Niger Country Report 2024    By Brooklyn Quallen     Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world.    Poverty has led to internal insecurity, including armed banditry. Jihadists gained a foothold by providing some anti-bandit protection. But Fulani jihadist terrorism against the Djerma has included numerous genocidal massacres.     Since obtaining independence from France in 1960, Niger has had five coups d'état and four military juntas. Niger’s seventh constitution in 2010 established a multiparty system. President Mohamed Bazoum of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism was deposed by another  military coup  on July 23, 2023.        The military junta alleges that Bazoum committed “ high treason, ” It has detained him in the presidential palace,  The junta shut down parliament and restricted civil liberties. General Abdourahamane Tchian, who led the coup, says Niger will return to democracy in three years .  [Military regimes never give up power except by military coup or popular uprisings.]     The main jihadist organization in Niger is the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), a branch of ISIS that dominates the Tillabéri region in the west. Its Islamist ideology does not attract rural villagers, but the ISGS provides some protection from bandits. However, ISGS’s use of zakat , a forced taxation practice, causes resentment in Nigerien villagers against ISGS forces. Attempts to collect zakat is the justification ISGS always gives for its massacres of civilian villages.    Languages of Niger Copyright 2014 Jacques Leclerc    On January 2 , 2021, at least 100 civilians were killed in attacks on two villages. On March 15 , 2021, 58 were killed. On March 21 , the deadliest attack on civilians in Niger’s history claimed the lives of 137 citizens. Since 2021, jihadist attacks have occurred almost monthly in the south and west. They have killed hundreds of civilians and Nigerien troops.     ISGS recruits its fighters from close to the Malian border, so they mostly come from the Fulani ethnic group  that lives there. The Djerma occupy the Tillabéri region, where they have a long history of conflicts with the Fulani over resources and land. ISGS has conducted many ethnic massacres against Djerma civilians. Among Djerma, there is a perception  that all Fulani are terrorists. In retaliation, Djerma have organized ethnic militias that target Fulani.   Ethnic map of Niger. source: Wikipedia    Niger’s responses to both the terrorist attacks and the ethnic tensions that underpin them have been ineffective. The state does not have the capacity to maintain control of the Tillabéri region, so ISGS has been able to grow almost unchecked. Where counterterrorism operations have taken place, the Nigerien military has been accused of grave human rights abuses , including extrajudicial killings of Djerma civilians.  Efforts to promote multi-ethnic harmony have been ineffective.       The 2023 coup has destabilized the security situation even further. On August 16, 2023 , insurgents attacked the Nigerien army in the Tillabéri region, killing 17 soldiers and wounding 24.     The Bazoum government invited French, US, and German forces to help fight terrorism. The military junta has now forced US,  French, and German soldiers to leave Niger. The resulting  security vacuum  has been filled by Russian mercenaries.      Due to the genocidal massacres of the Djerma by Fulani jihadists, Genocide Watch recognizes Niger as being at Stage 6: Polarization  and Stage 8: Persecution .      Genocide Watch recommends:    The Nigerien junta must immediately release President Bazoum and restore democracy and constitutional order.    With AU and international assistance, Niger must reestablish its control in its Tillabéri region.    Niger should expel Russian mercenaries and allow NATO to reestablish its anti-terrorist base in Agadez.   Niger must stop banditry and ISGS forced taxation. Niger’s army needs help to defeat ISGS and Fulani jihadism.    Niger must implement initiatives to promote ethnic cooperation, economic development, and the rule of law.

Algeria Country Report   2024   By Brooklyn Quallen   After a bloody war with France, Algeria won its independence in 1962. Algerian nationalists seized power and ran Algeria as a one-party state until 1988, when the constitution was amended to allow for multiple political parties. The nationalist party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), remained in power and still controls the government.   The FLN espouses Pan-Arabism as a core tenet of its ideology, which has isolated non-Arab, especially Berber Kabyle, ethnic minorities. Repressive Arabization policies have catalyzed ethnic conflict and violence, especially in the region of Kabylia.   Ethnic and linguistic map of Algeria. Copyright 2024 Daniel Dalet/d+maps.com Kabylia is home to the Kabyles, the largest indigenous group of Algeria. Kabylia was not conquered during the Arab conquests of the 7th century, so it developed a more unified regional identity than is found among other North African indigenous groups. In 1857, the French brutally colonized Kabylia.  During the Algerian war for independence, anti-colonial Kabyle forces fought alongside Arab nationalist factions against the French colonizers. After the war, those same Arab nationalist factions turned on the Kabyles and attempted to force them to assimilate into the new, Arabized Algerian national identity.   Repression of Kabyle culture led to the 1980 “Berber Spring” protests. Harsher suppression, such as the arbitrary detention and killing of Kabyle activists, led to the 2001  “Black Spring”  mass protests. Following those protests, Kabyle activists created the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK) , now called the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie.   Although MAK was a peaceful movement for the region’s autonomy, the Algerian government ignored its demands and continued to quash indigenous opposition to Arabization.  In 2021, Kabyles   boycotted national elections  to protest arbitrary detentions and other corrupt government practices, in hopes of prompting some reforms.  In response, the Algerian government sought to discredit the opposition. It amended its penal code and its definition of terrorism  to repress Kabyle parties. It used the amended definition to declare MAK a terrorist organization and began prosecuting MAK members for “undermining national unity” and “harming the national interest.”   From May 2021 to March 2022,   some 281 Kabyle activists were detained  on largely fabricated charges. At least ten were tortured and sexually abused in custody. (These numbers are only what rights groups have been able to verify.) In 2022, 54 Kabyle activists  were sentenced to death under the new and expanded definition of terrorist activity.   Due to the Algerian state’s human rights abuses against its Kabyle Berber ethnic minority, Genocide Watch recognizes Algeria as being at Stage 3: Discrimination  and Stage 8: Persecution.    Genocide Watch recommends:   The Algerian government must immediately release all arbitrarily detained Kabyle political prisoners. Those who have received death sentences should have their sentences overturned.  The Algerian government must recognize Kabylia’s right to self-government and hold a referendum to allow the region to choose whether it should be an autonomous region.  International governments must reject Algeria’s amended definition of terrorism  that criminalizes self-determination movements and other forms of political opposition.

By Will Ross & Damian Zane An Egyptian ship has delivered a significant consignment of military equipment to Somalia, security officials in the capital, Mogadishu, are quoted as saying. Somali Defence Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur thanked Egypt in a social media post without specifically mentioning the weapons. This is the second such delivery from Egypt in a month as relations deteriorate between Somalia and its neighbour and one-time close ally Ethiopia. Egypt, a long-time rival of Ethiopia, has taken the opportunity to move closer to Somalia, stoking concerns about rising tensions in the Horn of Africa. The military cargo, carried on a warship that arrived on Sunday, included anti-aircraft guns and artillery, the Reuters news agency reports citing security and port officials. A BBC reporter in Mogadishu himself saw weapons being transported through the streets of the city. In his post on X, Mr Nur is pictured with his back to the camera looking at a docked naval vessel. "Somalia has passed the stage where they were dictated to and awaited the affirmation of others on who it will engage with," he wrote. "We know our own interests, and we will choose between our allies and our enemies. Thank you Egypt." This sentiment is a result of shifting alliances in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has for years been a staunch backer of the government in Mogadishu in its fight against al-Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab. But Somalia is furious that landlocked Ethiopia signed a preliminary deal at the beginning of this year with the self-declared republic of Somaliland to lease a section of its coastline. Somalia sees Somaliland as part of its territory. Meanwhile, Addis Ababa and Cairo have been at loggerheads for more than a decade over Ethiopia's construction of a vast hydroelectric dam on the River Nile. Egypt sees this as a possible threat to the volume of water flowing down the river, which it relies on. Somaliland, which is not recognised internationally, said it was "deeply alarmed" by the weapons shipment. "The unchecked proliferation of arms in an already fragile environment heightens the risk of an arms race, with various factions likely seeking to acquire their own stockpiles in order to safeguard their interests," Somaliland's ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement . At the weekend, in a further sign of the strains in the region, Egypt called on its citizens living in Somaliland to leave for security reasons. This is not the first time weapons have arrived in Somalia from Egypt. In August, two Egyptian military planes delivered arms and ammunition to Mogadishu. That delivery came after a deal signed earlier in August during a state visit to Cairo by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Ethiopia said at the time that it could not “stand idle while other actors take measures to destabilise the region”. Somalia’s defence minister hit back, saying Ethiopia should stop “wailing” as everyone “will reap what they sowed” - a reference to their worsening diplomatic relations. Ethiopia currently has 3,000 troops in Somalia as part of an African Union force supporting the government. There is now a plan for up to 5,000 Egyptian soldiers to join a new-look AU force at the end of the year, with another 5,000 reportedly to be deployed separately. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved.

Looking Backward into The Future: Why the United Nations Has Failed to Prevent Genocide The Cairo Review September 19, 2024 By Gregory H. Stanton thecairoreview.com/essays/looking-backward-into-the-future-why-the-united-nations-has-failed-to-prevent-genocide/ Essays Summer 2024 At its root, genocide is committed through a lack of empathy, and it has failed to be prevented by a lack of political will. It is time to reverse those failings by rethinking our systems and challenging our assumptions. This essay is adapted in part from a keynote speech delivered by Dr. Stanton on April 26, 2024 to a conference on “Teaching About Genocide” sponsored by the Educators Institute for Human Rights, the Alliance Against Genocide, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. It is published under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license. The United Nations General Assembly. credit United Nations With the death toll of World War II at 85 million killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history, the victors founded the United Nations in 1945 to prevent future wars. To avert another Holocaust, the UN General Assembly passed the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. But the United Nations has failed to prevent war or genocide. Since its founding, the UN has been crippled by the veto of the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council. The colonial era had not ended by 1945, and the colonial powers, including the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China wanted to keep their empires. The most powerful nation, the United States, wanted to maintain its military and economic dominance. These five nations insisted on having vetoes in the Security Council, the only UN body with the power to authorize the use of military force. If even one of the P5 vetoes a decision, the UN cannot authorize military intervention anywhere in the world. It is a fatal flaw in the UN Charter, which must be amended. The Making of Uniting for Peace In 1950, North Korea, with Soviet support, invaded South Korea. The USSR had made the mistake of walking out of the Security Council from January through July 1950 because the UN refused to recognize Communist China’s claim to China’s seat in the UN. During the USSR’s absence, the United States, United Kingdom, and France pushed through the creation of a UN force to intervene in Korea. To get around Soviet vetoes once it returned to the Security Council and to provide a future alternative to that body, the United States sponsored General Assembly Resolution 377A , widely known as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. It states that in cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among the P5, fails to act as required to maintain international peace and security, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures—including the use of armed force when necessary. It was adopted on November 3, 1950, by a vote of 52 to 5, with 2 abstentions. The resolution was designed to provide the UN with an alternative avenue for action when at least one P5 member uses its veto to obstruct the Security Council from carrying out its functions mandated by the UN Charter. To facilitate prompt action by the General Assembly in the case of a deadlocked Security Council, the resolution created the mechanism of the emergency special session (ESS). Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on eleven occasions, with the most recent in February 2022, to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sessions can be suspended and reconvened when needed. Although the United States originally sponsored the Uniting For Peace Resolution, it has become very reluctant to use it. When I was a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department, State lawyers told me, “Oh, we don’t favor Uniting For Peace anymore. In the General Assembly, the U.S. has no veto.” Nonetheless, the United States again supported the use of Uniting For Peace after Russia invaded Ukraine because Moscow would have vetoed any UN action in the Security Council. The critical point here is that the United States and other members of the P5 should use Uniting For Peace much more often to call for armed UN peacekeeping missions to stop genocides and prosecute their perpetrators. But there could be an even more powerful solution to the P5 veto: The Charter can be amended by calling a General Conference of the United Nations under Article 109(3) which requires only a majority vote of the UN General Assembly and a vote of any seven members of the UN Security Council to convene. A General Conference of the UN cannot be blocked by a P5 veto. It appears that the P5 are afraid of a General Conference to amend the UN Charter because it would almost certainly call to abolish their veto. The P5 would face pressure to give up their stranglehold on the effectiveness of the UN. Unable to Prevent Genocide? In the meantime, the United Nations has failed to prevent war and genocide because it is built on the old nation-state system, which allows national governments to claim the right to commit crimes against their own citizens and justify genocide under claims of sovereignty. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine was supposed to overcome claims of national sovereignty. R2P posits that sovereignty doesn’t come down from rulers, but rather rises up from the people. Underlying R2P is the Enlightenment concept in Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson of “popular sovereignty”, which holds that when a nation is tyrannized by its own government, its citizens have the right to overthrow that government. Under R2P, the United Nations and relevant regional organizations have the right to intervene in nations that are murdering their own citizens. However, very few nations are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own military troops to carry out such R2P interventions. R2P has not yet become enforceable international law. Like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is an aspirational doctrine. It is still rejected by genocidal states. Moreover, many Asian and African nations, as well as Russia and China, see R2P as an attempt by Europe and the United States to reimpose colonial rule. The lack of a United Nations Military Force also makes genocide prevention difficult. The UN has no standing military force. A UN Military Force consisting of forces from UN member states is authorized by Articles 43 through 47 of the United Nations Charter. The Military Staff Committee, composed of Chiefs of Staff of P5 Security Council members, has never been operationalized. The main reason is that none of the P5 want a strong UN military force that could oppose their own armies. Current UN peacekeeping missions are too weak to overpower national armies—they cannot stop genocides. It is time to create a UN Military Force like NATO’s, but without NATO’s requirement of unanimity to take military action. Genocide Watch has proposed an Optional Protocol to the Genocide Convention that would reaffirm the empowerment of regional organizations—acting in a consistent manner with the purposes and provisions of the Charter—to take collective action to maintain international peace and security under the UN Charter’s Chapter Eight. It sets forth procedures to determine whether genocide is underway or at significant risk of being committed, and it provides procedures for assembling armed forces to intervene to prevent or stop genocides. The International Criminal Court has no police force. Further hindering efforts to prevent genocide is the fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no police force to arrest people it charges. Courts cannot work without police forces to enforce their arrest warrants. Today, there is no effective international police force to arrest people charged with crimes by the ICC or by international tribunals. National police forces usually refuse to arrest perpetrators of genocide because the police often serve under the same leaders charged by the ICC. Meanwhile, Interpol functions only to exchange intelligence between national police forces. It is not an international police force itself. The UN still lacks such a force to prevent genocide by arresting national leaders who are planning or perpetrating genocide. The world needs an international police force. But injecting such police into a nation-state is still considered a violation of national sovereignty by many governments, especially genocidal regimes. R2P, as an emerging international norm, may be invoked in answer to such arguments. But how many nations are willing to send their army or police into other countries to face heavily armed national military forces determined to keep them out? The answer can be seen in the difficulty the UN has in recruiting troops for its peacekeeping operations, especially from countries with powerful militaries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. If the UN can’t muster the forces, other means must be found. One way to create an International Police Force would be to pass an Optional Protocol to the Treaty of the International Criminal Court to authorize one. It would have authority only to execute arrest warrants for persons charged by the ICC with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. But even such a police force would face resistance from genocidal states. The fundamental problem is the persistent paradigm of national sovereignty. Genocide Watch’s proposed Optional Protocol to the Genocide Convention would reaffirm the authority of the UN General Assembly to recommend the use of force when the UN Security Council is paralyzed by a P5 veto. This authority already exists under the Uniting for Peace Resolution of 1950. Rethinking the Law of Genocide As a lawyer trained by Myres McDougal and Michael Reisman at Yale Law School, I was taught that law and policy are not two separate realms: that law is concretized policy, and law should be evaluated as policy. I am also a cultural anthropologist, trained by Victor Turner, Marshall Sahlins, and Leo Kuper. They trained me to look beneath the surface for the deeper structures and schisms that underlie societies and conflicts. An anthropological analysis of lawyers in the international sphere may help us understand why the Genocide Convention has thus far failed to prevent genocide. Sadly, the Convention was born toothless, and lawyers have kept it from ever outgrowing its baby teeth. The training of lawyers creates a backward-looking, adjudication-oriented view of genocide. At a conference at Cardozo Law School in 2011, a lawyer colleague put it this way, “The convention was primarily meant to adjudicate an individual’s criminal responsibility”. Lawyers in the U.S. State Department and U.K. Foreign Office even say they cannot use the term genocide until a court does. One purpose of the Convention is certainly to punish genocidists. But if that is all it is, then we have forgotten the very name of the Convention: the “International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”. The Convention was meant to be forward-looking and preventive, not just a law for punishment. The Precautionary Principle In 2007, with my epidemiologist colleague, Dr. Elihu Richter, we submitted a proposal to the Albright-Cohen Commission convened to recommend ways to strengthen the U.S. response to preventing genocide. The Commission recommended establishing the U.S. Atrocities Prevention Board. We told the Commission that The Precautionary Principle should be applied by the Board when risks of genocide appear. The Precautionary Principle states that when there is uncertainty concerning the possibility of the occurrence of a major catastrophic event, the costs of inaction far outweigh those of anticipatory preventive action. The Precautionary Principle shifts the burden of proof from those suspecting a catastrophic risk to those denying it. In everyday terms, the Precautionary Principle states that it is better to be safe than sorry. We were ignored. The default policy of diplomats and world leaders when there are warning signs of genocide remains to do nothing and wait until the genocide is underway. Even then, because the cost will be so high: do nothing. We know the political risk factors for genocide. Statistical studies by Barbara Harff have outlined them as: ongoing civil or international war; past genocide that has gone unpunished and is still denied; rule by an ethnically exclusive elite; official exclusionary ideology; autocracy or totalitarianism; closure of relations with the outside world; massive human rights violations such as torture and extrajudicial killings. The anti-genocide movement should work against war and for punishment of perpetrators. We should press for broadly-based democratic governments. We should oppose ideologies of racial or class superiority. We should favour free trade and free speech. We should strongly oppose violations of fundamental human rights by any regime. Nevertheless, these factors cannot tell us when genocide is likely to happen, and therefore are of limited use in prevention. That is why I developed a model of the genocidal process, “The Ten Stages of Genocide.” I now regret choosing the word “stages” because it implies linearity in the model. In the first paragraph of the model, I stated that “the process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously”. I should have just called the “stages” processes. They are what structural anthropologists call a transformational structure—a system of transformations. The Ten Stages of Genocide provides the outline of a transformational grammar of genocidal processes. I owe these concepts of structure to Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable, but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop genocide. The process is not linear; many stages operate simultaneously. It is a logical model for thinking about the genocidal process and what we can do to prevent or stop it. The model helps analysts organize the precursors of genocide so that strategies can be prescribed to stop each process that may lead to genocide. It is like organizing the processes that lead to diabetes so that methods can be prescribed to reduce each process; weight loss, reduction of sugar in the diet, medications that remove sugar from the body, and other methods may be prescribed to hold off the disease. The Ten Stages of Genocide are Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination, and Denial. A fuller description of the Ten Stages can be found on the Genocide Watch website. The original memo I wrote in 1996 was intended to educate State Department officers about the genocidal process and how to stop it. I knew it had to fit on one page, back and front, or it would not be read. Little did I know that it would become a paradigmatic model used by teachers and policymakers around the world. Overcoming Ethnocentrism, Racism, Nationalism, and Religious Intolerance Genocide is committed by people who have lost sight of our common humanity. Though we are born into thousands of ethnic groups that speak thousands of languages and belong to hundreds of nations and have scores of religions, all humans belong to one family. Some think there are many races, but there is really only one race: the human race. Genocide is committed when we become ethnocentric, racist, nationalistic, or religiously intolerant. Genocide is idolatry. We worship our ethnic group, race, nation, or religion instead of God. We build golden altars and sacrifice human beings upon them. Instead of blessing all humans as God’s creations, we bathe our weapons with their blood. Several steps must be taken to overcome these centrifugal forces that divide human beings and lead to wars and genocides. We must build educational systems that create anti-genocidal cultures. Genocide requires popular participation; 200,000 people participated in the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Churches in Rwanda could have played a powerful role in creating a culture resistant to genocide because many Hutus and Tutsis are Roman Catholics and attended the same churches, but the church was as ethnically divided as the rest of Rwandan society. Some clergy even participated in the killings. Today in Rwanda, churches are finally fulfilling the role they should play by fostering forgiveness and reconciliation. In rethinking genocide prevention, we should pay special attention to the “bottom-up” dimension of genocide. How can anti-genocidal cultures be built? Religion has far too often been a cause of genocide. But what if every major religious establishment regularly affirmed the core principle in all religions: that all human beings belong to one race—the human race? We need to spark the efforts of people at the grassroots in schools, universities, seminaries, churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples all over the world. What if the Roman Catholic Church made one of its core doctrines the unity of the human race and the prevention of genocide? We have already talked to Pope Francis about this proposal. He has embraced the idea. 2. Many more nations must elect women as their leaders. To end genocide and war, women must be empowered. Women bring a different dimension to conflicts and conflict resolution processes compared to those dominated by men. Women have played a consistently positive role in fostering dialogue, reaching peace agreements, and addressing root causes of conflict. To put the difference between men’s and women’s approaches to conflict perhaps too simply: When men have conflicts, they fight. When women have conflicts, they talk. Talking is a lot better way to resolve conflicts than fighting. An example of this difference can be found in the efforts of women to bring an end to the deadly divisions of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. After men had tried to negotiate peace for a hundred years, women stepped in and became a powerful force to stop the sectarian killing. Another example is the extraordinary story of how Leemah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led a women’s non-violent resistance movement that forced the murderous dictator Charles Taylor out of office and brought democracy back to Liberia. In an era of nuclear weapons that could destroy life on earth, and a century when more people are killed by their own governments than from all wars combined, it is time to campaign for a new world order with many more societies and political systems led by women. 3. We must create the political will to prevent genocide. The UN, EU, and U.S. failure in the Rwandan Genocide, in Bosnia, and in Darfur was not the absence of early warning of the coming catastrophes. It was the absence of political will to prepare for and prevent them. Even when UN Peacekeeping Missions have been deployed, they are not given strong mandates to protect civilians by fighting and defeating genocidal armies. Yasushi Akashi, the pacifist head of the United Nations Protection Force in former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR), refused to authorize the bombing of Bosnian Serb sniper nests across the river from Sarajevo. Akashi was finally replaced after the Srebrenica genocide. NATO bombed Belgrade and forced Milošević to make peace at Dayton. In Rwanda, there were 2500 UNAMIR troops on the ground when the genocide began. Rather than reinforce them as General Roméo Dallaire requested, the United States, United Kingdom, and France led the UN Security Council to order withdrawal of all but 400 UNAMIR troops. Even the 400 Ghanaian troops who elected to stay against orders saved hundreds of lives. Meanwhile, two thousand French and Belgian troops were able to airlift all French and Belgians out of Rwanda, along with their pets. Not a single Rwandan was allowed to board the planes. The U.S. embassy drove out to Burundi protected by UNAMIR peacekeepers and Marine guards. Political will is not a mystery. It is not mystical mumbo-jumbo that is impossible to analyze and understand. Anyone who witnessed the triumph of the political campaigns of President Barack Obama should see that political will can be built from the ground up. It is time that we hold our leaders to account. We must no longer accept their excuses. President Clinton’s “we did not know” speech in Kigali after the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda was a lie—of course he knew. I had top secret codeword clearance in the State Department in 1994 and read the same cables that were used to brief Clinton. A cable to the State Department and National Security Council from the Department of Defense on the first day of the genocide on April 7, 1994 called the mass killings “genocide”. Our Deputy Chief of Mission in Kigali, Joyce Leader, has told me she called the massacres “genocide” in her daily phone calls to the State Department from the first day, April 7 onward. But the U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda, David Rawson, who had grown up a missionary’s son in Burundi, didn’t know what genocide is. Neither did the State Department Office of the Legal Advisor. They thought the killings were part of a civil war, rather than a genocide. They didn’t understand that most genocides occur during civil or international wars; wars and genocides are not mutually exclusive, they usually go together. Secretly, the United States had ships filled with thousands of U.S. Marines right off the coast of East Africa when the genocide began. But President Clinton never authorized their deployment to Rwanda. 4. Leaders of genocides must be arrested or killed. I have always been perplexed by the unwillingness of the world’s leaders to send in heavily armed commandos to arrest the leaders of genocides and take them for trial to the Hague. The ICC should require preliminary hearings and arrest warrants. But currently there are no international police to arrest leaders like Omar al Bashir and General Hemedti, who led or are leading genocides that murder thousands of people. Assassinations of national leaders who are ordering or directing genocides would be a direct violation of the principle of national sovereignty that accords immunity to heads of state. It has been a doctrine in the law of nations since Grotius. But it is not recognized by the Genocide Convention. No one is granted immunity for the commission of genocide. The International Criminal Court has the legal authority to charge heads of state and their accomplices with genocide. It is time for the ICC to be given a police force to carry out its arrest warrants. If the ICC police are violently resisted, they should be explicitly authorized to use force to take suspects into custody. Indeed, why is it out of the question to send in commandos to kill genocidal leaders if they resist court orders and can’t be arrested? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was part of the plot to kill Hitler. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded that Bonhoeffer was morally right. Using any moral calculus, Utilitarian, Rule Utilitarian, Kantian, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, or Hindu, it should be justifiable to kill one leader who is committing genocide and causing the deaths of thousands of people. 5. It is time to build an international anti-genocide movement on the scale of the anti- slavery movement. We must build the political will for international intervention when genocide is imminent. When I founded Genocide Watch in 1999, there was not a single organization in the world entirely devoted to the prevention of genocide. At the same time, we founded the Alliance Against Genocide to create the coalition necessary to mobilize a mass movement. Today, there are hundreds of anti-genocide organizations. The Alliance Against Genocide has over 120 member organizations in 31 countries with thousands of employees. There are many other anti-genocide organizations that are not yet members of the Alliance. We share the same vision. It is especially important to build anti-genocide organizations in countries at risk of genocide. The more I have worked against genocide, the more I have become convinced that genocide must be defeated locally. It can be prevented only by teaching people the empathy for their neighbors that will make them “upstanders” who will oppose the dehumanization necessary for genocide. Empathy is the ability to place oneself in the shoes of another. It is the measure of a person’s moral capacity. Empathy is the expression of Satyagraha, that great truth force that Gandhi rediscovered, and that was also taught by the Buddha, Amos, Jesus, Muhammed, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Empathy is expressed in both justice and love. It has revolutionary power because justice and love flow from the same Force: the divine Force that made every star and created every human being. https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/looking-backward-into-the-future-why-the-united-nations-has-failed-to-prevent-genocide/ Gregory H. Stanton Dr. Gregory Stanton is Founding President of Genocide Watch and Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. He was Research Professor in Genocide Studies at George Mason University and was the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington. He was a fellow at the Indian Law Institute and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He directed the relief program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime. He founded the Cambodian Genocide Project in 1982. While in the State Department, he drafted the UN Security Council Resolutions that established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He was a driving force in the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He proposed and lobbied for creation of the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. He was President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He is best known for his Ten Stages of Genocide model of the genocidal process, used by teachers, governments, and the UN. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago.

UN agencies were informed that the Taliban had suspended polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan ahead of planned immunization in September Shabana Maani, gives a polio vaccination to a child in the old part of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)(AP) The Taliban-controlled government in Afghanistan has suspended all polio vaccination campaigns in the country, according to the United Nations. According to an AP report, Taliban had made no official statement and no reasoning was given for suspending vaccination campaigns ahead of planned immunization in September. A senior official from the World Health Organisation (WHO) told AP that they were aware of discussions to move away from house-to-house vaccinations and carry out immunizations in mosques. Dr Hamid Jafari from the WHO said, regarding the possibility of shifting towards site vaccinations rather than house-to-house vaccinations, “Partners are in the process of discussing and understanding the scope and impact of any change in current policy.” In June, 2024, a nationwide campaign in Afghanistan started using the house-to-house vaccinations, which would reach a majority of children. It was found to be much more effective than the site-to-site vaccinations, popular in southern Kandahar, the base of the Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzad. The WHO confirmed 18 cases of polio in Afghanistan this year, out of which only two are in the south of the country. This number has increased significantly from 6 cases confirmed in 2023. They also pointed out that since women's inclusion remains around 20 per cent, there is inadequate access to immunization for children, especially in areas like Kandahar. Afghanistan, along with neighbouring country Pakistan, has never been able to stop the spread of the paralysing and often fatal disease, necessitating vaccination campaigns even more. However, the country may have fallen prey to anti-vaccination rhetoric which has gained ground in Pakistan as well. According to news agency AP, militants in Pakistan regularly target vaccination campaigns and the police assigned to protect them. This is due to popular belief that the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children in Pakistan. The WHO has stated that rolling back vaccinations in Afghanistan could bring risk to Pakistan as well due to high population movement. Afghanistan's campaign suspension could land a major blow to global efforts to eradicate polio as the initiative struggled with costly campaigns and mistakes in strategy. © 2024 HindustanTimes

North Korean table tennis players may be punished for Olympic podium selfie with rivals from South Kim Kum-yong and Ri Jong-sik reportedly placed under ‘ideological scrutiny’ and could face punishment if they fail to criticise inappropriate behaviour North Korea’s Ri Jong Sik (2nd L), and North Korea’s Kim Kum Yong (C) join in the selfie taken by South Korea’s Lim Jonghoon (L) in the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images For most observers, it was proof of sport’s ability, if only for a fleeting moment, to bring people together – even when they live on opposite sides of one of the world’s most heavily armed borders . But one of the most celebrated images of the Paris Olympics – a selfie taken by medal-winning table tennis players from either side of the divided Korean peninsula – appears to have landed the North Korea duo in trouble back home. In a rare moment of Korean-style ping-pong diplomacy, the South Korean mixed doubles players Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin and the North Korean pairing Kim Kum-yong and Ri Jong-sik beamed as they posed for a selfie on the podium after receiving their bronze and silver medals at the South Paris Arena last month. The Chinese gold medallists, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, also appear in the photos . One of the images was posted to the Games’ official Instagram site, where it drew hundreds of thousands of likes, while People magazine named it as one of the Olympics’ top 12 moments of sportsmanship in Paris. But this week media reports claimed that Kim and Ri had been placed under “ideological scrutiny”. The Daily NK , a North Korea -focused website based in Seoul, quoted a high-ranking source in Pyongyang as saying that athletes and members of the North Korean Olympic Committee had been undergoing a month-long “ideological scrubbing” since returning home in mid-August – reportedly standard procedure for sportsmen and women who have been exposed to life outside the communist state. The website reported the country’s athletes had been instructed not to interact with fellow competitors from other countries, including the South, and were warned that “fraternisers” could face punishment. The table tennis players were reportedly singled out for criticism in a report submitted to officials for “grinning” as they posed alongside athletes from a country the regime has described as its “ number one enemy ”. The selfie was snapped at a time of heightened tensions between the two Koreas, whose 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce but not a peace treaty. The North recently protested against joint military exercises involving the South Korean, US and Japanese forces, while growing cooperation between the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un , and Russian president Vladimir Putin have caused alarm across the region. It isn’t clear what, if any, sanctions the table tennis players could face. That, the Korea Times suggested, could depend on how much remorse they show for momentarily lowering their guard in Paris. North Korean athletes returning from international competitions undergo a three-stage “ideological review” that ends with self-reflection sessions by team members, in which they are expected to criticise “inappropriate behaviour” among their teammates, as well as reflecting on their own actions, the Korea Times said. The newspaper quoted a source as saying that heartfelt expressions of contrition can spare athletes “political or administrative punishments”, the nature of which is unclear. Human Rights Watch said the reports “demonstrate the North Korean government’s efforts to control behaviour beyond its borders. “The International Olympic Committee … has a responsibility to protect athletes from all forms of harassment and abuse, as set out in the Olympic Charter,” it said in a statement. “North Korean athletes should not fear retribution for actions at the Games, not least when their actions embody the values of respect and friendship, on which the Olympic movement is built.” While Kim and Ri won a silver medal, other athletes have reportedly been punished for underperforming. The Daily NK cited the case of the North Korean football team, who were knocked out of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa after losing all three of their group games and conceding 12 goals. The players were reportedly subjected to a six-hour excoriation for “betraying” the communist nation’s ideological struggle, while their coach, Kim Jung-hun, was forced to work on a building site. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

Muslim mob attacks churches and Christian homes in Pakistan after Christians are accused of blasphemy. Local residents fire debris outside a church in a Christian neighborhood following an angry Muslim mob attack in Jaranwala near Faisalabad, Pakistan(AP). Hundreds of Muslim men set fire to churches and vandalised Christian homes during a rampage in eastern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, after Christians were accused of blasphemy. The mob made its way through a predominantly Christian area on the outskirts of the industrial city of Faisalabad after allegations spread that the Koran had been desecrated. "The crowd inflicted heavy damage on the area including to homes of Christians, and many churches," Ahad Noor, a district government official, told AFP. The scale of the violence prompted the government to deploy additional police forces and send in the army to help restore order. The attacks in Jaranwala, in the district of Faisalabad in Punjab province, erupted after some Muslims living in the area claimed they had seen a local Christian, Raja Amir, and his friend tearing out pages from a Quran, throwing them on the ground and writing insulting remarks on other pages, reports news agency AP. Police chief Rizwan Khan said this had angered the local Muslims. A mob gathered and began attacking multiple churches and several Christian homes, burning furniture and other household items. Some members of the Christian community fled their homes to escape the mob. Police eventually intervened, firing into the air and wielding batons before dispersing the attackers with the help of Muslim clerics and elders. Authorities also said they have started launching raids in an effort to find all the perpetrators. Dozens of rioters were arrested. Police and rescue officials said at least four churches had been set on fire, while residents said as many as a dozen buildings with church status had been damaged. Several thousand police have been sent to secure the area and dozens of people detained, Amir Mir, the information minister for Punjab province, said in a statement that also condemned the alleged blasphemy. Yasir Bhatti, a 31-year-old Christian, fled his home in a narrow alley next to one of the churches that was ransacked by the mob. "They broke the windows, doors and took out fridges, sofas, chairs and other household items to pile them up in front of the Church to be burnt. They also burnt and desecrated Bibles, they were ruthless," he told AFP by phone. Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or Islamic figures can face the death penalty. Pakistani bishop Azad Marshall, in the neighbouring city of Lahore, said the Christian community was "deeply pained and distressed" by the events. "We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland," he posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Copyright © 2023 HT Digital Streams Ltd.All Rights Reserved

Pakistan's Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, acknowledged the targeted violence faced by minorities in the name of religion. He expressed concern over the killings of minorities, highlighting the lack of safety for all religious minorities in Pakistan despite constitutional protections. Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif. Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday acknowledged that minorities are facing “targeted violence in the name of religion”. During a session of Pakistan's national assembly, Asif expressed concern over the occurrence of targeted violence in the name of religion.  “Every day, minorities are being killed. They are not safe under the guise of Islam. I want to address the issue of minority safety, but the opposition is blocking my efforts. Pakistan is facing global embarrassment,” the Defence Minister said, as quoted by Dawn. He claimed that religious minorities are not safe in Pakistan despite constitutional protections while calling for a resolution to safeguard marginalised communities. Asif also highlighted that many victims, with no connection to blasphemy allegations, were targeted due to personal vendettas. “Even smaller Muslim sects are not safe in Pakistan, which is a disgraceful situation. We intend to propose a resolution to protect minorities. While our constitution guarantees minority rights, there are incidents of…those who have been killed so far did not have any evidence linking them to blasphemy; rather, these killings seem to stem from personal vendettas,” the Pakistani minister said. Hindus, Sikhs, and other minorities in Pakistan persistently encounter issues like forced conversions, abductions, murders, and assaults on their religious sites, according to HRCP and Human Rights Watch reports. Additionally, the Ahmadiyya community suffers intense persecution, facing legal restrictions on their religious activities, hate speech, and violent assaults. They are consistently targeted because of their faith, with such incidents reported throughout the country, Dawn reported. Similarly, Christians also encounter discrimination in jobs, education, and blasphemy allegations, often resulting in mob violence and attacks on churches. The community remains susceptible to both societal and legal persecution. Pakistan's legal system discriminates against religious minorities, exacerbating their marginalisation and vulnerability. The blasphemy laws are often misused to target minorities, leading to arbitrary arrests, violence, and societal ostracisation. Copyright © 2023 HT Digital Streams Ltd.All Rights Reserved

Supporters of then-President Donald Trump stand inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Inset, Trump is pictured in Washington, D.C., on July 31, 2019. During a Friday interview, the former president called the January 6 rioters “great patriots.” credit SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images (c) 2021 Newsweek  Nazism has twelve attributes:             - Racism             - White supremacy             - Nationalism             - Xenophobia             - Militarism - Glorification of guns and violence             - Religious bigotry             - Male chauvinism             - Oppression of women             - Contempt for democracy             - Obedience to authoritarian leaders             - Rejection of universal human rights   The left-right spectrum is a systematically misleading expression. It misleads people into thinking that Nazism and Communism are opposites. They are not. Nazism and Communism are twins.   The political spectrum is a circle, with one axis, promotion of equality, and the other axis, tolerance for liberty. On that circle, Nazism and Communism are right next to each other.   Nazis, Communists, white supremacists, colonialists, Islamists, Christian nationalists, and America-Firsters have no tolerance for liberty. They are freedom's foes.   They drag nations into the dark dungeons of tyranny.   Nazism replaces Christianity with worship of the Nazi party and the state. Hitler’s Nazis made genocide state policy. The Holocaust murdered six million Jews and another six million people from other "inferior races."   Communism replaces the worship of God with worship of the communist party and the state. Exclusionary atheism is the communist state religion.   Marxists believe that capitalism causes oppression. But Marxist regimes have murdered one hundred million more people than all capitalist nations combined. Leninists believe that imperialism is the final stage of capitalism. But the only remaining empires are two post-communist empires, the Russian Empire and the Chinese Empire.   Communist and Nazi dictatorships are the successors to monarchies and theocracies. They are counter-modernization movements.      Today fascist, monarchist, theocratic, and communist regimes rule a third of the world.   China commits genocide against Tibetans and Uyghurs with impunity. It has built a totalitarian surveillance state with cameras, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition that George Orwell could only imagine.   Putin is trying to reassemble the Soviet Russian empire. Russian missiles destroy Ukrainian cities in a new form of genocide, Urbicide, the intentional destruction of cities, substantial parts of the Ukrainian nation.   Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates bomb Yemen and arm the Arab genocide in Sudan. They finance jihadist rejection of religious freedom while controlling Islam's holiest places.   Turkey and Azerbaijan are trying to reestablish the Ottoman Empire. They commit genocide and forced deportation against Armenia and Kurds in Iraq and Syria.   Iran sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists and the Assad dictatorship in Syria. Iran openly declares its genocidal intent to destroy Israel.   India's Modi and his BJP are building a Hindutva state that excludes Muslims, Christians, and members of other religions from full Indian citizenship.   For Donald Trump, race is everything; The Mussolini of Mar-a-Lago, is  a Nazi:             - Racism: “Is Kamala black? She was Asian.” Trump Towers: no rentals to blacks.             - White supremacy: Africans, Asians, and Latinos are mentally inferior and stupid.             - Nationalism: Punish Chinese cheaters; NATO deadbeats; “shithole” nations.             - Xenophobia: Migrants are “criminal”,”mentally ill”, rapist, murderer “invaders”             - Militarism: Guard the wall with US troops. Invade Mexico. Let Russia take Ukraine. - Glorification of guns: The Second Amendment means all can own assault rifles.             - Religious bigotry: America is a Christian nation. Exclude Muslims.             - Male chauvinism: Men must dominate and govern. Men are superior to women.             - Oppression of women: Grab their privates. Commit adultery. Wives obey husbands.             - Contempt for democracy: Deny defeat. Invade the Capitol to stop transfer of power.             - Preference for authoritarian leaders: Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, Victor Orban, Bolsonaro.             - Rejection of universal human rights: Leave women's reproductive rights up to the states.   Donald Trump is the only US President who has ever attempted a coup d'état.     Trump’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder drives his Big Lie that he really won the 2020 election. He is psychologically unable of admit he is a “loser.” Trump is a mentally ill sociopath.   Trump has trapped the Republican Party into a cult of personality addicted to election denial.   The leaders of these racist, nationalist movements are the New Nazis.   Nationalism is racism on steroids.   The combination of racism and nationalism is at the heart of the New Nazism. It is the ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil that, when ignited by hatred, explodes into genocide.   We must fight this New Nazism. We must reject Trump’s Darth Vader darkness.   We must become translucent channels for freedom’s light that still shines in America. Copyright 2024 Gregory H Stanton

Explosion takes place in southern Kabul area of Qala-e-Bakhtiar, and no group has claimed responsibility so far. An explosion in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, has killed at least six people, the police and Ministry of Interior Affairs say. “This afternoon, a person wearing explosives on his body detonated,” Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran posted on X on Monday. “Unfortunately six civilians, including a woman, were killed and 13 others were injured,” he added. Zadran said the attack took place in the Qala-e-Bakhtiar area of southern Kabul, adding that an investigation is under way. No group has claimed responsibility so far. Violence has waned in Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover, which ended a two-decade war that included foreign forces. But the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Khorasan Province remains active and has regularly targeted civilians, foreigners and Taliban officials with gun and bomb attacks. The group is the largest security threat in Afghanistan and has frequently also targeted Shia communities. The most notorious ISIL-linked attack since the Taliban takeover was in 2022 when at least 53 people – including 46 girls and young women – were slain in a suicide bombing at an education centre in a Shia neighbourhood of Kabul. The last suicide attack in Afghanistan claimed by the regional chapter of ISIL was in the southern city of Kandahar – the Taliban’s historic stronghold – in March. Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the AFP news agency last month that ISIL “existed” in the country before but the Taliban “suppressed them very hard”. “No such groups exist here that can pose a threat to anyone,” he said. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

A protest in the southern Pakistani seaport city of Karachi condemns violence against women. (file photo) A spate of deaths of women in northwestern Pakistan has put the spotlight on so-called honor killings in the South Asian country. Each year, hundreds of women and girls are killed in Pakistan, often by relatives who say they are protecting the family's honor. Despite stricter laws and public outrage in the Muslim-majority country, human rights groups say such killings continue. In the latest case, police said they have charged a man for murdering his 18-year-old daughter on the orders of a jirga, or tribal council, because she had appeared in a photo with unrelated men on social media. Police said three others -- the victim's uncle and two cousins -- were arrested on November 29 in Kolai-Palas, a remote district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The victim has been identified as Reema Bibi, whom police say was shot dead by her father in the family home on November 24, soon after photos of her with a woman and two men appeared on social media. Pakistani women protest against violence against women. (file photo) Public images of women are considered taboo in deeply conservative rural areas of Pakistan. Police have said the photos of Bibi were manipulated. Noor Mohammad, a police official in Kolai-Palas, told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the other woman and one of the two men in the photos were under police protection. The whereabouts of the other man in the images was unknown. In another case, police said four people were killed on November 28 in the district of Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Police said a man killed his wife following a marital dispute. In retaliation, the victim's brother killed the husband's parents and young sister on the same day, police said. "This is very cruel and is done in the name of terrible local customs," Mufti Hafizullah Sabri, a local religious leader, told Radio Mashaal. "This is the result of deep-seated ignorance." 'Harrowing Reminder' Human rights group say the incidents are just the latest cases of honor killings in Pakistan, where women have been slain for eloping with men, committing adultery, or even appearing in online videos and photographs. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) documented at least 384 cases of such killings in 2022 alone, including 103 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The cases are a "harrowing reminder that violence against women remains deeply accepted in Pakistan," Asad Iqbal Butt, the head of the HRCP, said in a November 29 statement . A 2016 amendment to the criminal law in Pakistan defined "murder committed in the name of honor" as a specific crime with stiffer penalties than homicide, including the death penalty or life in imprisonment. But rights groups say the stricter laws have failed to curb the number of killings. "While repeated so-called 'honor killings' have resulted in legislative amendments and societal outrage in the country, they remain unabated," Nadia Rahman of Amnesty International said in a November 30 statement . "It is not enough to arrest people after such attacks take place. The authorities must end impunity for violence and abolish so-called village and tribal councils that prescribe such horrific crimes." In 2019, Pakistan's Supreme Court declared tribal councils illegal because they violated the constitution and Islamabad's international commitments to protect human rights and end gender discrimination. But Rahman said the Pakistani authorities have failed to "curb the extra-legal power of jirgas or tribal councils to run parallel legal systems," in a move she said has perpetuated "patriarchal violence with impunity." 'Blood' Money Kainat Kakakhel, a Pakistani lawyer, said the amended law aimed at curbing honor killings is not being fully enforced. Under the law, a person convicted of "murder committed in the name of honor" cannot be pardoned by the victim's family, which is permitted under Islamic law. "[But] often, the police reports in honor killing cases are registered as murder cases, which opens the door to reconciliation, which is a major flaw," Kakakhel told Radio Mashaal. Under Pakistani law, the Islamic concept of diyat, which allows a victim's family to forgive a murderer in exchange for financial compensation, or so-called blood money, from the perpetrator's family. High-Profile Cases In one of the most high-profile cases in Pakistan in recent years, a tribal council in Kolai-Palas in 2011 ordered the deaths of four men and two women after a homemade video appeared to show unrelated men and women fraternizing at a wedding. In 2013, three of the men -- all brothers -- were killed by the family members of the two women, according to the police. A fourth brother, Afzal Kohistani, was killed in 2019 after leading a yearslong campaign against honor killings in Pakistan. In 2017, a provincial court had overturned the murder convictions against the six men from the women's families. Qandeel Baloch is one of the most well-known victims of honor killings in Pakistan. (file photo) In another prominent case, a man was convicted of murdering his celebrity sister in 2016. Muhammad Waseem was found guilty of strangling to death Qandeel Baloch, a controversial social media star who was dubbed the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan. Waseem had publicly said he had no remorse for killing his 26-year-old sister over her "intolerable" behavior, after she posted racy pictures of herself with a Muslim cleric. Waseem, 38, was sentenced to life in prison. But in February 2022 -- after spending six years in prison -- he was freed after his mother pardoned him. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2024 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Liam Taylor ‘We can do all the analysis, but there is no set pattern to this – it’s random, and that’s one of the hardest things for any security team to try and pick up.’ In late July, Yared Melese, a 30-year-old NGO worker, checked into a hotel in North Wollo zone, part of Ethiopia’s troubled Amhara region. He had gone to assess humanitarian needs on behalf of Action for Social Development and Environmental Protection Organisation (ASDEPO), an Ethiopian non-profit. That night he and three colleagues were abducted by armed men. The kidnappers let the others go but demanded a ransom for Yared’s release. Mediation by local elders failed. On 9 August, it was confirmed that Yared was dead. Yared was the sixth humanitarian worker to be  killed this year in Amhara, where government forces are fighting local militias known as Fano. The UN also counts eight incidents of kidnap involving UN or NGO staff, nine incidents of robbery, and four where UN vehicles have been commandeered. Almost the whole of Amhara – a region larger than Bangladesh, with as many people as Malaysia – is shaded pink or orange on the UN’s access maps , indicating that violence makes it difficult for aid to reach many of those in need. What began as a political conflict is turning into a more general erosion of law and order, where armed groups have proliferated and kidnapping of civilians has become common. The UN’s World Food Programme, which supports almost half a million people in Amhara, said in a statement that humanitarian workers face “ongoing security threats including armed robberies, kidnappings, illegal checkpoints, truck hijackings, looting of food and nutrition commodities from trucks and the destruction of trucks”. It added that there were four separate incidents in August where WFP trucks – or trucks of WFP contractors – were attacked and their cargo looted. It did not say who it thought the attackers were. Humanitarian workers at five different non-governmental organisations, speaking anonymously because of political sensitivities, said the situation is becoming more unpredictable. “We can do all the analysis, but there is no set pattern to this – it’s random, and that’s one of the hardest things for any security team to try and pick up,” said a safety expert at one international non-profit, who asked for anonymity so they could speak more freely. “You can go home tonight and [your logistics are] all planned, then you come in at six o’clock tomorrow morning ready to jump on transport and go. And the first thing you get is a flash saying that the road’s closed or the village has been taken over.”  An estimated four million people in Amhara are food insecure after a poor harvest last year. Some areas are grappling with ongoing outbreaks of malaria, cholera, and measles.  The region also hosts thousands of refugees from neighbouring Sudan, who came to Amhara in search of sanctuary but have instead  suffered attacks, abductions, and rapes by local gunmen. Growing Dangers For two years, as the Ethiopian government battled rebels in the northern Tigray region, the army and Fano militias were temporarily united against a common enemy. But they  fell out after that war ended in 2022, disagreeing over issues like the fate of contested areas, and the disarmament of regional paramilitaries.  "Normally in a conflict, we know who we should negotiate with [to access communities] and what are the rules of the game. But here, it could be a different person every day that we have to find." By the middle of last year, Fano controlled much of the countryside in Amhara, and even briefly occupied major towns. Fighting has continued ever since. Earlier this month, Fano militias clashed with government soldiers in the border town of Metema, an important crossing point into Sudan. This week, there has been fighting in Gondar, one of the largest cities in the country. The Fano militias do not seem to have a single command structure. Some of the armed groups operating in the region appear to be little more than criminal gangs or local extortion rackets, whose connection to the wider Fano movement is unknown. Sudden shifts of control and the lack of clear front lines further cloud the picture. Humanitarian workers have found themselves crossing back and forth between areas controlled by the government and by militias, along routes littered with checkpoints and informal roadblocks. “Normally in a conflict, we know who we should negotiate with [to access communities] and what are the rules of the game,” said one aid worker. “But here, it could be a different person every day that we have to find.” Paul Handley, the head of the UN’s emergency aid coordination office, OCHA, said the UN has developed a  code of conduct to guide humanitarian work, reaffirming basic principles of independence and neutrality. It emphasises that humanitarian workers will not pay fees at checkpoints, carry weapons, or use armed escorts. But the dangers are growing. Until recently, “the risks of operating in Amhara were about being in the wrong place at the wrong time”, said Handley, adding that this could involve running into clashes between the army and what the UN calls “non-state armed groups”. But now, he says he worries about increasing signs of “opportunistic criminality”, such as kidnappings, where humanitarian workers have become targets. Some of the biggest risks are faced by local staff in Ethiopian NGOs, who have the grassroots presence to reach local communities but lack the same robust safety systems as international non-profits. Politicising Aid There is a political aspect to some attacks, sources told The New Humanitarian. For example, one aid worker described an incident where two trucks were stopped by armed men who accused the drivers of taking food to government soldiers. Another said that militiamen wrongly suspect NGO workers of gathering information for the government, because “when they see a new face, they are insecure”.  A third source said that sometimes when armed groups detain drivers at roadblocks “they give them ‘education’ on why they are doing what they are doing”, trying to convert them politically to their cause. But in general, attackers seem more interested in extorting money than in immediate political objectives, often contacting the families of kidnap victims directly to demand a ransom. In statements published online, Fano groups in  Wollo and  Gondar have condemned attacks on humanitarian workers and denied any involvement. A Funding Shortfall For much of the two-year war in Tigray, the Ethiopian government was  accused of restricting humanitarian access – an allegation it has denied. In Amhara, by contrast, humanitarian workers say the government is currently allowing the movement of aid deliveries. However, human rights groups are documenting multiple abuses by government forces in Amhara, including arbitrary detention,  massacres , and the killing of civilians in  drone strikes . A  report published in July by Human Rights Watch catalogued the devastation of the region’s health system. It described how government forces had killed health workers and patients, looted medical supplies, targeted ambulances, and raided hospitals in search of patients with gunshot or blast wounds, which they consider evidence of Fano-affiliation. Many civilians are so fearful that they are avoiding health facilities altogether, the rights group said. Although aid workers are allowed access to the region, humanitarian budgets have been squeezed. The humanitarian response plan for Ethiopia, prepared by the UN in partnership with the Ethiopian government, estimates that $3.24 billion is required to support people in need in 2024. So far, donors have contributed only a fifth of that.   Recent rains should lead to an improved  harvest in October, but it is unclear how much farmers have been able to plant, given the ongoing insecurity and the disruption to trade in agricultural inputs, like fertiliser and seeds.   Humanitarian workers say they will keep trying to do their jobs – but every day the risks are escalating.  © The New Humanitarian All rights reserved 2024