladesh (Business Standard) Netanyahu: Hezbollah tunnels ‘an act of war’ (Times of Israel)

Piracy

Navy Winning Fight Against Sea Pirates, Says Navy Chief (Vanguard News Nigeria) Abducted Boxship Crewmembers Released by Nigerian Pirates (The Maritime Executive)

Gender-Based Violence

The Elusive Peace: Ending Sexual Violence during and after Conflict (ReliefWeb) New Report Provides First Comprehensive Legal Analysis of the Role of Gender in Genocide (Virtual Strategy Magazine) Nobel Peace Prize winners seek justice for war rape victims (Aljazeera) Statement by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Monday 10 December, where Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege will receive the prize (ReliefWeb) Kosovo: Survivors of wartime sexual violence speak out (DW)

Commentary and Perspectives

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mukwege worried Congo vote could lead to war (Reuters) U.N. investigation delves into Islamic State’s crimes against Yazidis (Reuters) Amnesty says ISIL ‘annihilation’ of rural Iraq is a war crime (Al Jazeera)

WORTH READING

Thomas Obel Hansen: Accountability for British War Crimes in Iraq? Examining the Nexus Between International and National Justice Responses Goran Sluiter: Human Rights in International Criminal Proceedings – The Impact of the Judgement of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers of 26 April 2017 David Nersessian: The Current Status of Cultural Genocide Under International Law

AFRICA

CENTRAL AFRICA

Central African Republic Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Cases: Central African Republic

Children hurt as another displaced persons camp attacked in CAR (Sight Magazine) December 7, 2018

A church-run camp for displaced people in south-eastern Central African Republic was attacked on Tuesday, less than three weeks after 60 people, including two priests, were killed in an attack on another camp.

Tuesday’s attack took place in the town of Ippy, which is 200 kilometres north of the camp in Alindao targeted last month.

Catholic news agency Fides reported that “at present the number of victims is not known” but that at least three people, including two children, were injured.

Both attacks are believed to have been carried out by the same group, the UPC (Unité pour la Paix en Centrafrique), which formed after the Séléka coalition (which took power in March, 2013), was disbanded.

Tuesday’s attack reportedly began at around 10am, when, according to Fides, “displaced men, women and children who had gathered for safety around the church of Saint Xavier” were “forced to seek shelter in the bush, under fire by UPC combatants”.

“The UPC rebels started shooting and the people ran in all directions,” an eyewitness told Fides. “The UN peacekeepers are present but do nothing to stop the aggressors from committing abuses.”

Fides added that the president of the peace committee in Ippy, Fr Roger Stanislas Djamawa, decried that Central Africans were being “left to their plight”.

UN forces were also blamed following the attack in Alindao last month, and after previous attacks in Gambo, in August, 2017, Zemio, in September, 2017, and Bocaranga, also in September 2017. The UN has always denied any wrongdoing by its peacekeepers.

France ships 1 400 assault rifles to Central African Republic army (SABC News) December 11, 2018

France on Tuesday handed over 1 400 AK-47 assault rifles and three amphibious vehicles to the Central African Republic (CAR) to shore up its beleaguered armed forces.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly oversaw the handover at a ceremony at M’Polo military base in the capital Bangui.

The military aid was announced in Paris in November, along with 24 million euros ($27.4 million) in civilian assistance.

One of the world’s poorest nations, the CAR has struggled to recover from a 2013 civil war that erupted when President Francois Bozize, a Christian, was overthrown by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels.

In response, Christians, who account for about 80% of the population, organised vigilante units dubbed “anti-Balaka” in reference to the balaka machetes used by Seleka rebels.

Thousands of people have died in the violence, 700 000 have been internally displaced and another 570 000 have fled abroad.

With the armed forces hampered by poor training and lack of equipment, the UN-backed central government controls only a fraction of the country’s territory.

In 2013, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo and it remains in place on Tuesday.

Exemptions are made for weapons shipments for the security forces that gain pre-approval from a UN sanctions committee.

The panel is tasked with ensuring that imported weapons do not end up in the hands of the militias in the corruption-prone country.

Central African football official Ngaïssona faces war crimes trial (BBC) December 12, 2018

Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona is accused of co-ordinating militia attacks on the CAR's Muslim population in 2013-14. In a statement, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said he faced extradition to The Hague. Mr Ngaïssona, a committee member of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), denies all allegations. he CAR, a former French colony, was plunged into turmoil in 2013 when predominately Muslim rebels from the Seleka group seized power in the majority Christian country.

A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, rose up to counter the Seleka after President Francois Bozize was ousted.

Thousands have died in subsequent clashes and the United Nations (UN) says more than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Mr Ngaïssona was the self-declared political co-ordinator of anti-Balaka forces.

In this role, the ICC says he committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture and the recruitment of child soldiers.

Speaking to the BBC, a spokesperson for the Caf said the football body had no position on his arrest, adding: "Let justice do its job."

Mr Ngaïssona was barred from running for CAR president in 2015 because of his alleged role in atrocities, which he denies.

He is a former head of the CAR's football federation and briefly served as sports minister before being elected to the Caf in February this year.

His appointment was criticised by several human rights groups.

"If the allegations were true, I wouldn't be here today," he told AFP news agency following the election.

He said he didn't want to "mix politics and sport."

"Everything I've done has been for the good of my country," he added.

Last month, another former militia leader from CAR, Alfred Yekatom, was flown to the ICC to stand trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Anti-Balaka militias quit Central African disarmament program over war crimes arrest (Defense Post) By Fergus Kelly December 14, 2018

Two Central African Republic militia groups said on Friday, December 14 they were withdrawing from a disarmament programme following the arrest of one of their leaders.

The decision to pull out was triggered by the arrest in France on Wednesday on war crimes charges of Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, a former minister and current member of the executive board of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Africa’s top footballing body.

Both groups belong to the anti-Balaka movement, 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, a spiral of 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.

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 United Nations.

President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s weak government only controls around a fifth of the country and relies heavily on the Minusca peacekeeping mission for support.

Anti-Balaka militants have been blamed for some recent attacks on United Nations peacekeepers. In August, a Burundian peacekeeper was killed in an ambush, and in May, a Mauritanian peacekeeper was killed and eight others injured. As part of efforts to end the bloodshed, President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s government began a pilot disarmament programme in August 2017, with the U.N. saying in October that six groups had so far committed to it.

But the two anti-Balaka groups said they were withdrawing their support for the national plan for Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration and Repatriation (DDRR) after the arrest of Ngaissona for acting as a coordinator for the militias.

Ngaissona was the “most senior leader and the ‘National General Coordinator’ of the Anti-Balaka” and therefore responsible for crimes, the International Criminal Court said.

The ICC warrant refers to “alleged criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the west of Central African Republic” between September 2013 and December 2014.

The crimes include murder, torture, mutilation, intentionally targeting and displacing civilians, pillaging and enlisting child soldiers, the ICC said.

Ngaissona has described himself as the “political coordinator” of the anti-Balaka groups.

In 2015, he was barred from running in CAR’s presidential elections over concerns about his role in the violence, but has previously said that “everything I’ve done has been for the good of my country.”

“We see that only the anti-Balaka are tried and sentenced,” said the militia group which is headed by Ngaissona in announcing its withdrawal from the DDRR process.

A second group, led by Maxime Mokom, denounced Ngaissona’s arrest as a “witch-hunt” and also said it was pulling out of the programme.

“We have shown good faith, we have initiated dialogue, we do not understand,” anti-Balaka coordinator Dieudonne Ndomate told AFP. “People in the [Bangui] neighbourhoods are furious.”

But another anti-Balaka leader, Sebastien Wenezoui – who is also Ngaissona’s spokesperson – called for restraint.

“We will stick to the African Union’s peace process,” he said, saying that the anti-Balaka emerged “in response to the Seleka atrocities.”

He said Ngaissona’s arrest amounted to “incitement to rebel against the current regime” which was why he was called on “all the anti-Balaka militia groups to show restraint”.

Despite his call, groups of angry anti-Balaka supporters could be seen gathering on the streets in two districts of Bangui, several sources said.

Ngaissona’s arrest came just weeks after another former anti-Balaka leader – Alfred Yekatom, known as Rambo – was arrested and extradited to the ICC in The Hague, creating a growing sense of resentment among the militia groups.

Despite being under U.N. sanctions, Yekatom was elected as an MP in 2016. He was arrested in September after he fired a gun in parliament during an altercation with another MP. His extradition was the first to the ICC from CAR.

He faces 14 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, mutilation, torture, cruel treatment and recruiting child soldiers into his anti-Balaka militia group.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) recently welcomed the arrests.

“Ngaissona is a major anti-Balaka leader. After the arrests of Rambo and Ngaissona, the ICC must now also deal with the ex- Seleka leaders,” said Pierre Brunisso, FIDH coordinator in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Calls for inquiry into UN peacekeepers’ role in massacres in Central African Republic (Sight Magazine) December 18, 2018

United Nations peacekeepers failed in protecting civilians in the Central African Republic during an attack in November that killed as many as 100 people, among them two priests, according to a report by Amnesty International published 14th December.

Multiple eyewitnesses told Amnesty that UN peacekeepers did not stop armed men believed to be members of a Séléka offshoot known by its French acronym UPC (Unité pour la Paix en Centrafrique), a mainly Muslim-Fulani militia, when they stormed the cathedral and the nearby refugee camp in the small town of Alindao, in the south-east of the country.

Instead, the UN troops retreated in an armed vehicle and returned to their central base, witnesses said, leaving thousands of people unprotected in the camp.

“Scores of civilians...were massacred after the UN peacekeepers charged with protecting them failed to take action to fend off their armed attackers,” said Joanne Mariner, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser. Two priests were among those killed in the cathedral.

In May last year, the same town suffered a bloodbath also attributed to UPC militants. According to Amnesty 130 people were massacred, though credible sources estimated the toll reached several hundred. The victims were Christian townspeople and villagers, perceived as supporting armed groups that oppose UPC’s rule.

Amnesty now calls for “an immediate and impartial inquiry” focusing on the actions of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and the question whether it failed in its duty to protect.

“The United Nations needs to assess whether the massacre at Alindao was preventable, and, most importantly, what it can do to ensure that future violent attacks on civilians are deterred or contained,” said Joanne Mariner.

In a response to the allegations, MINUSCA told Amnesty that the armed attackers outnumbered the UN troops and they would not have been able to contain the violence.

Amnesty, however, said it spoke with residents in the camp who told them that the MINUSCA deployment consisting of Mauritanian peacekeepers, who had taken over from Burundian troops in May, had not been properly controlling the site which had resulted in arms and armed fighters entering the camp.

According to Amnesty’s report, the Mauritanian troops delegated their daily activities to a small group of anti-balaka fighters - local self-defence militias that were initially formed in response to violence committed by Séléka and UPC.

Amnesty’s call was echoed by Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Archbishop of Bangui. “You [MINUSCA] come in the name of the international community to offer us help, protection and safety,” he said in a radio broadcast earlier this month, according to Agenzia Fides.

“Now here we see that certain forces instead of protecting the people leave them to their plight. Civilians are being killed in Alindao and elsewhere. How else can what we have seen be explained, burned human remains, homes and churches? I ask for an international inquiry to be opened to find the truth of the massacres and let justice be done,” he said.

The archbishop has spoken out repeatedly about the UN peacekeeping deployment for which he and his two fellow leaders of CAR’s interfaith platform initially advocated.

“Regrettably, we noticed their failures and limitations on the ground,” he said in February. “On various occasions, they have failed to protect those in need of assistance, and many have come to ask questions about their role or mandate in CAR”.

In February, following investigations into its inability to curb violence and allegations of complicity with armed groups in a string of attacks in the country last year, the UN released a report saying that “no evidence was found”.

When UN Secretary-General António Guterres visited the country in October last year, MPs voiced their concerns as reported by World Watch Monitor.

“How to explain that 12,000 men of the United Nations force are on the ground and that at the same time the civilian population continues to be massacred?” asked Karim Meckassoua, the President of the National Assembly. “What is the mandate of this force? Cannot we do better and more?”

On Thursday, the UN Security Council extended MINUSCA’s mandate while France arrested a former senior leader of anti- balaka militias in response to charges by the International Criminal Court. Patrice Edouard Ngaissona is accused of crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic between December, 2013, and December, 2014, according to Human Rights Watch.

UN extends Central African Republic peacekeeping mission (Seattle Times) December 13, 2018

The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution extending the mandate of the 14,600-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in conflict-wracked Central African Republic.

The French-drafted resolution adopted Thursday urges all militias and armed groups in the country “to lay down their arms, cease all forms of violence and destabilizing activities.”

It calls on President Faustin-Archange Touadera to advance talks with armed groups and national reconciliation “without delay.”

Russia and China abstained from voting.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow supports the peacekeeping force but he sharply criticized France for not including Russian concerns in the resolution. Russia wanted the U.N. force to support its training of Central African Republic troops.

The country has faced interreligious and intercommunal fighting since 2013, and violence has intensified and spread in the past year.

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Sudan & South Sudan

Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in Darfur, Sudan

U.S. imposes targeted sanctions on three people for fuelling South Sudan conflict (Sudan Tribune) December 14, 2018

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions against three individuals two South Sudanese and an Israeli, accusing them of trading in weapons with Juba in violation of international sanctions and undermining peace.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that Israel Ziv and Obac William Olawo were designated by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) "for being leaders of firms that supplied the Government of South Sudan with weapons and ammunition. Ziv is also accused of supplying weapons to the rebels.

While Gregory Vasili, the former governor of Gogrial State, was designated by OFAC for brokering deals for the sale of military equipment to the South Sudanese government. Also, he provided arms and commanded a militia engaged in conflict with a competing clan.

"As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of those designated by OFAC, that is in the United States or the possession or control of a U.S. person, must be blocked and reported to OFAC," said the State Department.

In two separate reports released in September 2016 and March 2018, The Sentry, an investigation report Co-founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast, revealed the role of Vasili and Olawo in actions undermining peace and stability in South Sudan.

Gregory Vasili was involved in procurement and embezzlement scandals in its report “War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay: Stopping the Looting and Destruction in South Sudan”. While Obac William Olawo’s role in the conflict is described in “Fueling Atrocities: Oil and War in South Sudan”.

Reacting to the sanctions, Prendergast welcomed the measures taken by the U.S. administration against the three individuals who are part of the system of grand corruption that fuels extreme violence in South Sudan and actually makes war profitable.

"This is exactly the way leverage should be built to support peace and fight corruption in Africa. Individual sanctions alone are inadequate," he further said.

The State Department vowed to use all available mechanisms to promote a permanent end to the brutal conflict in east African country in order to bring peace, freedom, and prosperity to the South Sudanese people. South Sudan has been under an arms embargo imposed by the U.S. in February 2018 and the United Nations in July of the same year.

The government and the main armed opposition group and several other opposition factions signed a peace deal brokered by the IGAD on 12 September 2018.

South Sudan holdout alliance pledges to bring justice for victims (Sudan Tribune) December 15, 2018

The South Sudan National Democratic Alliance (SSNDA) vowed on Saturday to achieve justice for the victims of the targeted killing of civilians in Juba by the government forces on tribal lines.

In a statement on the fifth commemoration of the fifth anniversary of Juba Massacre of December 2013, the SSNDA said the families of the victims have not seen justice or accountability against the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in our country.

"Therefore, SSNDA would like to assure the families of the victims and the entire South Sudanese people that it would leave no stone unturned until all the perpetrators are held accountable and brought to book. Justice delayed is justice denied," said the alliance spokesperson Kwaje Lasu in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune.

Kawaje stressed that they rejected to sign the revitalized peace agreement because it does not address the root causes of the conflict nor does it ensure accountability.

He further said the non-signatories will continue to work with other opposition groups, the region, the Troika and "all the peace-loving people" in the work to achieve a just and lasting peace in South Sudan.

The SSNDA this week disclosed they held a meeting with the IGAD Special Envoy Ismail Wais how asked them to explain their grievances and reasons that led them to decline to sign the peace pact of 12 September 2018.

The alliance said they would provide him with a position paper that may lead to further discussions with the government and the other peace signatories.

Spate of Sexual Violence (Human Rights Watch) December 18, 2018

South Sudan’s government should urgently investigate rape and other sexual violence against women and girls traveling in the former Unity state and provide protection and services to survivors. Investigations should focus not only on the individual crimes, but also on whether the crimes were coordinated, and they should lead to arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

On November 30, 2018, the medical agency, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF), announced that its staff in the town of Bentiu, the capital of Northern Liech state, had treated 125 women and girls who were raped, beaten, and robbed over a 10-day period between November 19 and 29 alone. Human Rights Watch researchers visited Bentiu between December 7 and 12 and found evidence of a pattern of attacks on women and girls traveling to and from town for food distributions and other errands.

“Rape has long been condoned, normalized, and used to terrorize women and girls across South Sudan,” said Nyagoah Tut Pur, South Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “South Sudan’s government and the United Nations peacekeepers should ensure effective patrols in the known danger spots and help facilitate effective investigations and prosecutions of these crimes.”

Human Rights Watch spoke to UN and humanitarian agencies staff, community leaders, doctors, local authorities, and survivors. Women said they had been attacked by armed young men wearing mixed military and civilian clothing, in many cases with their faces covered to hide their identities. The men raped, or gang raped them, and robbed them at gunpoint of all their belongings, including shoes, money, and even the clothes they wore.

MSF said that survivors included girls under 10 years old, women over 65, and even pregnant women. All the alleged crimes were reported to have occurred within 15 to 20 kilometers from Bentiu, primarily on the Nhialdiu and Guit roads. UN agencies reported higher numbers in subsequent statements to the media.

The MSF report provoked strong condemnations of the sexual violence from the UN, African Union (AU), and other bodies. Local authorities told Human Rights Watch that they were aware of sexual violence, but doubted the scale reported by MSF. The government formed a national commission of inquiry on December 7, led by Minister for Gender Awut Deng. The commission, which has promised to share its findings with the UN’s commission on human rights in South Sudan, announced on December 17 that the investigation was already closed and that findings would be made public.

Any investigation into these alleged rapes should be fair, impartial, and in accordance with international standards, ensuring the rights, dignity, and security of survivors and that there are no reprisals toward them or health care providers and other humanitarian agencies, Human Rights Watch said. The investigation should not focus on verifying the reported numbers but on the identity of the attackers and whether the attacks were directed by or undertaken with the knowledge of senior members of any party to the conflict. Authorities should also assess survivors’ needs for medical and psychological care, livelihood support, and reparations.

Women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were attacked while walking along bush and forested paths along Bentiu-Nhialdiu road.

A 40-year-old woman from Kur Nhialdiu village said that in late November, six armed men abducted her, five other women, and two teenage girls. The attackers took them into the forest and gang raped and robbed them. The men released the six women but not the two girls, who to the women’s knowledge are still missing.

A 31-year-old woman described a December 7 attack at gunpoint as she and two other women travelled from Nhialdiu to Bentiu to buy food and do errands:

We encountered 6 young men. They took us deep into the forest. They took all our clothes and food. They had guns and wore khaki and raped me at gunpoint. The rapes happened to each of us. There were two men for each of us. It was painful. They beat us and pushed us on the ground.

Another woman in her 40s who made the trip from Nhialdiu twice in late November and early December said that on December 9, a group of armed men attacked her group of approximately 20 women in Dhor Nyadol Geah as they travelled to Bentiu and took the younger ones aside to rape them: “The men were many, they had guns. They had blankets covering their heads and shoulders leaving only eyes. They separated us, they took the young girls and young women into the bushes.... They said: ‘You old women, go!’”

As far as Human Rights Watch has been able to determine, no one has been arrested or prosecuted for these attacks. Commuity leaders said they had been aware of ongoing sexual violence in areas within and outside Bentiu, even before the MSF report, and told the authorities, but that they had taken no action to prevent or investigate the attacks. “We have reported cases of rapes over and over to authorities,” a Bentiu community leader said. “We don’t know whether it is lack of capacity or that they don’t want to do anything to stop this.”

The identities of the attackers and their motives are unclear. While the extent to which the wave of rapes is a direct part of the ongoing conflict in parts of former Unity state is not known, the prevalence of armed youth is a direct result of the legacy of conflict in the region. A staff member of an international organization told Human Rights Watch:

These are most likely young men who were once mobilized and now have nothing to do. What we are witnessing now is the remnants of a culture of incentivized violence. This is what they know. What they have always done without consequence.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented widespread sexual violence during government-led offensives in central and southern Unity state, as well as forced recruitment of children. Attackers, including youth forcibly recruited by all parties to the conflict, were told by senior officers to loot and rape in lieu of wages during offensives in 2015 and 2016 in central and southern Unity state. UN human rights staff documented more than 120 rapes and other sexual violence during large-scale attacks on civilians in Leer and Mayendit Counties in mid-2018, calling the crimes a “weapon of war.”

The former Unity state, home to much of South Sudan’s oil production, has been the site of major atrocities since early 2014. Bentiu has changed hands multiple times between government and armed opposition, and more than 110,000 civilians are sheltering in a UN site for protection. Although South Sudan’s leaders signed a “revitalized” peace deal on September 12, fighting has continued between government and rebel forces in Guit and Koch counties, east of Bentiu. There has been no progress in establishing the hybrid South Sudanese-AU court envisioned in the deal, and impunity continues to fuel conflict.

South Sudan has yet to sign a memorandum of understanding on the court or pass domestic legislation needed to establish it. The UN secretary-general and Security Council have in response to the reports of rapes in Bentiu called on the government to establish the hybrid court.

Given these long delays and little indication the government will act on its own, the AU should proceed unilaterally to establish the court, Human Rights Watch said.

“Authorities at both the national and the state level should show that they are serious about addressing impunity for all crimes,” Pur said. “They should publicly commit to ensuring justice not only for the recent rapes in Bentiu, but also for all sexual violence and other crimes, and this requires setting up the court and putting it into operation right away.”

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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

Congo arrests army colonel in connection with killing of U.N. monitors (Reuters) By Aaron Ross December 7, 2018

A Congolese army colonel has been arrested in connection with the killing of two U.N. sanctions monitors, a prosecutor said on Friday - the first member of the security services detained over the case.

Zaida Catalan, a Swede, and Michael Sharp, an American, were killed in March 2017 while investigating reports of atrocities during an armed conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai region between government forces and the Kamuina Nsapu militia.

Congolese authorities initially blamed the militia, arrested about two dozen alleged fighters and charged them with involvement in the killings. The government later said it could not exclude the possibility state agents were involved.

Timothee Mukuntu, the prosecutor overseeing the case, told Reuters on Friday that Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni had been arrested but no formal charges had yet been filed.

Calls to Mambweni’s phone did not connect and it was not immediately clear if he was represented by a lawyer. He has previously denied any role in Sharp and Catalan’s deaths.

The prosecutor said Mambweni was arrested after a session in the trial of some of the arrested militia members on Thursday.

RECORDING

Defense layers at the hearing in the central city of Kananga said prosecutors played an audio recording of what they said was the colonel meeting the U.N. monitors at his house two days before their deaths.

In the audio recorded by Catalan, Mambweni was heard giving the monitors the number of a translator for them to use on their mission, and then calling the translator himself, two defense lawyers told Reuters.

South Africa issues arrest warrant for Zimbabwe's Grace Mugabe Mambweni denied in court testimony last month that he had introduced them to the translator or played any part in the planning of their mission or their deaths.

Defense lawyer Tresor Kabangu also said members of his team had requested that Congo’s interior minister at the time of the killings, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, appear in court to explain negotiations he led with Kamuina Nsapu representatives.

Shadary is now President Joseph Kabila’s preferred candidate to replace him in a Dec. 23 election. A spokesman for Shadary did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Nobel Peace prize winners seek justice for war rape victims (Thomson Reuters Foundation News) By Gwladys Fouche December 9, 2018

This year's Nobel Peace Prize winners on Sunday called for justice for the victims of sexual violence in conflicts around the world, a day before they will receive the award for their efforts to put an end to rape as a weapon of war.

Denis Mukwege, a doctor who helps victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State, will jointly receive the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony on Monday in the Norwegian city.

Mukwege heads the Panzi Hospital in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu. The clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery from sexual violence.

Murad is an advocate for the Yazidi minority in Iraq and for refugee and women's rights in general. She was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014.

Murad has campaigned for a United Nations investigative team to collect and preserve evidence of acts by Islamic State in Iraq that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The team began its work in August, a year after it was approved by the U.N. Security Council.

Murad, speaking at a news conference at the Norwegian Nobel Institute on Sunday, said that not a single person in Iraq had yet faced justice for raping Yazidi women and girls.

"We have not seen a single piece of justice in this light. We need to receive justice one day," she told reporters via an interpreter, adding that 3,000 Yazidi women and girls still remained in sexual captivity with IS fighters.

But she was also hopeful. "If it was not for our campaign over the past four years, we would not have seen the steps we have seen towards justice."

Her fellow Nobel laureate, Mukwege, who lives in the grounds of the Panzi hospital and who frequently receives death threats, said justice needed to be included in any peace process.

The Second Congo War, which killed more than five million people, formally ended in 2003, but violence is still a problem in the country, where militias frequently target civilians.

"There is humanitarian law. We call on it to be applied in an impartial way. After the war ended, we have seen war lords reach the top of the state and there was no discussion of justice and violence has continued," he said at the news conference.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he said, would help to bring perpetrators to justice.

"It will help the international community take its responsibilities when it comes to the victims of sexual violence," he said.

Mukwege also said he was concerned that elections in the Congo planned for Dec. 23 could lead to a resurgence of violence if they were not free and transparent.

UN reports hundreds of human rights violations as security situation in North Kivu deteriorates (Relief Web) December 19, 2018

Hundreds of extrajudicial killings and cases of torture and sexual violence against civilians have been documented during the last two years in North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a UN report issued Wednesday.

The security and humanitarian situation in North Kivu steadily deteriorated between January 2017 and October 2018, the report says, with the number of human rights violations and abuses amounting to one-third of all the human rights violations documented across the entire country.

The expanding number, and evolving nature, of armed groups fighting both against the security forces and among themselves in order to control territory or natural resources has been a significant factor in this deterioration.

This [report]https://www.ohchr.org/FR/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24030&..., published by the UN’s Joint Human Rights Office* focuses in particular on the chronic situation in the Masisi and Lubero territories, where the UN documented at least 324 victims of extrajudicial or summary executions, 832 victims of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, 173 victims of rape or other sexual violence (114 women, 58 children and one man), and 431 victims of forced labour. The civilian population has been the main victim of the worsening security situation in these territories.

Since 2015, the number of human rights violations in both territories has been on the rise, the report says. Women and children are often kidnapped, frequently for the purpose of sexual exploitation, with rapes and gang rapes committed both by armed groups and sometimes by the army (FARDC), the report says, adding that children are also subject to indoctrination by armed groups and forced to serve as child soldiers. “In some villages of Masisi and Lubero, sexual violence is being used in a deplorable, systematic and particularly brutal way by certain armed groups to punish and intimidate whole communities,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. “All efforts should be deployed to protect civilians - in particular the most vulnerable - and prevent such atrocities.”

The report describes how the widespread violence has provoked massive displacement of civilians, with many displaced persons living in precarious conditions and vulnerable to further exploitation and violence.

The report, based on verified information gathered by UN human rights officers, states that armed groups were responsible for around two-thirds of the human rights violations and abuses registered during the reporting period, while Government security forces – mainly the army and the National Police (PNC) – accounted for the other third (20 percent by the FARDC and nine percent by the PNC).

The report also stresses the number of human rights violations and infringements of international humanitarian law attributed to the FARDC, alongside credible allegations of complicity between some army members and armed groups in Lubero and Masisi. These are exacerbating the population’s already considerable vulnerability and mistrust of the FARDC, as well as contributing to the general deterioration of the security situation.

“Without credible investigations to determine responsibility for every crime, and without judicial sanctions against the authors of these violations -- no matter who has committed them – impunity will continue to prevail,” said the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the DRC, Leila Zerrougui. “This will in turn continue to feed the seemingly never-ending cycle of conflict and misery in North Kivu, with civilians caught between the armed groups on the one hand and the security forces – who are supposed to protect them – on the other.”

The report takes stock of important developments in the protection of civilians by all concerned actors and offers some recommendations for further improvement. It urges the Government to reinforce State authority in affected areas and support judicial processes against alleged perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses.

The activities of the armed groups have also affected the emergency response to the Ebola epidemic in the Lubero region, where the violence has triggered displacements both from and to Ebola-affected villages, most likely contributing to the spread of the disease.

The report also states that this situation of high insecurity and of continuing violations of human rights could undermine the political rights of the population in the context of the upcoming elections.

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WEST AFRICA

Mali

We Used to be Brothers (Human Rights Watch) December 7, 2018

Amidst the proliferation of Islamist armed groups in Mopti region, central Mali, communal violence has in 2018 killed over 200 civilians, driven thousands from their homes, undermined livelihoods, and led to widespread hunger. The victims are largely ethnic Peuhl targeted by ethnic Dogon and Bambara “self-defense groups” for their alleged support of armed Islamists largely linked to Al-Qaeda.

The agricultural Bambara and Dogon and pastoral Peuhl communities have long had disputes over access to water and land, though they were usually resolved without bloodletting. Since 2015, however, the number of deadly intercommunal incidents, underscored by efforts by the Malian government to combat increased violence by Islamist armed groups, has risen steadily. In 2018, this violence reached alarming levels.

Malian authorities have not adequately investigated these incidents, including several massacres that claimed over a dozen lives. All three communities accuse the Malian security forces of failing to adequately protect their communities. Since 2015, Islamist armed groups have gradually spread from northern to central Mali, where they have summarily executed dozens of people accused of collaborating with government security forces; indiscriminately planted improvised explosive devices; forced civilians into adhering to their version of Islam; and undermined citizen participation in elections.

Islamist armed groups have concentrated their recruitment efforts on the Peuhl by exploiting the community’s frustrations over rising banditry, government corruption, and competition over land and water. The recruitment of Peuhl has inflamed tensions within the Bambara and Dogon, and, together with the limited presence of Malian security forces, led to the formation of ethnically aligned self-defense groups.

The self-defense groups say they took security into their own hands because the government had failed to adequately protect their villages and property. Easy access to firearms, including military assault weapons, contributed to the growth and militarization of the self-defense groups, making already existing communal tensions increasingly deadly.

Some Peuhl leaders and others assert that the Bambara and Dogon self-defense groups have used the fight against armed Islamists as a pretext to dislodge the Peuhl from valuable, fertile land and engage in banditry. The violence has driven even more Peuhl men to join the Islamist armed groups.

This report, based on three research trips in February, May, and July 2018 and telephone interviews throughout 2018, documents massacres, attacks on villages, and retaliatory killings of Peuhl, Bambara or Dogon civilians in central Mail in 2018, including abuses that took place in 42 villages and hamlets in Mopti region, particularly near the Burkina Faso border, and near the town of Djenné , a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site. Interviewees include victims of and witnesses to killings and other abuses; leaders from the self-defense groups; Peuhl, Dogon and Bambara community leaders; government officials; diplomats; aid workers; and security analysts. A total of 148 people were interviewed in 2018, with numerous other interviews conducted in Mali between 2015 and 2017 providing background and context to the 2018 abuses.

The report documents the killings of 202 civilians who were the targets of deliberate or indiscriminate attacks by armed groups. The attacks on villages were almost always accompanied by widespread pillage, the destruction or burning of homes, and large-scale livestock theft. Some people died inside houses or mosques that had been set on fire.

The report documents 26 attacks against Peuhl villages allegedly by Bambara and Dogon self-defense groups in which at least 156 Peuhl civilians were killed. This includes 10 villages: Koumaga, Dankoussa, Meou, Bombou, Someni, Doldla Haidara, Gueourou, Komboko, Pirga, and near Sofara--in which between 8 and 23 villagers were killed. Many militia atrocities appear to have been sparked by alleged Islamist armed group killings of Dogon or Bambara community members. The self-defense groups frequently retaliated with attacks against entire hamlets or villages. About 50 Peuhl villagers, including children, who were either detained by the militias or fled the attacks, remain missing at time of writing.

The report also documents the killing of 46 Dogon villagers during 16 attacks allegedly by Islamist armed groups backed by Peuhl self-defense groups. They include the execution-style killing of a marabout (Muslim teacher), the killing of several villagers foraging for wood, and other villagers burned alive when their villages came under attack. At least ten Dogon villagers died in 2018 from improvised explosive devices that appear to have been planted by armed Islamists.

Human Rights Watch believes the killings and other serious abuses documented in this report provide only a partial accounting of the total number of people killed and injured in communal violence in central Mali in 2018. Nor does it account for deaths from communal violence in other regions of Mali. For instance, in 2017 and 2018, dozens of civilians were killed in Mali’s northern Ménaka region during violence between the Peuhl and Tuareg Imghad and Doussak clans.

The fighting in central Mali amounts to a non-international armed conflict under the laws of war. Applicable law includes Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other treaty and customary laws of war, which apply to non-state armed groups as well as national armed forces. The laws of war require the humane treatment of all persons in custody, and prohibit summary executions, torture, sexual violence and other ill-treatment, attacks on civilians and civilian property, and looting. The government has an obligation to impartially investigate and appropriately prosecute those implicated in war crimes.

Other human rights concerns in central Mali include:

Violence and Loss of Livelihoods

Villagers described what they considered to be organized efforts by the opposing community and its militia to undermine their economic livelihoods and ultimately drive them from their villages. Peuhl villagers said that Dogon and Bambara self-defense groups banned them from selling or buying at markets, while Dogon villagers said that armed Peuhl men came to their villages and prohibited them from planting or working their fields. Some villagers have been killed by armed men while grazing animals or working in the fields, and all community members described the widespread theft of livestock that resulted in severe economic hardship. The Malian government said dozens of villagers died from acute malnutrition linked to the insecurity in 2018. The violence drove over 10,000 people from their homes.

Malian Government’s Inadequate Response

The Malian government has largely failed to fulfil pledges made in early 2018 to conduct criminal investigations into the allegations of serious abuses, to adequately protect communities vulnerable to communal violence, and to disarm abusive self- defense groups. They have also not impartially applied the 2017 and 2018 security force bans on using motorcycles for transportation between villages in Mopti region.

Dozens of witnesses said they saw Dogon and Bambara self-defense members carrying firearms and traveling freely on motorcycles in defiance of government bans. Group members were seen armed with military assault weapons in villages and marketplaces, manning checkpoints, checking identification cards, conducting house-to-house searches, and driving by gendarme, army and police bases with no response from state actors.

Security Forces Failure to Adequately Protect Civilians

Leaders from all communities raised concerns about the slow or lack of response by Malian security forces to attacks on their communities, even when alerted to attacks ahead of time. They also claimed to have communicated the whereabouts of members or bases of abusive armed group as well as their command structure but said scant action was taken. Some Peuhl leaders accused the army of supporting or directly collaborating with the militias, including by providing them arms and logistical support, allegations Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm.

Ministry of Defense officials told Human Rights Watch that they understood the gravity of the problem posed by the rising communal violence, were actively taking measures to stop the violence, but that their response was hampered by inadequate recourses.

Lack of Justice for Communal Violence

There have been few investigations into and no prosecutions of those responsible for the serious abuses documented in this report. The lack of accountability may be emboldening armed groups to commit further abuses and promotes a general climate of impunity.

Justice sector professionals said that several investigations into serious abuses committed by the self-defense groups had officially been opened in 2018, but that the precarious security situation had limited the ability of the gendarmes and local judges to make progress on them.

Human Rights Watch urges the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, elected for a second term in August 2018, to urgently address communal violence documented in this report. The government should investigate and prosecute those from all sides responsible for the serious abuses and establish a commission to determine the whereabouts of civilians gone missing during communal attacks. State security forces should respond promptly and impartially to vulnerable populations threatened by self-defense forces or armed Islamist groups, and step up patrols to protect them.

The Malian parliament should, in addition, establish a commission of inquiry into the sources of arms proliferation in the country; allegations of politically-motivated, rather than impartial, responses by security forces; and the underlying causes of communal violence in central Mali. Mali’s international partners should press the Malian government to ensure that those responsible for communal violence are appropriately held to account and to support Mali’s efforts to better protect civilians and deliver justice for victims.

New law will reinforce the culture of impunity for human rights violations (Amnesty International) December 12, 2018

Amnesty International is urging the Malian authorities not to vote in a new law which may allow the perpetrators of killings, torture and other atrocities to escape justice.

On 13 December Mali’s National Assembly will examine the ''National Understanding Act'' (Loi d’entente nationale) which has vaguely worded provisions. The law could lead to “abandoning the prosecution of those involved in an armed rebellion if they have no blood on their hands,” according to the statement to the Nation made by Mali President on 31 December 2017.

“Members of the security forces responsible for human rights violations and members of the armed groups who perpetrated horrendous human rights abuses may never be brought to justice if the draft passes into law,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa Deputy Director.

"This law would be an insult to thousands of victims of the ongoing conflict in Mali. It would also be a serious threat to Mali’s obligation to investigate and prosecute crimes under international law, including extrajudicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances. The fight against impunity must be the priority for Malian authorities.”

Amnesty International’s analysis of the draft law found that it does not comply with Mali’s obligations under international law, including the Rome Statute, the UN Convention against Torture and the UN Convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance.

Article 4 of the draft law indeed specifies that amnesties shall not be provided to authors of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and other imprescriptible crime.” However, this provision does not prevent amnesties for other crimes under international law such as torture and enforced disappearances. It may also allow amnesties for perpetrators of other serious crimes under Malian law including murder, torture, violence against persons, abductions, among others.

The United Nations Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance also states: "Persons who have, or are alleged to have committed offences-acts of enforced disappearance- shall not benefit from any special amnesty law or similar measures that might have the effect of exempting them from any criminal proceedings or sanction."

Confirming fears expressed by civil society organizations in a joint letter in March this year, the draft law if passed could result in a denial of truth and justice to the victims of crimes under international law and human rights abuses and their families.

Mali is facing more than six years of armed conflict in which hundreds of people were killed, and there were dozens of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and cases of torture. Malian authorities have largely failed to investigate the human rights abuses committed both by armed groups and state security forces since the conflict began in 2012.

In 2017, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) documented 252 cases of human rights violations by security forces and armed groups involving more than 650 victims. The cases included 21 instances of extrajudicial executions and deliberate and arbitrary killings, 12 cases of enforced disappearances and 31 cases of torture and other ill-treatment.

Rather than preventing future abuses by bringing to court the alleged perpetrators of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, this draft law if passed will reinforce the culture of impunity.

Amnesty International is calling on the Malian authorities to amend the draft law, and in particular its Article 4, so that full investigations into crimes under international law and human rights violations by both armed groups and Malian security forces can be carried out. The draft law must be rewritten to be in accordance with Mali’s obligations under international law.

In December 2017 Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced the ''National Understanding Act”. Several international human rights organizations including Amnesty International wrote to the President requesting a meeting with him and sharing their concerns about the announcement. So far there has been no response from the authorities. On 31 May 2018, the bill was adopted by the Council of Ministers.

In March this year Amnesty International uncovered a mass grave in central Mali. Local witnesses in the village of Dogo identified six bodies as people who had been arrested by the military three days earlier.

Amnesty International has also documented an increase in attacks on civilians by armed groups including Ansar Dine and GSIM, and confirmed that 65 people, including children, have been killed by improvised explosives since the beginning of the year. Insecurity and intimidation of teachers by armed groups have forced 715 schools to close across the central and northern regions of the country, affecting more than 214,000 students.

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Liberia

FPA Editor Describes Liberians Opposing War Crimes Court as ‘Rebels’ (Front Page Africa) By Fatoumata Fofana December 6, 2018

Pennsylvania, USA – A prominent Liberian journalist has described campaigners against the establishment of a war crimes court for Liberia as “rebels” trying to avoid justice.

“Anyone against the establishment of a war crimes court must have killed during the war,” Rodney D. Sieh, publisher of one of Liberia’s leading dailies, FrontpageAfrica, told a gathering in Philadelphia, USA, on Saturday, December 1, 2018.

Recent calls for justice for victims of Liberia’s brutal civil have been countered by anti-war crimes court campaigners who believe the establishment of such a court is pointless and an attempt to disrupt Liberia’s 15-year-old peace. They would rather tuck away large-scale victimization of the war in the past.

“But for how long? So, we should just let the killers of our friends and relatives go with impunity? We should just let the deaths of innocent Liberians go unaccounted for? Anyone saying let bygones be bygones is a rebel,” Rodney reiterated.

Liberia, Rodney’s native land, is recovering from a 14-year civil war that destroyed its socio-political and economic fabrics to unimaginable limits. It is a small state located on the West coast of Africa. From 1989-2003, one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars was fought in Liberia, claiming the lives of more than 250,000 Liberians and dispatching a million others to refugee camps in neighboring countries.

Liberians have waited for 15 years to see their victimization acknowledged, their sufferings decried, and perpetrators punished for unleashing 14 years of atrocities—summary executions, rapes, torture, mutilation and massacres— on them. A nine-year- old Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report calls for the establishment of a special war crimes court to hear Liberia’s civil war-era crimes. However, from 2009 to present, not a single warlord has been tried in Liberia for war crimes.

It is imperative to understand that ignoring victims’ call for justice or condoning impunity is dangerous and immoral. The lessons of the past must direct the future to avoid a repeat of similar mistakes.

As succinctly put by Rodney, “the establishment of a war crimes court is about breaking away from impunity. This has nothing to do with letting bygones be bygones. Don’t fall for that crap! The very people saying no to war crimes court are those who killed our people during the war.”

It must be noted that a war crimes court for Liberia will undo impunity and restore genuine peace and stability to the country. As such, opposing such an effort is unhealthy and counterproductive to Liberia’s peace.

House Judiciary Chair Favors War Crimes Court, Removal of Tenured Posts (Liberian Daily Observer) By Leroy M. Sonpon, III December 17, 2018

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives J. Fonati Koffa, a lawyer by profession, says he is in support of the prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes committed during Liberia’s 14-year civil war, but says more time is needed for the present government to act on it.

The Grand Kru County District #2 Representative told journalists on Friday, December 14, 2018, during his year-end media engagement at the Capitol Building, that the country’s 14-year civil war was a source of deep division, adding, “Nobody would want to be in favor of impunity.”

“I am in favor of war crimes court, but it is the issue of the timing. When the time comes, the appropriate legislation will be put together to do what we need to do, but the government that has been asked will do it in its own time and season,” Rep. Koffa said.

However, Koffa failed to say when would be a right time to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes.

Koffa’s revelation of his support for a “war and economic crimes court” is in contrast to House Speaker Bhofal Chambers’ views against such development.

Chambers has of late frowned on the establishment of such a court in the country — a complete about-face from his earlier position held during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. At that time Chambers, being sharply at odds with the nation’s first female president, staunchly advocated for the establishment of a war crimes court in Liberia and recommended her first for prosecution. Now having apparently switched his persuasion on the matter, pundits believe he has betrayed the cause of justice for victims of war crimes.

Speaker Chambers said he believed that the country should seek restorative justice (healing, curative or uplifting) in order to forge ahead and foster peace and unity that the country enjoys than retributive justice (revengeful, retaliatory or punishing) which will picture the bitter past.

In a related development, Rep. Koffa hailed President George Weah because he scrapped some tenured positions, noting that the President acted legally by submitting to the Legislature a bill to erase some tenured positions.

He believes that the President’s action is constitutionally correct, arguing that it is not wrong for one President to right what is wrong, which he thinks is legitimate, according to Article 56 of the 1986 Constitution.

Article 56 says: “All cabinet ministers’ deputies and assistant cabinets ministers, ambassadors, ministers, consuls, superintendents of counties, and other government officials, both military and civilian, appointed by the President pursuant to the Constitution shall hold their positions at the pleasure of the President.”

In spite of the Article 56 provision, many tenured positions in Liberia exist because the institutions for which they are responsible are integrity institutions that should be protected from interference by government. Other institutions bearing tenured positions are members of international parastatals that require a level of fixity in member-country representation for the larger (international) body to properly function.

President Weah’s frustration with tenured positions was kindled when his attempt to appoint a member of his political party, Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), to well-paying and influential positions in government were met with stiff resistance, in one case at the level of the Supreme Court. In that instance, the President decided to dismiss Liberia’s permanent representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Atty. Isaac Jackson, so that a CDC partisan could be appointed to the position. Jackson sought and was granted a stay order on the President’s decision by the Supreme Court of Liberia because he had 18 months left to complete his tenure.

Weah’s IMO appointment has remained in limbo since then. Few months later, the President decided he would have the Legislature do away with all tenured positions, a move which many legislators have overwhelmingly embraced.

Rep. Koffa pledged support to the “legal impeachment proceedings” of Associate Justice Kabineh Ja’neh, but did not explain why he excluded himself from the Ad-Hoc Committee to write the impeachment proceedings against Associate Justice Ja’neh.

The Call for War Crimes Court Needs Clarity for Public Understanding (Liberian Daily Observer) December 18, 2018

The call for the establishment of a war and economic crimes court to prosecute people who bear greater responsibilities in the Liberian civil war has recently become one of the daily issues discussed on public platforms in the country.

A large segment of the public is pushing for this establishment with the objective of ending impunity. One of its key advocates is Grand Kru County Representative, Fonati Koffa, who claims that the establishment of such a court will serve as a deterrent for people with the mindset of committing evil.

Koffa said the civil war brought deep division in Liberia, and impunity was not anything that people should favor. Yet, he conceded that the Weah administration would address the issue of a war crimes court “in its own time”, which could mean ‘never’.

In previous times a number of events complementing the call for a war crimes court were held; one of which was the justice conference, organized early November. In that conference American Ambassador-at-Large Stephen Rapp asserted that “As long as war crimes perpetrators are still around, a court can be established to prosecute them regardless of how long it takes.”

One person who has been pinpointed for prosecution in the establishment of this court is Nimba County Senator and former warlord Prince Johnson. Emphasis placed on him perhaps has always provoked his anger and caused him to threaten instability if the court is established.

On the other hand, the emphasis placed on Prince Johnson has also generated the feeling that call for the court is aimed at a particular person or group, and some segments of the Gio and Mano tribes that felt disenchanted and participated in the war for fear of being dragged to the court on the basis of collective guilt.

It is because of this perception that many of them are siding with their hero. They join him in expressing the fear that such could lead to another civil conflict in the country.

The misconception surrounding the establishment of a war crimes court also encompasses time for such an event. Many people believe that this should have happened as soon as the war ended; and that calling for it at this time is belated and tantamount to a witch hunt.

In this confused state of debate, it is better to advocate for the court through educating the public, to enable them to understand clearly why the court is important and necessary for those involved to face it. This is important because some victims do not know that what they encountered constitute war crimes. Many fighters, too, need to understand why, as long as they fought in the civil war, some of them, probably many, committed war crimes.

It is also necessary for all involved, victims and perpetrators alike, to understand that fighting alone may or may not constitute war crimes. Of course, it is also necessary to include those who played key roles in starting the war that led to the loss of over 250,000 lives and the near total devastation of the country’s infrastructure.

Let us provide a few of what constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the Rome Statute, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 listed acts that constitute war crimes. These include willful killing, torture or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, and compelling a prisoner of war or other protected persons to serve in the forces of a hostile power.

Other acts associated with war crimes are willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement and taking of hostages; intentionally directing attacks against civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities; and intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.

Under the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity also include but are not limited to the following: murder (intentional and unlawful homicide), extermination (total destruction of people), enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.

Genocide, the other forms of crime associated with war include killing members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Conscription of child soldiers is another charge associated with war crimes. This means recruiting forcibly or in other forms children below 18 years who cannot make decision for themselves.

Meanwhile, those opposing the establishment of a war crimes court have always capitalized on the restoration of justice and the full implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final recommendations.

What some people often forget, however, is that implementing the recommendations of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) also requires establishing a special court to prosecute people identified as those bearing greater responsibility in the war.

The Daily Observer holds the belief that impartial justice is a way forward to ending uncertainty about a war crimes court. But as the advocacy intensifies, let it go with education that will enlighten the population on the significance of a war crimes court, who should be prosecuted and for which alleged war crime(s).

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EAST AFRICA

Uganda

Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in Uganda Human Rights Watch Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Human Rights Watch) December 13, 2018

Introduction

Armed conflict and other violence have continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with government security forces and numerous non-state armed groups responsible for countless horrific abuses against civilians, including killings and rapes, largely with impunity. Government authorities have sought to silence dissent by targeting human rights and pro-democracy activists, journalists, and political leaders and supporters who criticized government authorities or participated in peaceful demonstrations. At time of writing, President Joseph Kabila remained in office beyond the end of his constitutionally mandated two-term limit in December 2016. This submission focuses on the human rights record of the Congolese government and security forces since 2014.

Abuses by Congolese Security Forces and Government-Backed Armed Groups

Large-scale abuses involving Congolese security forces, government-backed militias, and pro-government armed groups resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians in the country since 2014.

Unlawful Killings by Government Security Forces

The Kivu Security Tracker recorded the killing of at least 180 civilians in North and South Kivu by Congolese police and soldiers between April 2017 and September 2018. In South Kivu province, Congolese security force members used excessive force to quash a protest in Kamanyola in September 2017, killing around 40 Burundian refugees and wounding more than 110 others.

Police summarily killed at least 51 youth and forcibly disappeared 33 others during “Operation Likofi,” an abusive anti-crime campaign from 2013 to 2014 that targeted alleged gang members in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. Those responsible for the abuses have not been brought to justice.

Security forces killed nearly 300 people during largely peaceful political protests in Kinshasa and other cities between 2015 and 2018. This includes at least 90 people who were killed as part of a crackdown against members of the Bundu dia Kongo political religious sect in Kinshasa and Kongo Central province between January and March and in August 2017.

In July 2018, Kabila promoted Generals Gabriel Amisi and John Numbi, despite their long involvement in serious human rights abuses.

(b) Abuses by Government-Backed Armed Groups

More than 140 armed groups remain active in eastern Congo’s North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, and many continued to commit serious abuses against civilians. Elements of the Congolese security forces have provided material support to many of these armed groups.

Between August 2016 and August 2017, an estimated 5,000 people, and possibly many more, were killed in the central Kasai region, and more than 1.4 million people displaced. The United Nations identified around 90 mass graves in the region. The Congolese security forces and their proxy forces, including the Banu Mura, have frequently used excessive and lethal force, for which only a few low-level criminal suspects have been prosecuted.

Between December 2017 and March 2018, violence intensified in parts of northeastern Congo’s Ituri province, where armed groups launched deadly attacks on villages, killing raping or mutilating scores of civilians, torching hundreds of homes, and displacing an estimated 350,000 people. Three assailants told Human Rights Watch in May that local government officials had coerced them into attacking their neighbors and that they were waiting for new orders to attack again.

Unidentified fighters killed more than 1,000 civilians in Beni territory in a series of massacres that began in October 2014. Human Rights Watch, the UN Group of Experts on Congo, the Congo Research Group, and Congolese human rights organizations point to the involvement of certain Congolese army officers in planning and carrying out many of these attacks.

Recommendations

Establish a vetting mechanism for Congolese security forces that removes those credibly implicated in serious human rights violations, regardless of rank. Such individuals should be appropriately arrested and prosecuted in trials that meet international fair trial standards. Ensure that government officials do not provide military support to foreign or Congolese armed groups responsible for widespread and serious violations of the laws of war. Civilian officials or military personnel implicated in providing support to such groups should be suspended from their positions, investigated, and appropriately prosecuted.

Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Increase efforts to prevent and appropriately punish extrajudicial executions and other serious abuses.

Demobilization of Former Fighters

The government’s Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs for former members of armed groups have largely failed due to a lack of sufficient support in regroupement sites, a lack of robust long-term reintegration support, insufficient follow-up, and a failure to hold those responsible for past serious abuses to account.

Between December 2013 and October 2014, over 100 demobilized combatants, their wives, and children died from starvation and disease in the remote Kotakoli military camp in the country’s northwest after officials failed to provide adequate food and health care.

In April 2016, Human Rights Watch documented that the Congolese military was unlawfully detaining at least 29 children in dire conditions in a military prison in Angenga, northwest Congo. The authorities alleged that the boys were members of a rebel armed group and had held them in the prison since apprehending them in eastern Congo in the first half of 2015. Human Rights Watch found during a visit to the prison that neither the boys nor the adult men detained with them had been charged with crimes or had access to lawyers or their families.

Hundreds of former combatants of the M23 and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) armed groups remain encamped in disparate parts of Congo and neighboring Uganda and Rwanda since 2013 and 2014 respectively. In the face of difficult living situations, lack of future prospects, and a general political impasse regarding their situation, many are at risk of returning to armed groups. At least 200 and likely many more former M23 rebel fighters from Uganda and Rwanda were mobilized by Congolese senior security force officers to protect President Kabila and quash anti-Kabila protests in December 2016.

Recommendations

Improve the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration program and strategy for dealing with armed groups. Such a strategy should ensure that: those responsible for serious human rights abuses are excluded from the army, investigated and appropriately prosecuted; children are immediately handed over to child protection agencies; former combatants who integrate into the army or police are properly trained to act in compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law, and are then deployed to parts of the country other than where they operated as militia fighters; and former combatants have access to long-term civilian employment opportunities and other alternatives to military service.

Promptly charge with a credible offense or release persons, including former fighters, held in custody.

Rehabilitate former child soldiers and reintegrate them into society.

Political Repression and Violations of Freedom of Expression, Association, and Assembly

Since 2015, President Kabila and the Congolese government have postponed elections in violation of the constitution and entrenched their hold on power through brutal repression, large-scale violence and other human rights violations.

(a) Arbitrary Arrests and Killings of Largely Peaceful Protesters, Activists, Journalists

Security forces killed nearly 300 people during largely peaceful political protests since 2015, including by recruiting former fighters from the abusive M23 armed group to take part in the crackdown. During Catholic Church-led protests in December 2017, January, and February 2018, Congolese security forces fired into church grounds to disrupt religious services and processions, killing at least 18 people and wounding and arresting scores of others.

Congolese authorities have systematically banned meetings and demonstrations by the opposition while jailing more than 1,800 opposition leaders and supporters, as well as human rights and pro-democracy activists. Many have been held in secret detention facilities without charge or access to family members or lawyers. Others have been tried on trumped-up charges. The government has also shut down Congolese media outlets, and periodically curtailed access to the internet and text messaging.

In June 2018, UN human rights experts urged Congo to undertake a comprehensive review of a draft bill on nongovernmental organizations, saying it “threatens the vital work of civil society.” The Congolese parliament is also working on draft legislation on the protection of human rights defenders, but the bill “seems to lead to further restriction of their role and activities,” the UN experts said. At time of writing, these bills had not passed.

In July 2018, two journalists and two human rights activists in Congo went into hiding over threats following the release of a documentary about mass evictions from land claimed by the presidential family.

(b) Harassment of Opposition Political Leaders

During the period under review, political leaders have been arrested or attacked in what appear to be politically motivated efforts to silence dissent.

On May 4, 2016, Congo’s justice minister opened an investigation into one of the country’s leading opposition figures, Moïse Katumbi, for alleged recruitment of mercenaries. Katumbi was later convicted in absentia for forgery regarding a real estate deal many years earlier and sentenced to three years in prison and a US$1 million fine. One of the judges later told Human Rights Watch that the National Intelligence Agency threatened her and forced her to hand down the conviction. In July 2017, armed men shot and nearly killed another judge who refused to rule against Katumbi. In August 2018, authorities restricted the movement of opposition leaders, arrested dozens of opposition supporters, and prevented presidential aspirant Katumbi from entering the country to file his candidacy for the presidential election.

Opposition leaders Jean-Claude Muyambo, Franck Diongo, and Gérard Mulumba Kongolo were arrested as part of the government’s campaign of political repression. Muyambo and Diongo were sentenced to five years in prison, while Mulumba was sentenced to 18 months. They have suffered deteriorating health in detention. Dozens of other political opposition leaders were arrested since 2015 and later released.

Recommendations

Ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are respected and that members of political parties, and pro-democracy and human rights activists can pursue their activities and express criticism of government policies without intimidation.

Release all individuals arrested because of their political views or because they participated in peaceful demonstrations and ensure charges against them are dropped.

End the excessive use of force against opposition supporters, release arbitrarily detained opposition party members and activists, and investigate serious violations and appropriately hold those responsible to account.

Allow all Congolese citizens to fully and freely participate in the electoral process.

Establish a proposed National Preventive Mechanism to prevent torture, as supported by Congo in 2014 and obligated by the Convention against Torture’s optional protocol.

Actively pursue cooperation with UN mechanisms and the international community to restore security and establish the rule of law.

Undertake a comprehensive review of the draft NGO and human rights defenders bills according to international human rights standards, in particular the African Guidelines on freedom of association and assembly.

Strengthen cooperation with special procedures of the Human Rights Council by responding positively to pending visit requests, as supported by Congo in 2014.

Ensure that the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly are respected in conformity with international standards and that members of political parties, journalists and human rights activists are able to exercise their activities and criticize the government without being subject to intimidation, reprisals or harassment.

Obstruction of International Journalists and Researchers, Murder of UN Experts

The government has expelled or kept out of the country international officials, human rights monitors and journalists who have investigated or reported on unlawful government practices. In 2017, two UN investigators were murdered by alleged members of an armed group.

In October 2014, the government expelled the director of the UN Joint Human Rights Office in Congo, Scott Campbell, following publication of a report about summary executions and enforced disappearances during a police operation in Kinshasa. The director of the Congo Research Group, Jason Stearns, was forced to leave in April 2016, following publication of a report about massacres in the Beni region of eastern Congo. In July 2016, the authorities forced two researchers from Global Witness to leave Congo while they were investigating logging practices. In August 2016, the Congolese government blocked Ida Sawyer from Human Rights Watch from continuing to work in Congo. In January 2017, Sawyer was obliged to leave Congo for a second time, a few days after she was permitted to re-enter the country. Authorities refused to renew the accreditation for the Radio France Internationale (RFI) correspondent in Congo in June 2017, and the visa for the Reuters correspondent in August 2017.

In March 2017, a group of armed men summarily executed two UN investigators—Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalán—while they investigated serious rights abuses in the Kasai region. Human Rights Watch investigations and reporting by RFI and Reuters suggest government responsibility for the murders. A seriously flawed trial in Congo began in June 2017.

Recommendations

Ensure that international officials, human rights advocates, and journalists are able to work without hindrance, including by granting them the required visas and work authorizations if in compliance with immigration rules.

Cooperate but do not interfere with the UN expert team mandated to support Congolese authorities in their investigation into the murder of UN investigators Sharp and Catalán.

Justice and Accountability

The vast majority of human rights abuses committed in Congo have gone unpunished. In many cases, perpetrators have been rewarded by the government rather than brought to justice.

A year after the 2012 mass rape of at least 76 women and girls by soldiers in and around Minova, Congo’s Military Operational Court opened a trial in November 2013, for 39 soldiers, including five high-ranking officers, on charges of war crimes and other offenses. In May 2014, the verdict was announced, with only two low-ranking soldiers convicted of rape. Human Rights Watch research revealed that there was no investigation strategy to tackle such a mass crime scene, a lack of expertise and a weak prosecution file contributed to the poor quality of the investigation, and the rights of defendants to a fair and impartial trial were compromised. There did not seem to be any willingness to seriously investigate the responsibility of certain suspects beyond field commanders, notably high-level officers who were present in Minova and may have had command responsibility.

The government failed to exhume the mass grave in Maluku, a rural area about 80 kilometers from Kinshasa, where it admitted burying 421 bodies in March 2015. In June 2016, family members of those forcibly disappeared or executed by Congolese security forces during Operation Likofi and the January 2015 demonstrations filed a public complaint with the national prosecutor requesting exhumation.

Warlord Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga surrendered in October 2016 after he had escaped from prison in 2011. Authorities have not yet transferred him to prison to serve the remainder of his 2009 sentence for crimes against humanity.

In July 2017, militia leader Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka surrendered to the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUSCO), which then transferred him to Congolese judicial officials. Sheka has been implicated in numerous atrocities in eastern Congo, and he had been sought on a Congolese arrest warrant since 2011 for crimes against humanity for mass rape. His trial was yet to begin at time of writing.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over serious international crimes committed in Congo. It opened an investigation there in June 2004 and has brought several cases to trial but has not prosecuted recent crimes.

Former warlord Bosco Ntaganda stands trial at the ICC for 13 counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity allegedly committed in northeastern Congo’s Ituri province in 2002 and 2003.

Sylvestre Mudacumura, military commander of the FDLR armed group, remains at large. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against him in 2012 for nine counts of war crimes allegedly committed in 2009 and 2010 in eastern Congo.

In September 2018, a military tribunal in Bukavu, eastern Congo, convicted two high-ranking FDLR commanders for murder and torture constituting crimes against humanity.

Although Congo has a moratorium on the death penalty and has not carried out executions for a number of years, Congolese law still permits capital punishment.

Recommendations

Establish a special judicial mechanism within the Congolese justice system, with the involvement of international prosecutors, judges, and other personnel, to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Congo since 1990 to enable more effective investigations and prosecutions of these crimes. Investigate and prosecute armed group members and security force members responsible for serious human rights abuses in trials that meet international fair trial standards.

Direct government officials to stop interfering in judicial proceedings.

Abolish the death penalty.

Strengthen the capacities of the judiciary, including by increasing the personnel and improving its working conditions.

Fully cooperate with the International Criminal Court, especially in the execution of arrest warrants issued by the court.

Exhume existing mass graves, including in the Kasai region and Maluku, that may contain the bodies of people forcibly disappeared or executed by Congolese security forces and reveal the identities of those buried there.

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Kenya

Official Website of the International Criminal Court ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Republic of Kenya

Kenya wants Luis Ocampo probed on cases against six (Daily Nation) By David Mwere December 7, 2018

The national government now wants an independent, impartial and neutral body to investigate officers of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and former prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo on their roles in cases against six Kenyans.

This is according to Solicitor-General Ken Ogeto, who is heading the Kenyan delegation at the 17th session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute at the ICC in The Hague, The Netherlands.

THE DEMANDS

On December 14, 2010, Mr Ocampo named six Kenyans as bearing the greatest responsibility for the 2007-8 post-election violence that led to the death of at least 1,300 people and displacement of more than 600,000.

At the time of the violence, Mr Kenyatta was the deputy prime minister.

The others he named were Deputy President William Ruto, the then Agriculture minister in the retired President Mwai Kibaki's government, former Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura and then Police Commissioner Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Hussein Ali.

Also named were the then Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey and radio journalist Joshua Sang.

TRANSPARENT AUDIT

Mr Ogeto said that the country expects transparency and openness on the details and nature of investigations into six Kenyans, including President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“The allegations against the former prosecutor should not be swept under the carpet. Kenya urges the Office of the Prosecutor to refer the allegations to a neutral entity to conduct an open and transparent audit of these allegations,” he said.

Mr Ogeto pressed the ICC to ensure that the findings of the investigations are made public and given to the ASP member states so that they can scrutinise them and make informed decisions.

“The integrity of the ICC is key for member states to have confidence in the court. We take the investigations very seriously and want them done openly and expeditiously so that the findings can inform our future engagements with the court,” he said. OCAMPO ADMISSION

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda later withdrew the cases after key witnesses pulled out while others recanted their evidence.

On October 7, 2017, the Sunday Nation published a story where Mr Ocampo admitted to several international media that the cases against the six Kenyans were weak.

He told The New York Times reporter James Verini, in June 2016, that he knew all along that he had a weak case against them but decided to push on with them nonetheless.

“It was a mess,” Mr Ocampo told the reporter of the fallout within the court as a result of the Kenyan cases.

“I fought with all of my guys because I was involved in everything. All of us were totally emotionally involved. If not, you’re not there,” Mr Ocampo is quoted in the Sunday Nation story.

Allies and supporters accused him of having an ulterior motive.

Mr Ogeto told the assembly that Kenya welcomes efforts by Ms Bensouda to institute investigations and take action against those found culpable.

ARREST WARRANTS

On the execution of arrest warrants against heads of States, Kenya threw its weight behind the African Union (AU) position for enjoyment of immunity from prosecution based on the customary international law.

The county objected to any increase in the ICC budget for 2019 saying that it was not merited.

Kenya instead called for better use of resources and the interrogation of all the activities of the court, especially in preliminary examinations of cases.

“Kenya is convinced that keeping cases alive despite apparent flaws, in the manner in which they are investigated and prosecuted, not only amounts to a misappropriation of funds but also a travesty of the Rome Statute system,” Mr Ogeto said.

Kenya welcomes ICC probe on Ocampo’s misconduct (The Star) By Nancy Agutu December 7, 2018

Kenya has welcomed investigations into the possible professional misconduct of former ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in handling the 2007 post-election violence cases.

Suspects in the collapsed cases accused Ocampo and his officers of coaching witnesses to make up evidence against them on the violence that left 1,300 Kenyans dead.

There have been recent revelations that Ocampo may have interfered with the work of his successor Fatou Bensouda in various cases The Hague-based court is handling.

“The allegations against the former prosecutor should not be swept under the carpet," Solicitor General and Head of the Kenyan delegation Kennedy Ogeto said.

He spoke on Thursday at the 17th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute taking place at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

"Kenya urges the Office of the Prosecutor to refer the allegations to an external impartial and neutral entity to conduct an open and transparent audit of these allegations.”

He said Kenya welcomes efforts to institute investigations and take action on those found culpable of professional misconduct.

Ogeto called upon delegations of State Parties to consider and adopt the proposed amendments that aim at deterring misconduct by court officials.

A storm struck the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands after documents allegedly revealed that Ocampo interfered with Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's work. Bensouda was the prosecutor in President Uhuru Kenyatta crimes against humanity case that was later dropped for lack of enough evidence and "political interference".

There are claims that Ocampo also received bribes to let off a Libyan warlord.

Ocampo is said to have passed sensitive information to the war crimes suspect who was secretly paying him for advice.

Kenya alluded to the decade-long trial of Jean Pierre Bemba calling for a clear and determinate statement of Charge by the office of the Prosecutor as well a rigorous evaluation of evidence by the Trial Chamber.

This, Ogeto said is to protect the liberties of the accused person and ensure that trials are not unduly prolonged.

Kenya has also opposed the increase of the ICC budget for 2019 at the Assembly of State Parties.

Ogetto argued that the increase is not merited, falling short of accusing the ICC prosecutor of misappropriating funds.

“Kenya is convinced that keeping cases alive despite the apparent flaws in the manner they were investigated and are being prosecuted not only amounts to a misappropriation of funds but also a travesty of the Rome Statute system,” Ogeto said.

Ogeto called for better use of resources including an interrogation of all activities of the Court, especially in the preliminary examinations and cases.

“The head of the delegation has urged delegations at the meeting to “scrupulously engage each other, learn from our past mistakes and build a court that is a better fit for purpose and one that can take its place as the premier international criminal judicial system.”

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Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)

Official Website of the ICTR

A victory for international law? (Deutsche Welle) By Richard Fuchs December 12, 2018

It was the first big war crimes trial based on the principle of universal jurisdiction: the Rwanda trial at the Higher Regional Court in Stuttgart.

Two Rwandan men were accused of leading a rebel group in eastern DRC for years, while they were living a normal life in Germany. In 2015, Ignace Murwanashyaka, the main accused, and his deputy Straton Musoni were sentenced to 13 and eight years respectively for aiding and abetting war crimes.

The principle of universal jurisdiction makes proceedings like this possible. It says that serious crimes can be punished in a country other than the one where they were committed. This applies above all to crimes prohibited under international law, such as war crimes.

On Thursday the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe will announce whether the verdict will stand. The Federal Prosecutor's Office is calling for Ignace Murwanashyaka, as the long-time president of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), to be sentenced as a perpetrator of the crimes, not just for aiding and abetting them. The defense is calling for the suspension of proceedings or a retrial. A revision of the verdict could have far-reaching consequences, including for future criminal proceedings.

Too little information for the victims?

For Andreas Schüller of the human rights organization European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Rwanda trial had an "ambivalent" outcome. The procedure proved that it was indeed possible to hold war crimes trials of this magnitude in Germany, the lawyer said in an interview with DW. However, one huge omission was "that such a mammoth trial is being conducted here, but the Federal Republic has not ensured that people in the region itself were not given adequate information about the trial.” This meant that the potential effect of the trial on those concerned, and on their sense of justice, was squandered.

Sylvain Lumu, the managing director of Ligue des électeurs, a human rights organization from the Democratic Republic of Congo, wants people to see the proceedings as an important part of coming to terms with the past. "Anything that helps process the crimes also helps the victims," he said.

He understands the criticism of the fact that the trial didn't take place closer to the victims, where the crimes were committed, but he believes there are other priorities. "I don't think trials of this dimension would be possible in Congo or Rwanda," Lumu told DW.

For this reason, Andreas Schüller of ECCHR sees the principle of universal jurisdiction as a chance to "secure evidence that may no longer be available in a few years' time."

The goal: Trials in the perpetrator states

The Green Party's foreign affairs expert Omid Nouripour warns against resting on our laurels following the initial successes based on the principle of international law. "We can't stop striving for justice in Rwanda now that we can actually bring a case in Norway as well," Nouripour told DW. "It would certainly be far better if, instead of war criminals from the Central African Republic being put on trial in Germany, they were put on trial in the Central African Republic.”

International law expert Andreas Schüller points to initial positive developments in this regard. In 2017, the Higher Regional Court in Hamm referred a war crimes trial back to Rwanda because it anticipated that the accused would be tried there under the rule of law. Back when Murwanashyaka and Musoni were put on trial, the situation was different.

Will there be more mammoth trials?

Eike Fesefeldt of the public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart recently wrote a guest article for the magazine Legal Tribune Online, in which she said that the German judiciary should prepare itself for even larger criminal proceedings – against high- ranking war criminals from the Syrian civil war, for example.

This is precisely what Andreas Schüller and his colleagues are working on. The ECCHR has stated that it has brought several charges in German courts against alleged war criminals in Syria, including people close to the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. An arrest warrant has been issued for Jamil Hassan, the head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate. "We want to see proceedings being initiated against state actors as well. because in the Syrian conflict in particular, it is, of course, the Assad regime that bears the greatest responsibility for crimes under international law," explains Schüller.

Since 2012, the Federal Prosecutor's Office has been conducting systematic surveys of Syrian refugees. Many among them are victims, but there are also suspected perpetrators of war crimes. "The German authorities have direct access to incriminating material," Professor Robert Heinsch of the Institute for International Humanitarian Law at the Ruhr University in Bochum said in an interview with DW.

Verdict will have a big impact

However, Heinsch warns against excessive euphoria, especially with regard to possible lawsuits against political leaders: "A German court cannot easily accuse the foreign minister or the head of state of another country as long as that person is in office," he said.

At international tribunals, such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague, a head of state could be stripped of his or her immunity by a UN Security Council resolution, he continued. This was not an option at a Higher Regional Court.

So when the German Federal High Court passes judgment on 20 December, there's far more at stake than just the fate of the two alleged Rwandan war criminals. If the Stuttgart verdict is confirmed, it will open the door wide for further trials. But if the court overturns the verdict, the trials of war criminals in Germany could in future be even longer, even more expensive, and even more difficult.

5 to stand trial, Danish man extradited (Daily Nation) By AFP December 13, 2018

Five Rwandans will go on trial in Belgium over their alleged role in war crimes and genocide in Rwanda in 1994, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

"This is the first time that a Belgian (criminal court) will have to deal with facts qualified as genocide crimes," the prosecutor's office said. RULING

Four trials linked to the events in Rwanda were held in Belgium between 2001 and 2009, but the defendants faced only charges of war crimes.

But the criminal court in Brussels will "also have to rule on the crime of genocide" in the new cases.

"The five accused still benefit from the presumption of innocence," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

It said pre-trial authorities last week ruled that the five appear in the criminal court "for acts committed in 1994 in Rwanda in connection with the genocide of Tutsis and the massacre of moderate Hutus."

The five were divided into two cases.

In the first, one defendant is referred to the court for murders and rapes; another for murders, attempted murders and rape; and a third for murders and attempted murders.

In the second case, one individual is referred for murders, and another for murders and attempted murders.

EXTRADITION

Meanwhile, a Danish man of Rwandan origin has been extradited to Kigali over his alleged role in the 1994 genocide, a Rwandan official said on Wednesday.

Wenceslas Twagirayezu, who works in IT, was flown back to Rwanda on Tuesday evening after losing an appeal against extradition earlier this year.

During the 1994 genocide, some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered by the military and by Hutu militias.

At the time, Mr Twagirayezu was a teacher at a primary school in northern Rwanda but was also the local representative of the CDR (Coalition for the Defence of the Republic), an extremist Hutu movement, Kigali prosecutors say.

Mr Twagirayezu, who was born in 1967, fled Rwanda in 1997 and arrived in Denmark in 2001. He was granted residency in 2002 and became a Danish citizen in 2004.

"Twagirayezu is accused of genocide, extermination and murder as crimes against humanity," the Rwandan prosecutor's office said, referring to his alleged role in attacks against Tutsis in the areas around Gisenyi, a city on the northern tip of Lake Kivu.

"He participated in the mass killing and extermination of Tutsi."

"FAIR TRIAL"

According to the indictment, one of the attacks which Mr Twagirayezu was involved in targeted a parish church in Bususamana where at least a third of the 3,000 Tutsis who were taking refugee there were killed.

The prosecution said he would face a "fair trial" and called on other countries where "Rwandan genocide fugitives are still moving freely" to take the appropriate action to bring them to justice.

His extradition came as prosecutors in Belgium said they would put five Rwandans on trial over their role in the 1994 genocide.

Twagirayezu is the second suspect to be extradited from Denmark on suspicion of involvement in genocide after Emmanuel Mbarushimana was handed over to the Rwandan authorities in 2014.

German court partially overturns war crimes verdict for Rwandan (Reuters) December 20, 2018

Germany’s top appeal court has partially overturned the conviction of a former Rwandan rebel group leader for abetting war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, citing a lack of evidence and referring it to a different court. A court in Stuttgart had in 2015 sentenced Ignace Murwanashyaka to 13 years in prison for assisting in war crimes. He became president of the ethnic Hutu FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) group in 2001.

The FDLR fled to Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were killed.

The FDLR played a major role in Congo’s 1998-2003 conflict, in which 5 million people died, and has continued mass rapes, torture and killing in the east of the country, according to civil society groups.

Murwanashyaka, who grew up in Rwanda but has lived in Germany since the 1980s was arrested in 2009. From Germany, he acted as the FDLR’s top international representative while coordinating its activities and was in contact with the group’s political and military leadership in Rwanda.

The original trial, which lasted four years, was possible under a German law allowing German courts to try people for crimes committed abroad.

The appeals court in Karlsruhe said the verdict required serious legal consideration.

“It is not substantiated or proven that the accused objectively ... supported or facilitated the crimes that the (Stuttgart) court viewed as premeditated behaviour,” said the appeals court.

Specifically, Murwanashyaka had been convicted of the premeditated abetting of several attacks on Congolese settlements in 2008 and 2009 in which numerous civilians were killed and many houses were burned, said the court.

He made available telephones and equipment for satellite phones for military use.

A different court will now have to consider the case again and decide whether he abetted war crimes and he may have his sentenced reduced.

The appeals court did, however, uphold Murwanashyaka’s conviction as being a ringleader of a terrorist organization.

It also upheld the conviction of his deputy, Straton Musoni, who had been sentenced to eight years behind bars for being a ringleader of a terrorist organization.

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Somalia

Bloody rivalry erupts between al-Shabab, IS group in Somalia (Associated Press) By Abdi Guled December 6, 2018

A bloody rivalry has emerged between extremist groups in Somalia as the al-Qaida- linked al-Shabab hunts upstart fighters allied to the Islamic State group, who have begun demanding protection payments from major businesses, officials tell The Associated Press.

The rivalry supports some observers’ suspicions that al-Shabab, now scrambling to defend its monopoly on the mafia-style extortion racket that funds its high-profile attacks, is drifting from its long-declared goal of establishing a strict Islamic state.

The manhunt began in October with the killing of a top leader of the IS-linked group by a suspected al-Shabab death squad in the capital, Mogadishu, according to several Somali intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

When the body of Mahad Maalin, deputy leader of the IS-affiliated group, was found near a beach in Mogadishu, it set off a hunt for suspected IS sympathizers within al-Shabab’s ranks, officials said. Maalin had been suspected of trying to extend his group’s reach into the capital.

Last month, the Islamic State group’s Al Naba newsletter noted deadly attacks on its fighters in Somalia and warned that “when the time of response comes from the Islamic State, with God’s will, we will be excused.”

The IS-affiliated group in Somalia, largely made up of al-Shabab defectors, first announced its presence in 2016 with attacks in the far north, far from Mogadishu and most al-Shabab strongholds. Though estimated at a few hundred fighters at most, their emergence in one of the world’s most unstable countries has been alarming enough that the U.S. military began targeting it with airstrikes a year ago.

While al-Shabab and its thousands of fighters have hunted down suspected IS sympathizers before, they had not taken the young group’s expansion seriously until now, observers say.

“Al-Shabab miscalculated IS’s organizational capability and ambitions to extend its reach beyond the north, having judged it by its handful of fighters there, and thus missed the bigger picture,” said Mohamed Sheikh Abdi, a Mogadishu-based political analyst.

The revelation by businessmen that IS-linked operatives had begun making extortion demands took al-Shabab’s leadership by surprise, prompting the manhunt that has led to assassinations and the detention of over 50 suspected IS-linked extremists, including foreign fighters, two Somali intelligence officials told AP. One suspected IS-linked fighter from Egypt was shot dead on Nov. 18 in Jilib.

As members of the Islamic State group flee shrinking strongholds in Iraq and Syria, fears have grown that the fighters will find a new and welcome home in parts of Africa.

Alarmed by al-Shabab’s deadly attacks, the IS-linked group has expanded its own assassination campaign. IS’s Amaq news agency, turning its attention to the young affiliate, has released videos showing what it called killings by the group’s death squad.

IS-linked fighters already had claimed responsibility for 50 assassinations in southern Somalia between October 2017 and August, often against federal government officials, according to a report released last month by the United Nations panel of experts monitoring sanctions on the country.

While extortion is the fighters’ latest tactic it is nothing new in Somalia, where al-Shabab has long used death threats and other intimidation to pressure businesses to pay what is called “zakah,” or charity. The money is their main source of funding. “Indeed, al-Shabab is likely generating a significant budgetary surplus,” the U.N. panel of experts said, noting that one of its checkpoints brought in about $10 million a year.

With no strong government to protect them, businessmen often say they have no choice but to pay in exchange for protection.

Among the companies targeted by suspected IS-linked extremists is Somalia’s telecom giant, Hormuud, which intelligence officials say has lost up to 10 employees in attacks in recent weeks. Hormuud officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Businesses worry that the rise of another extremist group seeking cash, as well as a new effort by Somalia’s central government to impose taxes, will bleed them dry.

“At this point, (businesses) are faced with two equally undesirable alternatives,” said Abdisamad Barre, a professor of business management in Mogadishu. “Rejection to the demands for extortion will pave way for attacks by IS, and paying them to evade danger will anger al-Shabab.”

Somali intelligence officials say al-Shabab’s new manhunt is aimed at preventing the IS-linked extremists from expanding their extortion demands into southern Somalia, where al-Shabab levies millions of dollars in taxes per year on travelers and cargo meant for the lucrative port of Kismayo.

Another al-Shabab tactic against its young rival is pressuring religious leaders to issue a fatwa, or edict, declaring the IS group “un-Islamic,” thus legitimizing a war against them, according to sources close to al-Shabab who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Security experts, however, say al-Shabab will find it difficult to unearth IS supporters even within its own ranks.

“That will be a major challenge,” one official said, noting that IS-linked loyalists could be waiting quietly even in al-Shabab’s leadership to make a move. “But that will probably take a long time given al-Shabab’s vigilance.”

Deadly Baidoa clashes over Robow arrest (BBC News) December 14, 2018 Several people are reported to have been killed in southern Somalia as violence erupted following the arrest of a former al-Shabab commander set to contest regional elections.

At least 11 people, including soldiers and civilians, died in Baidoa during clashes involving supporters of Mukhtar Robow, sources told the BBC.

The government has accused Mr Robow of being a security threat.

He is seeking the presidency of South West state in next week's election.

News of Mr Robow's arrest early on Thursday triggered street protests in Baidoa, the regional capital.

A Somali radio station tweeted images of roads strewn with burning tyres and rocks.

Among those killed in protests was a member of the regional parliament, Baidoa elder Saleh Isak told Reuters news agency.

An African Union peacekeeping force (Amisom) is in Somalia to help the government fight al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group.

On Friday afternoon, Baidoa residents described the city as calm but tense, with shops closed and most residents staying indoors.

"Amisom's armoured vehicles came into the town as a patrol," said one resident, Halima Mohamed.

"They went back after they saw it was calm and that some residents blocked some of the roads with big stones."

The BBC's Ibrahim Adan in the capital, Mogadishu, says the nationality of the soldiers who were killed is not clear. Ethiopian troops, who form part of the Amisom force, have a base in the city.

Robow a threat to government control

Analysis by Tomi Oladipo, BBC Africa security correspondent

Mukhtar Robow's defection last year from al-Shabab was much-touted by Somalia's UN backed-government as a success in its fight against the militants. The 49-year-old trained in Afghanistan and was a founder member of the al-Qaeda-linked group. But his standing with the government collapsed when he announced his candidacy to become president of South West state.

This poses a threat to the government's intended control of the area through its preferred candidate, Abdiaziz Lafta Gareen.

But in Somalia clan politics is powerful - and Mr Robow belongs to the Leysan sub-clan, one of the largest in the state. The government's campaign against him has actually brought him more attention and boosted his popularity.

The arrest has backfired as it seems the powerbrokers in the capital, Mogadishu, did not predict these protests in Baidoa. The situation is likely to deteriorate if his candidacy in next week's elections is cancelled, as the government tried to do when it initially banned him from contesting in October.

Ethiopia and the African Union mission in Somalia have remained silent about the alleged involvement of Ethiopian troops in the arrest. They would need a good reason to have been involved, otherwise they will only gain enemies in Somalia who see them as partisan and meddling in local politics.

Mr Robow was a spokesman for al-Shabab and once served as its deputy leader before defecting last year.

Who are Somalia's al-Shabab?

Two months ago, the federal government banned him from contesting the state elections but the electoral commission gave him the go-ahead.

Following his arrest, a government statement said he had been organising a militia in Baidoa.

"These actions indicate that he never relinquished his extremist ideologies and is ready to harm the Somali people again," the statement said.

Mr Robow is supported by several clans in the area and is regarded as a serious candidate. His supporters were infuriated by his detention. "This is a violation of democracy, Robow was standing in his region and his people wanted him. The government has no right to arrest him," Baidoa resident Mohamed Sheik Ali told AFP news agency.

Somalia uproar continues after arrest of former al-Shabab No. 2 who was running for office (NBC news) By Associated Press December 15, 2018

Somalia saw a third day of protests on Saturday over the arrest of the former No. 2 leader of the al-Shabab extremist group, who has been a leading candidate for a regional presidency. Officials said at least eight people have been killed so far as angry supporters take to the streets and clash with police.

The African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia in a statement released overnight called for "utmost restraint" after the gunfire-fueled uproar around Muhktar Robow's arrest on Thursday in Baidoa, and it denied playing any role.

His arrest is seen as a high-profile test of Somalia's treatment of defectors from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, Africa's most active extremist group.

Somalia's government welcomed the defection last year by al-Shabab's former spokesman but not his popular candidacy to lead Southwest state, which took some officials by surprise.

Robow was seized by Ethiopian troops accompanied by Somali police, witnesses told The Associated Press. He was flown to the capital, Mogadishu, a Somali intelligence official said. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters or for safety concerns.

Some Somali lawmakers had accused the AU mission of being involved.

Ethiopia's military, which contributes troops to the AU mission, has not commented. Robow's arrest could re-ignite old tensions between Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia despite recent diplomatic breakthroughs in the Horn of Africa sparked by Ethiopia's reformist new prime minister.

Somalia's security ministry confirmed Robow's arrest, citing the federal government's earlier ban on his candidacy, which said he had not completed the defection process. The ministry also alleged that Robow had failed to renounce extremist ideology, and accused him of mobilizing armed forces to threaten the security of Baidoa.

Somali officials have announced that the election for the Southwest presidency will go ahead on Wednesday, even after Robow was arrested. His local supporters in Baidoa have loudly protested.

A new joint statement by the United States, more than a dozen countries, the AU mission and the United Nations expresses concern, deploring the violence, urging dialogue and urging all parties to "to respect the integrity of the electoral process."

Citing reports that a lawmaker and a child were among those killed in the protests, Amnesty International urged Ethiopian and Somali security forces not to use lethal force, saying that "no one should have to die for simply expressing their views."

Robow's controversial campaign has further exposed the rift between Somalia's federal government based in Mogadishu and regional governments, who in recent months have effectively severed cooperation with the capital over multiple grievances.

62 al-Shabab fighters in Somalia killed in two days of airstrikes, U.S. military says (The Washington Post) By Max Bearak December 17, 2018

The U.S. military announced Monday that it carried out six airstrikes over the weekend against the extremist group al-Shabab in a coastal region south of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, killing 62 fighters.

It said there were no collateral civilian casualties.

The strikes bring the total in 2018 to 46, higher than last year’s 31, which was a record. The Trump administration has loosened the U.S. military’s rules of engagement, allowing it to seek out militants and preemptively strike them, leading to more frequent air raids. More than 300 al-Shabab fighters have been killed in this year’s strikes.

All six airstrikes were “conducted to prevent al-Shabab from using remote areas as a safe haven to plot, direct, inspire, and recruit for future attacks,” the military’s statement said. A strike in October killed 60 fighters, and another in November 2017 killed about 100.

Al-Shabab controls rural areas across southern Somalia, where it has instituted a strict interpretation of sharia law. The group grew out of resentment toward international intervention in Somali politics, and many of its original members were trained by al-Qaeda. Its current leaders pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda and have battled not just the Somali government and its regional and American backers, but also a Somali offshoot of the Islamic State against which it competes.

Al-Shabab has carried out numerous suicide bombings, often in the heart of Mogadishu. A particularly devastating one in October 2017 killed more than 500 people.

The U.S. military has stationed about 500 troops in Somalia, most of whom are Special Operations forces, including Green Berets, Marine Raiders and Navy SEALs who operate a speckling of bases nationwide. Their main mandate is to train Somali forces, but increasingly they have been engaged in ground operations.

In June, Army Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Conrad, 26, of Chandler, Ariz., was killed during a raid on suspected al-Shabab members. He was the second U.S. soldier to die in Somalia since President Trump took office.

The United States recently reestablished a permanent diplomatic mission in Mogadishu, almost three decades after it closed its embassy amid Somalia’s civil war. The Somali government has struggled to maintain control over the country’s major cities and has all but ceded rural areas to al-Shabab.

A coalition of 20,000-odd troops cobbled together from East African countries, including Burundi, Kenya and Uganda, is essential to the Somali government’s control over roads and cities. The African Union force was expected to end its Somalia mission by 2020, but talks have been indefinitely postponed.

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EUROPE

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Official Court Website [English translation]

Bosnia Indicts Serb Ex-Military Commander For Wartime Killings (RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty) December 6, 2018

Bosnian prosecutors have indicted a Bosnian Serb military commander on charges of killing Muslim civilians during the country's wars of the 1990s.

Dragoljub Kunarac was the commander of a special unit of the Bosnian Serb army who had already been imprisoned for 28 years by the United Nations war crimes tribunal on rape and enslavement charges.

Bosnian prosecutors said in a statement on December 5 that Kunarac was accused of taking part in the killing of at least six people and the persecution of Muslim civilians from villages around the eastern town of Foca in July 1992.

Foca was a focal point for the mass persecution and killing of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces, who were seeking to establish an exclusively ethnic Serb region. These forces set up detention camps in which women and young girls were raped and enslaved.

The statement said Kunarac, 58, was also accused of taking part in looting and burning Muslim homes.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia imprisoned Kunarac in 2001 for 28 years for torture, rape, and enslavement. He is serving that sentence in a German prison. The tribunal's ruling was the first case in which it had concluded that rape and enslavement were crimes against humanity. Bosnia's state court must still confirm the indictment against him, before the case can proceed. Based on reporting by Reuters

Hague Prosecutor: Croatian Govt “Blocking” War Crimes Cases (Balkan Insight) By Lamija Grebo December 11, 2018

The chief prosecutor at the Hague war crimes, Serge Brammertz, told the UN Security Council that the Zagreb government is effectively blocking cases against former Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council fighters.

Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, said in his report to the UN Security Council in New York on Monday that the Croatian government’s actions have resulted the blocking of a large and growing number of cases against Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council fighters.

Brammertz’s report said that the Croatian government has not reversed a decision it made in 2015 ordering the Justice Ministry in Zagreb not to provide court cooperation in certain war crimes cases, and is continuing to exert pressure on judicial processes.

Despite direct efforts by the prosecutor’s office at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals to convince the Croatian authorities to change their policy, little progress has been made, the report said.

“Such a policy has an influence on promoting impunity to the detriment of victims throughout the region who deserve justice,” said Brammertz’s report. He urged the Croatian government to revoke its decision and “allow the process of justice to continue without further interference”. The report said that the reduced cooperation by Croatian authorities has led to important deadlocks in investigations and criminal procedures in neighbouring countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, where some former fighters from the Croatian Army and the Bosnian Croat wartime force, the Croatian Defence Council, are wanted for trial.

Zagreb refuses to cooperate with neighbouring countries in war crimes cases if the indictments claim that the suspects participated in a joint criminal enterprise with Croatian political or military officials.

Brammertz also criticised a decision by Zagreb County Court in October to reduce the sentence handed down to former Bosnian Croat battalion commander Marko Radic because Croatian law does not recognise the concept of a joint criminal enterprise.

Radic had been convicted of committing crimes against humanity by the Bosnian state court, but the Zagreb court agreed to take over the enforcement of the verdict after the Bosnian justice minister allowed him to serve his sentence in Croatia.

The Zagreb court then cut Radic’s sentence from 21 years to 12-and-a-half years, which means he will be released by the end of this year due to time already served. “Victims and the public find it very hard to understand how the sentence for such grave crimes could be reduced to such an extent only on the basis of the takeover by Croatia,” Branmertz’s report said.

The president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Theodor Meron, also presented a report to the UN Security Council on Monday, saying that the appeals verdict in the trial of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic could be expected within the first three months of next year.

Bosnia Charges Serb Ex-Fighter with Zvornik War Crime (Balkan Insight) By Admir Muslimovic December 13, 2018

Dusan Spasojevic, a former member of a Serb-led Territorial Defence force, was charged with committing a war crime against a Bosniak in the Zvornik area in 1992.

The Bosnian state prosecution on Thursday charged Dusan Spasojevic, in his capacity as a member of the Territorial Defence force of the so-called ‘Serbian municipality of Zvornik’, with committing a war crime against a Bosniak in the village of Jusici in May 1992.

The indictment has been filed to the state court for confirmation.

The state prosecution also announced on Thursday that three more people have been arrested on suspicion of committing crimes in the village of Jusici during wartime.

State Investigation and Protection Agency officers arrested Branko Studen, Pero Radic and Bozo Vidovic.

They are suspected of committing crimes during an attack on Jusici in May 1992, when 48 Bosniaks were killed. “They are suspected, as former members of the Territorial Defence of the Serbian municipality of Zvornik, of having participated in a widespread and systematic attack on the Bosniak civilian population in Zvornik and the surrounding area, as well as an attack on the village of Jusici, which was inhabited by a Bosniak civilian population,” the prosecution said.

After questioning the three suspects, the prosecution will decide whether to ask for them to be remanded in custody.

Bosnian Serb Ex-fighters Cleared of Murdering Family (Balkan Insight) By Haris Rovcanin December 14, 2018

Former fighters Milorad Radakovic and Goran Pejic were acquitted on appeal of killing five members of a family in the village of Tukovi near Prijedor in June 1992.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Friday found Milorad Radakovic and Goran Pejic not guilty of war crimes.

Radakovic and Pejic had been accused of going to the village of Tukovi near Prijedor on June 13, 1992, when one of the defendants killed three members of the Ecimovic family in one house, then both of them opened fire in a second house, killing two more members of the family.

Radakovic is a former reservist policeman, while Pejic was a member of an unidentified military or police formation. They were originally acquitted in May this year.

The judge at their original trial said that the only fact determined by the court was that Tomo, Marija, Katarina, Nikola and Cecilija Ecimovic were killed on June 13, 1992.

She said that testimony from a witness who said he drove the defendants to the Ecimovic family house and then waited for them in the car was insufficient to establish guilt.

The prosecution appealed against the verdict, alleging there were substantial violations during the criminal proceedings, but the appeals chamber rejected the appeal as unfounded.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

U.N. War Crimes Courtroom Displayed in Sarajevo to Preserve Tribunal’s Legacy (U.S. News) By Daria Sito-Sucic December 10, 2018

A U.N. war crimes courtroom in which a Bosnian Serb general was prosecuted for atrocities committed during the siege of Sarajevo has been moved to the Bosnian capital to preserve the legacy of the first attempt to hold war criminals to account since World War Two.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which closed down last year after prosecuting 161 suspects for crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, had agreed to move the original courtroom and archives to Sarajevo, where 11,000 people were killed during the siege.

"Sarajevo is the first city after Nuremberg which has the original courtroom of an international criminal tribunal and ... a possibility to witness its mandate," said Mila Eminovic, the head of the ICTY Information Centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The aim is to establish similar centers in Serbia and Croatia.

When the ICTY was set up in 1993 it was the first serious attempt to hold war criminals responsible for their actions since the Nuremberg trials after World War Two. The court's architects hoped that establishing what happened during the war and punishing its worst offenders would help reconcile Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims.

However, divisions remain in the Balkans, where the court had aimed to bring reconciliation, but convicted war criminals are often revered as heroes.

The ICTY courtroom 2, which displays the original furniture and robes of the judge and prosecutor, was where Bosnian Serb General Dragomir Milosevic was sentenced to 29 years in prison over his role in the Sarajevo siege.

A conference room with computers and TV screen provides access to millions of the court's documents and thousands of hours of video material from the trials.

"Access to this unique database is very important in confronting the culture of denial of the crimes," said Almir Alic, Bosnia's representative to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which succeeded the ICTY.

Nejra Lilic, a 22-year-old student, said her visit to the center was a very emotional one since she had lost all her male relatives in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

"Young people are not interested in the past because they equate it to the conflict, and by avoiding the topic of the past they think they can avoid conflict," she said.

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Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

Hague Prosecution ‘Summons Senior Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas for Interviews’ (Balkan Insight) By Perparim Isufi and Arta Sopi December 11, 2018

Sami Lushtaku, a wartime Kosovo Liberation Army commander for the Drenica region, has been asked to speak to the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague on January 14, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Describing it as “invitation to an interview”, lawyer Arianit Koci said that Lushtaku will “voluntarily appear and is ready to clarify any circumstance which the Specialist Prosecution is investigating”.

“This is all we are aware of and I would kindly ask journalists to not contact Mr. Lushtaku on his issue,” Koci said in a written statement.

Lushtaku was acquitted of war crimes by the Supreme Court in Pristina in March 2017.

He is the third senior KLA figure who is reported to have been called for an interview by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague.

On Monday evening, the former head of the KLA’s military tribunal, Sokol Dobruna, said that he had received an invitation to go to The Hague on December 12.

“A person who was presented as ‘Slovene’ was introduced to me and was presented as a Specialist Prosecution official. I suppose I could be either witness or defendant, but I have no idea why I have been invited,” Dobruna told Pristina-based television station T7.

He pledged to cooperate with the Specialist Prosecution and denied that the KLA had any involvement in war crimes.

“No [KLA member] has committed crimes. Of course I will cooperate, but I don’t know on which terms,” Dobruna added.

Last week, another KLA ex-commander, Rrustem Mustafa, was also invited to give an interview to the Specialist Prosecution, according to his lawyer. Mustafa, who is a former MP from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, was sentenced to four years in prison by a Pristina court for torturing wartime prisoners at a KLA detention centre in Llapashtica/Lasatica during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbian forces.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office are part of Kosovo’s legal system but are based in the Netherlands, and are tasked with investigating and trying suspects for crimes committed during and just after the Kosovo war, from 1998 to 2000.

The so-called ‘special court’ is expected to indict senior KLA figures for alleged crimes including killings, abductions, illegal detentions and sexual violence.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, another former KLA fighter, said on Tuesday that the calls from the prosecutors in The Hague were not a cause for concern.

“These invitations are not the end of the world. Kosovo citizens, freedom fighters, if they trust in themselves and their freedom, have no reason for concern. Anyone who is invited goes there and does their duty. I would call on anyone to take the issue this way,” Haradinaj said.

The Specialist Prosecutor’s Office has so far not confirmed that it has called the three men for interview.

Its spokesperson Christopher Bennett told BIRN last week that “the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office does not provide information on the status of the investigation, but intends to ensure that all allegations contained in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe report compiled by Swiss Senator Dick Marty are addressed and fully investigated”.

Marty’s report, published in 2010, alleged that some senior KLA officers were responsible for serious human rights abuses.

Hague Court Dismisses Appeal Against Radicals’ Trial in Serbia (Balkan Insight) By Filip Rudic December 13, 2018

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Thursday dismissed a prosecution appeal against handing over to Serbia the case of two Serbian Radical Party members who are accused of interfering with witnesses at the trial of their leader, nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj.

According to the UN court’s rules, the appeals chamber could not make the decision to hand over the case, but only to return it to the judge who made a ruling in June that the case be given to Serbian judiciary.

The two Radicals, Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta, are accused by the UN court of contempt of court in the trial of Seselj, who was convicted of war crimes in April 2018.

They are accused of threatening, blackmailing and bribing witnesses to either change their testimonies or to not testify at all.

The Serbian authorities have been locked in a long-running dispute with the tribunal over the arrest and extradition of the two Radicals.

The tribunal submitted a warrant ordering their arrest in January 2015.

But in May 2016, the war crimes chamber of the Belgrade Higher Court ruled that there were no legal grounds for extraditing the Radicals because Serbia’s Law on Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal obliged Belgrade to extradite people charged with war crimes, but not those charged with contempt of court.

In October 2016, the tribunal issued an international warrant for the arrest of Jojic and Radeta, saying that Serbia had refused several times to act on its order to arrest and extradite them.

Interpol then issued ‘red notices’ for the arrest of Jojic and Radeta.

The tribunal has also reported Serbia to the UN Security Council several times for non-cooperation in the case.

A third Radical Party member who was also accused in the case, Jovo Ostojic, died in Serbia last year.

Bosnian Serb Ex-Officer Goes on Trial in Croatia (Balkan Insight) By Anja Vladisavljevic December 18, 2018

The trial of Dane Lukajic, a 68-year-old citizen of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina accused of committing war crimes against prisoners of war while he was a captain in the Bosnian Serb Army in 1992, started on Monday at Zagreb County Court.

Lukajic is charged with ordering his Bosnian Serb Army subordinates at the Manjaca camp near the Bosnian town of Banja Luka to beat and injure two Croatian Defence Council, HVO members as well as three Croatian Defence Forces, HOS detainees.

He is also charged with personally inflicting serious injuries on one of the HOS members.

Croatian police arrested Lukajic as he was entering the country in June this year.

The Bosnian Serb-run Manjaca camp operated from 1991-92 and briefly again in 1995. The majority of prisoners were Croat and Bosniak soldiers and civilians.

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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

Militia forces Libya’s NOC to declare force majeure on biggest oilfield (Reuters) By Ahmed Elumami and Ayman al-Warfalli December 10, 2018

Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) on Monday declared force majeure on exports from the El Sharara oilfield, which was seized at the weekend by a local militia group.

NOC said the shutdown would result in a production loss of 315,000 barrels per day (bpd) at its biggest oilfield, and an additional loss of 73,000 bpd at the El Feel oilfield.

Production at the Zawiya refinery was also at risk due to its dependence on crude oil supply from Sharara, NOC said in a statement, adding that it was “reviewing” evacuation plans.

Chairman Mustafa Sanalla NOC would not negotiate with the militia group. “We will not pay a penny to anyone who closed the field ... and we will never sit with them,” he told Alahrar TV.

NOC said armed militia had stormed the premises on Saturday after some guards and locals claiming to be attached to the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) force opened the gates.

Members of the group, which sources told Reuters included local tribesmen from the impoverished region, then drove around in jeeps, filming themselves in videos they sent to journalists.

They stayed overnight in the vast, partly unsecured area, making good on a threat issued in October to stop production if authorities did not provide more development funds.

In Libya armed men, often friends or relatives of existing guards, have regularly blocked oilfields to get added to the state payroll. At El Sharara there are at least 1,500 PFG members, though nearly 500 are in fact civilians, Sanalla said.

TRIBESMEN’S DEMANDS

Libya is divided and run by two weak governments and armed groups, tribesmen and normal Libyans vent their anger about high inflation and a lack of infrastructure on the NOC, which they see booking billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues.

Sanalla said NOC had repeatedly informed the government in Tripoli about the problems at Sharara, which had been attacked 110 times since 2011, the year Muammar Gaddafi was toppled.

But there was little coordination between the PFG in south-western Libya and the capital, he said.

Before the force majeure, Libya had been producing up to 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, its highest level since 2013 when a wave of oilfield blockages started.

Oilfield blockades tend to be solved by authorities quickly giving more money to guards or locals living close by.

This blockade might be more complicated to resolve because the group that seized the facility included tribesmen, who have said they want funds to improve hospitals and other services which might take time to deliver.

Sanalla said the NOC had made good on its promises of help to southern communities, but the government was responsible for resolving the broader situation in the south.

Modern Day Slavery: A Black Man Can Be Bought for $400 in Libya (The African Exponent) By Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza December 19, 2018

Desperate times lead to desperate actions, and for the innocent migrants who just want to seek greener pastures in Europe find themselves in the hands of the most callous and evil people. Slavery is taking centre-stage in Libya, where migrants are captured and forced to work for their owners in deplorable conditions and often for no reward at all.

In Libya, there is no peace for black people, especially black men. They constantly have to fear for their lives; they have to live a life in which they are subjected to perpetual fear of what is known and what is unknown. The new African slave trade is intensifying, and getting worse by each day, exacerbated by the hard-line, far-right position which Europe is taking against migrants.

In desperate attempts to part ways with debilitating poverty, people from Sub-Saharan Africa are selling themselves into slavery, believing that by doing so they are fleeing from a life of conflict, poverty, or repression to get a glistening life in Europe. However, the anti-migrant rhetoric that is gaining traction in Europe is preventing people from reaching the continent because of the European Union policies. As a result of this, migrants are enslaved and they die in their valiant but often futile attempts to escape.

Present-day Libya is now the place where tens of thousands are detained indefinitely, spending years working for arbitrary sums or without pay altogether. These slaves are at a constant risk of being sold off and auctioned from one militia to another. In this chaos, there is heavy influence of racism in spurring this modern-day slavery. It is always the black man who is targeted, it is the black man who they want.

The story of Ikuenobe documented by BuzzFeed News hows the nature of this menace. The most important question the world has not really paid attention to is that if Europe is toughening up its stance against migrants with things like "stop boats" policy - what is happening to all those who are entrapped after failing to make it to Europe?

In light of this, there is always reference to evidence released by CNN last year which showed black Africans being auctioned off as slaves in Tripoli, with black men referred to as "a digger, a big strong man." The men were sold off for $400 each. Nothing serious has been done by the UN-backed government to address this evil phenomenon.

Libya has always been the stepping-off point for migrants, and Gaddafi controlled the numbers of migrants. For him to get cash-for-migration-control deals, he always threatened to unleash the migrants into Europe and turn mainland Europe into "black Europe." In 2008, Gaddafi received $5billion from Italy as reparations, and in turn he would control the flow of migrants into Italy. Asylum seekers were being captured and returned to Libya, until the European Court of Human Rights gave a ruling saying the deal broke human rights laws. He began demanding $5 billion euros from the EU annually. However since his death, migrants routes have opened up again.

European governments have now been pouring their resources to stem the migrant flow. And in the midst of this, it is clear that coast guards and migrant-holding centres are not the solution. The promises made to people who are going to Libya in the hope of making it to Europe are alluring, often, too good to be true. The journey from countries in West Africa to Libya is gruesome - the landscape is mentally lethal. After driving in endless heat, deep in the desert, Ikuenobe revealed, "Sometimes you look at your colleagues and it’s like blood is gushing out of their eyes. Some people will just lose it psychologically." Some actually die in the desert because of dehydration.

Getting into Libya will give the migrant a shock, as they are greeted by unfettered lawlessness. There is fear, fear which is very scary. Ikuenobe was captured by men who brutally assaulted him, and called his sister to give them 600,000 naira ($1,650) for his "freedom". They wanted his mother's number but he gave them his sister's, so that his mother would not know what was actually happening. He had told his mother that he was working in a "shipyard" job and that they would soon drink to this new job.

There is widespread impunity. Extortion is so widespread that captives even have a market value depending on which country they’re from — Eritreans, who have a large, well-organized diaspora, command the highest prices, while West Africans fetch the smallest ransoms and are the most likely to be ill-treated, Libya experts say. Ikuenobe's family finally paid over 2 million naira ($5,500) before being set free. However, the person who Ikuenobe thought had come to rescue him had actually bought him.

He went to Sabha, where he was undocumented and jobless. The city was always in chaos, and he had no option than to endure the taunting he suffered. If you’re dark-skinned and from sub-Saharan Africa, … you’re at a very, very high risk of being assaulted, exploited, and detained," said Hanan Salah, a Libya researcher with Human Rights Watch. "Libya is an accountability-free zone at the moment. Which police station is even going to take this complaint?"

Attempting to escape is not an easy task, as this year alone only 1 in 10 people who attempt to escape has been successful. You have already guessed right the fate of the others - they die, disappear or are returned to the Libyan coast guard.

The question now remains - what can be done to avert this kind of evil? It has affected families, killed breadwinners, and has degraded tens of thousands of people. Perhaps African leaders should simply sort their mess up in their own countries and provide better conditions for their people.

Haftar’s forces attack a town near Libya’s Misrata (The Libya Observer) By Abdulkader Assad December 19, 2018

Khalifa Haftar's self-styled army forces attacked Wednesday Saddada Castle between Misrata and Bani Walid, claiming control of the area after brief clashes with forces inside the castle under the command of the former chief of Petroleum Facilities Guard, Ibrahim Jadran and Benghazi Defense Brigades.

According to sources from the area, the clashes left injuries and deaths with reports saying the injured fighters under Haftar's command were sent to Al-Jufra hospitals.

In the meantime, the Sirte Protection Force denied that Haftar's forces had seized the town, saying they had retreated to their positions.

"We have declared full mobilization of fighters at the central military zone and we have asked the military reserve force to secure administrative borders." A military source said.

The move of Haftar's forces is seen as an advance on Misrata city, which has mobilized all forces to secure all of its administrative borders.

Earlier this week, Haftar's forces advanced into Abu Najim - 70 km to the west of Sirte - before they were told to leave by central military zone forces.

The self-styled army mobilized troops around the oil crescent region, citing a need to foil an attack by Jadran's forces on oil terminals.

However, a spokesman for Jadran - Ali Al-Maghrabi - denied any intentions to attack oil terminals or Haftar's forces in there, adding that Haftar's forces are justifying their military moves by such lies so they can advance toward Sirte and Misrata.

Over the last weeks, Haftar's general command reshuffled the military ranks in western and southern Libya in what observers describe as a preparation to advance on Tripoli.

[back to contents] Iraq

Grotian Moment: The International War Crimes Trial Blog

A Powerful Mechanism To Respond To The Atrocities Perpetrated In Iraq And Syria (Forbes) By Ewelina U. Ochab December 12, 2018

On November 29, 2018, the U.S. Congress unanimously passed House Resolution 390 (H.R. 390) titled “Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act of 2018” (the Act). Days after passing the U.S. Congress, the document was presented to the President and ultimately, on December 11, 2018, H.R. 390 was signed into law. H.R. 390 was originally introduced by Representative Chris Smith in 2016 and then reintroduced in October 2017 (in cooperation with Representative Anna Eshoo).

The Act is intended to provide the ultimate response to the genocidal atrocities committed by Daesh in Syria and Iraq, “to provide emergency relief to victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Iraq and Syria, to provide accountability for perpetrators of these crimes and for other purposes.” Indeed, through the Act, the U.S. Administration has committed to fund organizations providing humanitarian assistance to communities affected by Daesh; to address the vulnerabilities of the survivors; to assist in identifying the early warning signs of mass atrocities; to support organizations that help obtain and preserve evidence of Daesh atrocities or that engage in the prosecution of Daesh atrocities; and to cooperate with other countries in preparing a database of the perpetrators or suspects. The Act endeavors to assist all victims of the Daesh genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria and Iraq, notably, this includes Christians and Yazidis specifically targeted by Daesh for annihilation.

The provision of humanitarian assistance and justice for the victims and survivors are at the heart of the Act. These crucial steps are long overdue. It is now urgent that we address some of the worst atrocities which were perpetrated over four years ago.

Humanitarian Assistance

Indeed, the situation of the persecuted groups has yet to receive an adequate response. Reports compiled by the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee estimate that by November 2018, two years after some of the regions in Iraq were liberated from Daesh, just 40% of the damage caused by Daesh to houses in the Nineveh Plains, Iraq, has been remediated. While the figures are encouraging as they suggest slow but constant progress, clearly more work needs to be done. Work is also required to ensure that business can be restored and new investment secured that will allow towns and villages to become self-sustainable once again. The situation in Sinjar appears to be worse. Many areas of Sinjar remain uninhabitable and little has been done to change this. According to a report by Nadia’s Initiative, an NGO founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, in south Sinjar, Daesh left land-mines that continue to pose a threat to anyone wishing to return. The report lists some of the main obstacles to rebuilding the houses and villages destroyed in the region. These include the limited availability of building materials, intense poverty and restricted financial resources. It also cites land tenure issues, population displacement and associated property ownership issues as contributing factors.

Pursuing Justice

The promise of bringing Daesh to justice is years away from realization. An injection of decisive and proactive steps is required to accelerate the process. The Act, by way of providing the necessary resources, sends a clear message that the U.S. Administration is fully involved in ensuring that those responsible for genocide or crimes against humanity will be brought to justice. Impunity will not be tolerated anymore.

The signing of H.R. 390 was an important step in the larger campaign to provide for meaningful assistance to the survivors of the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh and towards ensuring that the perpetrators of these atrocities would be brought to justice. The Act is a pro-active and much-anticipated development, and if implemented accordingly, it may well change the fate of minorities persecuted by Daesh. Understandably, the mere existence of the Act does not mean that the persecuted minorities will see immediate change. However, the mechanism it implements gives hope that, if implemented adequately, much-needed change will follow.

ISIS systematically destroyed Yezidi farms during onslaught - new report (Amnesty International UK) December 13, 2018

Hundreds of wells sabotaged, trees cut down, machinery and livestock stolen.

Call for UN to investigate ISIS crimes related to the environment

‘Hundreds of thousands of displaced farmers and their families can’t return home because ISIS went out of its way to render farming impossible’ - Richard Pearshouse

As part of its brutal campaign against Iraq’s Yezidi minority, the Islamic State armed group committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately and systematically destroying their farmlands, Amnesty International said in a new report today.

In addition to their notorious mass killings, rape and enslavement of Yezidis in north-west Iraq from August 2014 onwards, ISIS systematically sabotaged the farmland of this overwhelmingly agrarian population, burning orchards, looting livestock and machinery, and laying landmines in farming areas.

Amnesty’s 37-page ‘Dead Land’ report, based on interviews with 69 people - including 44 current or former farmers from rural areas, including the Sinjar district, scene of some of the most extensive rural damage - shows how ISIS fighters threw rubble, oil or other materials into Yezidi wells, and stole or destroyed pumps, cables, generators and transformers.

The group also burnt or chopped down orchards, and pulled down and stole vital electricity lines belonging to numerous subsistence and smallholder Yezidi farmers.

A year after the Iraqi government declared victory over ISIS, Amnesty’s report shows how Yezidis are still suffering.

Hadi, a former farmer in his mid-40s from a small village south of Sinjar Mountain, told Amnesty what he saw when he returned to his farm after fleeing ISIS:

“[It was] pure destruction. I had a well - 220 metres deep - as well as a generator and an irrigation pipe system. [ISIS] threw rubble in my well and filled it to the top. My trees were chopped down - I could see the [chainsaw] marks. The irrigation system - from the pump to the pipes - was stolen. They did this to send a message: that you have nothing to return to, so if you survive, don’t even think of coming back.”

Majdal, a farmer in his mid-50s from another village south of Sinjar Mountain, said:

“There is nothing left. Now the house is destroyed, and all the trees burnt down. We had 100 olive trees, but when I went I didn’t see a single tree in any direction. They were chopped down and burnt … They wanted us to lose everything. They didn’t want us to be able to come back to our land.”

Amnesty visited an abandoned farm in a small village near Sinune town, north of Sinjar Mountain. ISIS fighters had poured oil down one irrigation well and dumped debris in another. A large water tank was empty and plastic irrigation pipes lay broken and scattered nearby. Meanwhile, adjacent fields were completely barren.

Water engineers told Amnesty that they had no doubt the destruction was deliberate. No comprehensive assessment has been undertaken, but local officials estimate that in the area near Sinune alone, ISIS put 400 out of 450 irrigation wells out of use.

Amnesty is also calling for the UN-mandated team established in September last year to include ISIS crimes related to the environment within the scope of its investigation.

Richard Pearshouse, a Senior Crisis Adviser at Amnesty International, said:

“Our investigation reveals how ISIS carried out deliberate, wanton destruction of Iraq’s rural environment around Sinjar Mountain, wreaking havoc on the long-term livelihoods of Yezidis and other agrarian communities.

“Today, hundreds of thousands of displaced farmers and their families can’t return home because ISIS went out of its way to render farming impossible.

“Unless there is urgent government assistance, the long-term damage inflicted on Iraq’s rural environment will reverberate for years to come.

“Those displaced by ISIS war crimes have a right to full reparation and to justice. “The government must ensure that survivors receive restitution or, if this is not possible, compensation.

“When ISIS tore through Iraq in 2014, it thrived off rural poverty and resentments, so Iraq’s government should be concerned that something similar could happen again.”

Iraqi farming hit hard by ISIS onslaughts

Overall, the conflict against ISIS had a devastating effect on Iraq’s agricultural production, which is now an estimated 40% lower than 2014 levels. Before the ISIS onslaughts, around two-thirds of Iraq’s farmers had access to irrigation - three years later, this had fallen to 20%. Around 75% of livestock was lost, with losses reaching 95% in some areas.

Only about half the people displaced after ISIS took control of the Sinjar area in 2014 have returned. Numerous displaced people from the area told Amnesty they felt they now had nothing to go home to, with their farms and livelihoods decimated. This pattern appears to be reflected in rural areas elsewhere in Iraq.

Men killed, women sold into sexual slavery

First, ISIS fighters rounded up and killed any men and boys who hadn’t been able to seek sanctuary on Sinjar Mountain. Soon after, they abducted and sold an estimated 6,000 young women and children into slavery elsewhere in Iraq and in Syria. Other Yezidis sought refuge in Europe and other parts of the Middle East.

By the time the north side of Sinjar Mountain was retaken from ISIS in December 2014, and the south side in November 2015, thousands of years of Yezidi life had been all but obliterated. The Kurdistan Regional Government took control of the area before handing it over to Iraqi central government control in October last year.

Amnesty says ISIL 'annihilation' of rural Iraq is a war crime (Aljazeera) December 13, 2018

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL, also known as ISIS) "deliberate, wanton annihilation" of agricultural land in northern Iraq amounts to a war crime, Amnesty International has said.

The rights group, in a report released on Thursday, said the ISIL's "scorched-earth tactics" devastated Iraq's rural communities as it looted livestock, burned orchards, planted land mines, sabotaged water pumps and destroyed farmland.

The report was released a day after Nobel Peace Prize winner and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad visited Iraq's capital, Baghdad, to call for more government support to her native Sinjar region. ISIL overran Sinjar in 2014, killing Yazidi men, forcefully enlisting boys as soldiers and kidnapping more than 6,000 women and girls as "sex slaves".

The US-backed Iraqi forces gradually drove the fighters from the territory under their control, declaring victory last year after a costly campaign that destroyed entire neighbourhoods and towns.

'Compensate the displaced'

"The conflict against ISIL eviscerated Iraq's agricultural production, now an estimated 40 percent lower than 2014 levels," the Amnesty report said.

"Before ISIL, around two-thirds of Iraq's farmers had access to irrigation - only three years later, this had fallen to 20 percent. Around 75 percent of livestock was lost, spiking to 95 percent in some areas."

Richard Pearshouse, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, said the consequences of the conflict on Iraq's rural residents are "being largely forgotten".

"The damage to Iraq's countryside is as far-reaching as the urban destruction," he said.

The London-based rights group said ISIL fighters sabotaged wells by filling them with rubble, oil or other materials. The armed group also stole or destroyed pumps, cables, generators, transformers and vital electricity lines.

Amnesty called on the Iraqi government to repair rural infrastructure and compensate the displaced. About half of Sinjar's residents have returned, with many others saying they have nothing to go back to.

'Rural poverty and resentments'

"There is nothing left. Now the house is destroyed, and all the trees burned down," Majdar, a farmer in his mid-50s from a village south of Sinjar mountain, told Amnesty. "We had 100 olive trees, but when I went I didn't see a single tree in any direction. They were chopped down and burned … They wanted us to lose everything. They didn't want us to be able to come back to our land," he said.

ISIL still maintains its presence in the Syrian desert and remote areas along the border with Iraq. Many warn it could stage a comeback if economic grievances are not addressed.

"Unless there is urgent government assistance, the long-term damage inflicted on Iraq's rural environment will reverberate for years to come," Pearshouse said.

"When ISIL tore through Iraq in 2014, it thrived off rural poverty and resentments, so Iraq's government should be concerned that something similar could happen again."

Why US forces must step in to save Iraqi Christians from extinction (The New York Post) By Kenneth R. Timmerman December 15, 2018

When ISIS fighters burst into Father Afran Sony’s monastery in northern Iraq in June 2014 wielding machine guns and knives, he and his brothers rushed to protect their most precious possessions.

They weren’t gold, relics or even their own lives, but some of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the Christian world.

For nearly two months, the terrorists held the handful of monks prisoner and openly discussed whether or not to kill them because they refused to renounce their faith. But Father Afran was more focused on saving the ancient Christian texts than himself.

At one point, he and a few brothers managed to escape to a nearby village under the cover of darkness, carrying away the most precious of the ancient scrolls under their cloaks. But ISIS caught them at a checkpoint and took them back to the monastery. That’s when they came up with a daring plan.

“We built a fake wall in a small windowless closet right under their noses and sealed the books in barrels inside,” he said. “Some of them date from the 4th century. In all, we saved 750 ancient books and scrolls.”

ISIS released the monks on July 20, 2014, and stayed another two years in the monastery without ever finding the manuscripts. But every other Christian relic they found, every cross and every grave, they smashed or defaced, including the tomb of Saints Behnam and Sarah, martyrs who lived more than 1,600 years ago.

Most Americans have had enough of our 15-year effort to bring peace, stability and, yes, some modicum of representative government to Iraq. President Trump repeatedly blasted President George W. Bush for going to war in 2003, calling it “the single worst decision ever made.”

And yet, the United States does have lasting interests in Iraq beyond eradicating weapons of mass destruction. Prime among them is one that until now we have neglected: ensuring the survival of Iraq’s Christian minority and, more generally, the Christians of the East.

Why should we care? America is fundamentally a Judeo-Christian nation. More than 70 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians, and if that statistic has any meaning, then we must take seriously the passage of St. Paul in I Corinthians 12:26, when he describes the body of Christ. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

There can be no doubt: The Body of Christ in northern Iraq is suffering. It has been suffering for the past 15 years in ways never before imaginable. And until recently, Americans and the US government have done little to help.

These are our people. This is our duty.

Through 1,400 years of Muslim domination, these communities have remained faithful, their monasteries and ancient churches largely intact. Until ISIS. Today, 150,000 Christians at most remain in Iraq, a scant 10 percent of the community that once thrived before 2003. And every day brings them closer to extinction.

Merved is a 32-year old Christian woman from Bartella, east of Mosul, who was driven out of her home by the ISIS invasion in 2014. She lost four family members to ISIS barbarity and today lives with her four young children in a refugee camp sponsored by the Assyrian Aid Society. Asked if she was ready to return home, she shook her head violently. “I am afraid!”

While ISIS lost its occupying power after a brutal, year-long battle with Iraqi, Kurdish and US-led coalition forces in 2017, members of the terrorist group have gone underground and are forming new cells just outside of Mosul, many of them led by women. “In recent months, we have arrested 40 women just in our sector,” said the national police chief for East Mosul, Gen. Aref al-Zebari. “They told our interrogators that they were protected and aided by the Turkish government,” he added.

In October this year, I returned from a 10-day fact-finding mission to Mosul and the surrounding Christian villages of the Nineveh Plain, which was evangelized by St. Thomas in the 1st century AD. Many of the churches here still conduct Mass in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. But ISIS’s presence lingered throughout.

“Look at this grave,” local councilman Luis Markos Ayoub told me, as we walked through the cemetery of Saint Georges church in Karamlesh, a Christian village just east of Mosul.

“It is fresh — not because the person just died, but because the family came back here to rebury their loved one. ISIS had dug up the dead body and decapitated it, because it was Christian.”

Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury called the “daily threats of murder” Christians face today “the worst situation since the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.”

“Many have left,” wrote the Most Reverend Justin Welby in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph. “Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes. Many have been killed, enslaved and persecuted or forcibly converted. Even those who remain ask the question, ‘Why stay?’ Christian communities that were the foundation of the universal Church now face the threat of imminent extinction.”

You don’t have to be a Christian to believe it’s in our national interest to ensure the survival of Iraqi Christians. Congress has determined that the three-year ISIS effort to eradicate the Christian and Yazidi populations under their control amounted to “genocide.”

Max Primorac, the top USAID official in Iraq, said genocide is a very specific crime that calls for a specific response. “We’ve made 27 grants in three months, probably the fastest ever,” Primorac said. “We didn’t just get the memo, we are reading it.”

The “memo” came from Vice President Mike Pence. Just over one year ago, Pence pledged that the Trump administration would change the way the US distributed aid, to ensure it directly reached Christian and Yazidi communities.

The first concrete step was to withdraw $55 million pledged to the United Nations, which has a track record of playing favorites with Muslims and wasting money on insider contractors. USAID is starting to spend that money directly on local projects administered by local organizations.

“The money is supporting reconstruction efforts, local schools and services such as trash collection,” Primorac said. “This is a White House priority.”

Other countries are also making an effort. With funds from a French aid organization, 28-year old architect Guillaume de Beaurepaire is working to rebuild the tomb of Benham and Sarah alongside Father Afran, who has since returned to his monastery.

“ISIS needed three attempts to blow up the tomb,” de Beaurepaire told me. “Most of the mausoleum was on the ground when we first got here. But ISIS missed things. The main underground niche was intact, and we found many of the carved tablets in the rubble and re-cemented them into the walls.”

In addition to aid, these communities need top-level political and diplomatic support from Washington. And they are starting to get it.

Just as I was leaving Iraq, I got a note from Primorac that a three-month negotiation, led by US ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman, had succeeded in convincing the Kurdish Regional Government to lift roadblocks that have isolated Christian towns on the Nineveh Plain and stifled economic development for years.

This is a great first step and shows on a practical level what aiding Iraqi Christians means: concrete actions, not speeches and empty promises.

The next steps are even more important: ensuring that Christians who return to Mosul and the Nineveh Plain have political and security guarantees so they can never again be victimized by Muslims or Kurds.

“We need to be able to govern ourselves,” said Yohanna Yosif Toma, legal advisor to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, an Iraqi group that provides both aid and political support to embattled Christians.

“We don’t need another province that is majority Muslims. We need local government, local police, in Christian cantons.” The US has supported the notion of self-government for Iraq’s Christian community for years but has never put the full weight of our government behind it.

Now is the time, before these endangered communities disappear forever.

[back to contents]

Syria

No Fewer than Eight Massacres Documented in Syria in November 2018: Including Six at the Hands of International Coalition Forces (Syrian Network for Human Rights) December 6, 2018

SNHR said today that no less than eight massacres were perpetrated by the parties to the conflict in Syria in the month of November.

The report notes that the first two years of the popular uprising saw the largest portion of ethnic and sectarian cleansing massacres, where the Syrian regime and its militias were responsible for the majority of these massacres. In mid-2013, Syrian regime forces started relying heavily on warplanes and they were also used later by international coalition forces and Russian forces. The wide use of aerial bombardment doubled the numbers of victims and caused huge destruction to the infrastructure, as one or two new massacres at least are recorded almost every day.

This report draws upon the ongoing monitoring of news and development by SNHR team, and on accounts by survivors, eyewitnesses, and local media activists as the report contains two accounts that have been collected by speaking directly to eyewitnesses and are not cited from any open sources, in addition to analyzing a large number of videos and pictures that were posted online or sent by local activists.

According to the report, November saw an increase in the number of massacres compared to the previous three months, with the second half of the month seeing an escalation in the bombing by Syrian regime forces in the Idlib de-escalation zone. The report also recorded a continued escalation of attacks by the international coalition forces in the areas controlled by the ISIS in Deir Ez-Zour governorate for the second consecutive month.

The report noted that the massacres committed in November resulted in the death of 54 children (60 percent of the total civilian casualties), including 39 children killed in Deir Ez-Zour by international coalition forces.

The report documents no less than 219 massacres that have been perpetrated by the parties to the conflict in Syria since the start of 2018. In addition, the report records no less than eight massacres in November. The report uses the term “massacre” to refer to an incident in which five peaceful individuals or more are killed in the same attack. Based on this definition, Syrian regime forces were responsible for one massacre in November. Additionally, the international coalition forces were responsible for six massacres, while the report records one massacre by ISIS.

According to the report, the massacres documented this month have resulted in the killing of 86 civilians, including 51 children and 19 women (adult female). This means that 82 percent of all victims were women and children, which is a considerably high percentage, and an indication that civilian residents were targeted in most of these massacres.

The report breaks down the death toll of the massacres, as nine civilians were killed in the massacre by Syrian regime forces, including seven children and two women. On the other hand, five children were killed in the massacre perpetrated by ISIS, while the international coalition forces killed 72 civilians, including 39 children and 17 women.

The report stresses that Syrian-Russian alliance forces have violated Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254 through indiscriminate attacks. Also, The Syrian and Russian regime have violated Article 7 and 8 of Rome Statute through the act of willful killing, as well as the rules of the international human rights law which guarantee the right to life. Given that these violations were committed in a non-international armed conflict, they qualify as war crimes.

The report notes that the attacks by Coalition forces (the international coalition and SDF) have caused collateral damages that involved loss of lives, injuries, or significant damages to civilian facilities. There are strong indicators suggesting that the damage was too excessive compared to the anticipated military benefit. The report adds that the other parties carried out attacks that resulted in civilian deaths, confirming that these violations might constitute war crimes, but don’t qualify as crimes against humanity as with the Syrian regime and its pro-regime forces.

The report calls on the Security Council to take additional steps after resolutions 2139 and 2254 have been adopted. 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 proven.

In addition, the report calls for the implementation of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” norm, especially after all political channels have been consumed through 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 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 a universal jurisdiction, and address the war crimes that were perpetrated in Syria.

Also, the report calls on the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to launch investigations on the incidents included in this report and past reports. The report stresses that SNHR is willing to cooperate and provide more evidences and data.

Additionally, the report calls on the Russian regime and international coalition forces to launch investigations in the incidents included in the report, made the findings of these investigations public to the Syrian people, and hold all who were involved accountable.

Further, the report calls on the SDF-supporting states 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 cease all forms of support, including weapons.

Lastly, the report calls on armed opposition factions to ensure the protection of civilians in all of their areas of control. Also, armed opposition factions should distinguish between civilians and military targets, and cease any indiscriminate attacks.

Chicago woman believed to have been tortured, killed in Syria: Human rights group (ABC News) By Conor Finnegan December 6, 2018

A U.S. citizen who had been held in Syria by the regime of Bashar al Assad for nearly three years was killed in its custody, according to a human rights group and the State Department.

Layla Shwekani, who was born and spent her early years in Damascus, but lived in the Chicago suburbs, was a "humanitarian activist," according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. She had returned to Syria in 2015 and was detained in February 2016 by regime forces.

"She was registered in civil registry department as dead in December 28, 2016, we believe she was executed in Saydnaya military prison in Damascus Suburbs governate," the group wrote in a newly released report.

Shwekani was born in 1990 and held a degree in information architecture from Arab International University in Daraa, Syria. The report, released Dec. 2, details 15 people killed by torture in Syria in November.

The State Department confirmed to ABC News that they're "aware of reports of the death of a U.S. citizen in Syrian regime custody," but they declined to comment further because of privacy.

Her local mosque in Willowbrook, Illinois, said they held a funeral prayer for her last Friday after the family recently found out she was killed, according to the local Chicago CBS affiliate, adding that her family declined to be interviewed.

The Syrian civil war has claimed more than 500,000 lives, according to monitoring groups. An additional 60,000 people have gone missing since the war began, according to the International Commission on Missing Persons.

The U.S. has accused Assad's regime of war crimes from torture and extrajudicial killings to the use of crematoriums and chemical weapons, but it no longer calls for his immediate removal. Instead, the Trump administration has expressed its desire that a political transition to take place.

Releasing information has been a common practice by the Assad regime more recently -- as the war's battlefields quiet down, it has started to issue death notices for political prisoners it executed in an effort to resolve the cases of thousands of missing Syrians.

Syrian man charged in Germany with war crimes (The Washington Post) December 10, 2018

German prosecutors say they have charged a 29-year-old Syrian man with war crimes on allegations he tortured pro-government forces his unit had captured.

Prosecutors said Monday that Mohamad K., whose last name was not released in line with privacy laws, served in the rebel Free Syrian Army from January 2012 to January 2013.

During that time, they allege, he was involved in the torture of two prisoners who were part of a pro-government militia, whipping them with a “cable-like object” while they were unclothed, “inflicting considerable pain.”

The suspect was arrested in June and charges have been filed in Stuttgart state court.

Further details about when he arrived in Germany and how German authorities learned of the allegations against him were not immediately available.

Damascus Accuses US, French, Turkish Troops, Allies of Plundering Antiquities (Sputnik News) December 11, 2018

Syria is home to some of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, and contains cultural artifacts from numerous ancient empires. Amid the war in Syria archeologists worldwide have looked on in horror as terrorists looted and destroyed priceless artifacts in areas under their control.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has condemned what it said were illegal excavation works by US, French, and Turkish troops as well as their local allies in areas of Syria under their control, including ancient sites at Manbij, Afrin, Idlib, Hasaka, and Raqqa.

Speaking to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Monday, a ministry official said that there had been an increase in excavation work, looting, and theft of ancient cultural artifacts.

"These actions represent a new war crime added to the crimes committed against the Syrian people and Syrian heritage", the official said. According to Damascus, the looting of Syria's historical treasures is part of a deliberate plot by terrorist organisations and their backers to rob the Syrian people of their past and destroy the country's civilisational and cultural heritage.

The Foreign Ministry called on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to condemn the alleged violations and expose those who stand behind them.

The Foreign Ministry statement follows remarks by Mahmoud Hammoud, director general of Syria's museums and antiquities, alleging that the US, France, and Kurdish militias were carrying out illegal excavations in northern Syria in areas under their control, including "archeological tombs in the eastern side of Manbij".

"We hope that the Syrian Army will return peace and security to all those areas soon because it's the only force capable of protecting our heritage", Hammoud stressed, speaking to SANA on Sunday.

The Syrian government has devoted considerable resources to the search for looted artifacts, and is working with international authorities to recover treasures illegally smuggled abroad by criminal enterprises during the terrorist occupation. In late October, authorities reopened the National Museum of Damascus, touting it as a symbolic "political, cultural, and economic victory", a symbol of the return to normal life and defiance of efforts by terrorists to loot and destroy the country's treasures. In September, authorities began a major project to restore the Krak de Chevaliers, an 11th century castle in Homs.

During the war in Syria against Daesh (ISIS)*, archeologists, historians, and anthropologists were horrified by videos of terrorists attempting to destroy Palmyra, the former ancient capital of the Palmyrene Empire and one of the most prosperous cities of the Roman Empire. During its occupation, Daesh destroyed several UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the Arch of Triumph, the Temple of Baalshamin and the Temple of Bel. The destruction was accompanied by cruelty against the local population, including Khaled al-Asaad, the chief archeologist who cared for the city's antiquities and who was executed in Palmyra's Roman Amphitheatre. Russian military and civilian specialists have played an important role in the work to restore the city. In August the governor of Homs said Palmyra should be ready to receive tourists by the summer of 2019.

*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. Thousands Flee Bombs and Hunger in Eastern Syria (Eye Witness News) December 11, 2018

Faraj was born in the pouring rain on a nondescript stretch of desert road in eastern Syria as his family fled escalating fighting over the Islamic State group's last bastion.

His family was part of a group of around 200 civilians who managed to escape from a pocket of territory in Deir Ezzor province that is still held by the jihadists.

"I had to resist hunger, cold and rain," the newborn's mother Kamela Fadel tells AFP in a camp for displaced people in the northeastern region of Al-Hol.

The young woman, her husband and their four children now sleep under white tents, with hundreds of other people who fled eastern flashpoints in past weeks.

They are huddled on straw mats laid out directly on the gravelly earth, wrapped in blankets and hugging bags packed with their meagre belongings.

A nurse helps an elderly lady to the camp clinic as children play at scaling piles of foam mattresses and families sit cross- legged, eating from tin cans.

It is still cold in the vast tent but at least they are sheltered from the rain.

They walked for several days in the winter weather before being met last week by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling IS in Deir Ezzor.

"It was hunger that prompted us to leave, there was nothing left to eat," says Kamela's husband, still sporting the thick beard the jihadists impose on all adult men.

'DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE'

He and his family were living in Al-Shaafa, one of the last villages, together with Sousa and Hajin, that are still under the control of IS.

The SDF, with the support of air strikes by the US-led coalition against IS, launched a major operation against the last rump of the jihadists' moribund "caliphate" in September this year.

The jihadists hunkering down in their Euphrates Valley heartland have offered stiff resistance, thwarting coalition hopes of a quick victory.

Warplanes have been raining bombs on IS targets in and around Hajin, causing significant civilian loss of life in the process, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory says almost 320 civilians have been killed, including 113 children.

"There is destruction everywhere because of the fighting and the bombardment. We were scared for the children," says Faraj's father.

Local camp official Mohamed Ibrahim told AFP around 1,700 civilians had arrived in Al-Hol in recent days.

The intensity of the bombardment and the remoteness of the area make it is difficult to estimate the number of civilians who remain, voluntarily or not, in the IS pocket.

"In Syria, displacement leads to food insecurity as people leave their belongings behind," said Marwa Awad, a spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme in Damascus.

"This is why it's vital to maintain a lifeline of food assistance for vulnerable families such as those escaping violence in Deir Ezzor," she said.

Awad said at least 16,500 people had been forced to flee their homes in Hajin and surrounding areas since violence in the area intensified in July this year.

SDF fighters too suffered heavy losses in their assault on Hajin, where a group of die-hard jihadists with little to lose are making a bloody last stand.

LAST STAND

"There are landmines everywhere on the roads," says Abu Omar, one of the displaced in Al-Hol.

Fearing retribution against relatives who have stayed behind in IS-controlled territory, he refused to give his full name.

"The village and our homes have been destroyed by the bombardment," says Abu Omar, a man in his thirties.

"There are still high-ranking members of IS and foreigners there, but most are on the Hajin frontline," he says. "They won't give up easily, they are fighting to the death."

The US-led coalition puts the number of jihadist fighters holding out in that area at around 2,000.

"The day we managed to flee, the fog was thick and gave us cover. Had they seen us, they would have wiped us out," says Ziba al-Ahmed, who escaped the town of Sousa.

"The bombardment was so scary and our bellies were crying," says the mother of four.

Their farming machinery was too precious to leave in Sousa and her husband stayed behind with one of their daughters.

"We're worried about them, we don't know what's going to happen to them."

Fresh US-led airstrikes leave 17 Syrian civilians dead in Dayr al-Zawr (PressTV) December 16, 2018

More than a dozen civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed after the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out a series of aerial assaults in Syria’s troubled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that 17 people were killed on Sunday when US-led warplanes bombarded residential buildings in Albu Khatir village, which lies southeast of the town of Hajin.

The report added that the air raids also severely damaged private property in the targeted area.

Local sources told Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency on December 12 that a US-led coalition airstrike targeted a residential building in al-Kashmah neighborhood of al-Shaafah town, which lies in Abu Kamal district of Dayr al-Zawr province, the previous night, leaving 15 people dead. Sources noted that the victims were all members of the same family.

At least eight civilians have been killed in fresh US-led airstrikes against Hajin town in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al- Zawr.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.

On November 13, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned a recent airstrike by the so-called US-led coalition against the eastern town of al-Shaafah, which left more than 60 people dead and injured, arguing that the massacre clearly pointed to the fact that members of the military alliance had no respect for moral values, international rules and regulations besides the lives of innocent civilians.

The ministry, in two separate letters, addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the former rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu, called on the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities and stop US-led aerial assaults.

It also asked the world body to propose an international, independent and impartial mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated by the so-called US-led coalition.

The letters noted that the coalition was deliberately targeting Syrian civilians and making use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs, in Syria.

The ministry stressed that the so-called US-led coalition airstrikes were meant to kill as many Syrian people as possible, prolong the ongoing Syrian conflict, destroy the country’s infrastructure and undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity in flagrant violation of all UN Security Council resolutions on Syria.

The letters concluded that the embarrassing silence of the Security Council had encouraged the coalition to kill more Syrian civilians and destroy their property.

Accused War Criminals Meet in Damascus as Arab Bloc Moves Away From Snubbing Assad (CNS News) By Patrick Goodenough December 19, 2018

A surprise visit to Damascus by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made headlines this week because both he and his host are accused of war crimes. The visit may mark a grudging acknowledgment by Arab states that it’s time to resume business with Bashar al-Assad.

Seven years and one month after the 21 other members of the Arab League suspended the Assad regime, Bashir became the first Arab leader to visit the Syrian capital, where he huddled with Assad for closed-doors talks.

The regime’s SANA news agency published photos of Assad meeting and embracing Bashir at the airport and quoted the Sudanese leader voicing support for Syria resuming its important leadership role.

For his part, Assad said adhering to “the causes of the Arab nation” would serve Arab states better than dependence on the West.

Bashir reportedly flew into the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia, the hub of Russia’s military operation in Syria, in a Russian air force plane.

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement Moscow welcomed Bashir’s visit, hoping it would help to restore relations between Syria and the Arab states.

Assad’s other key ally, Iran, did not comment publicly on the visit, although a senior Iranian diplomat, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, did meet with the Syrian leader soon after Bashir’s departure, according to Tehran’s foreign ministry.

Sudan is a close ally of Saudi Arabia – Iran’s main regional foe – and has been participating in the Saudi-led airstrike campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen.

Hassan Rostami, an Iranian analyst specializing in the “West Asia’ region, wrote in a Tasnim news agency article that Riyadh had likely given Bashir its blessing for the visit, and may even have asked him to convey a message to Assad.

Rostami said the visit showed that “strategic change has been achieved in the policies of the Arab countries towards Syria,” with no-one talking about Assad’s departure anymore.

War crimes?

Much has changed since the fall of 2011 when, after months of ignoring the growing crisis in Syria, the Arab League changed tack.

The bloc of Arab states suspended Syria’s membership that November, just months after its then-secretary-general Nabil Al- Arabi during a visit to Damascus rejected “foreign interference in the internal affairs of the Arab countries” – an implicit criticism of President Obama who one day earlier said Assad had lost “legitimacy in the eyes of his people.”

More than half a million Syrians have been killed in the conflict, which drew in support from some Sunni Arab states for anti- Assad forces while Russia, Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah fought to keep Assad in power.

Aside from Bashir’s previously-unannounced visit, Jordan recently sent a senior delegation to discuss ways of normalizing ties with the Syrian regime, and in another significant development the United Arab Emirates – also a close ally of Saudi Arabia – is moving towards reopening its embassy in Damascus.

Another member of the Arab League, Iraq, has responded halfheartedly throughout to the Arab League’s suspension of Syria. Iraq has a Shi’ite majority, and Assad is an adherent of the minority Alawite sect of Shi’ite Islam.

Western and Arab nations have accused Assad of crimes against humanity and war crimes, citing attacks against civilians using conventional and chemical weapons. Various groups have been gathering evidence on war crimes in Syria. A member of a U.N. commission of inquiry on Syria, which was set up in August 2011, said last year it had gathered sufficient evidence to convict Assad of war crimes, but fretted that Russia would likely use its U.N. Security Council veto to block any such future action.

Meanwhile Bashir, an Islamist who seized power in Sudan in a 1989 coup, has been wanted by the International Criminal Court for almost a decade for alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from the conflict in Darfur.

He should in theory not be free to travel, since countries that are party to the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, are obliged to cooperate with it, among other things by arresting indictees and surrendering them to the court in The Hague.

But Bashir has traveled relatively freely, visiting countries including China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Ethiopia, South Africa, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Friday, the ICC’s chief prosecutor told the U.N. Security Council that unless it takes action against non-compliance, countries will continue to violate the Rome Statute by failing to arrest Bashir and others indicted by the tribunal.

Sudan’s delegate in turn accused the ICC of being “a tool of political bias,” complaining that it consistently refuses to press charges against the armed forces of powerful countries, but targets a sitting African head of state.

Syrian state seizing opponents' property, rights activists say (Al-Jazeera) December 12, 2018

The Syrian government has been using an "anti-terrorism law" to seize properties of dissidents and their families as it takes back control of areas that were held by rebel groups, rights groups and some of the people affected say.

With Syria's conflict stabilised, at least for now, and President Bashar al-Assad back in control of the biggest cities, there is an increasing focus on how he will handle the areas where the 2011 uprising against him flared.

International attention has focused on policies, such as legislation known as Law 10, that could eventually enable the government to dispossess people in the opposition strongholds worst damaged in the war.

But while Law 10 has not yet been put into effect, the separate "anti-terrorism law" has already been used to seize property, including from people who had no hand in violence, according to human rights groups.

One man, an architect who joined street protests against al-Assad early in the uprising, and posted anti-government material online, lost his house, office and farmland in Ghouta in southwestern Syria as well as his car, he said.

"I built my house brick by brick. I built it with my bare hands, tended to every corner and to every inch," the architect told the Reuters news agency.

He now lives in the northwestern province of Idlib after fleeing with many other Ghouta residents after its surrender in April.

As they stand to lose property permanently, and because in many cases they have family members still living under government control, none of the six people who spoke to Reuters after being named in seizure orders wanted to be identified.

Lists circulating online - which rights groups believe to be accurate - show that hundreds of such orders have been made, affecting potentially thousands of people.

Seizure

The architect first knew a government security order had targeted him when the Architects and Engineers Syndicate terminated his membership because of a security order and cancelled his pension.

He had joined the protests against al-Assad early on, but said he never took up arms or played a role in local government in his area of eastern Ghouta, which the army recaptured in April.

In 2016, he tried to sell his car.

"The broker in Damascus told me that a seizure for security had been imposed on all the properties owned by me, my partners, my wife and children," he said via a messaging app.

The family needed money, so he sold the car for parts for $796.57 at that time. When they left for Idlib along with thousands of others as part of a surrender deal with the government covering eastern Ghouta, the family had to abandon their home, office and farmland that were forfeited.

Initially, assets are frozen under these orders, preventing owners from selling, or using them commercially. When the seizures are executed, the state will auction the assets.

A doctor from the eastern Ghouta town of Douma who left in April and now lives in Turkey said his house, land, clinic and car had been seized.

"The Syrian regime has labelled all the opposition activists as terrorists, tried them in absentia and seized their properties," he said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the orders to freeze assets were among numerous laws the Syrian government used to punish political dissidents and opponents.

Damascus denies targeting peaceful dissidents with its anti-terrorism laws, or unlawfully dispossessing people.

HRW said it could not verify lists of people affected by the court orders that are circulating online, or the scale of the property freezes. But it said it had confirmed several cases of people whose names it found on one such list.

Two Syrian rights groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said they had verified numerous cases.

The network said it had registered at least 327 individuals affected by property seizures from 2014 to 2018. The Observatory said it had recorded 93 cases of property seizures affecting opposition activists.

It was aware of many other cases, but was not able to verify them because those involved were too scared to speak freely, it said.

Those affected, already fearing for their lives if they return after being branded "terrorists", also face a loss of property that could discourage family members from going home.

"They left the people whose property they seized with nothing to return to, not even hope," said the architect, who now lives in rebel-held Idlib province with his family.

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EUROPE

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Official Court Website [English translation]

Bosnia Indicts Serb Ex-Military Commander For Wartime Killings (RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty) December 6, 2018

Bosnian prosecutors have indicted a Bosnian Serb military commander on charges of killing Muslim civilians during the country's wars of the 1990s.

Dragoljub Kunarac was the commander of a special unit of the Bosnian Serb army who had already been imprisoned for 28 years by the United Nations war crimes tribunal on rape and enslavement charges.

Bosnian prosecutors said in a statement on December 5 that Kunarac was accused of taking part in the killing of at least six people and the persecution of Muslim civilians from villages around the eastern town of Foca in July 1992. Foca was a focal point for the mass persecution and killing of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces, who were seeking to establish an exclusively ethnic Serb region. These forces set up detention camps in which women and young girls were raped and enslaved.

The statement said Kunarac, 58, was also accused of taking part in looting and burning Muslim homes.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia imprisoned Kunarac in 2001 for 28 years for torture, rape, and enslavement. He is serving that sentence in a German prison. The tribunal's ruling was the first case in which it had concluded that rape and enslavement were crimes against humanity.

Bosnia's state court must still confirm the indictment against him, before the case can proceed. Based on reporting by Reuters

Hague Prosecutor: Croatian Govt “Blocking” War Crimes Cases (Balkan Insight) By Lamija Grebo December 11, 2018

The chief prosecutor at the Hague war crimes, Serge Brammertz, told the UN Security Council that the Zagreb government is effectively blocking cases against former Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council fighters.

Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, said in his report to the UN Security Council in New York on Monday that the Croatian government’s actions have resulted the blocking of a large and growing number of cases against Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council fighters.

Brammertz’s report said that the Croatian government has not reversed a decision it made in 2015 ordering the Justice Ministry in Zagreb not to provide court cooperation in certain war crimes cases, and is continuing to exert pressure on judicial processes.

Despite direct efforts by the prosecutor’s office at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals to convince the Croatian authorities to change their policy, little progress has been made, the report said.

“Such a policy has an influence on promoting impunity to the detriment of victims throughout the region who deserve justice,” said Brammertz’s report. He urged the Croatian government to revoke its decision and “allow the process of justice to continue without further interference”. The report said that the reduced cooperation by Croatian authorities has led to important deadlocks in investigations and criminal procedures in neighbouring countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, where some former fighters from the Croatian Army and the Bosnian Croat wartime force, the Croatian Defence Council, are wanted for trial.

Zagreb refuses to cooperate with neighbouring countries in war crimes cases if the indictments claim that the suspects participated in a joint criminal enterprise with Croatian political or military officials.

Brammertz also criticised a decision by Zagreb County Court in October to reduce the sentence handed down to former Bosnian Croat battalion commander Marko Radic because Croatian law does not recognise the concept of a joint criminal enterprise.

Radic had been convicted of committing crimes against humanity by the Bosnian state court, but the Zagreb court agreed to take over the enforcement of the verdict after the Bosnian justice minister allowed him to serve his sentence in Croatia.

The Zagreb court then cut Radic’s sentence from 21 years to 12-and-a-half years, which means he will be released by the end of this year due to time already served. “Victims and the public find it very hard to understand how the sentence for such grave crimes could be reduced to such an extent only on the basis of the takeover by Croatia,” Branmertz’s report said.

The president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Theodor Meron, also presented a report to the UN Security Council on Monday, saying that the appeals verdict in the trial of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic could be expected within the first three months of next year.

Bosnia Charges Serb Ex-Fighter with Zvornik War Crime (Balkan Insight) By Admir Muslimovic December 13, 2018

Dusan Spasojevic, a former member of a Serb-led Territorial Defence force, was charged with committing a war crime against a Bosniak in the Zvornik area in 1992. The Bosnian state prosecution on Thursday charged Dusan Spasojevic, in his capacity as a member of the Territorial Defence force of the so-called ‘Serbian municipality of Zvornik’, with committing a war crime against a Bosniak in the village of Jusici in May 1992.

The indictment has been filed to the state court for confirmation.

The state prosecution also announced on Thursday that three more people have been arrested on suspicion of committing crimes in the village of Jusici during wartime.

State Investigation and Protection Agency officers arrested Branko Studen, Pero Radic and Bozo Vidovic.

They are suspected of committing crimes during an attack on Jusici in May 1992, when 48 Bosniaks were killed.

“They are suspected, as former members of the Territorial Defence of the Serbian municipality of Zvornik, of having participated in a widespread and systematic attack on the Bosniak civilian population in Zvornik and the surrounding area, as well as an attack on the village of Jusici, which was inhabited by a Bosniak civilian population,” the prosecution said.

After questioning the three suspects, the prosecution will decide whether to ask for them to be remanded in custody.

Bosnian Serb Ex-fighters Cleared of Murdering Family (Balkan Insight) By Haris Rovcanin December 14, 2018

Former fighters Milorad Radakovic and Goran Pejic were acquitted on appeal of killing five members of a family in the village of Tukovi near Prijedor in June 1992.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Friday found Milorad Radakovic and Goran Pejic not guilty of war crimes.

Radakovic and Pejic had been accused of going to the village of Tukovi near Prijedor on June 13, 1992, when one of the defendants killed three members of the Ecimovic family in one house, then both of them opened fire in a second house, killing two more members of the family.

Radakovic is a former reservist policeman, while Pejic was a member of an unidentified military or police formation. They were originally acquitted in May this year.

The judge at their original trial said that the only fact determined by the court was that Tomo, Marija, Katarina, Nikola and Cecilija Ecimovic were killed on June 13, 1992.

She said that testimony from a witness who said he drove the defendants to the Ecimovic family house and then waited for them in the car was insufficient to establish guilt.

The prosecution appealed against the verdict, alleging there were substantial violations during the criminal proceedings, but the appeals chamber rejected the appeal as unfounded.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

U.N. War Crimes Courtroom Displayed in Sarajevo to Preserve Tribunal’s Legacy (U.S. News) By Daria Sito-Sucic December 10, 2018

A U.N. war crimes courtroom in which a Bosnian Serb general was prosecuted for atrocities committed during the siege of Sarajevo has been moved to the Bosnian capital to preserve the legacy of the first attempt to hold war criminals to account since World War Two.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which closed down last year after prosecuting 161 suspects for crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, had agreed to move the original courtroom and archives to Sarajevo, where 11,000 people were killed during the siege.

"Sarajevo is the first city after Nuremberg which has the original courtroom of an international criminal tribunal and ... a possibility to witness its mandate," said Mila Eminovic, the head of the ICTY Information Centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The aim is to establish similar centers in Serbia and Croatia.

When the ICTY was set up in 1993 it was the first serious attempt to hold war criminals responsible for their actions since the Nuremberg trials after World War Two.

The court's architects hoped that establishing what happened during the war and punishing its worst offenders would help reconcile Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims.

However, divisions remain in the Balkans, where the court had aimed to bring reconciliation, but convicted war criminals are often revered as heroes.

The ICTY courtroom 2, which displays the original furniture and robes of the judge and prosecutor, was where Bosnian Serb General Dragomir Milosevic was sentenced to 29 years in prison over his role in the Sarajevo siege.

A conference room with computers and TV screen provides access to millions of the court's documents and thousands of hours of video material from the trials.

"Access to this unique database is very important in confronting the culture of denial of the crimes," said Almir Alic, Bosnia's representative to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which succeeded the ICTY.

Nejra Lilic, a 22-year-old student, said her visit to the center was a very emotional one since she had lost all her male relatives in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

"Young people are not interested in the past because they equate it to the conflict, and by avoiding the topic of the past they think they can avoid conflict," she said.

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Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

Hague Prosecution ‘Summons Senior Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas for Interviews’ (Balkan Insight) By Perparim Isufi and Arta Sopi December 11, 2018

Sami Lushtaku, a wartime Kosovo Liberation Army commander for the Drenica region, has been asked to speak to the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague on January 14, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Describing it as “invitation to an interview”, lawyer Arianit Koci said that Lushtaku will “voluntarily appear and is ready to clarify any circumstance which the Specialist Prosecution is investigating”.

“This is all we are aware of and I would kindly ask journalists to not contact Mr. Lushtaku on his issue,” Koci said in a written statement.

Lushtaku was acquitted of war crimes by the Supreme Court in Pristina in March 2017. He is the third senior KLA figure who is reported to have been called for an interview by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague.

On Monday evening, the former head of the KLA’s military tribunal, Sokol Dobruna, said that he had received an invitation to go to The Hague on December 12.

“A person who was presented as ‘Slovene’ was introduced to me and was presented as a Specialist Prosecution official. I suppose I could be either witness or defendant, but I have no idea why I have been invited,” Dobruna told Pristina-based television station T7.

He pledged to cooperate with the Specialist Prosecution and denied that the KLA had any involvement in war crimes.

“No [KLA member] has committed crimes. Of course I will cooperate, but I don’t know on which terms,” Dobruna added.

Last week, another KLA ex-commander, Rrustem Mustafa, was also invited to give an interview to the Specialist Prosecution, according to his lawyer.

Mustafa, who is a former MP from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, was sentenced to four years in prison by a Pristina court for torturing wartime prisoners at a KLA detention centre in Llapashtica/Lasatica during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbian forces.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office are part of Kosovo’s legal system but are based in the Netherlands, and are tasked with investigating and trying suspects for crimes committed during and just after the Kosovo war, from 1998 to 2000.

The so-called ‘special court’ is expected to indict senior KLA figures for alleged crimes including killings, abductions, illegal detentions and sexual violence.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, another former KLA fighter, said on Tuesday that the calls from the prosecutors in The Hague were not a cause for concern.

“These invitations are not the end of the world. Kosovo citizens, freedom fighters, if they trust in themselves and their freedom, have no reason for concern. Anyone who is invited goes there and does their duty. I would call on anyone to take the issue this way,” Haradinaj said.

The Specialist Prosecutor’s Office has so far not confirmed that it has called the three men for interview.

Its spokesperson Christopher Bennett told BIRN last week that “the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office does not provide information on the status of the investigation, but intends to ensure that all allegations contained in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe report compiled by Swiss Senator Dick Marty are addressed and fully investigated”.

Marty’s report, published in 2010, alleged that some senior KLA officers were responsible for serious human rights abuses.

Hague Court Dismisses Appeal Against Radicals’ Trial in Serbia (Balkan Insight) By Filip Rudic December 13, 2018

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Thursday dismissed a prosecution appeal against handing over to Serbia the case of two Serbian Radical Party members who are accused of interfering with witnesses at the trial of their leader, nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj.

According to the UN court’s rules, the appeals chamber could not make the decision to hand over the case, but only to return it to the judge who made a ruling in June that the case be given to Serbian judiciary.

The two Radicals, Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta, are accused by the UN court of contempt of court in the trial of Seselj, who was convicted of war crimes in April 2018.

They are accused of threatening, blackmailing and bribing witnesses to either change their testimonies or to not testify at all.

The Serbian authorities have been locked in a long-running dispute with the tribunal over the arrest and extradition of the two Radicals. The tribunal submitted a warrant ordering their arrest in January 2015.

But in May 2016, the war crimes chamber of the Belgrade Higher Court ruled that there were no legal grounds for extraditing the Radicals because Serbia’s Law on Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal obliged Belgrade to extradite people charged with war crimes, but not those charged with contempt of court.

In October 2016, the tribunal issued an international warrant for the arrest of Jojic and Radeta, saying that Serbia had refused several times to act on its order to arrest and extradite them.

Interpol then issued ‘red notices’ for the arrest of Jojic and Radeta.

The tribunal has also reported Serbia to the UN Security Council several times for non-cooperation in the case.

A third Radical Party member who was also accused in the case, Jovo Ostojic, died in Serbia last year.

Bosnian Serb Ex-Officer Goes on Trial in Croatia (Balkan Insight) By Anja Vladisavljevic December 18, 2018

The trial of Dane Lukajic, a 68-year-old citizen of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina accused of committing war crimes against prisoners of war while he was a captain in the Bosnian Serb Army in 1992, started on Monday at Zagreb County Court.

Lukajic is charged with ordering his Bosnian Serb Army subordinates at the Manjaca camp near the Bosnian town of Banja Luka to beat and injure two Croatian Defence Council, HVO members as well as three Croatian Defence Forces, HOS detainees.

He is also charged with personally inflicting serious injuries on one of the HOS members.

Croatian police arrested Lukajic as he was entering the country in June this year.

The Bosnian Serb-run Manjaca camp operated from 1991-92 and briefly again in 1995. The majority of prisoners were Croat and Bosniak soldiers and civilians.

[back to contents]

Yemen

Documents reveal Australia's secret arms deals with nations fighting Yemen's bloody war (ABC News) By Dylan Welch, Kyle Taylor, Dan Oakes and Rebecca Trigger December 13, 2018

The Australian Government has approved the export of dozens of shipments of military items to Middle Eastern countries embroiled in the bloody Yemen war, a conflict dogged by accusations of war crimes and indiscriminate civilian killings.

Internal Defence Department documents obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) and from parliamentary hearings reveal since the beginning of 2016, Canberra has granted at least 37 export permits for military-related items to the United Arab Emirates, and 20 to Saudi Arabia.

They are the two countries leading a coalition fighting a war against Houthi rebels in the Middle East's poorest nation, Yemen.

The four-year war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands and an air-and-sea embargo has led to more than 85,000 Yemeni children under five dying from hunger, according to one children's agency.

Australia's burgeoning exports to the UAE and Saudi Arabia may be connected to a plan announced by then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in January to drastically increase defence sales over the next decade. Australia will spend $200 million between now and 2028 in order to make Australia the 10th-largest arms exporter in the world. It is currently the 20th largest.

The strategy states the Middle East is a "priority market" for defence exports.

The Government has tried to keep details of the exports secret, but New South Wales lawyer and human rights activist Kellie Tranter has spent a year trying to shed light on the sales.

"I have a child under five and it was difficult not to be moved by the images coming through from Yemen. [With] a baby on the way I felt compelled to find out what if any role our country had to play in that suffering," Ms Tranter said.

Ms Tranter has tracked the rise of exports to the Middle East via a series of Defence FOI requests.

It was Ms Tranter's work that uncovered the scale of the export certificates to the UAE and Saudi.

Export permits are needed before companies or the Government can ship military or dual-use items overseas, though sometimes a company receives an export permit and does not ultimately export the item.

Ms Tranter said the permits were evidence Australia is trying to increase sales to countries involved in the Yemen war.

"We're actually engaging with the very players that are potentially involved in nefarious activities in Yemen," she said.

"You're talking about war crimes, mounting evidence of war crimes."

The heavily redacted FOI documents do not show which Australian companies are receiving the permits, who their international customers are, or even what items they are planning to export.

"Not even members of the Opposition who have been trying to extract this information from the Government are permitted to know," Ms Tranter said.

In August this year the United Nations released a report accusing the Saudi-led coalition of a series of human rights abuses, including indiscriminate air strikes and UAE-run secret prisons using torture and murder.

The report also called on the international community to halt weapons sales to the coalition.

Former Australian MP Melissa Parke is one of the authors of the report. She said governments that are members of the UN should be careful when considering the issue of military exports.

“Member states assisting parties to the conflict will want to ensure that they are not aiding and abetting war crimes," Ms Parke said.

"And that they are not violating obligations they may have under treaties such as the arms trade treaty."

Australia is signatory to the international Arms Trade Treaty, which entered into force on December 24, 2014.

Eyes on Canberra-backed weapons deal

Questions are being asked about an Australian defence company's recent export deal to supply high-powered weapons systems, which according to sources may be bound for the UAE.

Electro Optic Systems, better known as EOS, is an Australian defence and space technology company with ambitions to become the world leader in next-generation remote weapons systems.

The systems are a collection of sensors, cameras and lasers set around a small cannon or heavy machine gun. They are built onto a swivelling mount that can be affixed to the roof of a military truck or the deck of a naval vessel.

It allows a soldier to fire while safely inside a vehicle and can acquire targets up to several kilometres away on its own.

In January, EOS announced a $410 million deal to supply weapons systems.

Two people have told the ABC the end user is the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

EOS can't 'confirm or deny' weapons systems customers

EOS's system, known as RWS, is already being used by the Australian military. In January, the firm announced it had struck a deal to export its latest version, the R400S-Mk2, to an overseas customer.

When asked about the deal, EOS said in a statement it could not "confirm or deny" that the UAE was either the overseas customer or the end-user.

"Disclosure of the end-user['s] identity could degrade the impact of the technology, and would not be in the national interest," an EOS statement released when they announced the deal said.

EOS declined an interview with the ABC but said in a series of statements its weapons system was "amongst the most highly regulated products in the defence market".

The firm declared it did not "presently" hold Australian Government export licenses that would allow them to export military equipment to the UAE.

It had "no reason to believe that UAE would not presently qualify as a recipient for export licenses from any country, including the US and Australia", the company also said.

EOS said none of their items were in Yemen and they do not play any role — direct or indirect — in the Yemen conflict.

The full statement provided to the ABC by EOS is available below.

Australian defence economics analyst Marcus Hellyer told the ABC a $410 million deal was "extremely large by Australian standards".

Mr Hellyer said the value of the EOS deal represented more than a quarter of all exports licensed by Defence in the last financial year.

Australian Government bankrolls EOS

The Australian Government has also helped support the deal, touted as a "major expansion of defence industry capability" by EOS, which has a market capitalisation of $200 million.

The company's own financial records show the Government's export credit agency, EFIC (Export Finance and Insurance Corporation), provided it more than $33 million this year in performance bonds connected to the RWS.

By comparison, this year Australia has contributed $23 million in humanitarian assistance to Yemen.

It also appears Defence Minister Christopher Pyne played an important role in securing the deal while he was defence industry minister, according to a January statement released by EOS announcing the $410 million deal.

"Christopher Pyne MP has visited foreign capitals with me to provide assurance of Australia as a reliable defence partner and supplier to its allies," the statement said.

"This effort and support is acknowledged."

'Rigorous' assessment of defence export deals

Mr Pyne said in a statement Australia weighed all military export applications on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with export control provisions.

"These provisions reflect our international obligations, including the Arms Trade Treaty, and include an assessment against the legislative criteria of international obligations, human rights, national security, regional security and foreign policy," the Minister said.

"This assessment includes consideration of whether there is an overriding risk that the exported items could be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law or human rights law."

The Department of Defence said in a statement Australia was not involved in the Yemen conflict.

The statement said the department did not release details of individual export applications or permits due to commercial- in-confidence considerations.

It said the Australian Government continued to make representations on the importance of unhindered humanitarian access to Yemen. Australia's recent involvement in the UAE

October 2016

Christopher Pyne travels to UAE. Meets with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and Defence Minister Mohammed Al Bowardi.

December 17–18, 2016

Christopher Pyne travels to Saudi Arabia. Meets with Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah in Riyadh (head of the National Guard).

February 18–19, 2017

Christopher Pyne travels to UAE. Meets with UAE Armed Forces chief of staff in Abu Dhabi and Minister of State for Defence Affairs of UAE, Mohammed Al Bowardi.

April 2017

Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull visits UAE for call with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

October 29, 2017

Christopher Pyne travels to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Saudi senior defence officials to discuss opportunities for defence industry cooperation and advocate for Australian defence exports.

January 29, 2018

Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull launches Defence Export Strategy, which includes creation of Australian Defence Export Office. ADEO is a focal point for all defence exports and manages all government-to-government sales.

At the same time a $3.8 billion fund, administered by the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC), is established. Called the Defence Export Facility, it will provide finance to Australian defence companies wanting to sell overseas.

The Government also pledges $20 million a year to implement the strategy.

January 30, 2018

Then-minister for defence industry Christopher Pyne opens Electro Optic Systems' (EOS) new production facility in Canberra and announces EOS's $410 million defence contract, but not who the end user is.

May 9, 2018

Christopher Pyne meets with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan in Canberra.

September 26-27, 2018

Christopher Pyne travels to the UAE and Afghanistan.

Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (ABC News) By Dylan Welch, Kyle Taylor and Dan Oakes December 14, 2018

Australian defence force veterans are earning tens of thousands of US dollars a month in the United Arab Emirates advising troops fighting in a bloody Middle East conflict dogged by allegations of war crimes and indiscriminate civilian casualties, an ABC investigation can reveal.

Since the alleged murder by the Saudi Government of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, there has been growing international concern about the Yemen war, which involves a Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, fighting Houthi rebels.

Questions are also being asked about what one of Australia's most respected former special forces commanders knew about a squad of US mercenaries killing the UAE's enemies in Yemen. Despite this, Australian military veterans and former federal police officers have flocked to the country, seeking good pay and comfortable conditions in return for training some of the UAE's most elite troops.

The ABC searched LinkedIn and found almost 100 former soldiers and federal police whose profiles indicated they are or were training Emirati soldiers.

Military veteran Peter Butson worked for the UAE Armed Forces as a firing range inspector from 2012 to 2017.

He believes there are more Australian military contractors in the UAE than any other nationality.

"It's probably about 50 per cent Australian, probably about 30 per cent American and probably about 10 per cent Brits," Mr Butson told the ABC.

The Australian Defence Department said there was nothing inappropriate about the number of Australians working with the UAE military.

"The employment of personnel with previous service in other foreign militaries is common practice globally," a Defence spokesperson said.

Mr Butson spoke to the ABC because he had previously been named in an article as a "mercenary" and wanted to clear his name.

"Not what we were doing: Ultimately a mercenary is uniformed, carries weapons, engaged in conflict or provides deterrence to keep conflict away," Mr Butson said.

"I don't carry a gun, don't work in a uniform, don't go to conflict zones.

"I would describe myself as a specialist consultant who deals in military training facilities — the best in the world.

"[The Emiratis] are the ones with the bankroll to pay for it."

Mr Butson said the same held true for the dozens of other Western military veterans who were there.

“They don't have guns, they don't wear UAE uniforms, not committed to hostilities there; they're specialist trainers helping the UAE to gain capability."

He also said he was not concerned when, halfway through his time with the Presidential Guard, the Emirati troops went to Yemen to fight.

"It was very much a point of pride that they were doing things for themselves. And I was thinking, 'that's a good thing'," Mr Butson said.

Best of the best'

Two facts stood out when the ABC examined the LinkedIn list: many of the men are veterans of Australia's two frontline special forces units, the commandos and the SAS; and many are training the UAE's most elite military command, the Presidential Guard.

That may be because the Presidential Guard is commanded by a retired Australian major general with a decades-long background in our special forces, Mike Hindmarsh.

He moved to Abu Dhabi a decade ago to create the Guard as the centrepiece of the UAE military.

According to a Defence briefing document obtained under FOI by the ABC, in June 2009, while still employed by the Australian Army, General Hindmarsh asked then-chief of army Ken Gillespie if he could go to the UAE to "explore employment opportunities".

The document records that Lieutenant General Gillespie "supported" the request.

Four months later General Hindmarsh announced his retirement and was soon serving as a national security advisor to the Emirates' de-facto ruler, heir to the throne and architect of their role in Yemen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Mr Butson said General Hindmarsh was known in the UAE military as "General Mike", because most military officers in the Middle East use their first name, not surname, after their rank. "[He's] the best of the best and that's why he is where he is now," he said.

Questions over hit squad

Last month Buzzfeed America published explosive allegations about a mercenary hit squad targeting figures in the conflict in Yemen in late 2015 to early 2016.

Among the evidence the mercenaries provided to prove their story was a so-called "target card" with details of one of the people they were to kill.

Plainly visible at the card's top right was the Presidential Guard insignia, leading to questions about what General Hindmarsh knew about the operation.

The ABC has independently confirmed the existence of the target card with one of the hit squad's members.

Since being created, the Guard has earned plaudits from Western militaries, with Special Operational Command (SOC) soldiers fighting beside US, British and Australian special operations forces in Afghanistan.

It is also deeply involved in the Yemen war and the SOC have been seen using high-tech Western-made weapons and technology there.

Five Yemen researchers and analysts told the ABC they were of the view that General Hindmarsh was directly or indirectly commanding UAE combat troops in Yemen.

All spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of discussing a senior UAE general in the wake of the detention of British PhD student Matthew Hedges on spying charges.

The ABC tried to contact General Hindmarsh on multiple occasions for this story, but he did not respond.

In Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen, No Refuge on Land or Sea (The New York Times) By Declan Walsh December 17, 2018

The first sign of trouble was the helicopter that hovered over the small Yemeni fishing trawler as it cut across the Red Sea. Then a warship appeared, its guns pointed at the boat.

Bullets thumped into the water around the boat, the Afaq, then rippled through its flimsy wooden hull. One fishermen was shot in the eye, another in the head. The engine caught fire. Crew members leapt overboard, including Bashar Qasim, 11.

Moments earlier, the boy had been hauling nets from the stern. Now, he paddled for his life amid the flaming debris and floating corpses, with survivors clinging to empty water drums. As the Afaq sank, he said, the warship stopped firing.

“It circled several times, watching us, to make sure the boat had sunk,” Bashar said. “Then it was gone.”

The stinging criticism of Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s grinding conflict has, for the most part, focused on the air war. Fighter jets with the Saudi-led coalition, armed with American weapons and bombs, have hit weddings, funerals and a school bus. Thousands of civilians have died.

As outrage over the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi operatives fused with concern about Yemen, a wave of disquiet swept Washington amid accusations that the United States military could be complicit in war crimes. Last week, the Senate voted to end American military assistance for the Saudi-led war, in a symbolic yet stinging rebuke to President Trump, who has stood by Saudi Arabia.

But the Yemen war is also unfolding at sea, with even less accountability than on land. There, too, civilians are dying in droves.

The Afaq was one of at least six Yemeni fishing boats hit by warships, helicopters and a fighter jet after leaving the coalition-controlled port of Khokha in the southern Red Sea over six weeks in August and September.

Attacks on Fishing Boats

At least six Yemeni fishing boats were hit in the southern Red Sea in August and September, killing 50 fishermen. Approximate locations are based on reports from survivors. In interviews, survivors provided harrowing accounts of their ordeal: an attack helicopter that passed overhead six times, spraying them with bullets; fishermen jumping from flaming boats into flaming waters; survivors drifting in the water for days on end, watching helplessly as friends and brothers slipped under the waves.

Of the 86 fishermen on the six boats, 50 died.

Identifying the perpetrators of maritime attacks is notoriously difficult, especially in a war as chaotic and opaque as the one in Yemen. Both the Saudi-led coalition and its Houthi foes, who are backed by Iran, have carried out attacks at sea.

But maritime experts, a former United States Navy officer, United Nations investigators and several Yemeni officials said there was little doubt that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for some if not all of the violence against fishermen.

Saudi and Emirati naval boats dominate the Red Sea waters where the shootings and bombings took place. Five involved attack helicopters, which the Houthis do not have. In one instance, Saudi officials made cash payments of nearly $500,000 to the families of fishermen killed in an attack.

In another, coalition sailors detained 12 survivors and held them for three months in a Saudi prison, where the fishermen said they were interrogated and tortured. Eight of those detainees were recently released after receiving a payment of $1,300 each from their Saudi captors.

“A soldier posed with us in the prison for a photo and said, ‘Sorry if we hurt you,’” Yaqoub Okad, 20, said in an interview after his return to Yemen.

In a statement issued via the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, a coalition spokesman, Col. Turki al-Malki, confirmed that a coalition vessel had opened fire on that boat, the Ansar, and captured 12 fishermen. He said the boat’s crew had ignored warnings from a warship accompanying a Saudi oil tanker through the Red Sea. Three of the fishermen turned out to be “armed Houthi terrorists,” he said.

Colonel Malki declined to answer questions about the other five attacks between Aug. 1 and Sept. 15, which he said had been referred to the coalition’s internal investigations body.

Human rights groups say that that body is toothless and that its work falls short of international standards.

Although American military support for the Saudi-led coalition is not as extensive in the sea as in the air, there is tight cooperation in many areas. The United States Navy shares intelligence with the Saudi Navy and has bombed Houthi radar stations. The Saudi Navy uses American helicopters, and its officers have been trained by a Virginia-based contractor.

And some coalition strikes at sea have been carried out by warplanes armed with American laser-guided bombs and, until last month, refueled in mid-air by American supertankers.

Cmdr. Josh Frey, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, said the United States provided “limited, noncombat support to the Saudi-led maritime coalition, such as intelligence sharing against threats, to include attacks on Red Sea shipping.”

The United States, he added, had no knowledge of the attacks on fishing vessels.

War Zone at Sea

The southern Red Sea is one of the planet’s most congested, commercially important and perilous waterways.

Every day, giant tankers carrying up to five million barrels of oil products pass through the strait of Bab el Mandeb, an 18- mile gap separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. Warships from the United States, Britain and other Western countries patrol it for pirates, drug smugglers and arms traffickers.

The area is also a war zone. Dozens of civilians have died off the coast of Yemen since the Saudi-led offensive began in 2015, many of them fishermen possibly mistaken for Houthi smugglers or spotters by coalition forces. A United Nations report in September said that at least 40 fishermen were killed or had disappeared in 11 airstrikes against civilian boats between November 2015 and May 2018.

The attacks spiked over the summer as the coalition stepped up its assault on the key, Houthi-controlled port of Hudaydah. Coalition warships pummeled Houthi positions with naval barrages. The Houthis retaliated by launching speedboats rigged with explosives to hit Saudi oil tankers.

One such strike in late July caused Saudi Arabia to temporarily halt oil shipments through the Red Sea. A week later, on Aug. 1, the first of the six fishing boats set out from the coalition-controlled port of Khokha.

The Qaiser, a 40-foot wooden trawler, carried a fishing permit issued a day earlier by the local authorities, which are financed and supported by the coalition. About five hours into its journey, a helicopter circled overhead, followed by a warplane, which dropped a bomb on the boat.

Nine of the 11 crew members were killed instantly. Ahmed Buhairi, 35, was flung into the water. “The fire was like a circle and I was in the middle of it,” he said, lifting his clothes to show extensive burns to his limbs and torso.

The other survivor, Faiz Abdullah, 24, swam around looking for survivors. “All I found was a headless body,” he said.

More attacks followed in quick succession.

On Aug. 14, the Afaq, with 11-year-old Bashar Qasim on board, was sunk.

On Aug. 18, a warship opened fire on the Amira, killing three fishermen. The boat limped back to port at 3 a.m., carrying a wounded man who died as it moored, said its captain, Abdo Thabet, who was shot in the ankle.

The Amira, which lay under palm trees on a nearby beach, was scarred by at least 26 bullet holes. The diameter and shape of the holes were consistent with those made by heavy and medium machine guns, the kind typically found aboard navy frigates.

The following day, an attack helicopter sank the Rannan, killing four of the 10 fishermen on board. Survivors described a gunner in military uniform in the bay door of the helicopter who ignored their pleas to stop shooting. “We held up fish to show we were not a threat,” said Abdo Afdah, 30, who was shot in the hand as he clung to the upturned boat. “He kept firing.”

Days later came the attack on the Ansar, when a warship escorting a Saudi oil tanker killed seven men. This time, though, the warship did not sail away.

The 12 survivors plucked from the sea were taken to the Saudi city of Jizan, where they were imprisoned for three months. Several said they were tortured. “They whipped us until we bled,” said Tareq Moutairi. “They said we were Houthi spies.”

Colonel Malki, the coalition spokesman, said three of the fishermen were armed Houthi militants who had been relaying details about military and civilian ships to Houthi leaders. They are still in detention in Saudi Arabia. Colonel Malki did not account for the seven men killed in the initial attack.

The released fishermen, who returned to Yemen on Nov. 21, insisted that the detainees were innocent. “I know those men since childhood,” said Walid Hassani. “They are not Houthis.”

On Sept. 15, a sixth boat, the Faris, was attacked by a warship off the coast of Eritrea, where the United Arab Emirates has a naval base. Just one of the 19 fishermen survived: Nafae Zayed, who clung to an ice box for four days.

Sitting with his children outside his simple beachfront home, Mr. Zayed recounted his struggle with hunger, thirst and hallucinations. “I felt that someone was bringing me dates and water at night,” he said. “That’s how I survived.”

Saudi Investigations

The coalition often refers reports of civilian casualties to the Joint Incidents Assessment Team, a body set up with State Department help in 2016. Human rights groups say that its investigations are a sham, and that it rarely finds fault with the coalition’s actions.

After it examined an airstrike that killed 40 schoolboys in August, Colonel Malki said that the coalition had struck a “legitimate target.” Public records show that the assessment team has twice examined earlier attacks on fishing boats, both times exonerating the coalition.

The assessment team also examined the war’s deadliest attack at sea — a helicopter strike in March 2017 that killed at least 43 people, including women and children, on a boat packed with Somali refugees. Human Rights Watch called it a likely war crime.

The assessment team determined that the coalition had not carried out the attack. United Nations investigators concluded that the Saudis or Emiratis were probably responsible, a former United Nations official said. But the investigators could not establish proof because the coalition refused to answer their questions, he added. The assessment team has not said when or whether it will examine the five fishing boat attacks referred to it by the coalition.

It was not possible to independently confirm the assertions by survivors and local officials that none of the boats carried Houthi militants. However, experts said it was unlikely that Houthis would have been aboard boats sailing from ports controlled by the Saudi coalition.

Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has visited coalition forces in Yemen, said the attacks could be the mistakes of young, inexperienced or poorly trained sailors.

Houthi attacks on coalition oil tankers and military vessels, including one that killed four Emiratis in June, had set the Saudi-led forces on edge, he said, and they tended to open fire easily on potential threats.

“Clearly there’s an escalation-of-force issue,” he said. “It’s a recurring problem that needs to get fixed.”

A number of European countries have halted arms sales to Riyadh to protest its indiscriminate tactics in Yemen. The Trump administration, in an attempt to defuse growing congressional pressure, has halted in-flight refueling for coalition warplanes.

Those measures are unlikely to affect the sea war.

Last year the United States sold 10 maritime helicopters to Saudi Arabia in a $1.9 billion deal. An American defense contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, earned tens of millions of dollars training the Saudi Navy over the past decade. A spokesman for the company said its last contract ended in July 2017.

A retired United States Army officer, Stephen Toumajan, commands the Emirates’ military helicopter fleet.

Mr. Trump blames Iran for the Yemen war, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this month that “we intend to continue” military support for Saudi Arabia. France, which licensed $16 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2017, remains a major naval supplier.

“Yemeni fishermen are being bombed in their boats, just as they were being bombed 18 months ago,” said Kristine Beckerle, a Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. “And nothing has changed.”

A ‘Donation’ for the Dead

In one instance, the Saudis tried to make amends.

In late September, the families of the 18 fishermen who died on the Faris were summoned to the coalition’s base in Khokha. There, a Saudi official gave each family an envelope containing 100,000 Saudi riyals‚ about $27,000. Weeks later, more help arrived: new fishing boats, nets and outboard engines for each family.

The Saudis called the money a humanitarian donation. The villagers saw it as blood money.

“It isn’t worth a single fingernail of my brother,” said Munir Manubi, speaking in the nearby village of Kudah, where the Faris was based.

Other grieving relatives gathered around him openly criticized the Saudi-led coalition. Families were left with no breadwinner. Many fishermen had stopped work, fearing that they too could be attacked.

The decline in fishing follows a broader pattern of economic devastation, wreaked by Saudi war tactics, that has fueled a deep food crisis in Hudaydah, one of Yemen’s poorest, most hunger-stricken provinces. Elsewhere in Yemen, Saudi and Emirati planes have bombed factories, farms and food warehouses operated by international aid organizations.

Ahmad Abdullah, whose son died in the attack on the Faris, said only one thing would satisfy him: “revenge.”

His voice trembled. Some men in the village had been warned by local officials to keep quiet about their trauma, he said. He didn’t care.

“We are speaking out,” he said, “because of the pain in our hearts.”

[back to contents] Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Official Website of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon In Focus: Special Tribunal for Lebanon (UN)

Prosecutor Norman Farrell Ends Working Visit to Lebanon (Special Tribunal for Lebanon) December 13, 2018

The Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), Norman Farrell visited Lebanon this week and met with the Deputy Prosecutor and his team based in the Beirut Office. During the two days working visit, Prosecutor Farrell joined by his deputy met with their Lebanese counterpart Prosecutor General Judge Samir Hammoud. It was an opportunity to discuss legal matters of common interest related to the mandate of the Office of the Prosecutor.

"This successful visit was another opportunity to continue strengthening my direct interaction with my Lebanese counterpart and thank my deputy, the OTP team for their work and dedication" said Farrell.

During his mission, the Prosecutor also gave a lecture at Notre Dame University to students participating in the Inter- University Programme on International Criminal Law and Procedure (IUP-ICLP). He spoke about Prosecutions at the international level and the types of evidence used in International Criminal Proceedings. IUP-ICLP is organized by the STL in cooperation with eleven prominent Lebanese universities and the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague.

Lebanon set to get new government in days (The Morung Express) December 18, 2018

Lebanon’s leaders are on track to agree a new national government in the next few days, politicians said on Tuesday, raising hopes for an end to more than seven months of wrangling that has darkened the outlook for its struggling economy.

Efforts to form the new government, led by Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri, have been obstructed by conflicting demands for cabinet seats that must be parcelled out in line with a finely balanced, sectarian political system.

Heavily indebted and suffering from a stagnant economy, Lebanon is in dire need of an administration that can set about long-stalled reforms to put public debt on a sustainable footing.

“We are in the last phase and it is probable that the government will be formed before the Christmas holiday,” Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil told Reuters. “This will leave a positive impact on the financial and economic situation and open the way for a start to dealing this file,” he added.

The May 6 national election, Lebanon’s first in nine years, produced a parliament tilted in favour of the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah, which together with its political allies won more than 70 of the 128 seats.

Hariri, who enjoys Western backing, lost more than one third of his lawmakers, though he remained Lebanon’s biggest Sunni Muslim leader and as such was nominated again as prime minister.

OPTIMISM

Efforts to form the government have faced a series of obstacles, the last of which surrounded Sunni representation, with Hezbollah demanding a cabinet seat for one of its Sunni allies to reflect their election gains.

Hariri has resisted the demand.

But under a compromise that has taken shape, the Hezbollah-linked Sunnis are expected to put forward names of ministerial candidates acceptable to them for inclusion in the government rather than insisting that they themselves should get the seat.

In exchange, they say they want Hariri to acknowledge their political standing as a group of Sunnis independent of his Future Movement by meeting them. The Hariri family has dominated Lebanese Sunni politics for decades. “Within two or three days – God willing – you will hear the news that the Lebanese masses were waiting for,” Abdel Rahim Mrad, one of the pro-Hezbollah Sunni MPs, said after a meeting with a top security official involved in mediation efforts.

“All the problems have been solved,” he said, standing alongside Major General Abbas Ibrahim, the security official.

“Matters are moving quickly and if things stay like this without obstacles – and I don’t expect obstacles – the government will soon see the light,” Ibrahim said in a televised news conference.

A source close to Hariri told Reuters there was “reasonable cause for optimism”.

The Sunni minister is expected to be named among a group of ministers allotted to President Michel Aoun, representing a compromise on the part of his Free Patriotic Movement which had been trying to secure control of 11 ministerial portfolios – more than one third of the new cabinet.

[back to contents]

Israel and Palestine

UN Commission Probing Gaza Border Fatalities Nearly Finished Collecting Testimonies (Haaretz) By Noa Landau December 6, 2018

A commission set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council to investigate the latest round of confrontations on the Gaza border has nearly finished collecting testimonies.

Among the organizations which testified or submitted material were groups such as Yesh Din, B’Tselem and Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

The organization NGO Monitor has also filed materials to the commission, but organization chief Gerald Steinberg refused to respond to Haaretz's query on whether or not he personally testified.

The international commission of inquiry was established last May, against the backdrop of the rising number of fatalities during the protests taking place along the border. Twenty-nine Council members supported the decision to establish the commission, including Spain and Belgium. The U.S. and Australia opposed, while Hungary, Britain, Germany, Slovakia and Croatia abstained.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time that Israel “vehemently rejects the resolution, taken by an automatic anti-Israel majority, with the results pre-ordained.” The foreign ministry said at the time that “in contrast to claims heard at the Council, the vast majority of those killed were Hamas activists.”

Then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said that there was little evidence for attempts to minimize the number of fatalities.

In the wake of Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the Human Rights Council decided to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate charges of war crimes which Israel had allegedly committed during the operation.

A similar commission had been set up after Operation Cast Lead in 2009, headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone. That commission accused Israel of perpetrating war crimes, sending its recommendations to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Attorney Michael Sfard, the legal adviser of Yesh Din, who testified before the commission, told Haaretz that “my testimony was part of Yesh Din’s attempt to stop the illegal and immoral use of live fire against thousands of Gazan demonstrators.”

Sfard added that in his testimony he "criticized the IDF’s position, which was presented at the High Court of Justice in response to a petition filed by Yesh Din and other groups, calling for an end to the use of lethal force against people posing no immediate risk to the life of anyone. I told commission members that Israel takes a position in which there is a special legal area that regulates law enforcement during armed conflict, and which allows live fire at an ‘inciter or a key disrupter of order’ even when there is no risk to anyone’s life by such a person, or no danger of serious injury to civilians or soldiers. This is an invention that is not anchored in any legal authority, and which has led to the terrible extent of dead and wounded casualties."

The Yesh Din adviser said that they first turned to the army and then petitioned the High Court, and this week testified before the UN commission.

"It is our duty to sound this cry everywhere, until the army restores some sanity to its orders. We also submitted a report to the commission, describing the total and shameful failure in investigating the complaints of Palestinians who were subjected to illegal actions by soldiers. The combination of illegal orders and an absence of any investigations is a lethal one”, said Sfard.

According to B’Tselem director-general Hagai El-Ad, who did not testify, the organization gave the commission all the investigative material it has published regarding the illegal and immoral live fire at demonstrators in Gaza.

“For more than 50 years of occupation and countless instances of killings and violence, the systematic whitewashing proves that Israel is incapable – and has no wish – of being held to account for its actions," Elad said.

"First there are sloppy investigations by military police, followed by a serial closure of files by the military advocate general, ending with the High Court of Justice, which gives the appearance of decency and ostensible legality to a policy of live fire and the whitewashing of investigations," he concluded.

Netanyahu: Israel Will Build West Bank Settlements Despite ICC Pressure (The Jerusalem Post) By Lahav Harkov and Tovah Lazaroff December 10, 2018

Israel is facing a fierce campaign over existing settlements because of efforts against it at the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud politicians on Monday, in response to criticism for not doing enough to advance settler activity in the West Bank.

Netanyahu said he is proceeding carefully in order to make sure everything is legal, because of the “aggressive campaign against settlements that were already built.” His spokesman confirmed that this smear campaign is coming straight from the ICC.

The Prime Minister spoke in the closed section of the Likud faction regarding construction in Judea and Samaria.

Last week, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that she was close to a decision on whether to open a full-fledged criminal probe against Israel and Hamas for alleged war crimes. Her probe also includes West Bank settlement activity.

The government will continue building new homes in settlements despite pressure not to, Netanyahu assured the politicians.

“I am a prime minister who stood up to two very very difficult US presidents for 12 years. We built and we built and we built,” Netanyahu said, referring to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. “There is no and there will be no government that is as successful in repelling these pressures and maneuvering around them on the matter of settlements.”

“We built and we built and we built,” he repeated, “with wisdom and great persistence. What you think is simple is much more complex, but we are navigating it wisely in order to find the way, and when we find it, we will build and we will have the court’s backing.”

If he is unable to get support from the court, Netanyahu added that things might change, but in the meantime he is trying make sure it doesn't face opposition in court.

Netanyahu’s comments came hours after right wing politicians renewed their push to legalize all West Bank outposts in the aftermath of Sunday night’s terror attack that injured seven outside of the Ofra settlement, including a 21-year-old pregnant woman.

Bayit Yehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich plans to submit a bill to the Ministerial Legislative Committee for debate this Sunday that will set a two-year timetable to authorize those fledgling communities – which currently have an illegal status – as either new settlements or neighborhoods of existing ones. He spoke of the bill during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that had been scheduled prior to the attack.

But right wing politicians at the meeting, including settler leaders, linked the attack to their legislative drive to legalize settler homes.

“Settlements and security are strongly linked,” Yesha Council head Hananel Durani told the committee adding that, “the serious attack in Ofra reinforces the debate today. Regulating and strengthening the settlements is an appropriate Zionist response to the [Palestinian] terror that is attempting to weaken the settlements,” Durani said.

There are dozen of places in Judea and Samaria that can be legalized as soon as possible, he said.

Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Ganz said, “we shouldn’t need terror attacks to authorize [settler homes]. This Knesset session is almost over but there has been no change in the situation on the ground [in Judea and Samaria]. There is good will. There is legislation, but no change. Now is the time to spring to achieve results in this Knesset session,” he added.

Politicians in the meeting spoke of their frustration over the lack of progress toward the implementation of a security cabinet decision in May 2017, which formed a committee in order to regulate outposts.

Some 15 out of the original list of 100 outposts have already been legalized, another 35 are in the process of legalization.

The committee, headed by veteran settler leader Pinhas Wallerstein, has counted 70 outposts that fall under his purview, this includes fledgling communities on state land and private Palestinian land. Wallerstein did not attend the meeting.

He said that 20 of those outposts would be difficult to legalize without a government decision.

Only a fraction of the outposts are completely on private Palestinian property. Others are partially built on state land and private Palestinian property.

Deputy Cabinet Secretary Ronen Peretz decided not to engage in a political attack against the prime minister and argued that he was not dragging his feet and promised to update on the committee’s progress later this month.

The outposts have already been mapped out, Peretz said.

“We don’t need terror attacks to promote the settlements, we already do a lot for them,” he explained.

Smotrich, who co-chairs the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus, was not assuaged by his words and announced his intention to put forward the bill, which he submitted in July.

It sets a two-year deadline from the law’s passage for legalizing outposts. The list of outposts is blank in the current draft of the bill.

Smotrich’s bill states that government offices and enforcement agencies should treat the communities that are added to the list as if they were already legalized, even though they were built without the proper authorizations.

During the two years before their legalization, the outposts were treated like normal neighborhoods. Now, the settlement that the outpost will become a part of will provide it with municipal services and water, although the government will budget services, infrastructure and public structures, and the electric company will provide them with electricity.

The bill’s points out that the government decided to legalize outposts built in the past 20 years, but this has not been implemented, over a year-and-a-half later. The new bill is meant “to prevent unnecessary harm to the residents of the neighborhoods and settlements that are meant to be legalized,” it states.

Enforceming [sic] action against the outposts will be suspended and residents will also be eligible for bank mortgages so they can purchase, build, extend or rebuild their homes, the proposal says.

It’s presumed that there are some 3,000 existing structures in outposts today.

Smotrich considers his bill to be the companion to the 2017 Settlement Regulation Law, which retroactively legalized close to 4,000 settler homes on private Palestinian property, of which some 800 were located in outposts.

But that legislation only allows for the outpost homes to be legalized and does not capable of legalizing the outpost. The High Court of Justice is still adjudicating that law, which has yet to be put into practice.

Smotrich called his proposal “regulation bill 2,” meaning that it is a continuation of the 2017 law.

Separately, politicians called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fast track the process by which over 400 unauthorized homes in the Ofra settlement could be legalized independently of that law.

They said that a legal opinion by the defense ministry, which was put forward this summer could allow for their authorization, but that the process needs Netanyahu’s approval in order to advance.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked tweeted: “The legal opinion is already prepared. In response to the [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s] ‘price for terrorism’” – meaning the PA’s payments to terrorists in Israeli prisons – “we are setting our own prices: Every terrorist attack will strengthen settlements instead of weakening them, and every potential terrorist will know in advance that his name will be on the strengthening of settlements.”

IDF Reservists to File Complaint Against Hamas, PLO to ICC (The Jerusalem Post) By Anna Ahronheim December 12, 2018

A group of IDF reservists is set to file a complaint with the International Criminal Court in the Hague against Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for their use of human shields in the coming weeks.

My Truth, established following Operation Protective Edge in 2014 by Avihai Shorshan, has documented scores of testimonies from reservists in recent months describing the use of human shields to carry out terrorist attacks and other human rights violations.

“Our main goal is to be a non-political organization which presents the complete picture of what IDF soldiers face to the world, with no political angle. Just the situation on the ground,” Shorshan told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday

“When the March of Return protests began in April, our soldiers were going in front of Hamas terrorists every Friday and we saw them use women and soldiers to attack our soldiers. When we turn on CNN, nobody ever talks about the evil methods that Hamas uses, only our methods,” Shorshan said. “This is the right time to not only speak about Israel but about what they do as well.”

While the organization has collected some 33 testimonies from events from 2004 to present, ten of them will be submitted to the Hague in cooperation with lawyers from the International Legal Forum and the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, all of them relating to incidents which occurred over the past seven months of the weekly Great March of Return protests.

“The real shocking bit where I really couldn’t believe my eyes was when I saw an elderly man walking with a walking stick with a plastic bag and in that bag he had two bottles of gasoline which he intended to light and then throw towards Israeli soldiers,” said one testimony by a sniper who had been deployed to the protests along the fence until November.

“These soldiers were on the fence Friday after Friday until November,” Shorshan said.

“The main things about the protests along the fence is that they not simple civilian demonstrations. This is a terrorist attack against our fence, and we know exactly what Hamas plans to do when they cross the fence,” he said. “There is no Western country in the world which shares a fence with a terrorist organization, and we have four terror organizations on our borders. And some communities are just hundreds of meters from the fence.”

Other testimonies collected by the organization include cases of ambulances transporting weapons and terrorists, rockets being launched from kindergartens, women and children serving as human shields, and violations of humanitarian cease- fires.

“When we talk about hasbara [political public relations], we speak Chinese. No one understands us. We are in the Middle East, and we need to talk to Hamas in their language. You don’t need to be immoral. We don’t need to bring our kids to the fence. But we cannot show them our weakness and cannot give them millions dollars in cash when we know it goes straight into the hands of terrorists,” he added.

Shorshan, who is currently in the United States to promote the project, is planning to share the reservists’ testimonies to the US Congress in February.

Hamas spokesman praises ‘heroic’ West Bank terror attack (The Times of Israel) By Adam Rasgon December 13, 2018

A Hamas spokesman praised a terror attack in the central West Bank on Thursday, calling it “heroic,” but stopped short of claiming responsibility.

Two Israelis were killed and two others were severely injured in the drive-by shooting near the Ofra settlement, medics and officials said.

“The heroic Silwad operation is a response to the Zionist occupation’s crimes and behavior in the occupied West Bank,” Abdelatif al-Qanou, a spokesman for the terror group, wrote on Twitter, referring to a Palestinian village near Ofra. “The West Bank’s youth and men will remain rebels against the occupation and continue to clash with it until it is banished.”

The perpetrators of the attack fled the scene, the IDF said, and troops were searching for them.

Hamas officials have frequently encouraged and praised shooting, stabbing and ramming attacks in the West Bank and Israel.

Both the US and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group.

Earlier on Thursday, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, appeared to take responsibility for two other shooting attacks — one earlier this week outside Ofra and another in the Barkan Industrial Zone in the northern West Bank.

“From the heroic Barkan operation to the Ofra operation, the Qassam Brigades are undertaking a new battle,” the Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Seven people were wounded in the drive-by shooting attack on a bus stop outside of Ofra on Sunday night, including a 30- weeks pregnant woman who was seriously injured. The baby was delivered in an emergency operation, but died on Wednesday afternoon.

In October, 28-year-old Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and 35-year-old Ziv Hajbi were killed in a shooting attack in the Barkan Industrial Zone.

Two Palestinians suspected of separately carrying out the terror attacks in Ofra earlier this week and in Barkan were killed by Israeli forces Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Salih Barghouti, 29, from Kobar, a village near Ramallah, was killed Wednesday evening after he tried to attack troops while escaping arrest and was shot, the Shin Bet security service said, adding that he was believed to have carried out the Ofra terror attack.

Hamas wrote on its official Twitter account that Barghouti carried out the shooting adjacent to Ofra and said he was a member of the terror group.

Ashraf Na’alowa, 23 and a resident of Shuweika, a village near Tulkarem, was killed Thursday morning, the Shin Bet said early Thursday. Na’alowa was suspected of killing Yehezkel and Hajbi. He remained on the run for over two months, repeatedly eluding capture by Israel security forces.

The Qassam Brigades said he carried out the attack in Barkan and was a Hamas member.

Israeli army razes home of prominent Palestinian activist (Aljazeera) December 16, 2018

The Israeli army has demolished a residential building owned by a prominent Palestinian activist, whose six sons have been imprisoned by Israel.

The building, owned by Latifa Abu Hmeid, is located in the Amari refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

According to an Anadolu news agency reporter based in the area, Israeli soldiers raided the camp early Saturday, surrounding the building before bringing it down in a controlled demolition.

Before razing the four-storey structure, the army evicted dozens of journalists and solidarity activists who had been inside the building in a bid to prevent its destruction. Israel accused one of Abu Hmeid's sons of killing an Israeli soldier in May.

Protesters called the destruction a form of collective punishment.

Palestinians wounded

Neighbours said several hundred residents, including children, were ordered out of their homes and kept in a sports field in the cold night while the army operation continued.

Following the demolition, confrontations broke out between local residents and Israeli troops, with the latter using tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition to disperse the crowds.

At least 56 Palestinians have been injured in the protests against the demolition.

Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians who carry out attacks against Israelis.

Abu Hmeid also has a son who was shot dead by Israeli army troops in 1994.

Voicing defiance, Abu Hmeid told Anadolu that the building's destruction "will not break our will", vowing to rebuild the structure "as soon as possible".

"All my sons have been either martyred or imprisoned, and that didn't break me," she said.

"This is the third time they've destroyed my home," Abu Hmeid added.

Saeb Erekat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator, told Al Jazeera from the Doha Forum event that this demolition could lead to more violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

"This is a war crime by the government of the occupying authority ... [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is fully responsible with his government with the war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people," Erekat said.

"Einstein was once asked what is madness and he responded, by repeating the same experiences and experiments with the same tools and expecting different results.

"Netanyahu believes that by demolishing homes, killing Palestinians he will get peace and security. He is pushing Palestinians and Israelis further and deeper into the cycle of violence and counterviolence; that's the truth."

Retaliation

In recent days, at least five Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces - and dozens more injured - across East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Three Israelis have also been killed including two soldiers in a drive-by shooting on Thursday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced pressure from right-wing rivals and Jewish settlers for a strong response following the shooting.

It was the third deadly attack by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank in two months and set off demonstrations by settler groups upon whose support Netanyahu's government depends.

On Friday, the Palestinian Prisoners Association said the Israeli army had detained some 100 Palestinians throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem since dawn Thursday.

Natasha Ghoneim reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank said that the tense atmosphere continues to persist throughout Ramallah; schools and universities are closed for the day.

"The demolition, the raids, the administrative detention of Hamas members, the increased military presence at checkpoints and roads coming into Ramallah - these are all measures that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to take in retaliation over these three deaths," Ghoneim said.

"On the Palestinian side, of course, there's a lot of anger. [Palestinian] President Mahmoud Abbas is being diplomatic, saying he condemns violence but also saying that there's been an atmosphere created here, a lack of hope over the peace process, settlers calling for his assassination, that have made it ripe for these kinds of conditions."

Abbas is headed to Jordan tomorrow to meet King Abdullah II to discuss the situation and how to restore calm. On Thursday, Egypt also sent its delegation of security services, Ghoneim added. Israel Could Face ICC Charges if Bill Expelling Terrorist Families Passes, Expert Warns (The Jerusalem Post) December 17, 2018

Israel may face criminal charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague if it approves legislation to expel the families of Palestinian terrorists, a top Israeli human rights expert warned on Monday. The bill received preliminary approval in the ministerial committee for legislation on Sunday.

The legislation, which now needs Knesset approval, allows for members of a terrorist’s family to be expelled from their home within seven days of an attack or attempted attack. According to the IDF, they will be forced to relocate to another area of the West Bank.

Attorney-General Avichai Mandeblit has said that the forced relocation of terrorist’s family members is illegal under Israel and international law.

Prof. Yuval Shany, chairman of the UN Human Rights Committee, told Army Radio that the legislation would likely be annulled by the Israeli Supreme Court but could lead to charges being brought against the country at the ICC.

“International law cannot accept in any way the expulsion of families of terrorists, also not to Ramallah or Jenin,” Shany said. “You cannot punish a person for something someone else did. It will not pass the Supreme Court but will reach The Hague.”

On Sunday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett attended a rally organized by the Yesha Council and demanded stiff measures to combat terrorist attacks, including the exile legislation.

Bennett stood at the rally and promised: “Today, we are bringing a law to exile the families of terrorist to a vote. Until now, the prime minister and the defense minister [Netanyahu] has asked that it be delayed three times: This time we won’t agree,” he said.

IDF Begins Demolishing Home of Barkan Factory Attack Assailant (Haaretz) By Jack Khoury December 17, 2018

The Israeli military began demolishing the home of the Palestinian who killed two Israelis in a shooting attack at a West Bank industrial area in October, Palestinian reports said on Monday.

The military said it had destroyed the basement and first floor of the house in Shuwaykah in the West Bank of 23-year-old Ashraf Walid Saliman Na'alwa, who shot dead Kim Yehezkel-Levengrond, 29, and Ziv Hajbi, 35, on October 7.

Six Palestinian sustained light injuries in clashes with Israeli soldiers and were evacuated to a hospital in Tul Karm, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Na'alwa was killed on Thursday in a joint operation between the military, the Shin Bet security service and the police after a two-month manhunt. The Shin Bet said that Na'alwa was armed when forces arrived to the scene.

The military had given Na'alwa's family demolition notices in October.

According to the Shin Bet, Na'alwa was found as part of a large-scale intelligence operation. The arrest and interrogation of several suspects had helped locate Na'alwa and also revealed that he had planned to carry out another attack.

According to Palestinian sources, neither Na'alwa's brother nor sister had any information related to the attack, but their arrests were served to pressure Na'alwa to reveal himself.

Before carrying out the attack, Na'alwa gave a coworker a note in which he said he planned to commit suicide and praised late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The note led security forces to conclude that the shooting was a terror attack.

Employees in the factory said they did not know Na'alwa very well, who had worked there for four months. He was one of 250 Palestinian workers who were employed by the factory. According to his coworkers, he had not come to work over the past couple of weeks due to an illness.

PA Condemns Israel for 'Assault, Aggression and Terrorism' (The Jerusalem Post) By Khaled Abu Toameh December 18, 2018

The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday stepped up its criticism of Israel and called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a “criminal investigation” into Israeli “crimes and violations” against the Palestinians.

The call, which was made by the PA Cabinet after its weekly meeting in Ramallah, came in response to the recent Israeli security measures in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks near Ofra and Giv’at Asaf.

Palestinian officials in Ramallah maintain that the Israeli security measures undermine the PA and embolden extremist elements, including Hamas.

“The Cabinet calls on the Prosecutor of the ICC to launch a criminal investigation that would serve as deterrence to the occupation’s crimes and a tool for bringing about absent justice,” the statement said. “The Cabinet also renews its call to Arab and Islamic governments and all friendly countries to assume their responsibilities toward the Palestinian cause, which is facing attempts by the Israeli occupation to liquidate it with unprecedented backing from the US administration.”

The PA statement condemned the Israeli security measures as “assaults, aggression and terrorism.” It accused the IDF and “herds of settlers of carrying out incursions into Palestinian cities in violation of international law and in breach of Palestinian sovereignty.”

The statement also accused Israel of carrying out “extrajudicial killings, arrests, and house demolitions, as well as besieging cities and villages and restricting the movement of Palestinians by setting up checkpoints.”

These measures, the PA argued, demonstrate Israel’s “disregard for international laws, while the silence of the international community encourages it to continue with its violations.”

The PA’s statement was referring to the killing of Saleh Barghouti, who is suspected of involvement in the Ofra drive-by shooting attack, and Ashraf Na’awla, who killed two Israelis in the Industrial Park near Ariel, as well as the demolition of the latter’s house in the village of Shweika, near Tulkarem, and the demolition of the the house of Islam Abu Hmaid in the Al-Am’ari refugee camp near Ramallah. Abu Hmaid is accused of throwing a stone marble that killed an Israeli soldier last May.

“The cabinet strongly condemns the crime of collective punishment,” the statement said, adding that the house demolitions were a “war crime and a crime against humanity.”

The PA Cabinet also strongly condemned Israeli “incitement” against PA President Mahmoud Abbas - a reference to a statement made by Likud MK Oren Hazan, who was quoted as saying, “We demand Abu Mazen’s [Abbas] head,” and posters distributed by the far Right group Derech Chaim calling for there assassination of the PA president.

“This incitement, which is being carried out with the backing of the Israeli government, feeds the terrorism against the Palestinian people and their leadership,” the PA statement charged.

Abbas, meanwhile, met in Amman on Tuesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah and discussed with him the latest developments in the West Bank.

A PA official in Ramallah said that Abbas briefed the Jordanian monarch on the latest Israeli “escalation, especially the increase in arrests of Palestinians, incursions into Palestinian cities and house demolitions.”

Abbas, the official said, also briefed King Abdullah on Israel’s “continued assaults on Jerusalem and Islamic and Christian holy sites.”

King Abdullah, for his part, stressed the need to break the stalemate in the peace process through launching serious and effective peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, according to Jordan’s office news agency Petra.

“The King reiterated that negotiations should be based on a two-state solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state on the June, 1967, lines with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Petra said. The king, it added, also stressed Jordan’s “rejection of unilateral Israeli actions, including building settlement units and expropriation of Palestinian-owned lands in the occupied West Bank, which are a real obstacle to achieving just and lasting peace according to the two-state solution.”

[back to contents] Gulf Region

Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) By Dylan Welch, Kyle Taylor and Dan Oakes December 13, 2018

Since the alleged murder by the Saudi Government of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, there has been growing international concern about the Yemen war, which involves a Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, fighting Houthi rebels.

Questions are also being asked about what one of Australia's most respected former special forces commanders knew about a squad of US mercenaries killing the UAE's enemies in Yemen.

Despite this, Australian military veterans and former federal police officers have flocked to the country, seeking good pay and comfortable conditions in return for training some of the UAE's most elite troops.

The ABC searched LinkedIn and found almost 100 former soldiers and federal police whose profiles indicated they are or were training Emirati soldiers.

Military veteran Peter Butson worked for the UAE Armed Forces as a firing range inspector from 2012 to 2017.

He believes there are more Australian military contractors in the UAE than any other nationality.

"It's probably about 50 per cent Australian, probably about 30 per cent American and probably about 10 per cent Brits," Mr Butson told the ABC.

The Australian Defence Department said there was nothing inappropriate about the number of Australians working with the UAE military.

"The employment of personnel with previous service in other foreign militaries is common practice globally," a Defence spokesperson said.

Mr Butson spoke to the ABC because he had previously been named in an article as a "mercenary" and wanted to clear his name.

"Not what we were doing: Ultimately a mercenary is uniformed, carries weapons, engaged in conflict or provides deterrence to keep conflict away," Mr Butson said. "I don't carry a gun, don't work in a uniform, don't go to conflict zones.

"I would describe myself as a specialist consultant who deals in military training facilities — the best in the world.

"[The Emiratis] are the ones with the bankroll to pay for it."

Mr Butson said the same held true for the dozens of other Western military veterans who were there.

"They don't have guns, they don't wear UAE uniforms, not committed to hostilities there; they're specialist trainers helping the UAE to gain capability."

He also said he was not concerned when, halfway through his time with the Presidential Guard, the Emirati troops went to Yemen to fight.

"It was very much a point of pride that they were doing things for themselves. And I was thinking, 'that's a good thing'," Mr Butson said.

Two facts stood out when the ABC examined the LinkedIn list: many of the men are veterans of Australia's two frontline special forces units, the commandos and the SAS; and many are training the UAE's most elite military command, the Presidential Guard.

That may be because the Presidential Guard is commanded by a retired Australian major general with a decades-long background in our special forces, Mike Hindmarsh. He moved to Abu Dhabi a decade ago to create the Guard as the centrepiece of the UAE military.

According to a Defence briefing document obtained under FOI by the ABC, in June 2009, while still employed by the Australian Army, General Hindmarsh asked then-chief of army Ken Gillespie if he could go to the UAE to "explore employment opportunities".

The document records that Lieutenant General Gillespie "supported" the request.

Four months later General Hindmarsh announced his retirement and was soon serving as a national security advisor to the Emirates' de-facto ruler, heir to the throne and architect of their role in Yemen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Mr Butson said General Hindmarsh was known in the UAE military as "General Mike", because most military officers in the Middle East use their first name, not surname, after their rank.

"[He's] the best of the best and that's why he is where he is now," he said.

Last month Buzzfeed America published explosive allegations about a mercenary hit squad targeting figures in the conflict in Yemen in late 2015 to early 2016.

Among the evidence the mercenaries provided to prove their story was a so-called "target card" with details of one of the people they were to kill.

Plainly visible at the card's top right was the Presidential Guard insignia, leading to questions about what General Hindmarsh knew about the operation.

The ABC has independently confirmed the existence of the target card with one of the hit squad's members.

Since being created, the Guard has earned plaudits from Western militaries, with Special Operational Command (SOC) soldiers fighting beside US, British and Australian special operations forces in Afghanistan.

It is also deeply involved in the Yemen war and the SOC have been seen using high-tech Western-made weapons and technology there.

Five Yemen researchers and analysts told the ABC they were of the view that General Hindmarsh was directly or indirectly commanding UAE combat troops in Yemen.

All spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of discussing a senior UAE general in the wake of the detention of British PhD student Matthew Hedges on spying charges.

The ABC tried to contact General Hindmarsh on multiple occasions for this story, but he did not respond.

Saudi Arabia condemns US Senate 'interference' (British Broadcasting Corporation) December 17, 2018

Saudi Arabia has reacted angrily after the US Senate voted to withdraw military aid for the war in Yemen, where the Saudis are leading a coalition fighting rebels.

The Senate also blamed the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident.

Saudi Arabia described the vote as "interference" based on "untrue allegations".

Thursday's Senate resolution was mostly symbolic and is unlikely to become law.

However, it is seen as a rebuke to Donald Trump's Saudi policies.

It was the first time a chamber of the US Congress had agreed to pull US forces from a military conflict under the 1973 War Powers Act.

Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, and has received logistical and intelligence support from the US.

The kingdom has also come under pressure since Khashoggi, a US resident and columnist for the Washington Post, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in Turkey on 2 October.

In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the foreign ministry said: "The kingdom condemns the latest position of the US Senate." It said that such a position "was built on untrue allegations", and that Saudi Arabia rejected "any interference in its internal affairs".

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, and the Saudi government has insisted that he knew nothing about Khashoggi's killing.

"The Kingdom has previously asserted that the murder of Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi is a deplorable crime that does not reflect the Kingdom's policy nor its institutions and reaffirms its rejection of any attempts to take the case out of the path of justice in the Kingdom," the foreign ministry said.

The US has so far not publicly responded to the Saudi statement.

A non-binding resolution called upon Mr Trump to remove all US forces engaging in hostilities in Yemen, except for those combating Islamist extremists.

Some of President Trump's fellow Republicans defied him to pass the measure with Democrats by 56-41.

The US suspended refuelling Saudi war planes last month, and Thursday's resolution - if it were ultimately passed into law - would prohibit that practice from resuming.

The Senate then unanimously passed a resolution blaming the Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi's murder, and insisting that the kingdom hold accountable those responsible.

Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor has said Khashoggi was killed on the orders of a rogue intelligence officer.

Turkish officials however say they have evidence, including gruesome audio recordings, that the journalist was killed by a team of Saudi agents on orders that came from the highest levels.

His body has not yet been found.

US media have said the CIA believes the Saudi crown prince ordered his killing.

However, President Trump has dismissed the report, saying the CIA had not drawn firm conclusions.

President Trump has vowed to veto the measures, and they are unlikely at present to pass the House of Representatives, which on Wednesday blocked a vote on the matter.

But independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who co-sponsored the measures, said he expected the resolutions to succeed once Democrats formally take over control of the House in January following their mid-term elections victory.

The Trump administration had argued the bill on Yemen would undercut US support for the Saudi-led coalition against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

White House officials have emphasised US economic ties to the kingdom. Mr Trump's adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has continued to cultivate ties with the prince, according to the US media.

In Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen, No Refuge on Land or Sea (The New York Times) By Declan Walsh December 17, 2018

The first sign of trouble was the helicopter that hovered over the small Yemeni fishing trawler as it cut across the Red Sea. Then a warship appeared, its guns pointed at the boat.

Bullets thumped into the water around the boat, the Afaq, then rippled through its flimsy wooden hull. One fishermen was shot in the eye, another in the head. The engine caught fire. Crew members leapt overboard, including Bashar Qasim, 11.

Moments earlier, the boy had been hauling nets from the stern. Now, he paddled for his life amid the flaming debris and floating corpses, with survivors clinging to empty water drums. As the Afaq sank, he said, the warship stopped firing.

“It circled several times, watching us, to make sure the boat had sunk,” Bashar said. “Then it was gone.”

The stinging criticism of Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s grinding conflict has, for the most part, focused on the air war. Fighter jets with the Saudi-led coalition, armed with American weapons and bombs, have hit weddings, funerals and a school bus. Thousands of civilians have died.

As outrage over the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi operatives fused with concern about Yemen, a wave of disquiet swept Washington amid accusations that the United States military could be complicit in war crimes. Last week, the Senate voted to end American military assistance for the Saudi-led war, in a symbolic yet stinging rebuke to President Trump, who has stood by Saudi Arabia.

But the Yemen war is also unfolding at sea, with even less accountability than on land. There, too, civilians are dying in droves.

The Afaq was one of at least six Yemeni fishing boats hit by warships, helicopters and a fighter jet after leaving the coalition-controlled port of Khokha in the southern Red Sea over six weeks in August and September.

In interviews, survivors provided harrowing accounts of their ordeal: an attack helicopter that passed overhead six times, spraying them with bullets; fishermen jumping from flaming boats into flaming waters; survivors drifting in the water for days on end, watching helplessly as friends and brothers slipped under the waves.

Of the 86 fishermen on the six boats, 50 died.

Identifying the perpetrators of maritime attacks is notoriously difficult, especially in a war as chaotic and opaque as the one in Yemen. Both the Saudi-led coalition and its Houthi foes, who are backed by Iran, have carried out attacks at sea.

But maritime experts, a former United States Navy officer, United Nations investigators and several Yemeni officials said there was little doubt that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for some if not all of the violence against fishermen.

Saudi and Emirati naval boats dominate the Red Sea waters where the shootings and bombings took place. Five involved attack helicopters, which the Houthis do not have. In one instance, Saudi officials made cash payments of nearly $500,000 to the families of fishermen killed in an attack.

In another, coalition sailors detained 12 survivors and held them for three months in a Saudi prison, where the fishermen said they were interrogated and tortured. Eight of those detainees were recently released after receiving a payment of $1,300 each from their Saudi captors.

“A soldier posed with us in the prison for a photo and said, ‘Sorry if we hurt you,’” Yaqoub Okad, 20, said in an interview after his return to Yemen.

In a statement issued via the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, a coalition spokesman, Col. Turki al-Malki, confirmed that a coalition vessel had opened fire on that boat, the Ansar, and captured 12 fishermen. He said the boat’s crew had ignored warnings from a warship accompanying a Saudi oil tanker through the Red Sea. Three of the fishermen turned out to be “armed Houthi terrorists,” he said.

Colonel Malki declined to answer questions about the other five attacks between Aug. 1 and Sept. 15, which he said had been referred to the coalition’s internal investigations body.

Human rights groups say that that body is toothless and that its work falls short of international standards.

Although American military support for the Saudi-led coalition is not as extensive in the sea as in the air, there is tight cooperation in many areas. The United States Navy shares intelligence with the Saudi Navy and has bombed Houthi radar stations. The Saudi Navy uses American helicopters, and its officers have been trained by a Virginia-based contractor.

And some coalition strikes at sea have been carried out by warplanes armed with American laser-guided bombs and, until last month, refueled in mid-air by American supertankers.

Cmdr. Josh Frey, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, said the United States provided “limited, noncombat support to the Saudi-led maritime coalition, such as intelligence sharing against threats, to include attacks on Red Sea shipping.”

The United States, he added, had no knowledge of the attacks on fishing vessels.

The southern Red Sea is one of the planet’s most congested, commercially important and perilous waterways.

Every day, giant tankers carrying up to five million barrels of oil products pass through the strait of Bab el Mandeb, an 18- mile gap separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. Warships from the United States, Britain and other Western countries patrol it for pirates, drug smugglers and arms traffickers. The area is also a war zone. Dozens of civilians have died off the coast of Yemen since the Saudi-led offensive began in 2015, many of them fishermen possibly mistaken for Houthi smugglers or spotters by coalition forces. A United Nations report in September said that at least 40 fishermen were killed or had disappeared in 11 airstrikes against civilian boats between November 2015 and May 2018.

The attacks spiked over the summer as the coalition stepped up its assault on the key, Houthi-controlled port of Hudaydah. Coalition warships pummeled Houthi positions with naval barrages. The Houthis retaliated by launching speedboats rigged with explosives to hit Saudi oil tankers.

One such strike in late July caused Saudi Arabia to temporarily halt oil shipments through the Red Sea. A week later, on Aug. 1, the first of the six fishing boats set out from the coalition-controlled port of Khokha.

The Qaiser, a 40-foot wooden trawler, carried a fishing permit issued a day earlier by the local authorities, which are financed and supported by the coalition. About five hours into its journey, a helicopter circled overhead, followed by a warplane, which dropped a bomb on the boat.

Nine of the 11 crew members were killed instantly. Ahmed Buhairi, 35, was flung into the water. “The fire was like a circle and I was in the middle of it,” he said, lifting his clothes to show extensive burns to his limbs and torso.

The other survivor, Faiz Abdullah, 24, swam around looking for survivors. “All I found was a headless body,” he said.

More attacks followed in quick succession.

On Aug. 14, the Afaq, with 11-year-old Bashar Qasim on board, was sunk.

On Aug. 18, a warship opened fire on the Amira, killing three fishermen. The boat limped back to port at 3 a.m., carrying a wounded man who died as it moored, said its captain, Abdo Thabet, who was shot in the ankle.

The Amira, which lay under palm trees on a nearby beach, was scarred by at least 26 bullet holes. The diameter and shape of the holes were consistent with those made by heavy and medium machine guns, the kind typically found aboard navy frigates.

The following day, an attack helicopter sank the Rannan, killing four of the 10 fishermen on board. Survivors described a gunner in military uniform in the bay door of the helicopter who ignored their pleas to stop shooting. “We held up fish to show we were not a threat,” said Abdo Afdah, 30, who was shot in the hand as he clung to the upturned boat. “He kept firing.”

Days later came the attack on the Ansar, when a warship escorting a Saudi oil tanker killed seven men. This time, though, the warship did not sail away.

The 12 survivors plucked from the sea were taken to the Saudi city of Jizan, where they were imprisoned for three months. Several said they were tortured. “They whipped us until we bled,” said Tareq Moutairi. “They said we were Houthi spies.”

Colonel Malki, the coalition spokesman, said three of the fishermen were armed Houthi militants who had been relaying details about military and civilian ships to Houthi leaders. They are still in detention in Saudi Arabia. Colonel Malki did not account for the seven men killed in the initial attack.

The released fishermen, who returned to Yemen on Nov. 21, insisted that the detainees were innocent. “I know those men since childhood,” said Walid Hassani. “They are not Houthis.”

On Sept. 15, a sixth boat, the Faris, was attacked by a warship off the coast of Eritrea, where the United Arab Emirates has a naval base. Just one of the 19 fishermen survived: Nafae Zayed, who clung to an ice box for four days.

Sitting with his children outside his simple beachfront home, Mr. Zayed recounted his struggle with hunger, thirst and hallucinations. “I felt that someone was bringing me dates and water at night,” he said. “That’s how I survived.”

The coalition often refers reports of civilian casualties to the Joint Incidents Assessment Team, a body set up with State Department help in 2016. Human rights groups say that its investigations are a sham, and that it rarely finds fault with the coalition’s actions.

After it examined an airstrike that killed 40 schoolboys in August, Colonel Malki said that the coalition had struck a “legitimate target.” Public records show that the assessment team has twice examined earlier attacks on fishing boats, both times exonerating the coalition. The assessment team also examined the war’s deadliest attack at sea — a helicopter strike in March 2017 that killed at least 43 people, including women and children, on a boat packed with Somali refugees. Human Rights Watch called it a likely war crime.

The assessment team determined that the coalition had not carried out the attack. United Nations investigators concluded that the Saudis or Emiratis were probably responsible, a former United Nations official said. But the investigators could not establish proof because the coalition refused to answer their questions, he added.

The assessment team has not said when or whether it will examine the five fishing boat attacks referred to it by the coalition.

It was not possible to independently confirm the assertions by survivors and local officials that none of the boats carried Houthi militants. However, experts said it was unlikely that Houthis would have been aboard boats sailing from ports controlled by the Saudi coalition.

Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has visited coalition forces in Yemen, said the attacks could be the mistakes of young, inexperienced or poorly trained sailors.

Houthi attacks on coalition oil tankers and military vessels, including one that killed four Emiratis in June, had set the Saudi-led forces on edge, he said, and they tended to open fire easily on potential threats.

“Clearly there’s an escalation-of-force issue,” he said. “It’s a recurring problem that needs to get fixed.”

A number of European countries have halted arms sales to Riyadh to protest its indiscriminate tactics in Yemen. The Trump administration, in an attempt to defuse growing congressional pressure, has halted in-flight refueling for coalition warplanes.

Those measures are unlikely to affect the sea war.

Last year the United States sold 10 maritime helicopters to Saudi Arabia in a $1.9 billion deal. An American defense contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, earned tens of millions of dollars training the Saudi Navy over the past decade. A spokesman for the company said its last contract ended in July 2017.

A retired United States Army officer, Stephen Toumajan, commands the Emirates’ military helicopter fleet.

Mr. Trump blames Iran for the Yemen war, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this month that “we intend to continue” military support for Saudi Arabia. France, which licensed $16 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2017, remains a major naval supplier.

“Yemeni fishermen are being bombed in their boats, just as they were being bombed 18 months ago,” said Kristine Beckerle, a Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. “And nothing has changed.”

In one instance, the Saudis tried to make amends.

In late September, the families of the 18 fishermen who died on the Faris were summoned to the coalition’s base in Khokha. There, a Saudi official gave each family an envelope containing 100,000 Saudi riyals‚ about $27,000. Weeks later, more help arrived: new fishing boats, nets and outboard engines for each family.

The Saudis called the money a humanitarian donation. The villagers saw it as blood money.

“It isn’t worth a single fingernail of my brother,” said Munir Manubi, speaking in the nearby village of Kudah, where the Faris was based.

Other grieving relatives gathered around him openly criticized the Saudi-led coalition. Families were left with no breadwinner. Many fishermen had stopped work, fearing that they too could be attacked.

The decline in fishing follows a broader pattern of economic devastation, wreaked by Saudi war tactics, that has fueled a deep food crisis in Hudaydah, one of Yemen’s poorest, most hunger-stricken provinces. Elsewhere in Yemen, Saudi and Emirati planes have bombed factories, farms and food warehouses operated by international aid organizations.

Ahmad Abdullah, whose son died in the attack on the Faris, said only one thing would satisfy him: “revenge.”

His voice trembled. Some men in the village had been warned by local officials to keep quiet about their trauma, he said. He didn’t care. “We are speaking out,” he said, “because of the pain in our hearts.”

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ASIA

Afghanistan

Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes (ABC Australia) By Dylan Welch, Kule Taylor, and Dan Oakes December 14, 2018

Australian defence force veterans are earning tens of thousands of US dollars a month in the United Arab Emirates advising troops fighting in a bloody Middle East conflict dogged by allegations of war crimes and indiscriminate civilian casualties, an ABC investigation can reveal.

Since the alleged murder by the Saudi Government of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, there has been growing international concern about the Yemen war, which involves a Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, fighting Houthi rebels.

Questions are also being asked about what one of Australia's most respected former special forces commanders knew about a squad of US mercenaries killing the UAE's enemies in Yemen.

Despite this, Australian military veterans and former federal police officers have flocked to the country, seeking good pay and comfortable conditions in return for training some of the UAE's most elite troops.

The ABC searched LinkedIn and found almost 100 former soldiers and federal police whose profiles indicated they are or were training Emirati soldiers.

Military veteran Peter Butson worked for the UAE Armed Forces as a firing range inspector from 2012 to 2017.

He believes there are more Australian military contractors in the UAE than any other nationality.

"It's probably about 50 per cent Australian, probably about 30 per cent American and probably about 10 per cent Brits," Mr Butson told the ABC.

The Australian Defence Department said there was nothing inappropriate about the number of Australians working with the UAE military.

"The employment of personnel with previous service in other foreign militaries is common practice globally," a Defence spokesperson said.

Mr Butson spoke to the ABC because he had previously been named in an article as a "mercenary" and wanted to clear his name.

"Not what we were doing: Ultimately a mercenary is uniformed, carries weapons, engaged in conflict or provides deterrence to keep conflict away," Mr Butson said.

"I don't carry a gun, don't work in a uniform, don't go to conflict zones.

"I would describe myself as a specialist consultant who deals in military training facilities — the best in the world.

"[The Emiratis] are the ones with the bankroll to pay for it." Mr Butson said the same held true for the dozens of other Western military veterans who were there.

"They're not gun-toting mercenaries," Mr Butson said.

"They don't have guns, they don't wear UAE uniforms, not committed to hostilities there; they're specialist trainers helping the UAE to gain capability."

He also said he was not concerned when, halfway through his time with the Presidential Guard, the Emirati troops went to Yemen to fight.

"It was very much a point of pride that they were doing things for themselves. And I was thinking, 'that's a good thing'," Mr Butson said.

'Best of the best'

Two facts stood out when the ABC examined the LinkedIn list: many of the men are veterans of Australia's two frontline special forces units, the commandos and the SAS; and many are training the UAE's most elite military command, the Presidential Guard.

That may be because the Presidential Guard is commanded by a retired Australian major general with a decades-long background in our special forces, Mike Hindmarsh.

He moved to Abu Dhabi a decade ago to create the Guard as the centrepiece of the UAE military.

According to a Defence briefing document obtained under FOI by the ABC, in June 2009, while still employed by the Australian Army, General Hindmarsh asked then-chief of army Ken Gillespie if he could go to the UAE to "explore employment opportunities".

The document records that Lieutenant General Gillespie "supported" the request.

Four months later General Hindmarsh announced his retirement and was soon serving as a national security advisor to the Emirates' de-facto ruler, heir to the throne and architect of their role in Yemen, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Mr Butson said General Hindmarsh was known in the UAE military as "General Mike", because most military officers in the Middle East use their first name, not surname, after their rank.

"[He's] the best of the best and that's why he is where he is now," he said.

Questions over hit squad

Last month Buzzfeed America published explosive allegations about a mercenary hit squad targeting figures in the conflict in Yemen in late 2015 to early 2016.

Among the evidence the mercenaries provided to prove their story was a so-called "target card" with details of one of the people they were to kill.

Plainly visible at the card's top right was the Presidential Guard insignia, leading to questions about what General Hindmarsh knew about the operation.

The ABC has independently confirmed the existence of the target card with one of the hit squad's members.

Since being created, the Guard has earned plaudits from Western militaries, with Special Operational Command (SOC) soldiers fighting beside US, British and Australian special operations forces in Afghanistan.

It is also deeply involved in the Yemen war and the SOC have been seen using high-tech Western-made weapons and technology there.

Five Yemen researchers and analysts told the ABC they were of the view that General Hindmarsh was directly or indirectly commanding UAE combat troops in Yemen.

All spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of discussing a senior UAE general in the wake of the detention of British PhD student Matthew Hedges on spying charges.

The ABC tried to contact General Hindmarsh on multiple occasions for this story, but he did not respond. Trump’s input muddies case of Green Beret (The Star) By Helene Cooper, Michael Tackett and Taimoor Shah December 17, 2018

The long and winding case of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn had all the elements of a story that would seize President Donald Trump’s attention. A Green Beret charged by the army in the killing of a man linked to the Taliban. Thorny questions about America’s long-standing entanglement in Afghanistan. And a Fox News program that lauded the officer as a war hero.

And so, on Sunday, Trump announced on Twitter that he would examine the case of Golsteyn, using, verbatim, language aired just minutes before by his favourite program, Fox & Friends.

“At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder,” Trump wrote. “He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas.”

With that tweet, Trump made another extraordinary intervention into the U.S. judicial system. A president who just last week threatened to stop a Justice Department effort to extradite a Chinese tech executive and who spends most days vilifying the special counsel had now stepped into a complicated legal and ethical case that goes to the heart of the fraught politics of the military’s rules of engagement.

The decision resurrected questions about how the military treats detainees and how soldiers should conduct themselves in places where lethal danger is ever present. But perhaps most viscerally, it reinforced the power of a single conservative news program to push issues onto the desk of an impulsive president.

As commander in chief, Trump immediately complicated the military’s case against Golsteyn, raising questions of undue command influence, as well as the possibility that the prosecution is bound to be short-circuited by a pardon. The president also left Afghans and others wondering whether they can expect justice if they are unfairly harmed by U.S. forces.

“Major Golsteyn admitted to what appears to be a summary execution — a very serious crime under international law, and it is vital that the investigation go forward,” said Patricia Gossman, senior researcher for Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch. “There have been far too many cases of suspected killings by U.S. Special Forces units in Afghanistan where the results of investigations are never known and no one is prosecuted.”

By any measure, Golsteyn’s story is an extraordinary one — a soldier decorated for valour in combat who, during a job interview with the CIA in 2011, volunteered that he had killed a suspected bomb maker a year earlier in Afghanistan. The army opened an investigation but did not charge Golsteyn, instead stripping him of a Silver Star and an elite Special Forces tab, and issuing a letter of reprimand.

But then, five years later, in an appearance on Fox News, Golsteyn again said he had shot the Afghan. The army opened a second investigation in late 2016, and charged Golsteyn with murder last week.

Now that Trump has weighed in, it is unclear how the army will proceed, Defense Department officials said on Sunday. One official said the expectation was that the army’s case would continue, but added that the president’s tweet put the military in uncharted territory.

The army has yet to schedule a formal hearing on the murder charge; officials said it was within Trump’s power to pardon Golsteyn even before the case makes its way through the military court system.

In an interview, Golsteyn’s lawyer, Phillip Stackhouse, called the army’s decision to charge his client with murder a case of “political correctness,” and said he was happy that Trump was going to look into it. “Hopefully Secretary Mattis will as well,” he added, referring to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Golsteyn was in Afghanistan in 2010 during the battle for the city of Marjah in the volatile Helmand province. The battle was huge — more than 15,000 American, Afghan, British, Canadian, Danish and Estonian troops assaulted the Taliban stronghold. Over the next several months, dozens of Americans were killed and hundreds were wounded.

In February of that year, a roadside bomb killed two Marines — Sgt. Jeremy R. McQueary and Lance Cpl. Larry M. Johnson — who had been working with Golsteyn’s Green Beret team.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. Army documents, which claim to recount what Golsteyn told the CIA, suggest that he and his team began clearing homes nearby, looking for the source of the roadside bomb, and eventually finding explosive materials similar to those used in the bomb that killed the Marines. The team took the suspected bomb maker back to its base, where the Afghan ran into a tribal leader, who identified him as a member of the Taliban.

The tribal leader became frightened that the suspected bomb maker, if released, would report him to the Taliban and he would be killed, the army documents say.

The next year, in 2011, Golsteyn took a polygraph test as part of a CIA job interview. Applicants to the CIA are warned to disclose any potential skeletons in their past. Interviewers tell applicants it is better for them to reveal potentially compromising information than it is for the agency to discover it another way, according to a U.S. official.

Golsteyn said the suspected bomb maker was not on a list of people whom U.S. forces were authorized to kill without following rules of engagement that bar such action, according to army documents.

But Golsteyn and another U.S. soldier, concerned that the man, if released, would kill U.S. troops or report that the tribal leader was working with the Americans, took him off the base, shot and killed him, and buried his remains in a shallow grave, the documents say.

Later that night, Golsteyn and two other soldiers dug up the remains, brought them back to their base and burned them in a pit used to dispose of trash, the army says he told the CIA.

Golsteyn’s lawyer, Stackhouse, said the army documents mischaracterized what Golsteyn told the agency.

After the polygraph test, the army opened an investigation into the killing. The agency, according to Stackhouse, put Golsteyn’s employment on hold. Two years later, in 2013, the army closed the case without charging Golsteyn.

But his story was far from over.

In November 2016, Golsteyn appeared in a Fox News special report. Asked by anchor Bret Baier whether he had killed the suspected bomb maker, he replied, “Yes.”

One Defense Department official said on Sunday that Golsteyn’s admission had forced the army to reopen the case. On Thursday, Golsteyn received written notification from the army that he was being charged with premeditated murder. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and the director of the undergraduate public policy program at New York University, said Trump’s intervention in the Golsteyn case was “a very bad thing for the president to do.”

“His job is to ensure that the system of justice is protected, not to be a thumb on the scale,” Naftali said, adding: “The president does not believe in separation of powers. Intervening by definition means that you don’t believe in separation of powers.”

Abdul Karim Attal, a member of the Helmand provincial council, said in a telephone interview on Sunday that a pardon for Golsteyn would “give logic to those who say they are waging war against the Americans in Afghanistan because the Americans are not even committed to their own justice system.”

He added, “If they are freeing a murderer from their own military court who confessed to committing a crime, how would the people of Afghanistan expect the Americans to bring wrongdoers to justice?”

Part of the problem for the U.S. military is that, as with any war — especially one that has lasted 17 years — there has been a long string of episodes in Afghanistan in which U.S. service members have been accused of crimes.

“This is not the only case where they made a blunder; there are even more serious cases being committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan, like the one where a soldier killed two families, including women and children, and then burned them,” said Bashir Ahmad Shakir, another member of the provincial council.

He added: “For a strong country, there should be a strong code of law and order. If you break that code, it means you have no faith in justice and then the people of Afghanistan will doubt you when you ask people to adhere to principles of justice and human rights.”

Rachel E. VanLandingham, who was chief of international law with U.S. Central Command under Bush and President Barack Obama, said Trump’s interference could undermine trust in the military justice system even more broadly. “We care because we expect the military to kill the enemy when they’re supposed to,” she said. “We do not kill them when they’re in our custody.”

She added, “That’s the difference between rule of law and Lord of the Flies.”

War hero or murderer? Trump weighs in on military case (The Japan Times) December 18, 2018

A decorated officer in an elite U.S. Army unit killed an unarmed Taliban suspect in Afghanistan. Of that, there appears to be no doubt.

What is less certain is whether Major Matt Golsteyn, who has admitted to the killing, should be considered a cold-blooded killer or a war hero.

The Army last week charged Golsteyn, a Green Beret special operations reservist, with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an alleged Taliban bomb-maker in volatile Helmand province in 2010.

Though highly unlikely, he could ultimately face the death penalty.

Golsteyn’s case was suddenly thrust into the spotlight on Sunday, when President Donald Trump suggested he might intervene in the long-running legal saga.

“At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder,” Trump said on Twitter, having apparently seen a sympathetic segment about the case on Fox News.

“He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas,” Trump wrote.

Army investigators looked into Golsteyn in 2011 after he took a lie-detector test as part of a job interview with the CIA.

He reportedly told agents he had killed an unarmed, suspected bomb-maker detained by his unit, who he believed was responsible for the deaths of two Marines who had died in a roadside bombing.

According to court document excerpts, Golsteyn worried that the suspect, who he was unable to detain for more than 24 hours, might make more bombs and kill an Afghan tribal leader who had identified him.

Investigators have said Golsteyn and another soldier eventually took the suspect back to his house and killed him.

Legal observers pounced on Trump’s tweet, saying it could have a chilling effect on the prosecution and could amount to “unlawful command influence.”

As the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, Trump can technically take whatever action he likes in the prosecution of a service member, including issuing a full and pre-emptive pardon.

But “he shouldn’t be tweeting about it,” said Rachel VanLandingham, a former military prosecutor and law professor at Southwestern Law School, “as it sure seems to be a signal to lower-level commanders not to prosecute.”

“The president is not ensuring justice by his tweet. He is most likely obstructing it,” she said.

Golsteyn was stripped of a medal and reprimanded in other ways following the 2011 probe, but he was not criminally prosecuted.

Then in 2016, during an interview on Fox News, he said he had killed an Afghan man, prompting the Army to re-open the case.

Golsteyn’s attorney Phillip Stackhouse could not be reached for comment, but he told Fox the Army had sought initially to build a fake narrative in which his client “released this Taliban bomb-maker, walked him back to the house… and assassinated him in his house.”

As to why Golsteyn is being charged now, Stackhouse said: “The prosecutor in this case has intimated to me that they have new evidence.”

David “Bull” Gurfein runs United American Patriots, which is helping pay for Golsteyn’s defense, and has blasted the prosecution. “Right now we have rules of engagement that are actually in favor of our enemies, as opposed to providing our warriors the ability to address real-world threats,” Gurfein said.

Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter last week wrote to Trump asking him to look into Golsteyn’s case.

“He is not a murderer,” Hunter wrote.

“He is an elite warrior that was executing the mission he was trained to do. He engaged an Afghan bomb-maker, who had built the bomb that was responsible for the death of two Marines only days prior.”

But VanLandingham noted that the Army has a legal duty to investigate war crimes allegations.

“If the major admitted to others that he killed a detainee in U.S. custody, other than in self-defense, that’s one of the most straightforward and long-standing war crimes there is, and the Army was legally bound to investigate,” she said.

“President Trump as commander-in-chief likewise has a legal duty to ensure war crime allegations are investigated and appropriately prosecuted, a duty his tweet seems to show he fails to understand.”

Military authorities have, to varying degrees of success, prosecuted dozens of cases against U.S. troops accused of unlawful killings or prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In some cases, military jury members are willing to grant wide latitude to defendants, whose alleged wrongdoings occurred while fighting a deadly insurgency under frequently shifting rules of engagement.

Trump has intervened in at least one other military case, when as a candidate he branded as a “traitor” Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier and former Taliban captive.

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Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

Don't vote for war criminals Prime minister urges people (The Daily Star) December 15, 2018

Alleging that the BNP has nominated war criminals, their relatives and corrupt elements in different constituencies, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the people not to vote for them in the coming election.

“They want to make those who committed crimes against humanity or their relatives, wives or relatives of convicts in the August 21 grenade attack and graft cases and corrupt elements as elected representatives. But the nation didn't expect it,” she said.

The PM was addressing a discussion, organised by the Awami League on the occasion of the Martyred Intellectuals Day, in the city's Krishibid Institution Bangladesh.

She questioned whether there were no qualified persons in the BNP and whether it did not find qualified persons other than criminals or whether the party considered crimes as qualifications.

Mentioning the names of Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, she said those who were made ministers by the BNP were later convicted of crimes against humanity and their death sentences were also executed.

“It's shameful for the nation that the flag, which had been earned in exchange for blood of millions of martyrs, was handed over to them.”

Coming down heavily on Jatiya Oikyafront leaders Dr Kamal Hossain, Kader Siddique, Mahmudur Rahman Manna and Sultan Mohammad Monsur, she questioned whether they feel ashamed of “joining hands with war criminals and corrupt persons”. Pointing at Dr Kamal's remarks about a TV journalist, Hasina said, “Will the people keep mum if you tell them to shut up? The people won't shut up.”

She asked how they could contest the election with the “sheaf of paddy” when as of war criminals would run with the same electoral symbol.

The AL president urged her party men to make the people aware of the criminals and corrupt persons so that they would not cast votes for them on December 30.

Terming the next general election very crucial, Hasina called upon the people to cast their votes for “boat” in the month of victory to advance the country towards economic victory.

Pointing at the “telephonic conversation of a BNP leader with an ISI agent”, she said conspiracies continued over the next general election.

Oikya Front pledges to continue trial of war criminals (Dhaka Tribune) By Ashif Islam Shaon December 17, 2018

Leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, an ally of BNP, have been convicted of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

Major opposition platform Jatiya Oikya Front, in its manifesto, has said the on-going trial proceedings against the war criminals will continue if the platform is voted to power.

Such promise comes from Oikya Front at a time when its biggest component – BNP – is sharing its poll symbol “sheaf of paddy” with as many as 22 Jamaat candidates in the December 30 general election.

Senior leaders of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami, an ally of BNP, have been convicted of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

Oikya Front has rolled out its manifesto for the 11th general election, vowing to instate a balance of power.

Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna read out the manifesto at an event at Hotel Purbani International, in Dhaka, that began around 11am on Monday.

What is Jatiya Oikya Front and when was it formed?

The Jatiya Oikya Front is a platform of political parties led by Gono Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain. It includes BNP, Dr Kamal-led Jatiya Oikya Prokriya, ASM Abdur Rab’s Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Rab), Mahmudur Rahman Manna’s Nagorik Oikya, and Abdul Kader Siddique’s Krishak Sramik Janata League.

It was formed on October 13 and demanded the dissolution of parliament, that a free and fair general election be held under a neutral government, and that BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia be released from jail.

The alliance participated in two dialogues with the ruling Awami League in the first week of November.

Following the dialogues, it decided to participate in the election.

The coalition also announced that it will use BNP’s sheaf of paddy as its electoral symbol.

BNP manifesto silent on war crimes trials (bdnews24.com) By Kazi Sajidul Haque December 18, 2018

The BNP manifesto has avoided the question of whether a government led by the party would continue the trials of 1971 war criminals.

The Jatiya Oikya Front, the opposition alliance of which the BNP is the largest member, has promised to keep the trials going if it comes to power.

The BNP announced its own manifesto a day after the Oikya Front.

In the Kamal Hossain-led Oikya Front’s manifesto it was stated that the trials of war criminals would continue. Awami League leaders rubbished the promise, pointing out that the alliance were fielding candidates from Jamaat-e Islami under its symbol.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who had attended the announcement of the Oikya Front manifesto, unveiled his party’s manifesto on Tuesday. Though it was similar in many respects to the Oikya Front manifesto, it did not discuss the matter of war crimes trials.

The Awami League had come to power in 2008 after promising to try those who committed war crimes during Bangladesh’s Liberation War. The BNP opposed the trials.

The death sentence of Salauddin Quader, a member of the BNP’s highest forum, the National Standing Committee, was carried out after he was convicted by the war crimes tribunals.

Many other party leaders, including Abdul Alim, have been sentenced to jail on the charges.

Many allies of the BNP, such as Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and Jamaat leaders Mohammad Mojaheed, Abdul Quader Molla, Md Quamruzaman and Mir Quasem Ali, have also been put to death after their convictions on war crimes charges. Ghulam Azam Delwar Hossain Sayedee and other Jamaat leaders have been sentenced to prison.

Several of the BNP candidates for the 11th parliamentary election are close to sentenced war criminals. Members of Jamaat-e Islami, the political party that had opposed Bangladesh’s Liberation War, are running under the paddy sheaf symbol.

The BNP has long said that the trials are motivated by politics and that they would try the ‘true war criminals’ if they came to power.

But the sections of the manifesto issued to journalists and read aloud by Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir did not mention war crimes.

Asked about the matter during the press conference, Mirza Fakhrul said:

“I have said all I have to say. You will find the rest in the details. The full manifesto will be on our website.”

The manifesto was not available on the BNP’s website on Tuesday afternoon.

According to the ‘Liberation War and Freedom Fighters’ section of the BNP manifesto, all freedom fighters will be granted the status of ‘state-honoured citizens’ if the party takes power. The BNP also says it will end the corruption involved in the freedom fighters lists.

The BNP also said it would increase the freedom fighters grant in line with inflation. Its manifesto also promised to build memorials to honour and recognise freedom fighters across the country.

A proper list of freedom fighters would be formed and they would be granted the proper ranks and state honours, it said.

Though the BNP had called for the establishment of the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs, it had appointed an accused war criminal to lead it. A court verdict had called the decision a ‘slap in the face’ to Liberation War martyrs.

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War Crimes Investigation in Burma

EU demands ICC to seek UNSC directives on Rakhine situation (New Age) December 7, 2018

The European Union on Thursday demanded to the International Criminal Court for seeking directives from the UN Security Council on holding trial of Myanmar military personnel on allegation of atrocities, genocide and ethnic cleansing against minority Rohingya community in Rakhine state. The 28-nation EU placed the demand at an annual meeting of the International Criminal Court, a 123 member intergovernmental body, at its headquarters in The Hague, according to diplomatic sources in the Dutch capital.

An International Criminal Court prosecutor submitted annual report on the first day of the conference. ‘The ICC is in the process of conducting a thorough factual and legal assessment of the information available, in order to establish whether there is a reasonable basis to believe that the alleged crimes fall within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Court,’ according to the report.

In accordance with the International Criminal Court’s policy paper on preliminary examinations, the prosecutor’s office ‘may gather available information on relevant national proceedings at this stage of analysis. Building on the PTC (pre-trial chamber) prior jurisdictional ruling, the office will seek to ensure completion of this preliminary examination with a reasonable time,’ the report said.

Some other non-EU countries also expressed their concerns against ongoing atrocities in Rakhine State by the Myanmar military.

Myanmar, which was not a member of the International Criminal Court, also expressed intent for joining the conference. International experts interpreted the move of Myanmar ‘as an outcome of international pressure on the country.’

House says Myanmar crimes against Rohingya are genocide (CNN) By Jennifer Hansler December 13, 2018

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday declaring that the crimes committed by Myanmar's security forces against Rohingya Muslims constitute genocide -- a notable move given the US State Department has yet to make such a designation.

"The United States has a moral obligation to call these crimes genocide. Failing to do so gives the perpetrators cover and hinders efforts to bring those accountable to justice. With this resolution, the House fulfills its part of that duty," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) said in floor remarks in support of the resolution.

The resolution passed with a vote of 394 to 1. It also calls for "the immediate pardon and release" of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have spent more than a year in prison for their work exposing the massacre of Myanmar's Muslim minority.

The State Department this week defended its decision to not yet label the crimes -- which based on its own reporting included acts of mass killing, destruction and sexual violence -- as genocide. That report, quietly released in September, found that violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State was "extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents."

Deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Tuesday that their conclusion last year that ethnic cleansing had occurred "in no way prejudices any potential further analysis on whether mass atrocities have taken place, including genocide or crimes against humanity."

"What the United States continues to do at this time -- our efforts have been and remain focused on steps that will improve the situation for Rohingya refugees and all people in Burma and as well as promoting accountability for those that were responsible for these atrocities," he said, adding that they are "open to new information."

The United Nations has called for Myanmar's generals to face an international tribunal on charges of genocide. The chair of a UN fact-finding mission on the situation said in September that he had "never been confronted by crimes as horrendous and on such a scale as these."

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum declared in early December that there was "compelling evidence that the Burmese military committed ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Rohingya."

U.N. Security Council mulls Myanmar action; Russia, China boycott talks (Reuters) Michelle Nichols December 17, 2018

The U.N. Security Council is considering action to push Myanmar to work with the United Nations to address the Rohingya refugee crisis, although China and Russia have so far boycotted talks on a British-drafted resolution, diplomats said on Monday.

The draft resolution aims to put a timeline on Myanmar allowing the return of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees from neighboring Bangladesh and addressing accountability, said diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August last year, when attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents triggered a military crackdown that the United Nations, the United States, Britain and others described as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar denies the accusations of ethnic cleansing.

The draft resolution would warn that the 15-member Security Council could consider further steps, including sanctions, if there was not enough progress made by Myanmar, diplomats said. It would also ask U.N. officials to report back regularly to the council.

It was unclear if or when the draft resolution could be put to a vote. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain or France to pass.

“I think it’s inappropriate, untimely and useless,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told Reuters on Monday.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu declined to comment. Myanmar’s U.N. Ambassador Hau Do Suan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The draft was circulated to council members late last month and diplomats said that there had been several rounds of discussions. Russia and China attended an initial meeting, but have not taken part in any further talks, diplomats said.

The text would push Myanmar to implement a memorandum of understanding with the U.N. development and refugee agencies that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government signed in June, as well recommendations made by the Rakhine Advisory Commission that was led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

The draft resolution does not include a referral of the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, diplomats said.

U.N. Security Council envoys traveled to Bangladesh and Myanmar in late April.

In October, China, backed by Russia, failed to stop a Security Council briefing by the chair of a U.N. inquiry that accused Myanmar’s military of genocide against Rohingya Muslims. Myanmar has rejected the findings of the U.N. report.

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AMERICAS

North & Central America

Ex-inmates: Torture rife in prisons run by Yemen rebels (The Tribune) By Maggie Michael December 7, 2018

Farouk Baakar was on duty as a medic at al-Rashid hospital the day a bleeding man was brought into the emergency room with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. He’d been whipped across the back and hung by his wrists for days.

The patient, Baakar learned, had been left for dead by the side of a highway after being held captive in a prison run by the Houthi rebels who control northern Yemen. Baakar spent hours removing bullets and repairing ruptured intestine. He tended to the patient’s recovery for 80 days and, at the end, agreed to pose for a selfie with him.

Weeks later, Houthi security officials grabbed the man again. They searched his phone and found the photo.

Then they came for Baakar.

Militiamen stormed the hospital, blindfolded Baakar and hustled him away in a pickup truck. Because he’d given medical help to an enemy of the Houthis, they told him, he was now their enemy too. He spent 18 months in prisons within the expanse of Yemen controlled by the Houthis. He says they burned him, beat him and chained him to the ceiling by his wrists for 50 days until they thought he was dead.

Baakar and his patient are among thousands of people who have been imprisoned by the Houthi militia during the four years of Yemen’s grinding civil war. Many of them, an Associated Press investigation has found, have suffered extreme torture — being smashed in their faces with batons, hung from chains by their wrists or genitals for weeks at a time, and scorched with acid.

The AP spoke with 23 people who said they survived or witnessed torture in Houthi detention sites, as well as with eight relatives of detainees, five lawyers and rights activists, and three security officers involved in prisoner swaps who said they saw marks of torture on inmates.

These accounts underscore the significance of a prisoner-swap agreement reached Thursday at the start of United Nations- sponsored peace talks in Sweden between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

As a confidence-building measure, the two sides agreed to release thousands of prisoners, though details must still be hammered out. But while the coalition side would release captured Houthi fighters, the rebels would largely free civilians who, like Baakar, were imprisoned in brutal sweeps aimed at suppressing opposition and obtaining captives who could be traded for ransom or exchanged for Houthi fighters held by the other side.

The Abductees’ Mothers Union, an association of female relatives of detainees jailed by the Houthis, has documented more than 18,000 detainees in the last four years, including 1,000 cases of torture in a network of secret prisons, according to Sabah Mohammed, a representative of the group in the city of Marib.

The mothers’ group says at least 126 prisoners have died from torture since the Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014.

Mosques, ancient castles, colleges, clubs and other civilian structures have served as first-stop facilities for thousands of detainees before they are moved into official prisons, according to testimonies of victims and human rights agencies. The mother’s group counted 30 so-called black sites in Sanaa alone.

Houthi leaders previously have denied that they engage in torture, though they did not respond to repeated AP requests for comment in recent weeks.

The Houthis’ Human Rights Ministry said in a statement in late 2016 that “there is no policy or systematic use of torture on prisoners.” It added that the ministry and prosecutors are working to “ensure the rights of prisoners and provide all legal guarantees to achieve justice and fair trials.”

Amnesty International says that “horrific human rights abuses, as well as war crimes, are being committed throughout the country by all parties to the conflict.”

But international outrage over the bloodshed in Yemen has largely focused on abuses carried out by the U.S.-backed and Saudi-led military coalition fighting on the side of the Yemeni government. The AP has exposed torture at secret prisons run by the UAE and their Yemeni allies and has documented the deaths of civilians from strikes by drones in the United States’ campaign against al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen.

Abuses by the Houthis have been less visible to the outside world as the rebels worked to eliminate dissent and silence journalists.

From the capital, Sanaa, the Houthis rule over around 70 percent of Yemen’s 29 million people. The Houthis believe they are the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and, as such, have a divine right to rule Yemen. Those who oppose them are “God’s enemies,” worthy of punishment.

One of the former prisoners of the Houthis who spoke to the AP was a school teacher from the northern city of Dhamar who, after his release, fled to Marib, under control of the Houthis’ opponents. He asked that he be identified only by his first name, Hussein, because he fears for the safety of family members still in rebel territory.

He was held for four months and 22 days in an underground cell. He was blindfolded the entire time, he said, but kept count of the days by following the Muslim calls to prayer. Throughout his confinement, he said, his jailers beat him with iron rods and told him he was going to die.

“Prepare your will,” he said they told him.

‘CRY TEARS OF BLOOD’

The Houthis began in the 1990s as a Shiite revivalist religious movement. The group turned into an armed militia in 2004, when the military under then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh killed their founder, the brother of the current leader, Abdel- Malek al-Houthi.

Saleh fought the Houthi insurgency for six years, with thousands killed on both sides before reaching a cease-fire just months ahead of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that put an end to his rule.

Less than three years later, the Houthis joined ranks with Saleh in an alliance of convenience — the former autocrat saw a possible route back to power, while the rebels gained backing from the army units still loyal to him. Together, they occupied most of northern and western Yemen, driving out Saleh’s successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

In response, the U.S.-backed coalition launched its campaign to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government and thwart what Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates claim is an attempt by Iran, the Houthis’ ally, to take over.

The Houthis have sought to entrench their rule by cracking down on a wide range of perceived enemies — young activists, religious minorities, socialists and others who might oppose Houthi rule.

But there are divisions within the movement.

Iternally, a moderate faction of Houthi leaders acknowledged abuses and sought to put an end to them. The leader’s brother, Yahia al-Houthi, set up a committee in 2016 to investigate reports of torture and indefinite detentions, and helped free 13,500 prisoners in its first three months.

The committee sent a video report to the leader, Abdel-Malek, showing scenes of overcrowded prison wards and prisoners with bruises, along with testimony from senior Houthi figures.

Abdel-Malek never responded. Instead, hard-line security officials shut down the committee and briefly detained two of its members.

The video was not made public, but the AP obtained a copy, and it contains startling admissions from prominent Houthi figures about abuses.

“What we saw would make you cry tears of blood,” one committee member says.

‘HELP ME’

The first few months in Houthi detention sites are usually the worst, ex-inmates say, as the militants improvise and inflict their torture.

Anas al-Sarrari recalls slowly regaining consciousness in a dark corridor in the Sanaa’s Political Security prison. The 26- year-old critic of Houthi brutality held his head between his swollen hands and bruised wrists, as flashes of two months of torture raced through his mind.

He was eating grilled corn when masked militiamen snatched him from a main street in Sanaa one morning in September 2015.

He remembered hanging for 23 hours by his handcuffed wrists from the ceiling of a stuffy interrogation room as numbness claimed his fingers, arms and much of his body. The cuffs began to slit his wrists and he tried to rest on his toes.

“Death must be less painful than this nonstop torture,” he recalled thinking at the time. “One more hour like this and I will die.”

His jailers unchained him from the ceiling for a couple hours each day, when he was given hard bread and a plate of vegetables and dirty rice crawling with cockroaches. When they gave him yogurt, he was able to see the date written on the container and mark the passage of time.

“My mother doesn’t even know if I am alive or dead,” he thought.

He remembered seeing a torturer with a stun gun staring at his head before dealing a blow with all his might. Al-Sarrari collapsed.

He doesn’t know how long it took for the Houthi militiamen to untie him from the ceiling and then dump him in the corridor. He tried to stand but couldn’t pull his body together. “Maybe I am in heaven?” he remembers thinking. “Maybe it’s a bad dream?”

At daylight, he tried again to move, but failed. “Help me,” he screamed. Militiamen dragged him into a cell. Only then did he realize he was paralyzed. He had no one to talk to, no one to take him to the bathroom. He urinated and defecated like a newborn baby.

Guards sometimes took him out to wash and returned him to the filthy cell, where he banged his head on the wall in desperation. After four months, they cleaned him up and released him.

Al-Sarrari showed AP copies of his medical records. He now uses a wheelchair and believes that the purpose of his torture and release was to send a message to others who might want to criticize the Houthis.

“To see people with disabilities, coming out of prison after excessive torture will terrify everyone: Look, this will happen to you if you speak up,” he said.

‘PRESSURE ROOM’

The selfie of Baakar with an escaped prisoner was all the evidence seven Houthi militiamen needed of the medic’s disloyalty when they came for him at al-Rashid hospital.

“How much money did they give you to treat the enemies?” one militiaman screamed in his face.

Baakar says they slapped and kicked him, beat him with batons on his face, teeth and body, and taunted him: “You will be killed because you are a traitor.” The militiamen took him to a location he couldn’t identify, stood him on a wooden box, chained his wrists to the ceiling and then kicked the box out from under his feet.

He says they stripped him and whipped his naked body, then pulled out his nails and tore out his hair. He fainted.

“It was so painful, especially when they come the next days and press on the bruises with their fingers,” he said.

The Houthis became more and more creative, Baakar said. They once brought plastic bottles and with a lighter melted the plastic over his head, back, and between his thighs.

Eventually, Baakar was taken to Hodeida castle, the 500-year-old Ottoman-era fortress on the Red Sea coast. He says guards pushed him into a filthy basement known as the “Pressure Room” and hung him by his wrists. In a dark corner, he could see shapes of dead cats and even torn fingers.

When he grew thirsty, he said, torturers splashed water on his face and he licked off the drops. At times, they would let other prisoners enter his cell and give him water from a bottle.

On the day guards thought Baakar had died, then realized he was still alive, they untied him and allowed two prisoners to feed and clean him.

As Baakar began to recover from his wounds, other detainees who had been tortured began asking for his help. He tried to heal the injured. He carried out simple surgeries, without anesthesia, using electric wires, the only tool he had in prison.

Sometimes the guards allowed him to go about his medical work. Other times, he says, they turned on him and punished him for helping his fellow prisoners.

Baakar recalled helping a man who’d been hung by his penis and testes and was unable to urinate. Another man with a white beard and white hair had been badly burned when the Houthis poured acid on his back, melting his skin and nearly sealing his buttocks. Baakar used wires to make an opening and, with his fingers, removed the stool.

“When I asked Houthi guards for help, saying the man is dying, their only answer was: ‘Let him die’,” Baakar said. The Houthis released Baakar on Dec. 3, 2017 after his family paid 5.5 million rials, about $8,000 at the time.

Soon after he fled to Marib, the anti-Houthi stronghold. He lives in a tent with other refugees, where he continues to treat the sick and wounded.

El Mozote massacre: Waiting for justice nearly 40 years later (Al Jazeera) By Anna-Cat Brigida December 11, 2018

Juan Antonio Pereira knows who killed his wife and children. But nearly four decades later, the men responsible continue to walk free.

On the day of the massacre - December 12, 1981 - Pereira, 43 at the time, was at home in the Salvadoran village of Los Toriles with his wife. He was worried. The country was in the early years of a brutal civil war between the Salvadoran military and left-wing guerrillas. He had been hearing a steady stream of gunshots since the day before and he went next door to check in on his mother. While walking back to his home, he saw soldiers approaching and decided to hide.

Pereira, recalling the event 37 years later, said from where he hid, he saw the soldiers murder his wife Natalia, their 10- year-old son Mario and 14-year-old daughter Maria. Fourteen of Pereira's family members were shot dead that day, including his mother and both brothers.

Nearly 1,000 people - mostly women and children - were killed in the nearby El Mozote and the surrounding towns from December 11 to 13, 1981 in what has been deemed one of the worst massacres in modern Latin American history.

"It hurts my soul still to remember it," Pereira, now 80 years old, told Al Jazeera while sitting in his niece Sofia's house in El Mozote. They are two of a small group of remaining survivors of the Pereira family.

In the years that followed the massacre, no one would be punished for the grave human rights abuses committed on that day. But with a case against 18 military officials set to resume this week, justice seems within reach.

"The law will punish for the crimes," Pereira said.

Divided into groups, raped and killed

The case against the officials was only made possible in 2016 after the Supreme Court struck down a 1993 amnesty law that prohibited the prosecution of crimes committed during the war, which ended with a peace accord in January 1992.

The amnesty law came five days after the UN published a truth commission that detailed atrocities in El Mozote and many other towns.

According to the truth commission, Salvadoran soldiers part of the Atlacatl Battalion arrived in El Mozote on December 10, ordering the residents to stay inside their homes or be shot. The next day, they forced the men, women and children to separate into three groups.

Survivors later reported hearing the screams of women and young girls being raped. The soldiers then gunned down each group and burned the homes, the church and convent where the families were being held. On December 12, the battalion moved on to the town of Los Toriles where Pereira lived. They shot dead residents there as they had done in El Mozote. The mass shootings continued until December 13.

"There was no compassion," Pereira said, recalling the scene he witnessed that day.

After the massacre, Pereira and other survivors fled to a town near the border with Honduras. "We had to flee without having committed any crime," he said. They stayed there until they believed it was safe to come back to El Mozote in 1990.

That same year, Pereira and a group of other survivors, launched an investigation into the perpetrators of the massacre with the help of Tutela Legal Maria Julia Hernandez, a local human rights organisation.

The group's independent investigation compiled dozens of testimonies and ordered exhumations of the area to create a timeline of the massacres and detail how they were carried out.

But the amnesty law three years later blocked any real hopes of justice.

"Supposedly that was the end of it," said Ovidio Mauricio Gonzalez, director of Tutela Legal. "But we kept doing exhumations and we kept pressuring for an investigation into the participants of the acts." 'God sees everything'

In 2012, the Inter-American court ordered the Salvadoran government to recognise the massacre in El Mozote and provide reparations for the victims.

Six years later, the amnesty law was struck down. A year later, the government published a list of 978 names of the victims of the massacre. More than half were children. Lawyers of Tutela Legal reopened the case against the perpetrators, which continues today.

The military maintains the deaths were the result of a confrontation between guerrilla fighters and the battalion. But extensive testimonies, along with forensic evidence showing the age and gender of the victims, strongly contradict the state narrative. The truth commission reported it was a common military practice to kill residents of rural villages near where the guerrilla operated to "cut off their lifeline".

In 2011, the country's leftist government apologised for the killings.

"Every person has a right to access justice and this right can't be denied because of a manipulation by the state, especially when it comes to crimes against humanity and war crimes," Tutela Legal's Gonzalez said. "It's about recognising the dignity of the victims who were massacred for the simple fact of living in a place that was of guerrilla influence."

The responsibility for the crimes extends beyond the Salvadoran state, Gonzalez said. The US embassy was aware of the massacre as early as January 1982, but worked to cover up the horrid events, according to a 1993 investigation by The New Yorker.

The Atlacatl Battalion had been trained by the US before it was sent to El Mozote to rid the area of guerrilla presence. The US had also sent billions of dollars to the Salvadoran government during the country's 12-year civil war to fight communism. The US government has yet to recognise its role in the El Mozote massacre.

"The US should also recognise that it has its share of participation in these acts," Gonzalez said.

For now, though, survivors and rights advocates hold on to the case against the 18 officers. The trial was suspended in August 2018 to await results of exhumations ordered by the judge. It is set to resume on Friday and will likely continue for six months to a year.

"They want to cover the sun with their finger, but we were witnesses," Pereira said. "Some people are telling the truth and some people are lying. But God sees everything."

Gonzalez added that carrying out justice "would show that this country has really changed. And that this type of conduct isn't tolerated."

'I didn't expect it to take this long': Omar Khadr in court seeking to ease bail conditions (National Post) By Colette Derworiz December 13, 2018

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr says he will continue to fight for his freedom.

Khadr, 32, was in an Edmonton courtroom Thursday to apply for changes to bail conditions which were imposed on him while he appeals war crimes convictions by a U.S. military commission.

He is asking for a Canadian passport to travel to Saudi Arabia and wants permission to speak to his sister on his own.

“When I initially asked for bail, I didn’t expect it to take this long,” Khadr said in a statement outside court. “My sentence initially should have ended this past October.

“This is not the first time my life has been held in suspension. I am going to continue to fight this injustice and thankfully we have an actual court system that has actual rules and laws.”

Khadr spent years in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay after he was caught at age 15 and accused of tossing a grenade that killed special forces soldier Christopher Speer at a militant compound in Afghanistan in 2002.

His lawyer, Nathan Whitling, told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice June Ross that his client has been a “model of compliance” and should have his bail conditions loosened. He said Khadr’s appeal in the U.S. hasn’t “moved a single inch” while his client has obeyed all the conditions of his release. “There is still no end in sight,” he told Ross. “Mr. Khadr has now been out on bail so long and has an impeccable record.

“My goodness, when is this going to end?”

Khadr wants to perform the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims once in their lifetime.

“There’s no good reason why he shouldn’t be able to do that,” Whitling said.

Khadr would also like to be able to speak on the phone or over Skype to his sister Zaynab Khadr. She has spoken in favour of al-Qaida in the past and was investigated in Canada more than a decade ago for helping the terrorist network, but was never charged.

The rules of Khadr’s bail allow him to meet with her but only in the presence of his bail supervisor or one of his lawyers.

Whitling said it’s preposterous Khadr could speak to his sister and develop any extremist views.

Khadr also needs permission to travel outside Alberta, and has made several trips to Toronto to visit his family and to deal with a civil lawsuit there seeking to enforce a multimillion-dollar judgment against him in Utah in favour of Speer’s widow.

Both provincial and federal Crown prosecutors argued the conditions are appropriate considering Khadr pleaded guilty to serious crimes and “he stands convicted.”

Doreen Mueller, a lawyer for the province, argued Khadr is not prevented from talking to his sister.

Federal prosecutor Bruce Hughson added that Khadr can speak to his sister as long as someone else is in the room, which could be his wife if that’s approved by a supervisor.

Whitling also asked the judge for an order that would allow Khadr to apply for parole even though he’s not serving a sentence — an unusual move that would put an end on Khadr’s conditions.

Ross reserved her decision until Dec. 21.

“There’s enough unprecedented aspects to this application that I’m going to take some time to think about it,” she said.

Khadr’s case has ignited sharp and divisive debate since the summer of 2017 when it was revealed the federal government had settled a lawsuit filed by him for a reported $10.5 million. The payout followed a 2010 ruling by Canada’s Supreme Court that Khadr’s charter rights were violated at Guantanamo and Canadian officials contributed to that violation.

Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said he hopes the court doesn’t grant Khadr’s request.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea that someone who has this track record has more access to members of his family who continue to speak out celebrating acts of terrorism, glorifying acts of violence,” he said in Ottawa. “I think that’s just despicable.”

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South America

Argentina Dirty War: Two former Ford executives jailed (BBC News) December 11, 2018

Two former Ford executives in Argentina have been given long jail sentences for collaborating with the country's brutal military regime in 1976-83.

Factory manager Pedro Muller was sentenced to 10 years and ex-security chief Hector Sibilla given 12 years.

They were found guilty of providing information about leftist union leaders who were later kidnapped and tortured.

It is the first time multinational firm staff have been convicted for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Both Muller and Sibilla said they would appeal against the verdict.

The jail sentences were handed down by a court near the capital Buenos Aires on Tuesday.

The court stated that the two men "were necessary participants in the illegal deprivation of liberty, aggravated by the use of violence and threats" with the aim of political persecution, AFP news agency reports.

The court also found that Sibilla was present during at least one torture session.

The crimes were committed at Ford's factory on the outskirts of the capital.

After the verdict, family members of the victims burst into applause in the packed courtroom.

During the trial, prosecutors had asked for 25 years in prison for each of the accused.

Ford Argentina has so far made no public comments on the issue.

About 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the military in its infamous Dirty War against dissidents during the dictatorship.

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Venezuela

Russia sends 2 nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela (AP) By Vladimir Isachenkov December 10, 2018

Two Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers arrived in Venezuela on Monday, a deployment that comes amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said a pair Tu-160 bombers landed at Maiquetia airport outside Caracas on Monday following a 10,000-kilometer (6,200-mile) flight. It didn’t say if the bombers were carrying any weapons and didn’t say how long they will stay in Venezuela.

The ministry said the bombers were shadowed by Norwegian F-18 fighter jets during part of their flight. It added that a heavy-lift An-124 Ruslan cargo plane and an Il-62 passenger plane accompanied the bombers to Maiquetia.

The Tu-160 is capable of carrying conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles with a range of 5,500 kilometers (3,410 miles). Such bombers took part in Russia’s campaign in Syria, where they launched conventionally-armed Kh-101 cruise missiles for the first time in combat.

Code-named Blackjack by NATO, the massive warplane is capable of flying at a speed twice exceeding the speed of sound. Russia has upgraded its Tu-160 fleet with new weapons and electronics and plans to produce a modernized version of the bomber.

The bombers’ deployment follows Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s visit to Moscow last week in a bid to shore up political and economic assistance even as his country has been struggling to pay billions of dollars owed to Russia.

Russia is a major political ally of Venezuela, which has become increasingly isolated in the world under growing sanctions led by the U.S. and the European Union, which accuse Maduro of undermining democratic institutions to hold onto power, while overseeing an economic and political crisis that is worse than the Great Depression.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at last week’s meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Vladimir Padrino Lopez that Russia would continue to send its military aircraft and warships to visit Venezuela as part of bilateral military cooperation.

Russia sent its Tu-160 strategic bombers and a missile cruiser to visit Venezuela in 2008 amid tensions with the U.S. after Russia’s brief war with Georgia. A pair of Tu-160s also visited Venezuela in 2013. Russia-U.S. relations are currently at post-Cold War lows over Ukraine, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Russia has bristled at U.S. and other NATO allies deploying their troops and weapons near its borders.

Asked about the Russian bombers, Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning said he had no specific information about the deployment.

However, Manning cited the humanitarian assistance provided in Central and South American by a U.S. Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, in the past eight weeks. Numerous Venezuelan migrants were among the people who received medical and dental treatment.

“Contrast this with Russia, whose approach to the man-made disaster in Venezuela is to send bomber aircraft instead of humanitarian assistance,” Manning said.

Maduro says Venezuela's civil militia grows to 1.6 million members (Reuters) By Luc Cohen December 17, 2018

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday the country’s civil militia had grown to 1.6 million members - more than tripling in size from the beginning of the year - and that its mission was to defend the country against external aggression.

Maduro’s speech to militia members, broadcast on state television, came less than a week after the socialist leader, without offering evidence, accused the United States of plotting to invade the South American country, which is experiencing a severe economic crisis.

“We will arm the Bolivarian militia to the teeth,” Maduro said, without detailing how many of the militia members were actually armed. “An invading imperialist force may enter a part of our fatherland, but the imperialists should know that they will not leave here alive.”

The National Bolivarian Militia is a reserve force composed of civilian volunteers, founded by former President Hugo Chavez in 2008 to assist the armed forces.

Maduro noted on Monday that he had given an order in April to boost the size of the reserve force to 1 million members. At the time, he said the militias had “nearly 400,000” members.

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TOPICS

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

There’s no confusion, says Law Minister Dhakal (The Himalayan Times) December 8, 2018

As the fate of the two transitional justice mechanisms, whose tenure is expiring on February 9 next year, remains unknown, the government has said it is making internal preparations to take the transitional justice process to its logical conclusion through consultation with all stakeholders.

With conflict victims, backed by a section of rights activists and political party leaders, seeking restructuring of the commissions and formation of a high-level mechanism to oversee the transitional justice process, the commissions say they are in a state of confusion as the government has not held any consultation with them on the issue. Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal said there was no confusion as a law and two autonomous commissions were in place.

He said the government was aware of the fact that the tenure of the commissions was expiring on February 9 and also the fact that the issue of transitional justice had not been resolved for the past 12 years.

“The government is making internal preparations to take the transitional justice process to its logical conclusion through consultation with all stakeholders. But we are also careful that the preparations do not affect the existing arrangement,” Dhakal told The Himalayan Times.

“If the issue is not settled by the end of the tenure of the two bodies, we will hold consultations on ways to take transitional justice process to its logical conclusion rather than on whether to give continuity to these two bodies. For now, there’s a law and two autonomous commissions in place.

The government will not leave any legal and constitutional vacuum.”

The government formed two transitional justice mechanisms —Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission of Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons — in 2015, nine years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government and Maoist rebels in 2006 marking the beginning of the peace process.

However, the two commissions have failed to make any tangible progress in their investigation of conflict-era rights violation, thanks to politicking, lack of necessary legislation, the government controlling the commissions financially, and internal weaknesses of the commissions. While the TRC has collected around 63,000 complaints, more than 3,000 complaints have been filed with the CIEDP.

The commissions, which have already been granted two one-year extensions to their tenure, however, say a mere term extension will not solve the problem until they are equipped with necessary legislation, human and financial resources.

CIEDP Chairman Lokendra Mallick said they were now preparing a report of the progress they made so far to submit to the government by the end of their tenure. “This time, we will not seek tenure extension as we have been repeatedly been saying that it is not the cure,” he said.

TRC member Lila Udasi Khanal added that the government had not consulted them on any of their concerns or their work.

“So we are of the view that the government can move ahead as per its discretion,” he said.

“In this situation of mistrust by conflict victims, international communist and government, we have lost motivation to work,” he added.

Tutu to be honoured at TRC anniversary event (News24) December 9, 2018

A special dinner to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) final report, to be held on Sunday, will honour former TRC chairperson archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu.

Tutu along with other members of the TRC are expected to join the dinner which will take place at a Stellenbosch hotel.

The dinner is the final item on the programme of an international conference, titled; Recognition, Reparation, Reconciliation – The Light and Shadow of Historical Trauma, hosted by Stellenbosch University.

According to the conference's Roger Friedman, the conference has been examining the trans-generational impacts of past trauma (slavery, colonialism, apartheid, genocide) on the lives of descendants, both victims and perpetrators.

Earlier this week, the former vice-chairperson of the TRC, Dr Alex Boraine died at the age of 87.

"He had a fall a week ago and stopped eating. He just became weaker and weaker," Boraine's son, Jeremy Boraine, told News24

According to Jeremy, his father was in remission from cancer, but had been in decline of late.

Jeremy said his father passed away somewhere between midnight and 02:00 on Wednesday, at his home in a retirement village in Constantia, Cape Town.

"We remember him first as a loving and wise husband, father and grandfather. We salute his lifelong dedication to non- racialism, human rights, democracy and social justice in South Africa and around the world. Most of all he inspired us with his passion for life and his big heart," Boraine's family said in a statement.

Prominent academics said Boraine would be remembered for advancing democracy in South Africa.

‘Establishment of War Crimes Court Requires Effective Communication’ (Liberian Daily Observer) By Abednego Davis December 19, 2018

An Associate Dean at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law at the University of Liberia (UL) said he believes that the idea behind the establishment of the War Crimes Court should be effectively communicated to not make it appear as witch- hunting.

According to Cllr. Jarmal Dehtho, citizens need to understand that there should be an established system with the responsibility to punish people accused of committing crimes against unarmed civilians as documented in the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) report. These perpetrators, he said, should face justice to serve as a deterrent.

“If we have to build a society that is in adherence to the rule of law, then we need to communicate effectively with our people so that they can understand that perpetrators of violence must not be allowed to go free. They must be made to account for the crimes they have committed,” Dehtho told journalists recently in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County during the National Convention of the Liberia National Bar Association (LNBA) that saw the election of Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe as president of the bar.

“Citizens should understand that without this court, there would be no punishment on the worst crimes committed by warlords. And these violent leaders [who] continue to plague the country all give reason for concern,” he said.

Dehtho disclosed that citizens need to know that the court has been successful in punishing people who had committed major crimes against humanity in other countries and, as such, it can also be successful in Liberia only if we were to communicate its objectives effectively to the citizens.

With this initiative, the UL Law School Dean believes that it would dispel the notion about the war crimes court being a witch hunt.

“Our citizens should understand that the war crimes court is not about witch hunt, [rather, a means of] holding people accountable on the wrongs they committed,” Dehtho said. “I strongly believe that people who committed crimes during the war should not go away freely but they must be made to account for their wrong.”

Dehtho’s call comes as the debate of the establishment of a war crimes court in Liberia continues to trend on talk shows on nearly all the local radio stations in Nimba County, with many of the callers expressing opposing views taking into consideration the country’s development drives.

As for Saclepea City Mayor in Nimba County, Jeremiah Nyagian condemned the setting up of a war crimes and economic crimes court in the country, “because such exercise would delay the country’s development programs.”

He said, the issue of a war crimes court will be a calculated witch-hunt, where individuals perceived as former fighters from any of the erstwhile warring factions would be targeted. In so doing, he noted, the accused will not have fair justice.

Mayor Nyagian out-rightly condemned those who he said are the proponents for the establishment of war crimes court, asserting that they are not doing any good for the unity of the country.

Nimba County Superintendent, David Dorr Cooper, said if the war crimes court issue is done to cover all Liberians, it will not be fair and would not be considered as justice for all.

On the issues of Gongloe’s election, Dehtho said, was it ensure that the Bar speaks with a unified voice, which the elected president stands for.

“Under Gongloe leadership the Bar will not be silent anymore on crucial national issues. We are going to speak, but with a unified voice,” Dehtho disclosed, adding that although some lawyers individually speak on major national issues, this would not happen during the Gongloe administration.

The Call for War Crimes Court Needs Clarity for Public Understanding (Liberian Daily Observer) December 18, 2018 The call for the establishment of a war and economic crimes court to prosecute people who bear greater responsibilities in the Liberian civil war has recently become one of the daily issues discussed on public platforms in the country.

A large segment of the public is pushing for this establishment with the objective of ending impunity. One of its key advocates is Grand Kru County Representative, Fonati Koffa, who claims that the establishment of such a court will serve as a deterrent for people with the mindset of committing evil.

Koffa said the civil war brought deep division in Liberia, and impunity was not anything that people should favor. Yet, he conceded that the Weah administration would address the issue of a war crimes court “in its own time”, which could mean ‘never’.

In previous times a number of events complementing the call for a war crimes court were held; one of which was the justice conference, organized early November. In that conference American Ambassador-at-Large Stephen Rapp asserted that “As long as war crimes perpetrators are still around, a court can be established to prosecute them regardless of how long it takes.”

One person who has been pinpointed for prosecution in the establishment of this court is Nimba County Senator and former warlord Prince Johnson. Emphasis placed on him perhaps has always provoked his anger and caused him to threaten instability if the court is established.

On the other hand, the emphasis placed on Prince Johnson has also generated the feeling that call for the court is aimed at a particular person or group, and some segments of the Gio and Mano tribes that felt disenchanted and participated in the war for fear of being dragged to the court on the basis of collective guilt.

It is because of this perception that many of them are siding with their hero. They join him in expressing the fear that such could lead to another civil conflict in the country.

The misconception surrounding the establishment of a war crimes court also encompasses time for such an event. Many people believe that this should have happened as soon as the war ended; and that calling for it at this time is belated and tantamount to a witch hunt.

In this confused state of debate, it is better to advocate for the court through educating the public, to enable them to understand clearly why the court is important and necessary for those involved to face it. This is important because some victims do not know that what they encountered constitute war crimes. Many fighters, too, need to understand why, as long as they fought in the civil war, some of them, probably many, committed war crimes.

It is also necessary for all involved, victims and perpetrators alike, to understand that fighting alone may or may not constitute war crimes. Of course, it is also necessary to include those who played key roles in starting the war that led to the loss of over 250,000 lives and the near total devastation of the country’s infrastructure.

Let us provide a few of what constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the Rome Statute, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 listed acts that constitute war crimes. These include willful killing, torture or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, and compelling a prisoner of war or other protected persons to serve in the forces of a hostile power.

Other acts associated with war crimes are willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement and taking of hostages; intentionally directing attacks against civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities; and intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.

Under the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity also include but are not limited to the following: murder (intentional and unlawful homicide), extermination (total destruction of people), enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.

Genocide, the other forms of crime associated with war include killing members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Conscription of child soldiers is another charge associated with war crimes. This means recruiting forcibly or in other forms children below 18 years who cannot make decision for themselves.

Meanwhile, those opposing the establishment of a war crimes court have always capitalized on the restoration of justice and the full implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final recommendations.

What some people often forget, however, is that implementing the recommendations of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) also requires establishing a special court to prosecute people identified as those bearing greater responsibility in the war.

The Daily Observer holds the belief that impartial justice is a way forward to ending uncertainty about a war crimes court. But as the advocacy intensifies, let it go with education that will enlighten the population on the significance of a war crimes court, who should be prosecuted and for which alleged war crime(s).

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Terrorism

Sheikh Hasina's fight against Islamic terror might help her keep power in Bangladesh (Business Standard) December 13, 2018

Apart from the noticeable socio-economic growth track, what is favourable for Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's comeback is her government's "zero- tolerance" policy to counter violent extremism. She has also positioned the Awami League as a secular nationalist party, emphasising on its prosecution and execution of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were found guilty of war crimes during the Liberation war in 1971.

The government's main focus had been on a "quick-fix" strategy to curb terrorism, they say, until the attack on the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood on July 1, 2016, which led to the massacre of more than 20 hostages, most of them foreigners. It is termed as one of the deadliest attacks in Bangladesh's history. This, after a series of killings of secular bloggers, writers, publishers, cultural activists and politicians since 2013, that led many to believe that Bangladesh was losing its war against terror, says Dr Smruti S. Pattanaik, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), who has been following studying Bangladesh for more than two decades.

Experts say Bangladesh has been susceptible to religious extremism, even though terrorist attacks appear to have declined in the past two years. The only other major incidents include the armed attack during Eid prayers at the Sholokia Mosque that killed three people on July 8, 2016, and three botched-up suicide bomb attacks in March 2017. Hasina, realising the threat to herself and her government, is committed to the fight against terrorism and radicalisation and has managed to get wider public support from across the political spectrum and civil society, adds Pattanaik.

According to a US State Department's Country Report on Terrorism, 2017, since Holey Artisan Bakery attack, at least 79 suspected radicals have been killed and more than 150 others arrested in an aggressive anti-militancy crackdown. To support counter-terrorism, the Bangladesh government also enacted the country's first anti-terrorism law in 2009, which was amended in 2013. Moreover, to cripple terror at the heel, the government also formulated the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012.

"Bangladesh, a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, and with the central bank and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, is leading the government's efforts to counter the financing of terrorism," the report says.

"The carefully targeted arrests have visibly weakened the most threatening organisations in the country and reduced the danger of terrorist attacks. The government also imposed bans on six groups, including home-grown terror groups like Harkat-ul-Jihad Bangladesh, Ansar-ul-Bangla Team and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh," explains Dr Pattanaik.

Bangladesh's per capita income growth has risen to 6.2%, according to figures released by the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects (GEP), 2018. This figure is higher than the 5.4% average compared to developing countries, based on the same report. Bangladesh - the eighth most populous country in the world - has as many 165 million citizens, and is growing rapidly. Its economic growth reached 7.2% last year and has exceeded 6% for two straight decades, lifting 50 million people out of extreme poverty in the process, according to a report by the Centre for Research and Information, Bangladesh. Hasina's strong rule brought political stability to Bangladesh, enabling it to make noticeable socio-economic progress over the past 10 years, says Dr Arifin, former vice-chancellor of Dhaka University, adding - "Hasina has managed to overcome political and fundamentalist challenges that were also faced by her predecessor Khaleda Zia, with a different outlook and vision. Bangladesh is listed to become a middle-income country by 2024, provided that we maintain the current socio- economic development trajectory."

Bangladesh is the second largest exporters of garments in the world, running into billions of dollars annually, based on data from the International Trade Statistics of the World Bank, 2014. Hasina is also betting big on a self-financed 20 km- long $3.9 billion railroad bridge project on the mighty Padma River, expected to be a major turnaround for South Asia's youngest nation. The small nation, once written off as a "basket case" by former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, is on the verge of completing its biggest-ever infrastructure project all alone, says Dr Shafiul Alam from Dhaka University. "It will be a game-changer for Bangladesh's economy, a great boost to its national pride and a major poll plank for Prime Minister Hasina," he says.

Hasina's fate, however, hinges in the hands of its young voters - about 23.5 million of the 104 million-strong electorate, aged between 18 and 30, according to latest figures released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Former Bangladesh Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Dr M. Sakhawat Hussain says: "Though it is too early to say which side the first-time voters and other young voters are going to tilt, this segment, which has been ignored by political groups, will be the deciding factor as even a few hundred votes may work in the winner's favour." Bangladeshi youngsters want a stable future and they will carefully consider promises of political parties before voting, adds Alam.

Some analysts say that the ruling party is facing a relatively united opposition for the first time in more than 10 years. The contest has been thrown open, they say, with the formation of an opposition alliance - the Jatiya Oikya Front - which includes the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and other smaller opposition parties. It is being led by former president Badruddoza Chowdhury and former Awami League foreign and law minister Kamal Hossain, both of whom are contesting polls this year.

Bangladesh watchers, however, say if infrastructure development, economic growth and the "zero-tolerance" policy adopted by the Hasina government to counter violent extremism and prevent the country from becoming a terrorist "safe haven", are taken as yardstick, then the Bangladeshi voters have no better option than to vote the Awami League back to power. The opposition's unity will polarise the political narrative into Awami League versus the rest, but it has no consensus on a candidate for prime minister or a vision to match Hasina's, says Dr Arifin - "Bangladesh's socio-economic progress is robust, its entrepreneurial and grassroots economy is among the fastest growing in Asia, in Hasina's 10-year tenure, which will work in her favour."

The Muslim-dominated country's political narrative revolves around two major parties, the Awami League and BNP, both controlled by two powerful women and bitter rivals - Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia - who between each other, have alternately ruled South Asia's youngest country for decades. However, Khaleda Zia's indictment on October 29 raised her prison sentence from three to 10 years. Facing 37 cases, including 2004's grenade attack on Hasina, Zia has been barred from contesting polls, while her son and political heir, Tarique Rahman, is now a fugitive from justice, living in exile in London after a life sentence - this predicament has left the BNP leaderless, and many believe that it may limit their electoral prospects.

Netanyahu: Hezbollah tunnels ‘an act of war’ (Times of Israel) December 19, 2018

Ahead of the UN Security Council meeting later today on the cross-border attack tunnels attributed to the Hezbollah terror group, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the underground passages constitute “an act of war” and Lebanon is responsible.

The aim of Hezbollah was to “penetrate our territory, kidnap our people, including civilians, murder civilians, and conquer the northern piece of the Galilee. This is not merely an act of aggression, it’s an act of war,” says Netanyahu in an English- language speech.

“It is important to understand what Hezbollah is doing here. It’s committing a double war crime. It’s targeting Israeli civilians while jeopardizing, while hiding behind, Lebanese civilians. That’s a double war crime,” says Netanyahu.

“The people of Lebanon have to understand that Hezbollah is putting them in jeopardy and we expect Lebanon to take action against this, to protest against this, not to give in to this. And the fact that the Lebanese army is doing nothing means that they are either unable, or unwilling, or both.”

“It doesn’t absolve Lebanon’s culpability. Their territory is being used to attack our territory,” continues the prime minister.

“Therefore, we hold Lebanon accountable,” he says.

Asked whether the Lebanese army knew of the tunnel-digging, Netanyahu says: “To the best of our knowledge, the answer is no.” But he says the Lebanese military is now aware of the problem and must take action.

Netanyahu says the international community should hold Iran, Hezbollah and Lebanon accountable and heighten sanctions against the terror group.

Hezbollah is using “every third house” in southern Lebanon for terror purposes, he says.

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Piracy

Navy Winning Fight Against Sea Pirates, Says Navy Chief (Vanguard News Nigeria) By Nwafor Polycarp December 15, 2018

Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Adm. Ibok-Ete Ibas, stated this on Saturday during the inauguration of a naval medical centre and gulf course at the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Pathfinder in Port Harcourt.

Ibas attributed the declining occurrences of activities of sea pirates to the adoption of the Maritime Domain Awareness Infrastructure strategy launched few years ago.

He said: “We have been able to successfully reduce the incidences of sea piracy as well as contained the menace of maritime criminals we have at sea.

“We have robust infrastructure – maritime domain awareness infrastructure – which gives us an eye over the seas.

“Hitherto, these criminal elements carried out their actions, and we didn’t see them; but now, we see them and we are able to respond appropriately.

“This also goes to affirm that with necessary enablement that we will be able to carry out our legitimate functions – which is what the navy has done,” he said.

Ibas further attributed the success to the addition of the newly acquired warships and assault gunboats to the Nigerian navy fleet in the last one year.

The naval chief said the improved security at sea had resulted in steady rise in production of crude oil as well as economy of the nation.

He said that in spite of challenges encountered in 2018, the navy made remarkable progress in both operational duties and welfare of personnel.

“So, I am here at NNS Pathfinder as part of routine function to appraise the operational readiness of the Nigerian Navy. I am happy with our performance so far.

“The various commands that I visited have been able to judiciously utilise the resources that have been made available to them.

“So, it is on that note that I have commissioned a medical centre in addition to other welfare facilities to further encourage the officers and men and their families,” he said.

Abducted Boxship Crewmembers Released by Nigerian Pirates (The Maritime Executive) December 18, 2018

Eight Polish crewmembers from the container ship Pomerania Sky have been released by their captors, two months after they were kidnapped off the coast of Nigeria. Poland's foreign ministry thanked the shipowner and its partners for "their professional handling of this difficult matter." It also expressed gratitude to the Nigerian government.

"From the very beginning, the matter was dealt with by the interministerial team headed by the deputy minister of foreign affairs, and we are glad that the release took place before Christmas," said the ministry in a statement. "We would like to remind you that it was the fifth kidnapping of Poles in the Gulf of Guinea since 2013. We appeal to Polish seafarers to check that the shipowner has adequate insurance before starting work on a ship in a dangerous region of the world."

On October 27, pirates abducted 11 crewmembers from the container ship Pomerania Sky as she was headed for the port of Onne, Nigeria. Those abducted included eight from Poland, two Filipinos and one Ukrainian national. Nine crew members remained on board the vessel and brought her safely into port.

Pirate attacks are common in the Gulf of Guinea, and the area accounted for about one third of all piracy incidents in the first nine months of 2018, according to the IMB ICC. Just days after the attack on the Pomerania Sky, nine pirates in a speedboat approached an unnamed LNG carrier about 30 nm off Bonny, Nigeria, and opened fire. The master put on more speed and evaded the attackers, who eventually broke off and left the scene.

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Gender-Based Violence

The Elusive Peace: Ending Sexual Violence during and after Conflict (ReliefWeb) December 7, 2018

Awarding the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to advocates for survivors of wartime sexual violence, Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, indicates that the issue of sexual abuse has gained international recognition. This comes ten years after the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 1820, which declared that conflict- related sexual violence constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity. This Special Report highlights the limited scope of the resolution, examines the connections between sexual violence and conflict, and urges key stakeholders to view sexual violence—both during conflict and after—as a threat to international peace and security.

Summary

The consequences of sexual violence during armed conflict include trauma, social stigma, cyclical poverty, health issues, and unwanted pregnancies. Furthermore, the impacts of sexual violence during armed conflict last generations, disrupting societies and making peace elusive.

Recognizing the scale of the problem, the United Nations Security Council in 2008 adopted Resolution 1820, which condemned sexual violence as a tool of war and offered specific actions to address the causes and consequences of wartime sexual violence.

The implementation of Resolution 1820 has primarily focused on sexual violence committed by armed actors, but ten years of programming and research demonstrate clear connections between conflict and sexual violence that extend beyond wartime.

Other forms of sexual violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse, domestic sexual violence, and violence targeted at women in politics, are often exacerbated by armed conflict and increase insecurity. This report defines this violence as conflict-associated sexual violence.

Conflict-associated sexual violence contributes to the normalization of violence, undermines social cohesion, and worsens structural inequalities.

The harmful impacts of conflict-associated sexual violence threaten the security of women, communities, and states, and disrupt peace processes.

The United Nations and its member states, civil society organizations, media outlets, the private sector, and academia must recognize and address the detrimental impacts of conflict-associated sexual violence.

The policy community must consider conflict-associated sexual violence as both a public health and a security concern. About the Report

Adopted in 2008, UN Security Council Resolution 1820 called upon member states to end sexual violence against women and girls and acknowledged the international community’s responsibility to respond to and prevent conflict-related sexual violence. Although Resolution 1820 has led to remarkable progress in addressing sexual violence during conflict, narrow interpretations of what constitutes conflict-related sexual violence limit its impact. This report focuses on types of sexual violence that may occur outside of conflict but are worsened by it and makes recommendations to institutions that can play a role in preventing sexual violence during and after conflict.

New Report Provides First Comprehensive Legal Analysis of the Role of Gender in Genocide (Virtual Strategy Magazine) December 7, 2018

Today, the Global Justice Center (GJC) released the first comprehensive legal analysis of the gender-based crimes of genocide. Over the past four years, the world has witnessed at least two genocidal campaigns—against the Yazidis in Iraq and against the Rohingya in Myanmar. Widespread sexual and gender-based violence was central to both, as in the genocides in Darfur, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Guatemala. The new report, Beyond Killing, details the role that gender plays in the commission of genocide and the role it must therefore play in efforts to prevent and punish it.

For too long, the understanding of genocide has centered on killing, a genocidal act that most often impacts men. Women and girls are more likely to survive the initial wave of killings—facing enslavement, beatings, starvation, degradation, and other acts that form constitutive acts of genocide. Survivors of these abuses are not just witnesses to the genocide: they are its intended targets and require accountability and reparations. When the gendered, non-killing crimes of genocide go unrecognized, women and girls, in particular, are denied justice for the abuses they have suffered.

Despite the prevalence of non-killing gender-based crimes in genocidal campaigns, genocide has been prosecuted mostly in situations where mass killings have occurred, whereas non-killing genocidal acts have been tried as crimes against humanity, war crimes, or not at all. “The continued failure to acknowledge the complexity of genocidal violence, especially the role gender plays in the planning and commission of the crime, has undercut the development of an effective legal framework,” explains Global Justice Center President Akila Radhakrishnan. “It has weakened the legal obligations to prevent and punish genocide, to the detriment of victims and their communities.” Seventy years after the signing of the Genocide Convention, the international community must ensure that a gendered understanding of genocide is incorporated into prevention and accountability efforts.

“With accountability proceedings on the horizon for the Yazidis and Rohingya, the gendered crimes of genocide must not be ignored,” says international law barrister Sareta Ashraph, who authored the report. “The widespread and well- documented sexual and gender-based crimes committed during these genocidal campaigns requires a gender-sensitive response.” The international community must learn from the shortcomings of seven decades of genocide prosecutions and failed prevention efforts. A gender-blind analysis of genocide provides no real justice for women and girls. Just as gender is central to the planning and commission of genocide, it must also be central to accountability.

Nobel Peace Prize winners seek justice for war rape victims (Aljazeera) December 9, 2018

This year's Nobel Peace Prize winners have called for justice for the victims of sexual violence in conflicts around the world, a day before they will receive the award for their efforts to put an end to rape as a weapon of war.

Denis Mukwege, a doctor who helps victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) will jointly receive the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony on Monday in Oslo, Norway.

Mukwege heads the Panzi Hospital in the eastern DRC city of Bukavu. The clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery from sexual violence.

Murad is an advocate for the Yazidi minority in Iraq and for refugee and women's rights in general. She was enslaved and raped by ISIL fighters in Iraq's Mosul city in 2014.

ISIL abuse of Yazidi women

More than 6,800 Yazidis were kidnapped, of whom 4,300 either escaped or were bought as slaves, while 2,500 remain missing, according to a recent report by the International Federation for Human Rights.

Murad has campaigned for a United Nations investigative team to collect and preserve evidence of acts by ISIL in Iraq that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The team began its work in August, a year after it was approved by the UN Security Council.

Murad, speaking at a news conference at the Norwegian Nobel Institute on Sunday, said that not a single person in Iraq had yet faced justice for raping Yazidi women and girls.

"We have not seen a single piece of justice in this light. We need to receive justice one day," she told reporters via an interpreter, adding that 3,000 Yazidi women and girls still remained in sexual captivity with ISIL fighters.

But she was also hopeful. "If it was not for our campaign over the past four years, we would not have seen the steps we have seen towards justice."

'No discussion of justice'

Her fellow Nobel laureate, Mukwege, who lives on the grounds of the Panzi hospital and who frequently receives death threats, said justice needed to be included in any peace process.

The Second Congo War, which killed more than five million people, formally ended in 2003, but violence is still a problem in the country, where militias frequently target civilians.

"There is humanitarian law. We call on it to be applied in an impartial way. After the war ended, we have seen warlords reach the top of the state and there was no discussion of justice and violence has continued," he said at the news conference.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he said, would help bring perpetrators to justice.

"It will help the international community take its responsibilities when it comes to the victims of sexual violence," he said.

Mukwege also said he was concerned that elections in the DRC planned for December 23 could lead to a resurgence of violence if they were not free and transparent.

Statement by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Monday 10 December, where Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege will receive the prize (ReliefWeb) December 9, 2018

Nobel Peace Prize: Stronger efforts needed to prevent sexual violence in war

"This long overdue prize must be the beginning of a strengthened effort to protect women and men against sexual violence and abuse in wars and to ensure that those who commit what is pure war crimes are held accountable. In too many conflicts, sexual violence is being used as a barbaric weapon of war, in breach of international laws and with the victims of these crimes suffering in silence.

Nadia Murad is a truly inspiring, heroic woman, who has given an important voice to the thousands Yazidi victims of sexual violence and genocide and many more victims of atrocities worldwide.

The prize is also a very timely reminder that hundreds of thousands of victims of the Islamic State group in Iraq are still languishing homeless, with no justice. One year since the Iraqi government announced victory over Islamic State group, Ms Murad's city, Sinjar, remains largely uninhabitable. More than 200,000 people from Sinjar, mostly Yazidis, remain displaced in Iraq and abroad.

Across all of Iraq, some 1.8 million people are still internally displaced. For this year's Nobel Peace Prize to be really meaningful, the international community and the Iraqi government need to listen to Ms Murad and right the historical wrongs by giving all the victims of mass atrocities access to justice.

Denis Mukwege has for a long time been my personal favorite for the prize. With a danger to his own life, he has not only helped victims of sexual violence and abuse at the well-known Panzi hospital in DR Congo, but has also tirelessly advocated for change, to prevent more people from undergoing the same horrors."

Kosovo: Survivors of wartime sexual violence speak out (DW) By Aida Cama December 9, 2018 After many years of silence, hundreds of survivors of sexual violence during the Kosovo war have decided to come forward. Researchers argue that this crime was a weapon of "ethnic cleansing."

While she was being raped by a Serbian policeman and a civilian, Vasfije Krasniqi asked the policeman to kill her. She was only 16 when the men took her from her family home in Northern Kosovo on April 14, 1998. Back then, she saw death as the only possibility to escape her ordeal. "But he answered: No, you will suffer more if you stay alive," Vasfije Krasniqi said in an interview with Kosovo's public TV station RTK. She recalled how she addressed the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) after the end of the war to place charges against the men who raped her. But even after three trials, none of them was punished. One of them still lives in Kosovo, where he works as a policeman.

Today, Vasfije Krasniqi lives in Texas and is the mother of two children. In October, she returned to Kosovo to tell her story in a 25-minute television interview. Her rare act of courage has deeply moved the entire country.

It is estimated that thousands of people were victims of sexual violence during the Kosovo conflict of 1998-1999. Although they didn't talk to the media, as Vasfije Krasniqi did, 278 female and two male survivors spoke to members of Medica Gjakova about what happened. This NGO in Kosovo registers and supports survivors of wartime sexual violence.

On the basis of this information, sociologist and policy analyst Anna Di Lellio, a professor at New York University who had worked in Kosovo for years, conducted research on sexual violence during the Kosovo conflict. Together with Garentina Kraja, an independent researcher from Kosovo, and Mirlinda Sada, the executive director of Medica Gjakova, she brought new evidence to light. The results of this research were published this winter in the magazine Prishtina Insight. "We are able to show that the victims have been raped precisely in certain places and on certain dates, where mass killing happened," Di Lellio tells DW. The evidence is remarkable: "We have a picture, like a photograph, that includes the killing of dozens, sometimes hundreds of men, and an equally high number of rapes, as well as the burning of the houses and mass expulsions."

The researcher underlines that the nature of the crimes was systematic: "This is a picture of ethnic cleansing. When you destroy the house, you expel the people, you kill the men, you rape the women, and also rape some of the men," she says. In the article, Di Lellio also pointed out that the first time the crime of wartime sexual violence was given the label of 'tool of war' was during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

'A war crime and a crime against humanity'

In a similar way, the victims of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo "were sexually assaulted and insulted because of their ethnic origin. What the Serbian police, army, and paramilitaries did to Albanians during the war was ethnic cleansing, and rape was a tool of their strategy," Anna di Lellio added. "The rapes perpetrated by Serbian security forces in Kosovo were a war crime and a crime against humanity."

The stories of the 280 survivors have a lot in common. They were also tortured, cut and beaten, cigarettes were burned on their bodies, and there were always multiple perpetrators. While going through this nightmare, they were often insulted by being told: "You are Albanian women, so you can endure this, you are used to it," or "We're gonna show you what Serbian men are." Almost all of these 280 victims are ethnic Albanians, apart from 11 Roma women. All but one were raped by men from the Serbian security forces; only one Roma woman said that the perpetrator was an Albanian man.

For the victims, the war has never ended

During the war, the crime of sexual violence against women was part of the narrative, but postwar Kosovo stayed silent on this issue. The late Sevdije Ahmeti, who was a leading activist during the war, went to UNMIK at the start of its administration with 37 cases under her arm, hoping to bring justice to the survivors. But nothing happened on the institutional level. Help for the victims was mainly provided by women's organizations, which kept working on identifying and rehabilitating survivors.

Five survivors went to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague as witnesses against indicted Serbian security officials. There was only one conviction for sexual assault, in the case of General Nebosja Pavkovic: "He should have known that rape was happening," the verdict concluded, because the military in Serbia reported that this was going on, "but he didn't do anything to stop it." In three other similar cases of sexual violence, the accused were not convicted initially, but the judges reversed the previous verdicts on appeal.

Between 2002 and 2014, the ICTY shifted its perspective: When the judges took into account the context of sexual violence in the Kosovo war — mass expulsions, killings and destruction — they called it a "crime against humanity." Consequently, they convicted the commanders who allowed it. For survivors of sexual violence, the war has never ended. "And it will never end. It is going to last as long as they live," Anna di Lellio concluded. "But we can help them by recognizing what they are going through, and supporting them. I think this is what they need. Justice would be nice, but it is really very hard to imagine how it can happen for all of them. So many years have passed. One thing would be incredible: if Serbia recognized and acknowledged what Serbians have done to Kosovo."

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Commentary and Perspectives

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mukwege worried Congo vote could lead to war (Reuters) By Gwladys Fouche December 10, 2018

Presidential elections in Democratic Republic of Congo this month could lead to conflict if they are not free, fair and peaceful, and evidence suggests they will not be, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege said on Monday.

The Dec. 23 elections are scheduled to mark Congo’s first democratic transfer of power and end President Joseph Kabila’s rule, which began in 2001 after the assassination of his father.

Mukwege was co-recipient of the 2018 prize for his work as a doctor helping victims of sexual violence in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu. He has performed surgery on scores of women and campaigned to highlight their plight after they were raped by armed men.

He shared the prize with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery perpetrated by Islamic State.

“What I have seen as I was leaving my country did not reassure me,” Mukwege told Reuters before an award ceremony in Oslo.

“There is very little electoral preparation and a lot of military preparation. I am very worried that these elections will not be free, fair, credible and peaceful and that if there are massive frauds .... supporters (from losing candidates) will not accept them.”

He said election authorities were struggling to meet deadlines ahead of the vote and that violence was worsening in the eastern borderlands with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

“These ... elements suggest to me that oppression is being prepared, at the very minimum, and it could be that a war against its own people is being prepared,” he said.

Kabila was due to step down in 2016 at the end of his constitutional mandate. But the election to replace him was repeatedly delayed, igniting protests in which dozens were killed.

During the ceremony, Mukwege and Murad called for justice for the victims of sexual violence in conflicts.

“The perpetrators of sexual violence against Yazidi and other women and girls are yet to be prosecuted for these crimes,” said Murad, adding that more than 3,000 Yazidi women and girls were still held captive by Islamic State.

“If justice is not done, this genocide will be repeated against us and against other vulnerable communities,” she said.

Both Murad and Mukwege received several standing ovations, with many guests wiping away tears.

Mukwege called on a U.N. report into the war crimes committed in Congo to name those it investigated. “This investigation explicitly names the victims, the places and the dates, but leaves the perpetrators nameless,” he said.

“Let us have the courage to reveal the names ... to prevent them from continuing to plague the region.”

Kabila told Reuters on Sunday preparations for the election were proceeding smoothly and he wanted it to be “as close to perfection” as possible.

He also did not rule out running again for president in 2023. Critics say he could rule from behind the scenes if his candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, wins this month. Mukwege said Kabila had the right to run in 2023 but he hoped voters would remember Kabila’s “broken promises”.

“None of the elements needed to install a real democracy have been made during his time in power,” he said.

A war in which some 5 million people died ended in 2003, but violence is still a problem and militias target civilians.

Mukwege called for pressure on manufacturers that use cobalt and coltan that Congo produces to control their supply chains to prevent child and slave labor.

He also called for pressure on Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda to pacify armed groups that fight in eastern Congo.

It was not possible to reach a spokesman for the DRC government.

U.N. investigation delves into Islamic State’s crimes against Yazidis (Reuters) By Umberto Bacchi December 12, 2018

A U.N. investigation into atrocities committed against Yazidis and others in Iraq will do more than simply gather information that will molder in an archive, the probe’s leader said on Wednesday, it will help bring perpetrators to justice.

The team, led by British lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan began its work in August, a year after it was approved the U.N. Security Council.

Speaking on the sidelines of a London event celebrating Yazidi activist Nadia Murad - who won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize - Khan said the investigation will get into full gear in 2019.

“We will be pushing forward with greater capacity next year once we have a budget from the United Nations,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The investigation aims to collect and preserve evidence of acts by Islamic State in Iraq that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

In September 2017 - after a year of talks with Iraq - the U.N. council adopted a resolution asking U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to create the team “to support domestic efforts” to hold the militants accountable.

The evidence gathered is primarily for use by Iraqi authorities.

Whether that evidence will then be shared with international courts, will “be determined in agreement with the Government of Iraq on a case-by-case basis,” according to the resolution.

“This mandate was not created to create simply an archive that would gather dust,” said Khan.

“Our bid is ... to ensure that the best possible evidence is presented, is preserved, is collected. The necessary investigations are committed so that those who committed these horrendous acts are subjected to the vigor of the law.”

U.N. experts warned in June 2016 that Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, destroying the minority religious community through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

Supporters of the Yazidi cause have expressed irritation at delays the probe has faced.

“Four years have passed since the crimes of genocide committed against Yazidis but we have seen no justice as yet for the victims and survivors,” Karwan Tahir, the Kurdish regional government’s representative in Britain told the London event.

About 7,000 women and girls were captured in northwest Iraq in August 2014 and held by Islamic State in Mosul where they were tortured and raped.

Murad, a young Yazidi woman who was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul in 2014, and international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney have long pushed Iraq to allow U.N. investigators to help.

Amnesty says ISIL ‘annihilation’ of rural Iraq is a war crime (Al Jazeera) By Al Jazeera December 13, 2018

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL, also known as ISIS) "deliberate, wanton annihilation" of agricultural land in northern Iraq amounts to a war crime, Amnesty International has said. The rights group, in a report released on Thursday, said the ISIL's "scorched-earth tactics" devastated Iraq's rural communities as it looted livestock, burned orchards, planted land mines, sabotaged water pumps and destroyed farmland.

The report was released a day after Nobel Peace Prize winner and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad visited Iraq's capital, Baghdad, to call for more government support to her native Sinjar region.

ISIL overran Sinjar in 2014, killing Yazidi men, forcefully enlisting boys as soldiers and kidnapping more than 6,000 women and girls as "sex slaves".

The US-backed Iraqi forces gradually drove the fighters from the territory under their control, declaring victory last year after a costly campaign that destroyed entire neighbourhoods and towns.

"The conflict against ISIL eviscerated Iraq's agricultural production, now an estimated 40 percent lower than 2014 levels," the Amnesty report said.

"Before ISIL, around two-thirds of Iraq's farmers had access to irrigation - only three years later, this had fallen to 20 percent. Around 75 percent of livestock was lost, spiking to 95 percent in some areas."

Richard Pearshouse, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, said the consequences of the conflict on Iraq's rural residents are "being largely forgotten".

"The damage to Iraq's countryside is as far-reaching as the urban destruction," he said.

The London-based rights group said ISIL fighters sabotaged wells by filling them with rubble, oil or other materials. The armed group also stole or destroyed pumps, cables, generators, transformers and vital electricity lines.

Amnesty called on the Iraqi government to repair rural infrastructure and compensate the displaced. About half of Sinjar's residents have returned, with many others saying they have nothing to go back to.

"There is nothing left. Now the house is destroyed, and all the trees burned down," Majdar, a farmer in his mid-50s from a village south of Sinjar mountain, told Amnesty.

"We had 100 olive trees, but when I went I didn't see a single tree in any direction. They were chopped down and burned … They wanted us to lose everything. They didn't want us to be able to come back to our land," he said.

ISIL still maintains its presence in the Syrian desert and remote areas along the border with Iraq. Many warn it could stage a comeback if economic grievances are not addressed.

"Unless there is urgent government assistance, the long-term damage inflicted on Iraq's rural environment will reverberate for years to come," Pearshouse said.

"When ISIL tore through Iraq in 2014, it thrived off rural poverty and resentments, so Iraq's government should be concerned that something similar could happen again."

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WORTH READING

Accountability for British War Crimes in Iraq? Examining the Nexus Between International and National Justice Responses By Thomas Obel Hansen Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volume 1, Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, Brussels, 2018 December 7, 2018

In May 2014, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) Fatou Bensouda announced that her Office had decided to re-open a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes committed by British soldiers in Iraq in the period 2003-08.

Bensouda’s decision followed in the wake of a “devastating dossier” of evidence being provided to her Office by public international law and human rights groups. The Office of the Prosecutor’s (‘OTP’ or ‘Office’) decision put the United Kingdom (‘UK’) – an ICC State Party and long-standing supporter of the Court – under scrutiny for the second time. A previous examination had been terminated by former Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the grounds that the allegations of UK abuses in Iraq were not sufficiently grave. The Iraq/UK preliminary examination is of interest for several reasons. First, it presents the first time that a major power and State Party has been put under ICC scrutiny, raising novel questions concerning ICC-State relations. Second, the alleged crimes involve war crimes, such as abuse of detainees committed in a major international armed conflict, as opposed to the type of civil war and/or election violence situations which have been the focus of most ICC activity to date. Third, the existence of a variety of judicial processes in the UK which address crimes allegedly committed in Iraq raises important questions relating to the ICC’s existing complementarity regime. Based on interviews with British authorities, ICC officials, the lawyers who made submissions to the ICC (the Article 15 communication providers), and other human rights lawyers and academics, this chapter examines the dynamics, consequences and impact of the Iraq/UK preliminary examination. Overall, the chapter aims to clarify how this preliminary examination has been approached and whether it has impacted justice processes in the domestic sphere – and the rule of law more broadly – and if so, how and why. In this way, the chapter provides a critical empirical examination of the assumptions made in the scholarship and by ICC prosecutors about ‘positive complementarity’ as well as an early case study of how a great power responds to and interacts with the Court when subject to a preliminary examination. In particular, the chapter offers a detailed analysis of the interactions between the ICC’s preliminary examination into alleged UK abuses in Iraq and the response by the British government, including judicial measures put in place domestically to address the alleged crimes and broader policy responses. The chapter further identifies and elaborates the strategies adopted by the OTP, British authorities and other relevant stakeholders such as the civil society groups and lawyers submitting material to the OTP. In this way, the chapter contributes to our understanding of how the ICC approaches preliminary examinations in ‘hard cases’ involving major powers (in this case involving a permanent member of the UN Security Council), and how such powers respond and engages the Court when put under scrutiny. Notwithstanding some debate among academics concerning the Iraq/UK preliminary examination, this chapter – together with Rachel Kerr’s contribution to this volume – present the first detailed academic analyses of how the Iraq/UK preliminary examination has unfolded to date, the responses to it by British authorities and its broader ramifications. While focusing on the interaction between the ICC’s preliminary examination and domestic accountability efforts, the chapter demonstrates how the examination is just one part of a number of critical developments that have engendered an interest in investigating alleged crimes perpetrated by UK forces in Iraq. The chapter sheds light on a complex network of factors that have driven British authorities to investigate these crimes, including the creation of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (‘IHAT’), a unit established to examine the veracity of the alleged crimes with an eye on criminal prosecutions. In so doing, the chapter illustrates complex interactions between the UK and the ICC concerning how the preliminary examination should proceed with a shared object in mind: avoiding a direct confrontation between the Court and the UK. At the same time, there are conflicting interests and understandings concerning what the accountability processes for alleged crimes in Iraq should look like and how they should proceed. This raises profound questions relating to quality control in preliminary examinations, including whether avoiding a confrontation may come at the price of not opening a formal investigation due to long-lasting but not necessarily effective investigate steps domestically. The chapter proceeds as follows: First, it outlines the assumptions made about the connections between preliminary examinations and positive complementarity, including relevant OTP standards and policy objectives (Section 13.2.). Next, it provides an overview of the Iraq/UK preliminary examination as well as the crimes under examination (Section 13.3.). It then proceeds to an analysis of the OTP’s strategies, expectations to domestic proceedings and the Office’s engagement with other stakeholders in this accountability process (Section 13.4.) Following that analysis, the chapter examines how UK authorities have responded to the preliminary examination, including an analysis of how the ICC’s preliminary examination and the dynamics surrounding it have impacted legal processes in the UK (Section 13.5.). The chapter concludes by discussing the broader ramifications of the Iraq/UK preliminary examination.

Human Rights in International Criminal Proceedings – The Impact of the Judgement of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers of 26 April 2017 By Goran Sluiter William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2019 December 9, 2018

By their very nature international criminal tribunals will in their operation impact upon individual rights, such as the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial. Without a constitution and without a history in developing due process norms, international criminal tribunals have to provide for instant incorporation of human rights in their respective criminal proceedings. However, the circumstances under which international criminal tribunals are established are often complex while at the same time their creation is considered to be a matter of urgency. As a result, there may not always be sufficient attention to human rights law’s position and rank in the applicable sources of law during the creation of international criminal tribunals. In practice, the effect of human rights law in international criminal proceedings has proven at times to be problematic. Without elaborate written procedural rules, it may at times be uncertain what the precise scope of the proceedings’ interference with individual rights and liberties are, or ought to be.

On 26 April 2017 the Constitutional Chamber of the KSC has reviewed the due process content of the KSC’s newly drafted Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE). It concluded that the RPE adopted by the Judges were inconsistent with human rights in a number of ways, especially because of lack of sufficiently detailed rules governing investigations which interfere with individual rights, such as search and seizure operations and wiretaps. It raises the question, subject of this paper, whether the KSC has raised the bar in terms of the principle of procedural legality and whether the current loose approach in international criminal proceedings to investigative powers is in violation of international human rights law. If this research question is answered in the affirmative it would necessitate a significant overhaul of the organization of international criminal proceedings, especially in its pre-trial phase.

In order to answer the aforementioned research question I will first provide an overview and analysis of the position of human rights in international criminal proceedings (2). Next, it will be examined how international criminal proceedings have been organized in relation to international human rights law (3). The paper then shifts to KSC. First, it is necessary to provide information and background on the creation of the KSC (4). The subsequent section analyses the judgement of April 2017 of the KSC’s Constitutional Chamber (5). Its impact on the protection of rights and the organization of international criminal proceedings will be the subject of section 6. The paper ends with concluding observations (7).

The Current Status of Cultural Genocide Under International Law By David Nersessian

December 11, 2018

This paper analyzes the current state of cultural genocide under international law

It juxtaposes the original legal definition of cultural genocide proposed (and rejected) in the 1948 Genocide Convention against the ways that international law treats cultural genocide today. The goal is to consider examples of the different ways that international law now handles cultural genocide in order to compare them to the original conception. To that end, the concept is analyzed in several settings where international law is developed and applied, such as international criminal tribunals, human rights bodies, domestic courts, and UN organs. After a brief review of historical antecedents, acts of cultural destruction that prima facie would meet the original definition are considered through various alternative legal lenses – as descriptive and evidentiary matters, as human rights violations, and as other types of international crimes (notably, war crimes and crimes against humanity). The paper concludes that, despite some progress, considerable gaps remain. The international community therefore should continue to work toward an international instrument that addresses the true criminality inherent in cultural genocide.

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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

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Emerging Issues Advisor Judge Rosemelle Mutoka Contact: [email protected]

Africa

Central African Republic Amy Kochert, Senior Editor David Codispoti, Associate Editor

Sudan & South Sudan Amy Kochert, Senior Editor George Kamanda, Associate Editor

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Europe

Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Section Mary Preston, Senior Editor

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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

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

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Commentary and Perspectives

Alayna Bridgett, Senior Editor Courtney Koski, Associate Editor

Worth Reading

Taylor Frank Andrew Schiefer, Associate Editor

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