By Elise Keppler As the African Union summit closed on January 31, 2016, Kenyan media ignited with reports that the African Union endorsed mass withdrawal of African countries from the International Criminal Court. But the reality is a lot less newsworthy than the main source – Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, himself a former ICC suspect – suggested. A general view shows delegates during the 26th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, January 31, 2016. What the AU actually did was to endorse having its Open-Ended Committee of African Ministers on the ICC consider a roadmap on possible withdrawal, among other activities. To be sure, any action that even inches the AU toward backing withdrawal by an African ICC member is a move in the wrong direction, and inconsistent with justice for victims of international crimes. But the decision is not a call for mass withdrawal, nor is it the first time withdrawal has been raised but not materialized. This is for very good reasons. Not only is the ICC investigating the most brutal crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – but for the majority of investigations, African governments – Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo – asked the ICC to get involved. The court also just began its first investigation outside Africa, in the Republic of Georgia. Does the ICC need to improve and its reach need to expand? Absolutely. Some powerful countries, including the United States, are beyond its authority because they haven’t joined the court. And the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council can block investigations of countries that haven’t. But the ICC remains the last hope for justice for many when other avenues fail. The ICC can hold even high-level leaders to account when they are implicated in the worst abuses. It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that this is creating some vociferous opponents. African ICC members interact constructively with the ICC all the time. But when the political debates rage in Addis Ababa or even The Hague, many are silent. This is a disservice to African and other victims and to the AU’s own Constitutive Act, which rejects impunity under article 4. It also increases the risk that one of these days efforts to promote withdrawal may bear fruit. Activists across Africa and international groups have worked to fill the void, campaigning for principled support of the court by African governments. But the cause of justice needs more vocal government champions in Africa to ensure victims have a chance for justice. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2016 Human Rights Watch

By Emanuella Grinberg (CNN)-A Jewish community center in Rochester, New York, closed temporarily on Sunday after receiving its second bomb threat in less than a week. The Louis S. Wolk Jewish Community Center was hosting community members who had lost power in their homes when the threat came in on Sunday morning, Executive Director Arnie Sohinki said. Dozens of people were evacuated. The center reopened Sunday afternoon after receiving an all-clear from law enforcement. Sohinki said the JCC is grateful for the community's support but would not provide further details, citing the police investigation. "We are open. We will remain open. Whoever is doing this doesn't realize this only makes us #stronger, " the center said in a Facebook post. "All are welcome to join us at the JCC." The Rochester JCC was one of several Jewish institutions to receive a bomb threat on Sunday in the latest wave of intimidating acts targeting the Jewish community. Other locations reporting similar threats included Indianapolis Jewish Community Center in Indiana; the Jewish Community Center of Greater Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada; and The Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All reopened a few hours later without incident. The Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston also received a bomb threat -- its second in three weeks, Executive Vice President Joel Dinkin said. The center, which received the threat via email, was not evacuated. The threats were the latest acts in a recent wave of anti-Semitic incidents across the United States. Museums, houses of worship, advocacy groups and cemeteries have been targets of bomb threats and vandalism as federal officials work with state and local authorities to find those responsible. One person has been arrested in connection with a small portion of the calls. The head of police intelligence for New York City said he believes one person is responsible for most of the nationwide calls and the rest are the work of copycats. CNN was unable to confirm or corroborate his theory. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have said they believe many of the threatening calls originated overseas. Sunday's incidents bring the number of threats since January in the United States and Canada to 154, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. It was not the first threat for the Louis S. Wolk JCC. The center also received a bomb threat on Tuesday, March 7, the same day another center in Syracuse and the Anti-Defamation League's New York City headquarters received threats. No devices were found at the locations and the centers reopened soon after without incident. Sunday's threat coincided with the Jewish holiday of Purim, a festive commemoration of the defeat of a plot to exterminate Jews in ancient Persia. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the incident "despicable and cowardly," especially on a holiday weekend celebrating "the resiliency of the Jewish people." "Like all New Yorkers, I am profoundly disturbed and disgusted by the continued threats against the Jewish community in New York. As New Yorkers, we will not be intimidated and we will not stand by silently as some seek to sow hate and division. New York is one family, and an attack on one is an attack on all," he said in a statement. Cuomo said he would direct state police to investigate the bomb threats in conjunction with federal officials. Last week, Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio increased a reward for information on hate crimes -- not just bomb threats -- to $20,000. After the first bomb threat of the week, the Rochester center had opened its doors to those who lost power in a winter storm blanketing the Northeast. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called the bomb threat "despicable" given the center's service to the community. The FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division vowed to investigate possible civil rights violations in connection with the threats. "The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough, and impartial manner. As this matter is ongoing, we are not able to comment further at this time," the federal agency said. CNN's Kwegyirba Croffie, Sara Ganim and Laurie Ure contributed to this report. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Cable News Network

By Edith M. Lederer Military operations in Yemen are escalating and the humanitarian and economic situation is rapidly deteriorating in the Arab world’s poorest nation, which is on the brink of famine, the U.N. special envoy for the country said Wednesday. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed urged the U.N. Security Council to pressure Yemen’s government and Shiite Houthi rebels “to engage constructively” on political and security measures that he presented to them aimed at ending the war and creating a transitional government. A Saudi-led military coalition, supported by the United States, began striking the rebels and their allies in March 2015, hoping to drive the Houthis from the capital, Sanaa, and restore the internationally recognized government. But the rebels remain in control of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. The conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced over 3 million people, has ground into a stalemate and U.N. peace efforts have faltered. “It is my firm belief that further military escalation and humanitarian suffering will not bring the parties closer together,” Ahmed told the council. He reiterated his call to the international community to speak with a unified and bold voice to the parties. And he urged the Security Council to “use all of its diplomatic weight to push for the relevant parties to make the concessions required to reach a final agreement before more lives are lost.” “We must give peace another chance,” Ahmed said. The council called on all parties “to engage meaningfully” with the special envoy’s proposals and “make progress towards a cease-fire and an enduring political settlement.” It also called for regional efforts “to be harmonized.” “The situation in Yemen is increasingly grave and distressing,” the council’s members said in a statement. “Civilians are paying the highest price for the ongoing violence.” The council called on all parties to the conflict to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and commercial imports, including food, through all ports in Yemen, including Hodeida, to avert famine. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Washington Post

By Fazlur Rahman Raju Speakers at an international conference styled "Ending the Slow Burning Genocide of Rohingyas by Myanmar” at Dhaka University on November 29, 2017 Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune The international community and the Bangladeshi people must stand by the Rohingya during the most rapid forced mass exodus the world has seen in a generation, rights activists and religious leaders said at a conference in Dhaka on Wednesday. They were speaking at the “Ending the Slow Burning Genocide of Rohingyas by Myanmar” conference organised by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) in the Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Building of Dhaka University. “We are witnessing the death of a nation,” Dr Maung Zarni, a Myanmarese human rights activist and scholar of genocide and racism, said. “The Buddhist people in Burma are purposefully wiping out a community, and they have been doing this for the past 45 years.” In addition to 400,000 Rohingya who were already living in Bangladesh, a total of 620,000 refugees have entered the country from Myanmar since August 24, when ethnic conflicts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state sparked the most rapid human exodus seen worldwide since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. “Another 600,000 people would have been killed had Bangladesh not opened its door to the helpless people,” Ma Khin Mai Aung, a Myanmarese-Rakhine lawyer, writer and activist based in New York, said. “Each of the Myanmar people was brainwashed by [the then] military junta that the Rohingya people should not live in Burma. This is why they are targeting the Rohingya.” Sanghanayak Suddhanda Mahathero, president of Bangladesh Buddha Kristi Prochar Sangha, called on the international community to pressure Myanmar to repatriate its nationals from Bangladesh. The speakers of “Ending the Slow Burning Genocide of Rohingyas by Myanmar” conference looking at the pictures of Rohingyas displayed at Dhaka University on November 29, 2017 | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune “As a Buddhist, I am ashamed that Buddhist people are committing genocide against Rohingya people in Myanmar,” he said. Slamming Myanmar’s State Counsellor for her apparent silence over the crisis, Prof Emeritus Serajul Islam Chowdhury said: “Aung San Suu Kyi’s role has taken us by surprise. She was once a victim, but now she is an ally of the perpetrators.” Dr Zarni urged the global community to extend a helping hand to the persecuted minority. “The Burmese government is committing atrocities not only against the Rohingya, but also against 17 other ethnic communities in the country. This is a slow process of genocide [by the Myanmar authorities],” he said. “It’s our duty to stand beside the Rohingya people and against the Burmese military; otherwise our next generation will ask questions about what we did when the Rohingya were persecuted.” Other attendees at the conference on Wednesday included Prof CR Abrar of Dhaka University; Chair Emeritus of Parliament of the World Religious Dr Malik Majahid; rights activist Hameeda Hossain; Supreme Court Judge Syed Refaat Ahmed; Prof Gayatri Spivak of Columbia University in New York; and Rohingya activist Ro Nay San Lwin. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Dhaka Tribune

By Foster Klug Abdul Goni says the Myanmar government was starving his family one stage at a time. First, soldiers stopped the Rohingya Muslim from walking three hours to the forest for the firewood he sold to feed his family. Then Buddhist neighbors and seven soldiers took his only cow, which he rented out to fertilize rice fields. Next, he says, they killed his uncle and strung him up on a wire for trying to stop the theft of his buffalos. By the time Goni saw bodies floating down the local river, of fellow Rohingya killed for illegal fishing, he knew his family would die if they didn’t leave. On bad days, they carved the flesh out of banana plant stalks for food. On the worst days, his children ate nothing. “I felt so sorry that I couldn’t give them enough food,” the 25-year-old says, tears running down his face, in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, just across the border from Myanmar. “They used to tell us, ‘This isn’t your land. ... We’ll starve you out.’” First, massacres, rapes and the wholesale destruction of villages by the Myanmar military in western Rakhine state forced nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, in reprisal for Rohingya militant attacks on Aug. 25. Now, the food supply appears to be another weapon being used against the dwindling numbers of Rohingya in Myanmar. The accounts of hunger could not be independently confirmed, as Myanmar’s government does not allow reporters into the northern part of Rakhine state, where most of the Rohingya lived. However, more than a dozen interviews by The Associated Press with the most recent refugees show growing desperation, as the noose tightens around their communities in what U.N. officials have said may be a genocide. The U.N. and human rights groups such as Amnesty International have also warned of increasing hunger among the Rohingya in areas where conflict and displacement have been most rampant. Repeated calls to Myanmar’s military weren’t answered, but the Myanmar government denies ethnic cleansing and says it is battling terrorists. Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye says the government has been distributing food aid to as many people as possible. “There are many ways that we have been reaching out to villagers frequently,” he says. “And that’s why it’s not possible that there are people who are completely cut off from food or facing hunger.” The Rohingya Muslims, who have been loathed by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority for decades, are locked down in their villages — sometimes even in their homes — and prevented from farming, fishing, foraging, trade and work. In other words, they can no longer do what they need to do to eat. While restrictions on freedom of movement and access to food have long been in place, they have tightened dramatically in recent weeks, the AP interviews show. “It was worse than a jail,” says Goni, who finally left Hpa Yon Chaung village in Buthidaung township on Jan. 5. “People at least get food twice a day in jail.” The hunger the Rohingya faced at home is evident when they come to the Bangladesh camps, where new refugees, especially children and women, suffer from “unbelievable” levels of malnutrition, according to Dr. Ismail Mehr. “They are definitely coming in starving,” says Mehr, who recently returned to the United States from treating refugees in the camps. “We saw the vitamin deficiencies in the children and the adults; we saw ... severely malnourished people who are basically skin and bones. It looked like the pictures from the Nazi camps.” The government’s restrictions on access to northern Rakhine makes it almost impossible to tell how many people are without food, how widespread the problem is or whether people are dying. The International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Yangon, says since the end of August it has distributed food to more than 180,000 people in northern Rakhine state. The people AP interviewed were mostly from Buthidaung township, where many day laborers, farmers and foragers were hit hard when the restrictions tightened, and Rathedaung township, where the impoverished Muslim communities are often encircled by Buddhists. Activists, aid groups and researchers say Myanmar squeezed the Rohingya by severely hampering many of the humanitarian operations that were crucial for their survival. Food aid was further disrupted by violence in 2016 and the bloodshed last year, after Rohingya insurgents staged an unprecedented wave of 30 attacks on security posts across Rakhine state in August and killed at least 14 people. In a report released today, Amnesty International details evidence of forced starvation by the military, including stopping the Rohingya from harvesting their rice fields in November and December. The Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the lack of access to food and fuel are adding to hunger in Myanmar. Mohammad Ilyas, 55, fled to Bangladesh with only a shirt and a lungi sarong, along with dozens of others from Rathedaung township. He says the military and his neighbors took Rohingya rice paddies and rice stockpiles. “Sometimes we stayed hungry for a day, two days, even five days,” Ilyas, who is from Ah Nauk Pyin village, says. “The Myanmar government doesn’t want a single Muslim to remain there. They want to erase us completely.” Goni says that of the 500 families who lived near him, around 150 have fled to Bangladesh. Everyone else wants to leave, he said, but they either don’t have enough money or are too old. “Some families have enough food because they stockpiled rice, but that can’t last forever,” he says. “If they can’t get to Bangladesh, and they run out of rice, the only option is death.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/they-want-to-erase-us-hunger-used-to-target-rohingya/2018/02/07/2aa6aa9a-0c49-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19_story.html?tm_term=.2504c33fa726&utm_term=.56084ab800f4 (c) 2018 The Washington Post

By Fiona Neibart and Dr. Gregory Stanton Indian soldiers in Srinagar, Kashmir. Credit: New York Times The Hindu nationalist policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have worsened anti-Muslim violence and caste oppression in India. Of particular concern are the situations in Kashmir and Assam , cow protection laws used as pretexts for lynching, and anti-Muslim citizenship laws. In 2002, Hindu mobs killed over a thousand Muslims in genocidal massacres in the state of Gujarat, which was governed by the BJP under then-Chief Minister Modi. Some government officials were involved in the anti-Muslim riots, refusing to intervene and stop extrajudicial killings, and even supplying weapons and helping to plan attacks by Hindu mobs. Modi deliberately obstructed justice and refused to pursue perpetrators. In 2012, Modi was cleared of complicity in the Gujarat massacres by a Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India. In 2014, Modi was elected Prime Minister of India. He was re-elected in 2019. “Cow Protection” laws have been used as pretexts for caste and anti-Muslim violence. Muslims and Dalits (“Untouchables”) have been lynched based on accusations of eating beef. Notwithstanding affirmative action authorized by the Indian Constitution, the caste system remains pervasive and caste-oppressed groups remain socially disadvantaged. Dalits, “scheduled castes and tribes” (listed in the Constitution) and other “backward classes” suffer public shaming, beatings, rapes, and lynchings for entering Hindu temples, and having inter-caste love relationships. Untouchability has been legally outlawed since 1949. But it is still an important way that menial labor (cleaning sewers, sweeping) in India is organized. India’s 1949 constitution Article 370 allowed Kashmir, a majority Muslim state, to have its own laws. Even under this semi-autonomy, 600,000 federal security forces currently occupy Kashmir. They have killed thousands of Kashmiri militants. In 2011, mass graves with 2,730 bodies were discovered. The Indian Central Reserve Police use mass blinding as a military strategy. In summer 2016, Indian troops used 1.3 million shotgun shells in 32 days of protests, resulting in over 90 deaths, and 500 people suffering vision loss. In August 2019, Prime Minister Modi rescinded Article 370 and Kashmir lost its autonomy. India deployed thousands of troops across Kashmir Valley, banned public meetings, shut down schools and colleges, and put two former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir under house arrest. Internet services were suspended in Kashmir. Indian forces continue to occupy Kashmir under martial law, which gives troops complete impunity. Gang rapes by police and soldiers, disappearances, torture and killings by police are common. Kashmiri children have been detained in government jails, violating the U.N. Convention on the Rights of a Child. Over 50,000 people have been killed in Kashmir from 1989 to 2019. After his reelection in 2019, Modi’s Hindu nationalist government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) . It offers an accelerated pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. But it excludes Muslim refugees. The CAA and National Register of Citizens are aimed at identifying and removing “illegal immigrants,” especially Bengali Muslims who fled into Assam to escape the 1971 Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh. Refugees, tribal communities, and illiterate poor people often lack documents to prove their Indian citizenship. Two million people in Assam have been classified at deportable “foreigners.” Thousands have been imprisoned in new “detention centers.” The BJP has declared its intention to extend the National Register of Citizens throughout India. Opposition to the CAA has led to massive protests, including riots in New Delhi . Anti-Muslim pogroms in New Delhi in January 2020 resulted in hundreds of Muslim deaths, Muslim shops burnt, and Muslim cemeteries and mosques destroyed. Genocide Watch considers the violent conflict in Kashmir, preparations to deport Bengali Muslims in Assam, anti-Muslim violence in north India, and continuing caste oppression all over India to be indicators of stages 6 (polarization), 7 (preparation), and 8 (persecution) in the Ten Stages of Genocide . Genocide Watch recommends that the UN Human Rights Council appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate anti-Muslim laws and pogroms in Indian Kashmir and Assam. The UN Security Council should monitor and regularly discuss the conflict in Kashmir and the situation of refugees in Assam, India.

By Dr. Eric Reeves Despite an almost total lack of news coverage, genocide in Darfur is entering its fourteenth year. It is certainly the longest genocide in more than century, and shows no signs of having “decisively cooled,” as a New York Times reporter suggested four years ago. On the contrary, since that time the genocide has dramatically accelerated, with massive, ethnically-targeted violence and displacement defining most of this western region of Sudan. Some areas, North Darfur in particular, are seeing levels of violence as great as those of the early days of the genocide (2003 – 2005)–a time when American civil society enthusiastically took on the cause of Darfur. So great was the campaign to “save Darfur” that even politicians felt an obligation to respond. During his campaign for president, Barack Obama called Darfur a “stain on our souls,” vowing that as president, “I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.” But the Obama administration has turned a “blind eye” to Darfur, indeed has gone so far as to “de-couple” Darfurfrom the major bilateral issue between Washington and Khartoum: counter-terrorism intelligence from the brutal National Islamic Front/National Congress regime responsible for the Darfur genocide in return for a lifting of U.S. sanctions. What does this unwillingness to look directly at the horrors in Darfur entail? A great deal, but nothing more shocking than the epidemic of sexual violence that has defined the genocide from the very beginning. A mass of evidence indicates that Khartoum’s regular troops and Arab militia allies have raped many tens of thousands of non Arab/African (“black”) women; and according to UN assessments, about a third of these women are girls under the age of eighteen–some as young as five and six years old. The ethnic animus in these rapes is patent. A number of human rights groups have provided compelling studies demonstrating this fundamental fact about rape as a weapon of war. Amnesty International noted telling examples early in the genocide, many from Darfuris who had fled to eastern Chad: “[President] Omar al-Bashir told us that we should kill all the Nubas [derogatory racist term for African populations]. There is no place here for the Negroes any more.” (Words of a Janjawid [Arab militia] fighter…interviewed by Amnesty International, Chad, May 2004) M., a 50-year-old woman from Fur Baranga: “The village was attacked during the night in October 2003, when the Arabs came by cars and on horses. They said ‘every black woman must be killed, even the children.'” M., a Masalit [major African tribal group in Darfur] chief of the village of Disa, reported that during attacks in June 2003 by the Janjawid and in July and August by the [regular] military, 63 persons were killed, including his daughter. In June the Janjawid reportedly accused the villagers of being ‘traitors to Omer Hassan Al-Bashir. “You are complicit with the opponents, you are Blacks, no Black can stay here, and no Black can stay in Sudan.” Arab women were accompanying the attackers singing songs in praise of the government and encouraging the attackers. The women said: “The blood of the Blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land.” Those most likely to be ethnically targeted for rape are girls and women attempting to cultivate farmlands from which they have been violently displaced, typically into nearby crowded, underserved, and increasingly threatened camps. They are also attacked when they seek water or firewood for cooking. For girls, these unspeakably cruel assaults are events both physically and mentally traumatic in the extreme: many die of their physical injuries; some commit suicide; all are permanently stigmatized in the conservative Muslim ethos of Darfur. Medical care is inadequate, and fistulas and other major physical traumas go untreated. The response of local authorities is to ignore what is occurring, no matter how compelling the evidence. One of the most recent and telling studies of rape in Darfur (2012) revealed that 49 percent of girls and women seen by a treatment center in Nyala, South Darfur had been raped. Even the most conservative extrapolation to the population as a whole yields a figure likely in the hundreds of thousands. And yet the international community is essentially silent. Reporting on Darfur, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sometimes omits any mention of sexual violence in Darfur. And the Obama administration, despite the strong words of candidate Obama, says nothing of consequence. As the father of two girls, now women, I am overwhelmed by this incomprehensible silence about the most heinous of crimes. The failure of the international community to pressure Khartoum to halt this weapon of genocidal counter-insurgency is despicable. If we look at present realities in Darfur honestly, we must feel nothing but shame. [An extended analysis of the rape of women and girls in Darfur, with framing narrative, data spreadsheet, and a mapping of sexual assaults onto three regional maps of Darfur may be found at | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1QG ] [Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College, has published extensively on Sudan, nationally and internationally, for the past seventeen years. He is author of Compromising with Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012 (September 2012)] Copyright 2016 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

By Dr. Eric Reeves As Sudan approaches what has become a day of reckoning— #عصينا19ديسمبر #Dec19Disobedience —the international community, particularly those nations seeking rapprochement with the Khartoum regime, must put this survivalist cabal on notice that brutal repressive actions will not be tolerated and that there will be serious consequences if the regime again issues “shoot to kill” orders, as it did in September 2013. That bloody episode offered us all too full a sense of just how savage the regime is prepared to be in confronting civil society and political opposition (see “Sudan’s Bloody Crackdown on Civilian Protestors: Does the U.S. have anything to say?” The Huffington Post, October 7, 2013) A failure to warn Khartoum—now—against violently repressive actions will be, in effect, a countenancing of those actions. Unctuous expressions of “concern” or “condemnation” after the fact will be of little use to those in Sudanese civil society injured or killed by actions of the sort we have seen on too many occasions. Hundreds were killed and many times that number wounded in September 2013. German, France, Italy, and the UK are the countries that have most aggressively pursued improved relations with Khartoum; they bear a special responsibility to ensure that peaceful protestors and those engaged in principled civil disobedience are not victims of violence in their effort to secure the democratization of Sudan. The Obama administration also bears a similar responsibility, particularly given the arrests of those representing Darfuri civil society who met with U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Donald Booth last August in Central Darfur. Why People Are Protesting The people of Sudan are in various states of anger, despair, and resolve to effect change. The tyrannical 27-year rule of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime has cost millions of lives...destroyed or reduced to mere survival—and that number continues to grow. War continues in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile; aerial attacks on civilians are a constant; humanitarian blockades imposed by the regime affect hundreds of thousands of suffering civilians this very day. More broadly, however, the people of Sudan have been crushed by the rapacious, self-enriching economic policies that have brought about rampant inflation, shortages of critical consumer items, including bread, cooking fuel, and essential medicines. The agricultural sector has been allowed to deteriorate to the point it can no longer begin to provide the food necessary for self-sufficiency—and arable and pasturable land has been sold or made subject to long-term leasing agreements with Arab and Asian countries seeking to ensure their own future food security. Unemployment and under-employment are at extremely high levels, and an astonishing 50 percent of Sudanese wish to emigrate—the figure is even higher for physicians and medical personnel, which provides essential context for the recent strikes by doctors and those working in hospitals and pharmacies. There has been gross under-investment in infrastructure maintenance, with consequent dire shortages in water throughout the country, as well as only erratic electricity supplies in various parts of the country nominally part of the “grid.” Much of the explanation for these economic woes can be attributed to profligate military and security expenditures over the entire tenure of the current regime, which has increased Sudan’s external debt to a staggering—and unserviceable—$50 billion (it was $13 billion when the National Islamic Front staged its military coup in June 1989). Beyond this, the regime is financially best understood as a giant kleptocracy, benefiting only members of the regime and their extended network of cronies: they have made the economic decisions that have put the Sudanese economy into a terminal nosedive (see: “Kleptocracy in Khartoum: Self-Enrichment by the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party, 2011 - 2015” ) Mounting Political Repression Political repression has always been a feature of NIF/NCP rule, but recently Sudan has witnessed an unprecedented number of arrests of human-rights and political figures. The highly punitive (costly) confiscation of newspaper runs has skyrocketed, and intimidation is acute. The nexus between political repression, economic mismanagement, and current civil unrest could hardly be clearer, as the reports from Sudan Tribune and Radio Dabanga over the past month have made painfully clear. A recent dispatch by Sudan Tribune reports on the contents of a widely disseminated leaked audio of al-Bashir preparing his regime for what is impending as the consequences of decades of economic mismanagement come with undeniable force: Sudan’s President Omer al-Bashir has warned the members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of hard days to come due to the planned government policies to liberalize the prices of commodities and scrapping subsidies, according to a leaked audio recording. Social media users have widely shared a leaked audio for al-Bashir speech before the NCP Shura Council members last week. (“Leaked Audio: Sudan’s Bashir warns of hard days to come” | Sudan Tribune, November 4, 2016) There can be little doubt that what al-Bashir means by “hard times”: the days ahead, in which deployment of security forces to crush civil society, will be the only means of regime survival. For if recent months have made anything clear, it is that the courageous people of Sudan refuse to be intimidated any longer, despite arrests, torture, extra-judicial executions, and the vivid memory of the “shoot to kill” orders al-Bashir gave in September 2013. Indeed, the warning signs of deepening and more violent repression are already clearly in evidence, which makes even more important robust international protection of Sudanese civil society actions, most notably “Sudanese Disobedience Day” (December 19). The world must be watching, and those nations that profess to uphold democratic values must me most vigilant. And no country more than the United States is obliged to commit—now—to the protection of human rights and democratic values. For the Obama administration has never publicly disowned the disgracefully expedient words of former special envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman: “We [the Obama administration] do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.” (Interview with Asharq al-Awsat, December 3, 2011) Now is the time for the U.S. and other countries to hold the Khartoum accountable for the consequences of this abject failure to “reform.” And the words must be much stronger than those we have heard to date: The members of the Sudan Troika (Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union, and Canada, have issued a joint statement expressing concern at the current spate of detentions and press curbs in Sudan... “We are also aware of Sudanese authorities seizing newspapers and engaging in other forms of censorship, allegedly for reporting on expression of political views.” “The arrest of political leaders for non-violent dissent risks hindering efforts for an inclusive National Dialogue that involves all the relevant political forces in Sudan in line with the African Union Roadmap, which we all support,” the statement continues. (International community ‘concerned’ over Sudan detentions, press curbs | Radio Dabanga, December 7, 2016) “Risks hindering efforts for an inclusive National Dialogue that involves all the relevant political forces in Sudan”!? What disingenuous nonsense, and known by these key international actors to be such: the Khartoum regime has never committed to a true “National Dialogue,“ indeed has seen it as merely a politically expedient ploy. The international community seizes upon it only because it does not have the nerve to confront the regime over its repeated sabotaging of true dialogue. The words of former Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, indicted by the International Criminal Court for massive crimes against humanity in Darfur: “Our National Dialogue initiative is just a maneuver to provide us with political cover for a continuation of the war....” President Omar al-Bashir himself, indicted by the ICC on multiple counts of crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, weighed in with the claim that, “The National Dialogue is also intended to provide political cover for the present Constitution and the Decisive Summer Campaign [against rebel groups in Sudan].” (From leaked minutes of the Security and Military Committee meeting held on the premises of the High Academy of Security (Khartoum) 3 June 2014 (Part 1 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1Il ) (Part 2 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1Il ) (on the authenticity of minutes, see http://wp.me/p45rOG-1w5 ) “Expressions of concern” are not enough—not nearly enough. Indeed, this sort of familiarly tepid “concern” expressed by the “Troika” is likely only to encourage Khartoum to believe that there will be no meaningful international reaction to even the most violent suppression of civil society activism. If blood is spilled, then, it will be on the hands of those who choose to remain silent or mute their voices to the point of inconsequence. For what we have seen to date may easily explode into unconstrained violence on the part of the regime’s police and security forces. Unwittingly, al-Bashir has provided us the clear “early warning” of the “hard times,” the violently hard times that will be endured by the people of Sudan if they remain so conspicuously undefended—without vigorous, outspoken, and unambiguous language from the international community about the punitive consequences of violence against unarmed civilians. Follow Eric Reeves on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sudanreeves

By Dr. Eric Reeves The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLA/M-N) today reports that Khartoum has begun a new military offensive in South Kordofan: “Today morning, 21st February 2017, the Sudanese army and its allied militia started their dry season offensive around 6 am at Krongo Abdalla in Kadougli county, breaching the declared joint cease-fire,” reads a s statement issued this morning. (Sudan Tribune, February 21, 2017) There has been no comment to this point from Khartoum, but it should be noted both that the SPLA/M-N has a record of highly credible accounts of major military events, while the military spokesmen for the Khartoum regime have a fantastic record of lies, sometimes denying events that have been fully confirmed by third parties, including the UN. Moreover, the Kadugli area is the most likely place for a renewed offensive. Implications Such an offensive would be a clear violation of the terms stipulated by the Obama administration in its badly misguided decision to lift sanctions long in place against the Khartoum regime for its support of terrorism and—with the tightening of sanctions under the George W. Bush administration—the commission of genocide in Darfur. Khartoum continues to play a dubious role on “both sides of the street” in the arena of terrorism/counter-terrorism, (see leaked minutes of August 31, 2014 meeting of Khartoum’s most senior military and intelligence officials)—and genocide continues in Darfur. In lifting sanctions, the Obama administration stipulated two significant conditions for the continuation of such sanctions lifting: improvement in humanitarian access and an end to military offensives in Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan. Despite the gross falsehood promulgated by Obama administration ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power (there has been a “sea change”—her phrase—of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan), no such improvement can be seen anywhere in Sudan. And if the military offensive in South Kordofan has indeed been renewed for the seventh year in a row (Khartoum began its assault on South Kordofan in June 2011, targeting primarily civilians perceived as Nuba /African), then there should be immediate condemnation from the current Trump administration and a clear threat to re-instate sanctions. The Trump administration—and particularly the xenophobic, racist and supremely ill-informed President Trump—shows no sign of even registering the significance of what has occurred in Sudan in recent years, and the odds of a response to current events seem vanishingly small. The Europeans have long since come to terms with the regime in Khartoum—both for economic/commercial reasons and because of a desire to have Khartoum serve as a partner in stanching the flow of African migrants to Europe. Last May (2016), Der Spiegel reported* on the basis of leaked documents the extent of this partnership, which included sending high-tech surveillance and registration equipment to Khartoum, inevitably to be provided to the brutal National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). Der Spiegel reported on the desperate desire of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini to keep this effort secret: The ambassadors of the 28 European Union member states had agreed to secrecy. “Under no circumstances” should the public learn what was said at the talks that took place on March 23rd, the European Commission warned during the meeting of the Permanent Representatives Committee. A staff member of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini even warned that Europe’s reputation could be at stake. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini Der Spiegel also reported that Germany—incredibly—was committed to building “closed” camps in the Khartoum areas for detaining potential migrants. It should be clear to all that this amounts to building concentration camps—camps from which people are not permitted to leave, and where they will be “concentrated” by NISS on the basis of ethnicity, place or country of origin, and religion. German concentration camp upon liberation in 1945 Where are the allies of the Nuba people among international actors of consequence? Where is the UN, which finds so much time to condemn human rights abuses in South Sudan? Where is the African Union, which has long countenanced genocide in Darfur? Where is the Arab League? The Organization of Islamic Conference? There are no such allies, and Khartoum knows it full well. Having largely prevailed militarily against rebel groups in Darfur, where the very substantial continuing violence is now more the responsibility of militia forces, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and its major militia ally the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is preparing to end what it sees as the last real internal military threat it faces in South Kordofan (Blue Nile has never been the military obstacle for the regime that South Kordofan has proved to be). We should expect to hear nothing but silence from the world, as Khartoum fully resumes the genocidal assault on the Nuba people well begun in the 1990s (and authoritatively documented). This silence will be another ghastly chapter in the book of silences that has been the response of the world to so much of the slaughter and destruction and has defined Khartoum’s domestic policies in the 21st century. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 the Huffington Post

By Dr. Eric Reeves The signs are everywhere: international cynicism and expediency is now growing by leaps and bounds in the wake of Obama administration decision (January 13, 2017) to lift sanctions on the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum, a decision that expediently and misleadingly asserts “positive actions” by the regime. Perhaps most striking in recent days: with the help of the Africa bloc at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article61915/), Khartoum has been elected as Vice Chair of Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The Executive Council is responsible for the most important decisions by the Organization. The extraordinary cynicism, finally cruelty by the Africa bloc at the Organization (Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, and Sudan) comes just six months after Amnesty International released its extraordinarily authoritative report on Khartoum’s massive assault on the Jebel Marra region of Central Darfur—an assault that included the substantial use of chemical weapons: “Scorched Earth, Poisoned Air: Sudanese Government Forces Ravage Jebel Marra, Darfur,” Amnesty International | 109 pages; released September 29, 2016 | http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/scorched-earth-poisoned-air-sudanese-government-forces-ravage-jebel-marra-darfur Photograph from Amnesty International report: a highly vulnerable infant suffering following a chemical weapons attack The photographic evidence and innumerable interviews conducted by Amnesty leave no room for doubt that the Chemical Weapons Convention was seriously violated by Khartoum, resulting in deaths and injuries to hundreds of civilians; many if not most of the victims were nowhere near rebel forces. The campaign in Jebel Marra had all the earmarks of a scorched-earth campaign of the sort that has frequently defined the regime’s genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur over the past fourteen years. Photographs from the Amnesty International report: these civilian injuries cannot be explained except as the result of a chemical weapons attack The bizarre decision by the Africa bloc at the OPCW is sadly all too consistent with a number of recent reports on Khartoum’s progress in rehabilitating itself within the international community, reports that began to accelerate with the lifting of sanctions on Khartoum by the Obama administration in its last week in office. Notably, the decision to lift sanctions and ultimately make the suspension permanent did not include human rights improvements, an ending of extreme press censorship and intimidation, the release of political prisoners, controlling violence Arab militia forces in Darfur, a restoration of violently expropriated farmland in Darfur, an end to the epidemic of rape that has seen many tens of thousands of girls and women raped over the past 14 years, economic reform, or humanitarian access to eastern Sudan. In the “race to the bottom” by candidates for the title of most cynical, most expedient, there are all too many contestants. I will offer very shortly a comprehensive assessment of international behavior towards Khartoum and Sudan in the two months subsequent to Obama’s lifting of economic sanctions—rightly described by Human Rights Watch as “inexplicable,” but nonetheless enormously consequential. These consequences can be measured most revealingly by looking at the Sudanese economy, the “budget” of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime, and the grotesquely skewed spending priorities of that regime. In short, this comprehensive economic assessment will be a continuation (Part 2) of my analysis of March 4, 2017, “Khartoum and the Peripheries: Where the Money Goes—and Where it Doesn’t Go.” ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

By Dr. Eric Reeves The Darfur region of western Sudan has been recognized as the site of genocide since 2004 by dozens of political officials and bodies (including the U.S. Congress and the EU Parliament), human rights groups, a wide range of genocide and human rights scholars, and such commemorative bodies as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Vad Yashem in Israel. Senator, candidate, and President Obama not only declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur but campaigned on the issue in 2008, referring to the Darfur genocide as a “stain on our souls.” Indeed, Barack Obama...indeed. This judgments should hardly have been surprising. The annihilating character of attacks on non-Arab/African civilians and villages in Darfur; the systematic denial of humanitarian aid to these ethnic populations; and the pointed pronouncements of various officials and proxies of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime—all made “genocide” the inevitable characterization. Only political diffidence or disingenuousness kept the characterization from being universally accepted. Moreover, the outlines of the genocidal ambition were articulated with remarkable clarity in a memorandum originating from the headquarters of notoriously brutal Arab militia leader (Janjaweed) Musa Hilal in Misteriya, North Darfur at the height of the violence: “change the demography” of Darfur and “empty it of African tribes.” Lest we think Musa Hilal as only a “man of letters,” we should recall that he was identified by numerous eyewitnesses as having presided at the February 2004 slaughter at Tawila, North Darfur. More than 100 people were killed, 350 girls and women were abducted, and more than 100 women were raped. A number of the women and girls were raped in front of their fathers, who were then killed. This was Musa Hilal’s idea of “demographic change.” And this was only one of many atrocities that he either directed or orchestrated. More than a decade later, in September 2015, Human Rights Watch provided the world a clear, authoritative, and deeply researched report on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), by then the dominant militia force in Darfur, called by some the “new Janjaweed.” This report is more important than ever as we survey the “militia state” that Darfur has become as part of Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency; and the report provides compelling evidence that Musa Hilal’s ambitions continue to animate the violence orchestrated by Khartoum against non-Arab/African tribal populations. The voice of particular significance in this report is that of Vice President of the regime, Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman—reported by a defecting militiaman: Ahmed said that a few days prior to leaving for East Jebel Marra, Sudanese Vice President Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman directly addressed several hundred army and RSF soldiers: “Hassabo told us to clear the area east of Jebel Marra. To kill any male. He said we want to clear the area of insects. … He said East Jebel Marra is the kingdom of the rebels. We don’t want anyone there to be alive.” I am astonished that these words by Khartoum’s Vice President have not registered in a consequential way with those Western nations formulating various policies of accommodation with the regime, particularly since they define so precisely the nature of the violence that accelerated from 2012 through the militarily successful campaign against the Jebel Marra massif in Central Darfur in 2016. Notably, the Jebel Marra campaign included the use of chemical weapons against clearly civilian populations in the region, a fact that raised not a shred of international indignation of the sort Bashar al-Assad’s attacks in Syria have. The campaign was successful and denied rebel forces in Darfur their last significant military redoubt. The genocidal counter-insurgency has—after fourteen years of unspeakable violence, destruction, and deprivation—succeeded. In the wake of such victory, Khartoum is eager to begin dismantling the camps for displaced persons that have done so much to define destruction and suffering during the Darfur genocide. UN figures suggest that approximately 3 million people remain displaced from their homes, some 300,000 as refugees in eastern Chad. They are overwhelmingly people from the non-Arab/African tribal populations of Darfur. Extant mortality data and reports, while limited in many ways by Khartoum, when aggregated strongly suggest that well over 500,000 people have been killed directly or indirectly by the violence Khartoum has so effectively engineered Many tens of thousands of girls and women have been raped as sexual violence continues to be deployed as a brutal weapon of war. Deprivation is unspeakable in many locations as the best current estimate is that 30 percent of the population in Darfur that remains inaccessible to humanitarian relief operations because of Khartoum’s obstructionist policies. Children die in unforgivably large numbers for lack of food, medicine, and shelter. 30 percent of the population in need represents almost 1 million people, as the UN has recently estimated that Darfur’s population in need is 3.3 million people. I offer in a recent analysis representative examples of camps and locations that remain inaccessible despite the claim by former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power that there has been a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan. Hers is a preposterous falsehood, and yet it stands uncorrected by any U.S. government official—past or present. It is a particularly outrageous falsehood, given the fact that in addition to obstructing humanitarian relief in Darfur, Khartoum continues to impose a total humanitarian blockade on the large and highly distressed populations in rebel-controlled areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. By crediting Khartoum with a “sea change” of improved humanitarian access, Power’s statement perversely works to diminish incentives for the regime actually to make such improvements. All this is particularly significant given the terms of the last-minute Executive Order signed by President by President Obama in the last week of his administration, lifting sanctions on Khartoum and stipulating terms for the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions on Khartoum—which include prominently an improvement in humanitarian access. What does Darfur look like in the wake of this ghastly “success”? The character of Khartoum’s success in Darfur is revealed in an soul-destroying dispatch from Radio Dabanga as well recent reports from the Small Arms Survey (“Remote-control breakdown: Sudanese paramilitary forces and pro-government militias”) and the Enough Project (“Border Control from Hell: How the EU’s migration partnership legitimizes Sudan’s militia state”). What they have in common is the characterization of the region as a “militia state,” one in which security has essentially been turned over to the militia forces that have fought for Khartoum and which will sustain themselves—beyond significant salaries in the case of the RSF—primarily by continuing predations on civilians and permanent and by violent expropriation of farmlands and pasturage. Hamid Nur, a man known to me as someone of extraordinary knowledge, integrity, and humanity, is reported by Radio Dabanga to have offered the following assessment: Sudan’s western region is politically, militarily, and economically dominated by militias, says the head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform. The Darfur displaced and refugees have no way to return to their [homes and farms] as the places are occupied by militiamen and their families. In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Hamid Ali Nur, head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform, called the repeated statements by the Sudanese government and the recent report by the US military attaché about the improved security situation in Darfur inaccurate and incorrect. According to the civil society leader, the Khartoum government has, to a large extent, succeeded in changing the Darfur population itself. “Militiamen and their families have occupied the villages and farms left by fleeing Darfuris during all these years.” The civil society activist said that the government’s options given to the Darfur displaced, either to return to their villages of origin, or integrate them into the local communities by re-structuring the camps, are fake. “As the displaced are not able to return, Khartoum’s policy is aimed at permanently displacing them from their homes, lands, and heritage.” This is the face of a “successful” genocide—successful for the perpetrators, catastrophic for the victims, the non-Arab/African populations of Darfur. We have had warnings of such genocidal success for more than thirteen years. In February 2004 I warned in the Washington Post that, There can be no reasonable skepticism about Khartoum’s use of these militias to “destroy, in whole or in part, ethnic or racial groups”—in short, to commit genocide. Khartoum has so far refused to rein in its Arab militias; has refused to enter into meaningful peace talks with the insurgency groups; and, most disturbingly, has refused to grant unrestricted humanitarian access. The international community has been slow to react to Darfur’s catastrophe and has yet to move with sufficient urgency and commitment. A credible peace forum must be rapidly created. Immediate plans for humanitarian intervention should begin. The alternative is to allow tens of thousands of civilians to die in the weeks and months ahead in what will be continuing genocidal destruction. These words have a morally scandalous relevance to this day, although I must admit I had no idea that I should be speaking of a genocide that would last years, not weeks and months—or that mortality from genocidal violence would be measured not in tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of human lives. Darfur has made “Never again!” seem to me the most appalling, the most disgraceful, and finally the most obscene phrase in the English language. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

By Eyder Peralta Internally displaced people gather by a water collection point in a United Nations site outside South Sudan's capital city Juba in January. South Sudan's civil war has killed tens of thousands and driven out some 1.8 million people.Siegfried Modola/Reuters There is a certain peace that comes with being surrounded by a bunch of men with big guns. As much as you want to run or fight or scream, there's not much you can do — except whatever they say. On a Friday afternoon in April, I was sitting in a restaurant in Juba, South Sudan's capital, trying to convince two government officials to issue me press credentials so I could report there. I had tried and failed to do this over the phone from my home base in Nairobi, and so my bosses and I made the decision that an in-person appeal would be best. I flew to Juba, and this was the moment of truth. The two government officials and I made small talk for a while, and then I sheepishly said, "So..." One of them grinned. "We'll give you the credential. You can come pick it up on Monday," he said. NPR's Eyder Peralta - Kainaz Amaria/NPR We were mid-celebration, in the middle of our beers, when half-a-dozen men with guns showed up. They were in plain clothes, carrying assault rifles. "I need you to come with me quietly," one of the men said. "I'm not coming with you; I don't even know who you are," I protested. "National security," he said, as the guys with guns stepped closer. I looked at the government officials still sitting at my table and they looked as shocked as I was. I knew then that I was going with these guys wherever they wanted to take me. So we walked down a dark hallway, out a back door, into the hot afternoon and an alley crawling with more men with weapons. They were all young, some of them in military uniforms. They looked like teenagers hanging in the alley behind a movie theater. But as they saw us coming out, they all clutched their old AK-47s and moved toward me. When I prepare for assignments like these, I think through the risks. In this case, the South Sudanese media authority was not pleased with my previous coverage of the dire refugee situation in neighboring Uganda, so they did not want to grant me a press pass before coming to their country. But sometimes as a journalist, you have to insist and show up anyway. You have to try. You have to tell an unsympathetic government official, "Look, I'm here in search of an explanation for one of the worst conflicts in the world and I want you to let me tell these stories." When I ran through that scenario, I thought the worst case would be that the official would laugh. He would tell me, "You're not welcome in South Sudan" — and I'd be escorted to the airport to catch the next plane out. Just a few minutes earlier, in the restaurant, everything seemed to be turning out much better than I'd expected. But now, the young men with guns forced me onto the back of a pickup truck. I was on my back, caged in by two benches above me. The bed was soaked in gasoline. I could smell it. I could feel it soaking through my shirt. I could feel the vibration of the engine in my body and I could see the tops of buildings zoom past. Every once in a while, the guys with weapons, who were sitting on the benches above me, took a peek at me. I tried to keep track of the turns we were making and tried to look for landmarks. But it felt like we were driving in circles. We accelerated. I felt the bed of the truck turn hot, and suddenly, the top of buildings disappeared. I tried to keep my mind from going to dark places. But it did anyway. Maybe these guys were driving me to some field somewhere, where I'd be forced to kneel and I'd feel the muzzle of one those weapons on the back of my head. A burgeoning humanitarian crisis In July 2011, South Sudan became the darling of the international community. With a referendum, it ended the longest-running war on the African continent and the 10 southern states of Sudan formed their own independent country. On the streets of Juba, there was elation. The two biggest tribes split leadership: Salva Kiir, a Dinka, won the presidency and Riek Machar, a Nuer, was his vice president. The hope was that the South Sudanese, who had for so long suffered under the oppressive regime of Khartoum, could finally build their own country — in peace. But that was not to be. In 2013, Kiir accused Machar of organizing a coup. He fired him, and a civil war erupted. In the summer of 2015, the international community helped broker a deal that called for a ceasefire and for Machar to come back to Juba and resume his vice presidency. By the spring of 2016, Machar had returned, but by summer, a fresh war broke out. Machar was injured and close to death as he was carried across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eventually, with the help of the United Nations, he went into exile in South Africa, where he still lives. Families wait for a food aid delivery at Uganda's Bidi Bidi refugee camp in February. Bidi Bidi is home to more than 270,000 people who've fled South Sudan's civil war and is the biggest refugee camp in the world. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Since then, the conflict has spread, sparking famine and a mass exodus. More than 50,000 have been killed since 2013. This year, precipitated by war, South Sudan surpassed Syria to become the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in the world. There are now some 1.8 million South Sudanese refugees. Salva Kiir remains in power. 'You're an Arab' After the truck stopped, the men escorted me into a two-story building. The power was out so they pointed at me with flashlights, accusing me of being a spy. "You're an Arab," one of them told me. The South Sudanese won their independence after a bloody fight with the Arab north. I knew the implication, and it scared me. I told them I was Latino, born in Nicaragua, raised in the U.S. "You're an Arab and you don't even know it," the man responded. He took me out of the office and up some stairs, where I saw some men gathered behind iron bars. It was the first time I realized I was in a prison. The place was hot and the air felt completely still. I could see only what the officer pointed at with his flashlight — fragments of tile floor, dirty walls, a wooden door. I could smell sweat mixing with the gasoline on my shirt and I could hear the clatter of the prisoners as they clamored to get a look at me. The officer barked at them to get back in their cells and they scattered in seconds. My heart was racing. Before I knew it, the officer was pushing me into a cell toward the back of the prison. "There's some water," he said, closing the door. And then everything went black, as if my eyes had suddenly closed. I felt my way to the ground and touched the concrete with my palms. It was warm. Somehow the sun had worked its way through steel and concrete and onto this floor. I ran my hands across the water bottles but they felt gritty, like they had been dragged through dirt. In the distance, I could hear tracked vehicles, probably tanks, moving across the terrain and every once in a while, a helicopter zooming past. Just outside my cell, I could hear the prisoners talking and playing dominoes. If there is one thing darkness does, it lights up your mind. I thought of Miami, where I was raised. I thought of my wife and my little girls. I thought about all of the brutality that this government had inflicted on civilians. Three days, I thought. That's how long I've heard humans can survive without water and there's no way they'd let me die in here. 'I think we made a mistake' One of the defining characteristics of the South Sudanese conflict is its brutality. A few months ago, I flew to Uganda and drove up to the border with South Sudan. Thousands of people crossed over each day, fleeing the violence. Each one brought harrowing stories: They saw women being gang-raped. They described government soldiers going door to door and killing civilians because of their tribe. One woman told me that as she fled her village, she saw the bodies of her neighbors thrown near a ditch. The violence is systematic and widespread. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and a monitor set up by East African states have all documented government atrocities. A report by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan documented the torching of an entire village. Satellite images had tipped off investigators to the events taking place, and when they finally made into Yei, just southwest of Juba, they found a breakdown of humanity. In one case, they found that government soldiers had disrupted a funeral. According to residents, the soldiers claimed the deceased was a rebel. Theyassaulted mourners and when a man and woman suggested the man was just old and died of natural causes, soldiers took them outside. The woman was raped before both of them were shot dead. Not far away, investigators found that pro-government militias had tied up six civilians, threw them inside a hut and set it on fire. South Sudanese people in Unity State wait to receive medical treatment at a village clinic on Feb. 17. UNICEF/Modola/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images The South Sudanese government has refuted reporting from refugee camps and these official investigations, saying the refugees fleeing the conflict are lying and the president has ordered soldiers who perpetrate atrocities to be punished. But a panel of experts commissioned by the United Nations Security Council found that the government's inability or unwillingness to prevent or punish abuses is "a key driver of the war." The panel of experts also found that as the conflict drags on, it has taken an increasingly tribal dimension. Last December, the U.N.'s Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned that the country was in a process of "ethnic cleansing ... using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages." At a refugee camp in Uganda, a South Sudanese Nuer man named John told me that in his village, government soldiers walked door to door. If you didn't speak Dinka, the language of the ruling tribe, you were killed. "It was the national soldiers, the ones who started this," he said. "Slaughtering people, shooting people, tying people." He told me he remembered independence day in 2011 vividly. People, he said, walked for hours to get to Juba to celebrate the birth of a new nation. But underneath that mango tree, in the middle of that refugee camp, he was doubting all that joy. He was questioning whether the people of South Sudan were better off now than they had been under brutal Sudanese rule. "I think we made a mistake," he said. A shared dinner, a sense of familiarity At some point, the prisoners outside my cell went completely quiet, but the helicopters and tracked vehicles kept going all night. No one came to check on me. I felt completely alone trying to find comfort on a bare concrete floor and trying to quiet my mind. At some point, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw a sliver of light sneaking in through a tiny hole near the ceiling. A couple of prisoners came by to peer through a tiny window in the door. They asked if I was OK, and one of them came back a few minutes later. Soldiers cheer at a ceremony marking the 34th anniversary of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, attended by President Salva Kiir, in Juba on May 18.-Samir Bol/AP "Don't tell anyone we spoke to you," he said. It was hours after I saw that sliver of light that a soldier opened the door to my cell. Honestly, I was scared. Who else was the government keeping in this place? What would they do to me? I walked out cautiously, but into brightness. The prison was all concrete. There were prisoners sleeping along the hallways. Dozens of plastic bottles filled with dirty water were neatly stacked in every corner. Just outside my cell, an old man was lying on a frail mat. He stood up with a bowl in his hand. He looked sad, skinny; but offered me some posha, corn flour that has been boiled into a kind of dough. The last 15 hours had been miserable and isolating, but all of sudden, I felt like I was stepping into humanity. The prisoners stopped by, introducing themselves one by one. They shared tips — you're free to use the shower shoes outside the toilet; don't talk to the man three doors down in solitary. They offered to wash my gasoline-soaked shirt. At one point, the guards gave me back some of my money and told me I could order anything I wanted from the market. I ordered bread, Cokes, shawarmas — enough for everyone. It was delivered within hours by one of the prison officials. The other prisoners and I shared dinner on the floor. Some of them told me they had been held for two years, others for three. They said that they had never been charged and that they had never appeared before a judge. George Livio was one of them — a South Sudanese journalist for a United Nations-funded news outlet who reported on corruption. He'd been held since August 2014. Every morning, he woke up thinking this was the day he would finally be released. But by now, he had missed watching his three young children grow up. Justine Wanawila was another prisoner — a former Catholic priest. He said authorities accused him of feeding rebels. They threw him on a plane and brought him to Juba. On a couple of mornings while I was there, he led the prisoners in praying the rosary. I listened from my cell and told him it reminded me of my grandmother. I thanked him for the familiarity. "You came to South Sudan to report on what the government is doing to innocent people," he told me. "You can still do that from here." 'We all want peace' When NPR informed the U.S. embassy of my detention in Juba, the embassy sent consular officers to come check on me daily. It was a relief to be walked out of the prison and into another building and to know that my family, my country, my place of work knew where I was. But every time I made that walk, a South Sudanese officer would pull me into his office after the U.S. officials had left. He was a lean, angular guy, and he sat on his chair thumbing through a Bill Nye book. Sometimes he would just stare at me for minutes at a time. I wouldn't break eye contact because I wanted to show him that I had nothing to hide. He asked questions — "Is it fair that your country is slaughtering civilians? Is it fair that they keep prisoners in secret prisons?" — but every time I tried to talk, he'd interrupt with warnings and boasts about how South Sudan could kill me and my family if it wanted us dead. I remember when he said that, another officer in military fatigues was in his office. He smiled. It was gentle, but also clear that he found this whole scene a little entertaining. "Eyder," he said. "Have you ever been a soldier?" I chuckled. "Never." He wanted to know what life was like in New York City, how kids went to school. He wanted to know what life would be like if you didn't have to be on the run. Most South Sudanese have had to flee multiple times in their lives. Some of the refugees I spoke with in Uganda could remember hiding in the bush with their parents when they were attacked by Sudanese troops. Now they had fled with their own kids. Before we could talk, the first officer sent me off. The next day, he called me back to his office and he shouted that the United States was undermining the independence of South Sudan. He was agitated, belligerent. I lowered my voice and I told him that he had to listen to me. A person, I told him, is not a country, and also, he didn't know me. I told him I was a child of war, born during the civil war in Nicaragua. Like so many of his people, my family fled. We found peace and a home in the United States. It's not a perfect country, I told him, but it was instrumental in supporting South Sudanese independence — and it was also, right now, paying for more than half the food that is being dropped out of airplanes in famine-hit areas. His demeanor changed. His voice became softer. "Eyder," he said. "When you go back to your country, I want you to tell your people that we all want peace." He pointed out the window. He said in that direction was the first paved road most South Sudanese had ever seen. "We're trying to build a country," he said. This war, this killing, he said, is necessary to emerge a stronger country. At that moment, I had no doubt he believed it. I nodded. But I also suspected that to the millions of South Sudanese who have been forced from their homes and to those who have lost children, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, those words would sound hollow. I was released from jail without charges on May 1, four days after I was picked up. George Livio, the United Nations journalist, was released without charges on May 26, after two years and nine months. A government official drove me to the airport for my deportation to Kenya. "You are welcome in South Sudan," he said. "This was all a misunderstanding." South Sudan is the biggest tragedy unfolding on the continent today. It's not a story you just let go. I told him that maybe someday, I would test that invitation. __________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NPR