By Colum Lynch Lost in this week’s debate about who would attend Syria peace talks was the question of who would enforce a Syrian peace. In a confidential strategy paper exclusively obtained by Foreign Policy, the office of the United Nations’ top envoy to Syria warns that the U.N. would be unable to monitor or enforce any peace deal that might emerge from landmark political talks underway in Geneva. The paper raised concerns the world might harbor unrealistic expectations about the U.N.’s ability to oversee and verify a cease-fire in a civil war beset by a dizzying array of armed factions and terrorist groups. “The current international and national political context and the current operational environment strongly suggest that a U.N. peacekeeping response relying on international troops or military observers would be an unsuitable modality for ceasefire monitoring,” according to the “Draft Ceasefire Modalities Concept Paper” by U.N. envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura’s team. In plain English, that means Syria will be far too dangerous for some time for traditional U.N. peacekeepers to handle. There are also few signs that major powers are either willing or impartial enough to step in to do the job effectively. And there is the risk that extremist militants and other armed elements who will be excluded from the political talks will upend the peace process with force. The maddening complexity of establishing a cease-fire comes on top of the challenge of just getting the warring parties to the negotiating table. On Friday, U.N.-sponsored peace talks began without the main Syrian opposition group, known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC). The group had vowed to boycott the talks because Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and its allies did not acquiesce to the HNC’s main precondition: halting airstrikes and seizures of rebel-held towns. However, HNC member Farah Atassi said a delegation will meet with de Mistura on Sunday “not to negotiate,” but to discuss U.N. efforts to ensure that Syria halts its military attacks on civilians, according to the Associated Press. Saudi Arabia’s U.N. ambassador, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, told Foreign Policythat the Syrian opposition would be represented by a three-member delegation, including HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat, and would focus on easing Syria’s humanitarian crisis. The other two delegation members are Riyadh Naasan Agha, a former Syrian culture minister, and Monzer Makhous, the Syrian National Council’s ambassador to France. More members of the delegation may arrive later, according to U.N. based diplomats. But a nationwide cease-fire isn’t expected anytime soon. Assad’s government, backed by Russian air power, continues to press ahead with attacks on rebel forces. And none of the three members of the opposition’s delegation have power over Syria’s armed rebel groups. In the short term, de Mistura believes Damascus’s forces and the armed rebellion would themselves have to monitor any cease-fire agreement. If ground security improves, the U.N. envoy’s office could widen its role in Syria, provide training and resources to locals, and act as a go-between between the key Syrian combatants and international players. But the heavy lifting would be left to the fighters and their foreign backers, known as the 17-nation International Syria Support Group (ISSG). “There must be a clear shift from the ISSG role of sponsor [of the political process] to guarantor of agreements,” the U.N. paper states. “The ISSG will need to coordinate the efforts of key member states, and provide operational liaison with government and armed opposition counterparts, in order to drive the brokering and sustaining of a national ceasefire, and the achievement and maintenance of local agreements.” De Mistura appears to have few illusions that any agreement to come out of the Geneva talks would lead to Syria’s immediate peace. Instead, the paper notes, all sides will have to painstakingly negotiate a series of cease-fires, town by town, to relieve the suffering of besieged Syrians. That, in turn, would hopefully lead to a nationwide cease-fire and, ultimately, peace. His paper also seeks to lower expectations for what the U.N. or other international monitors could accomplish in Syria. It would not include, for example, documenting human rights abuses, building legal cases against war criminals, or monitoring the release or well-being of detainees. “There is … a risk of mission creep,” the U.N. paper states. “As such, it is imperative to clearly articulate those roles which a monitoring mission would not be capable of doing.” A December cease-fire agreement in Zabadani, a rebel-controlled town near the border with Lebanon in southwest Syria, may serve as a model for a way forward, the U.N. paper found. In December, exhausted and wounded rebel fighters and civilians trapped by pro-government forces in Zabadani were evacuated. In exchange, injured pro-regime fighters were allowed to leave the government-controlled towns of Foua and Kfarya in Idlib province as they were besieged by rebel fighters. The pause also permitted the U.N. and the Red Cross to truck in some supplies to the towns, though the U.N. maintains that the supplies were insufficient to meet the needs of the populations. “With respect to the physical monitoring of ceasefire initiatives, it is anticipated that this will at the outset be undertaken by national counterparts, building on examples already in place (such as in Zabadani),” the paper notes. It says increased efforts by the ISSG and de Mistura’s office will be needed to reinforce the monitoring, but warns: “There will be a direct tradeoff between a desire for the highest level of credibility in a ceasefire monitoring process … and tolerance for physical risk.” The U.N.’s strategy has come under sharp criticism from analysts and opposition forces who believe earlier cease-fire agreements have rewarded the Assad regime’s policy of starving out civilians in rebel-held towns into submission. Some 18 towns through Syria are under siege, subjecting nearly a half-million people to harsh deprivations and in some cases starvation. The Syrian government has laid siege to the majority of those civilians — an estimated 274,200, according to the U.N.’s relief coordinator, Stephen O’Brien. Another 200,000 are trapped by the Islamic State, O’Brien said. Additionally, extremist Syrian rebels, including al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, are laying siege to 12,500 civilians in pro-government enclaves, according to O’Brien. “It’s problematic to refer to any cease-fires we have seen thus far as a model; they reward collective punishment, the bombarding or starving of communities into submission,” said Noah Bonsey, an expert on Syria with the International Crisis Group. Even the Zabadani cease-fire is problematic, Bonsey said, as it shows how each side uses collective punishment to force the other to give in. “Each agreement has encouraged more sieges and collective punishment tactics,” Bonsey said. “The central question is, can we move the U.N. and the Syrian parties to move beyond this model to something that is more stable and built on something other than collective punishment? Are there deals to be had that would not incentivize the use of these collective punishment tactics?” Syria's government will likely focus its diplomacy on the local cease-fire strategy. In recent days, key Assad backers, including ruling Baath Party senior leader Hilal al-Hilal, said Damascus’s negotiators will go to Geneva to listen — but not to offer any concessions. “We are not going to give today what we did not give over the past five years,” he told Syrian soldiers, according to the Associated Press. “This year will be the year of victory for Syria.” Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, predicted that government forces will negotiate directly with the fighters on the battlefield. But in Geneva, he added, it’s likely Damascus will denounce the opposition as terrorists. “They will do the Trump thing and tell you how bad you are,” he said. Estimates by U.S. spy chief James Clapper show that Syria’s rebellion is made up of some 1,500 groups, all with various political leanings, Landis said, and “each one of those groups are going to have to be dealt with, either killed or negotiated with, town by town.” Landis said policymakers must accept the likelihood that Assad’s forces are likely to parlay any countrywide cease-fire agreement into a military campaign against al-Nusra Front, which controls the strategic town of Idlib. Groups that have been fighting alongside the al Qaeda affiliate, including Ahrar al-Sham, will be pressured to abandon their ally. Damascus will signal to armed rebels that “if you shoot at me, you will be breaking the cease-fire,” Landis said, noting that this scenario helps Assad: “If you think through this, it’s a lose-lose situation for the opposition.” The U.N.’s peacekeeping and political offices, meanwhile, have already begun contingency planning for a beefed-up U.N. presence in Syria if security conditions allow it. The U.N. could expand de Mistura’s office into a full-fledged political mission with fully staffed missions in Damascus and New York to supplement current operations in Geneva. De Mistura’s paper outlines three options for monitoring a cease-fire: deploying a “fully independent international” monitoring operation, relying on local monitors with technical support from the international community, and deploying a more traditional team of local and international monitors. That last option would provide the “highest levels of credibility,” but it “entails high physical risk,” requiring security assurances from armed groups and their international backers to shield the process from being threatened by violent “spoilers.” Given de Mistura’s concerns about security, it seems unlikely he favors this approach. In a closed-door meeting with the U.N. Security Council this month, de Mistura said, according to speaking notes obtained by Foreign Policy, that while he has “been looking at options for monitoring, verification, and reporting in the event of a cease-fire,” any final arrangement would have to be approved by the warring parties. As a fallback, de Mistura said he would also begin talking to combatants about confidence-building measures — like pledges to spare hospitals and schools from attacks and let humanitarian aid into besieged towns — to ease the suffering of civilians. But he acknowledged that Syria will “remain highly fragmented, volatile, and militarized” for the foreseeable future. “In such a situation, it would be extremely challenging to deploy international monitors to conduct observation tasks on the ground,” he said. Over time, the international community must work toward deepening its role in supporting peace efforts on the ground, de Mistura warned. “This means we must collectively understand and accept the risks involved,” he said. “We are on standby to develop a realistic approach.” FP senior staff writer John Hudson contributed to this report. Copyright 2016 Foreign Policy

By Dan de Luce Image: The White House can’t decide whether to sign off on a multibillion-dollar arms deal with the Persian Gulf kingdom, a sometime ally that has close ties to Islamist militants and Iran. The Obama administration is paralyzed over whether to sell dozens of advanced U.S. fighter jets to the tiny kingdom of Qatar, a Persian Gulf ally that houses a strategic American air base but has alarmed Washington by maintaining ties to an array of Islamist militant groups. The potential deal for up to 73 F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, worth billions of dollars, has been on the table for more than two years. The White House has come under fire for the unusual delay from some U.S. lawmakers, who accuse the administration of dithering and breaking its promise to speed up arms sales to Gulf allies anxious about the threat posed by their regional rival Iran — especially as Tehran emerges from economic sanctions and inks arms deals with countries like Russia. Israel has privately expressed reservations about the deal because of Qatar’s relationships with Islamist groups like the Taliban and Hamas and because of concerns that Israel’s military superiority in the region could be undercut by the sale, congressional aides and former U.S. officials said. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf nations have voiced similar concerns about Qatar’s ties to terrorist groups and its increasingly warm relationship with Tehran. Qatar, for its part, says that it wants the jets to assert itself as a military power in a region plagued by conflict and instability. Its current air force is tiny, with just a dozen aging French Mirage jets, so the proposed deal would represent a six-fold increase in its military strength. The Qatari government hopes to leverage the help it has provided Washington — from hosting the air base the United States uses to stage strikes against the Islamic State to negotiating the release of captive American soldier Bowe Bergdahl — to secure the aircraft deal. Faced with a politically fraught dilemma that could either antagonize Qatar or Israel and other Persian Gulf allies, the White House has been unable to make a decision. Senate aides and industry experts said both the Defense and State departments have no objections to the sales, and lawmakers from both parties have pressed the White House to approve the sale. The administration, however, has given no indication if, or when, it plans to do so . Several U.S. lawmakers, including those with staunch pro-Israel views, have been puzzled by the delay on the Qatar sale — as well as a pending deal with Kuwait — and urged the administration to move forward on both deals. “These sales have been stuck in the political decision-making process at the White House for a long time now,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Foreign Policy in an email. “Many of us would like to see the White House make a decision soon to move this process along.” But other lawmakers have said they have reservations about the United States selling weapons to Qatar, given its track record of openly supporting Hamas and turning a blind eye to deep-pocket donors delivering funds to extremists in Syria. In 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department took the unusual step of publicly rebuking Qatar for failing to take decisive action against nationals who are providing funds to militant groups, including the al Qaeda-backed al-Nusra Front in Syria. Last year, meanwhile, the department imposed sanctions on two Qatar-based financiers for allegedly raising money for al Qaeda operatives in Syria, Pakistan, and Sudan. “The Qataris have shown a tolerance for extremism among the groups they have supported within Syria that has caused some real friction with our other regional allies and with the United States,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told FP. He added that Qatar needed to show concrete evidence of a change in behavior before the deal should be approved. Qatar has said it has not funded terrorists but has defended its relations with Hamas (which the United States lists as a terrorist organization) and other Islamist movements as groups that have popular political support. The Qatari Embassy in Washington did not respond to queries from FP. Qatar’s monarchy has displayed a canny ability to play both sides of the Middle East’s divide, welcoming leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood along with U.S. Air Force generals and American college professors. And its channels to various Islamist groups — while causing alarm — often have turned the kingdom into a crucial U.S. partner for back-channel diplomacy and securing the release of hostages. When the United States signaled it was ready to swap Taliban commanders held at the detention facility in Guantánamo Bay for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier captured in Afghanistan and held hostage by insurgents, it turned to Qatar as a go-between to broker a deal with the Taliban insurgents. Qatar has also played a key role in securing the release of a number of Western hostages held by al-Nusra Front or other Syrian rebels, including American journalist Peter Theo Curtis two years ago. And when Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to negotiate an end to fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in 2014, he sought out Qatar to help broker a cease-fire. The Defense Department’s ties to Qatar run even deeper. In 2013, the Pentagon renewed a defense cooperation agreement that extended the U.S. lease on the al-Udeid Air Base for another 10 years. The deal allows the United States to continue to run its combat air operations center out of the desert base west of Doha, where officers from 30 countries oversee the U.S.-led air war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. In 2014, the United States announced an arms sale with Qatar worth $11 billion for Patriot missile batteries, Apache attack helicopters and other weapons. Qatar’s aircraft have provided logistical support and flown surveillance missions for the campaign against the Islamic State, and its planes took part in the NATO-led air campaign in Libya in 2011 that toppled dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. The long delay of the Qatar deal has opened the White House to criticism that it is backtracking on its 2015 promise to increase security assistance to Persian Gulf nations battling the Islamic State and looking to deter Iran. In May 2015, at a meeting of leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council at Camp David, Washington pledged to take steps like “fast-tracking arms transfers.” The meeting was supposed to reassure traditional Gulf Arab allies, who fear Washington is withdrawing from the region and who distrust the nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran. But with no green light for the fighter jet sales to Qatar and Kuwait, U.S. credibility in the region has been damaged, according to Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “In the Gulf, the president is failing to live up to the promises made at the Camp David Summit in May 2015,” McCain said at a hearing this month. A spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, David McKeeby, told FP it is typical and appropriate for major arms deals to undergo extensive “consideration and consultation.” He added: “The United States remains committed to the security and stability of the Gulf region.” As it has weighed the arms sales to the Gulf, the Obama administration also has been negotiating an elaborate memorandum of understanding with Israel that will outline a 10-year U.S. military assistance package for the Jewish state. The memorandum has taken on added importance in light of Israeli opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement, which has enabled the lifting of economic sanctions on Tehran. Israel fears that Iran will be able to invest in new weapons — including ballistic missiles — that could target its cities and military bases. The memorandum reportedly could offer up to $50 billion worth of U.S. military aid to Israel over a decade, but the sale of dozens of fighter jets to Qatar could give the Israelis a rationale to press for bolstering the assistance further, experts and congressional aides said. U.S. President Barack Obama is due to travel to Riyadh next month to attend a gathering of the GCC, and the meeting could provide an opportunity for the administration to announce a decision on the Qatar sale. Although U.S. lawmakers are invoking geopolitics in backing the arms sales, many have their eye on domestic politics, as thousands of American jobs could be on the line if the deal is rejected or continues to linger. The aerospace giant Boeing manufactures the aircraft that would be sold to Qatar or Kuwait under the pending deals. Boeing executives and Pentagon officials argue that the production lines in Missouri for both the F-15 and the F/A-18, older planes slated to be phased out in favor of more advanced jets, might have to close within a few years if the arms sales do not go through. And that would mean layoffs for the thousands of workers who build those planes. The defense industry, by spreading weapons manufacturing jobs at plants across numerous states, exerts a major influence on Congress. Donors and political action committees from the industry contributed more than $27 million to political candidates in the 2012 election campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Over the past year, Boeing ranked third among defense political contributors, donating $1.61 million to various candidates and groups. Winning approval for the Qatar deal, however, has already been a tough sell for the kingdom and its allies on Capitol Hill because Qatar’s ruling family has come under consistent criticism from U.S. government officials who say it has tolerated fundraising by its citizens for violent extremists. After publicly slamming Qatar in 2014, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the time, David Cohen, who is now the CIA’s deputy director, described Qatar as “a permissive terrorist financing environment.” In September 2014, Treasury officials said an Islamic State commander, known as the “emir of suicide bombers,” received $2 million in cash from a Qatari businessman. Treasury sanctioned the two Qatari financiers less than a year later. Despite the U.S. sanctions introduced against some Qatari nationals and the criticism, Western firms and banks have not shied away from doing business in the country. Investments by U.S. and other oil firms enabled the kingdom to exploit its vast natural gas reserves for lucrative exports, with GDP growing from $35 billion to $185 billion between 2000 and 2012. In June 2013, Qatar’s emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, abdicated in favor of his son Tamim bin Hamad. The new leader has raised hopes among Western officials that the country will strike a more moderate course when it comes to its relationships with Islamist groups. But the Treasury Department has issued no public statements suggesting Qatar has changed its stripes. Matthew Spence, formerly the top Pentagon official for the Middle East in the Obama administration, said U.S. weapons sales offer a way of exerting some constructive influence over a country like Qatar. “Qatar really is an evolving country, and we should look for ways to shape which way they’re evolving,” he told FP. “If the United States doesn’t help shape their direction, Qatar will turn somewhere else.” The kingdom has already begun to do so. Qatar had previously bought French warplanes for its small air force fleet. Amid uncertainty over the U.S. deal, Qatar announced last year it would buy 24 Rafale fighters from France for $7 billion. Copyright Clearance Center Foreign Policy

By David Greenberg Barack Obama’s impending departure from the White House has put many Americans in an elegiac mood. Despite an average approval rating of only 48 percent — the lowest, surprisingly, of our last five presidents — he has always been beloved, if not revered, by the scribbling classes. Just as many prematurely deemed Bush the worst president ever, so many are now ready to enshrine Obama as one of the all-time greats. Or at least they were until the fall of Aleppo. Since the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Americans have regarded the carnage there as essentially a humanitarian disaster. For Obama, contemplating his legacy, the awful death and destruction that Syria has suffered — the 400,000 deaths, the wholesale wasting of civilian neighborhoods, the wanton use of sarin gas and chlorine gas and barrel bombs, the untold atrocities — has raised the old question of how future generations will judge an American president’s passivity or ineffectuality in the face of mass slaughter. Perhaps Obama has been hoping for a dispensation, since presidential reputations have never suffered much for such sins of omission. With a few notable exceptions, biographies, textbooks, obituaries, and even public memory have dwelled little on George W. Bush’s inaction in Darfur, Bill Clinton’s floundering over Rwanda, George H.W. Bush’s dithering about Bosnia, Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness in Cambodia, Gerald Ford’s cold realism toward East Timor, or Richard Nixon’s complicity in Bangladesh. “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler reportedly said in 1939, predicting that the world’s amnesia about the Turks’ mass killings should allow his armies to proceed in all ruthlessness without fear of judgment. We might think of those words in considering how little attention in our history books is given to our presidents’ very limited roles in standing up to atrocities overseas. And yet now, as Obama’s presidency winds down, and a ceasefire begins to take effect Syria that Washington played no role in negotiating, it’s becoming clear that the loss of life and the humanitarian crisis represent just the first of many consequences that historians will have to assess as they ask how the United States, under Obama’s leadership, chose to deal, or not to deal, with the Syrian Civil War. And if historians tend to give presidents a pass on failing to arrest slaughter, they are not so generous in evaluating the loss of American influence around the world. Right now, the apparent loss of that influence seems to loom newly large. The brutal Russian-backed assault in December crushed the Syrian resistance in its main holdout city, Aleppo, calling into question whether the rebel forces will still be able to carry on any insurrection at all. President Bashar al-Assad is gathering with the despots of Russia, Turkey, and Iran to draw up the terms of resolution, pointedly excluding the United States and the United Nations. Vladimir Putin seems high in his saddle. [if gte vml 1]>

By David Boyle PHOTO: Youk Chhang with former Khmer Rouge tribunal defendant Im Chaem in 2011. (DC-Cam, file) Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal has dropped its case against a suspect accused of killing thousands of people at torture centres and slave labour camps during the country's tragic agrarian revolution, in which an estimated 2 million people were killed. During a remarkable reconciliation in June 2010 in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng, that suspect, Im Chaem, read to scores of school children from a history book detailing the crimes of the murderous regime she served. Flanking her stood Youk Chhang, once a 15-year-old victim of the slave labour camp she allegedly oversaw, helping her read his foreword to a text book of Khmer Rouge crimes he was successfully launching into the national high school curriculum. "Writing about this bleak period of history may run the risk of reopening old wounds for the survivors of Democratic Kampuchea," she read. It was a powerful moment for Mr Chhang, who has forensically archived evidence of the Khmer Rouge's crimes through his organisation The Documentation Centre of Cambodia for more than two decades. "Well you know you have to accept that there are two sides of all us and even in the most difficult situations there is also beauty in it," Mr Chhang said. "Look at her today, 38 years later, which is closer to my own mother, I can't imagine a mother doing that to any child in the world." 'Bitter pill to swallow' Mr Chhang's relationship with the perpetrators he has investigated for decades can be hard to comprehend, allowing for both reconciliation and the pursuit against of justice against some of them simultaneously. He has stood beside his tormentor, talked to her at length and shared laughter with her but is still deeply rocked by the court's decision to drop charges against her, calling it "a bitter pill to swallow". The court, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, announced on Wednesday that Ms Chaem fell outside its scope of trying only the regime's senior leaders or those deemed most responsible for its crimes. PHOTO: Youk Chhang with former Khmer Rouge tribunal defendant Im Chaem in Anlong Veng, Cambodia. (DC-Cam: Leng Ratanak, file) The hybrid UN/Cambodian court, which mandates all legal teams have national and international counterparts, has faced a litany of political and financial scandals since it was formulated in 2006 and has thus far only convicted three defendants. Recurring disputes have emerged between the international and national side of the prosecution team and investigative judges raising accusations that Cambodian lawyers have been pressured not to pursue certain suspects because of what their trials could reveal about members of the current regime. Precisely this type of dispute has emerged again in the case of Ms Chaem. In a statement outlining differences between its national and international sides, the office of the co-prosecutors revealed the extent to which the latter team believed she fell within the court's jurisdiction, arguing she had, among many other crimes, overseen a network of torturous security centres. "Im Chaem also initiated construction at Spean Spreng dam and Prey Roneam reservoir and assigned many workers to Trapeang Thma dam. Thousands of individuals were forced to labour at these large irrigation projects and various other worksites under Im Chaem's responsibility in conditions amounting to enslavement." The international co-prosecutor alleged she had committed crimes including murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, persecution, forced marriage, rape and enforced disappearances in roles assigned to her by the highest leaders of the regime. In contrast, the national co-prosecutor deemed her not be one of the most responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and thus outside of the court's jurisdiction. Disputes like these represent one of several structural issues with the court that have slowed the judicial process at times to a crawl, exhausting the patience of many victims. 'Guilty as hell as far as I'm concerned' Several suspects, including the regime's leader Pol Pot, foreign minister Ieng Sary and Ta Mok, the notoriously brutal zone commander who built the school where Ms Chaem read, died either without being tried or before a verdict was reached. For Cambodian-Australian filmmaker Chhorn Bunhom, who escaped a similar slave labour camp as a 6-year-old after witnessing unspeakable acts of violence, seeing another suspect escape trial is a stinging blow. Mr Bunhom said he had long supported the trial but couldn't see the point in spending so much money if in the end the suspects such as Ms Chaem could just walk away and deny they did anything wrong. "In that respect, what the court is basically saying to me, [Bun]Hom, is that it never happened. Basically what it's saying is that a genocide didn't happen. That is more hurtful to me. "It probably makes her feel better at night but it's not convincing me that she's not guilty." But where the court has frustrated him, Mr Bunhom has found other ways to come to terms with the trauma that was trust upon him and his family by the sadistic regime. In 2014, he released his documentary Camp 32, in which he tracked down the site of his childhood internment after a remarkable series of reunions and more than a decade of searching. PHOTO: Filmmaker and Khmer Rouge labour camp victim Chhorn Bunhom scouts locations for a film on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in 2016 (ABC News: David Boyle) While sites such as the S-21 torture centre in Cambodia are well known, at least partially because the chief of facility, Kaing Guek Eav Alias Duch, was convicted by the court, many slave labour camps filled with tens of thousands of people such as the one Mr Bunhom was held in remain undocumented. Mr Bunhom is now working on formal recognition of the site while pursuing further film projects about the Khmer Rouge including a new short looking at the crime of forced marriage. Mr Chhang has been a great facilitator of such efforts to record and engage with Khmer Rouge history through creative means, overseeing or supporting countless projects incorporating written records, art, film and music. He is now pursuing his most ambitious project yet: construction of a world class university in Phnom Penh called the Sleuk Rith institute, dedicated to understanding the brutality that descended on Cambodia and understanding how to move forward from it, regardless of the obstacles that come with that journey. "It's not a hit. I don't think survivors will be hit by this decision but rather make them stronger and realised they must stand on their own two feet and continue their journey for justice." ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 ABC News Austrailia

By Daniela Petroff In this photo taken Monday, June 19, 2017, a displaced family carrying their belongings walks in search of refuge towards the village of Aburoc, South Sudan. A new report by Amnesty International says South Sudanese forces burned, shelled and ransacked homes between January and May, killing civilians and forcing thousands from the Shilluk ethnic minority to flee. (Sam Mednick/Associated Press) Pope Francis is offering 460,000 euros (more than $500,000) in aid for South Sudan to help finance two hospitals, a school and farm equipment. Francis had hoped to visit South Sudan in October to draw attention to the plight of its people faced with starvation and civil war, but called off the trip because the conditions wouldn’t permit it. “Since the Holy Father was unable to go to South Sudan in person, he wanted to concretely show the church’s presence and closeness with the suffering people,” Cardinal Peter Turkson, Francis’ point-man for peace and refugee issues, told a news conference Wednesday. The money will go to help fund two hospitals run by the Combonian missionary sisters, a primary school run by a humanitarian group “Solidarity with South Sudan” and an agricultural project run by the Vatican’s Caritas foundation. Combonian Sister Laura Gemignani, who works in one of the hospitals, said that aside from the tangible effects of new financial aid, the pope’s assistance helped alleviate the sense felt by many in South Sudan that theirs is in many ways a forgotten conflict. “This gesture makes us feel part of the family, with the Holy Father as our father,” she said. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Washington Post

By Colin Dwyer Two boats that capsized while carrying fleeing Rohingya, seen Thursday after they were recovered by Bangladeshi villagers. About two dozen bodies were also recovered, according to local officials.Suvra Kanti Das/AP When state security forces entered the western Myanmar village of Chut Pyin in the midafternoon Sunday, they weren't alone. According to the survivors who spoke with Fortify Rights, an international aid group, armed residents of a nearby village mingled with the troops — but they both had a common target. Together, Fortify Rights says, the two groups wasted no time setting to work against the village's Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in the country, paying no attention to whether their victims were men, women or children. "My brother was killed—[Myanmar Army soldiers] burned him with the group" in a bamboo hut, one survivor told the group. "We found [my other family members] in the fields. They had marks on their bodies from bullets and some had cuts. My two nephews, their heads were off. One was six-years old and the other was nine-years old. My sister-in-law was shot with a gun." Within a span of five hours, witnesses say more than 200 people were killed. NPR is not able to independently verify claims in the group's report. Myanmarese soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint in rural Rakhine state on Wednesday. Plumes of smoke reportedly billowed from several villages in the worst-hit section of the state as troops clashed with Rohingya militants this week.STR/AFP/Getty Images It has been roughly a week since the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a Rohingya militant group also known as ARSA, launched coordinated attacks on security outposts in Rakhine state, near the border with Bangladesh. Scores of people died, most of whom were the attackers, but Myanmar's military says the violence in the days that followed has dwarfed last Friday's death toll. Citing a statement posted on Facebook, The Associated Press reports 399 people have died in 90 clashes this past week — and all but 29 of the dead were insurgents, according to the statement. International observers condemned the extremists' attacks last week, but they expressed particular alarm over the military crackdown on Rohingya civilians that has followed. Viewed with suspicion as collaborators with the militants, the Rohingya have often been treated brutally by the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which doesn't consider them to be citizens. Earlier this year, the United Nations decried the "devastating cruelty" with which the military retaliated against civilians for a similar militant attack last October. "About 1 million Rohingya live in Rakhine state, and they are almost entirely disenfranchised and need permission, for instance, to travel outside their own villages or to marry," NPR's Michael Sullivan and Ashley Westerman explained earlier this year. "Many are restricted to living in internment camps, segregated from the local Buddhist population." And now, that long-precarious position appears to have been destabilized still further by the recent fighting — including the ferocious reprisals reported by groups like Fortify Rights. The aid organization says troops, police officers and even villagers armed with swords and knives have been involved in a series of mass killings and arson in pockets of Rakhine. "The situation is dire," Matthew Smith, the group's CEO, said in a statement. "Mass atrocity crimes are continuing." "The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the reports of excesses during the security operations conducted by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State and urges restraint and calm to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe." The United Nations estimates that between the extremist attacks and the government's retaliatory crackdown, more than 27,000 Rohingya have fled over the border into Bangladesh in recent days, with an additional 20,000 "stranded between the two countries." Unnamed sources with the U.N. tell Reuters the number of Rohingya who have crossed into Bangladesh is closer to 38,000. And they warn that those numbers are only growing. "The worsening cycle of violence is of grave concern and must be broken urgently," said Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar. "I am concerned that these events will derail efforts to address the root causes of the systematic discrimination and recurrent violence in Rakhine State." U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' office also released a statement on the violence Friday: "The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the reports of excesses during the security operations conducted by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State and urges restraint and calm to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe." Members of Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority trek through rice fields after crossing the border into Bangladesh on Friday. Myanmar's military says nearly 400 people have died in violence in the western state of Rakhine.Bernat Armangue/AP Far from a place of solace, the land across the border presents the fleeing Rohingya with its own set of dangers. For the refugees already in Bangladesh, thousands of whom fled the crackdown that followed October's attack, life is often confined to bleak camps held together with plastic sheeting and bamboo. And that's the case only for those lucky enough not to be turned away at the border. Some do not even make it that far. Bangladeshi officials say the bodies of at least two dozen people washed up on the banks of the Naf River separating the two countries, as Reuters reports. "We believe they were Rohingyas," said the commanding officer of a local Bangladeshi battalion, according to the New York Times. "They died because their boats capsized when they were coming to Bangladesh by boat from Myanmar." But many Rohingya fear still worse what awaits them if they stay put. "If we stay inside then they set our houses on fire, shooting at us or slaughtering us," one refugee told CNN. "How could we survive? I have no money. After seeing the massacre, I traveled all the way to the Bangladesh border. I left my home four days ago. Now where would I go?" ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NPR

By Courtney Columbus Mohamed Ayas, 15, was shot in the back by Myanmarese soldiers as he attempted to flee his village in Myanmar's western Rakhine State. Nearly 400,000 Rohingya people have fled government violence in Myanmar and crossed into neighboring Bangladesh. The majority of them are children — 60 percent, by U.N. estimates. And at least 1,100 are separated from their parents. The challenges for aid groups are unfathomable with a refugee crisis this large, caused by what Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, says seems to be "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing." The situation is even more daunting when so many children are at risk. Kids are vulnerable to physical illnesses like waterborne diseases and skin infections — and mental health problems spurred by trauma. They've been shot at and they've trekked across areas with land mines. Hearing some of their stories has shocked Christophe Boulierac, the UNICEF spokesman in Geneva who's currently posted to Bangladesh. He remembers a teenage boy he met earlier this week who had fled Myanmar. "He told me he saw his mother and sister shot dead in front of him, and then he fled," Boulierac says. "I asked him, what do you feel, how do you feel? And he told me, 'I am not feeling anything. I just want to eat, some shelter and then maybe I will start thinking.'" Girls reach out for food handed out by a volunteer organization in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Aid groups are working to meet such basic needs as food and shelter. Most of the new arrivals head to Kutupalong, the largest of Bangladesh's refugee camps, and makeshift settlements next to it. Kutupalong has been there for years, has some infrastructure and is near the Myanmar border. But it's been tough for the newly arrived refugees to find a place to camp out. Many people have used materials like bamboo and plastic to make their own improvised shelters. A Rohingya child sits amid piles of donated clothes at a refugee camp in southern Bangladesh. "Most of them are just homemade tents that are made from a few skinny bamboo poles that have been either found or purchased, stuck into the ground, that have been tied together with a piece of plastic sheeting thrown on top and another one on the ground if they've got it," says Pavlo Kolovos, the Bangladesh head of mission for Doctors Without Borders. "Space is a premium." Even in this dire setting, the humanitarian agencies are seeking to give kids time and space to play — and to add structure to their lives, which can help them recover from the traumatic experiences they might have experienced. "They need to feel safe," says Jean Lieby, chief of child protection for UNICEF Bangladesh. "Some have been six days walking through the rainforest." "Child friendly spaces" in camp buildings, often with art supplies, offer a secure place to play and also help staffers identify youngsters who could need extra support such as counseling, Lieby says. There are different signs to look for, he says: "Some are mute, not talking anymore. Sometimes children are shy just because they are shy. Some that were not shy before and that become extremely shy, we have to look into." Abdul Rahman, 21, cares for his four-month-old daughter Sangida. Her mother was shot dead by soldiers in Myanmar while trying to flee to Bangladesh. Not all kids who are refugees need counseling, Lieby says. But for some who have been severely affected by trauma, the psychological healing process can take decades. "Some people that have been affected during the Rwanda genocide [in 1994] are still receiving trauma counseling," Lieby says. Asked about providing therapy, Boulierac says: "We are really scaling up. Nobody has expected this influx." A team of gravediggers prepares a grave on the hillside near the Kutupalong refugee camp. Makeshift shelters have been popping up along the main road, which is clogged with trucks and other vehicles — putting refugee children at risk of getting hurt, says Kolovos of Doctors Without Borders. The weather isn't helping, either. The dirt roads and paths within the camp have been muddied by rain – it's monsoon season there. "Everybody kind of looks like they're wearing tan socks up to their shins, because it's just all ...it's a mess," he says. What's it like to be an aid worker in this type of crisis situation? "You work 20 hours a day," he says, "and keep going." _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NPR

By Dan de Luce U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for the top legal advisor at the State Department has acknowledged that Saudi Arabia could be violating U.S. and international law by restricting the flow of humanitarian aid in Yemen, highlighting what appears to be an increasingly tough administration stance toward Riyadh. In written answers to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month before her confirmation Tuesday, Jennifer Newstead moved away from the State Department’s previous policy and indicated a stricter reading of statutes that prohibit American assistance to foreign countries blocking or hindering the flow of humanitarian aid, Foreign Policy has learned. Responding to a series of questions from Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, a Republican member of the committee, Newstead said statements from aid groups “raise a substantial question” whether the Saudi-led coalition has directly or indirectly hindered the transport of U.S. and other aid to civilians in Yemen. Newstead promised to get firm answers back to Congress on the issue within 30 to 45 days after being sworn in. Newstead’s answers suggest that the administration could be willing to take a harsher line on its allies in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, over their conduct in the nearly three-year-old civil war in Yemen. While senior U.S. officials have sought to highlight Iran’s role in arming Houthi rebels with advanced weapons, the administration also has made high-level appeals to Riyadh to lift its de facto blockade on commercial shipments into Yemen. Newstead’s responses cleared the way for her confirmation on Tuesday, which had been held up by Young and two other senators over concerns about the humanitarian impact of the Saudi intervention. FP has obtained the written exchange between Newstead and Young, and the documents are posted below. The exchange took place between Oct. 18 and Nov. 14. Young, along with many human rights organizations, has condemned Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has consistently blocked or delayed vital shipments by air and sea to ports controlled by their Houthi rebel adversaries. They accuse Saudi Arabia of violating the Geneva Conventions as well as the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits American assistance for countries that impede the flow of humanitarian aid. (The United States provides logistical support for the Saudi campaign.) With Newstead’s legal interpretations in hand, lawmakers will have more ammunition to hold the administration to its commitments over Saudi Arabia, aides said. At first, Newstead stuck to the old State Department position: that Saudis would need to block all assistance to fall afoul of U.S. law. But after three rounds of detailed questioning by Young, Newstead acknowledged that if Saudi Arabia were impeding unfettered deliveries of humanitarian aid, that would be a violation of both U.S. and international law. (The president can still make an exception and keep providing assistance even if the recipient country hindered aid.) The State Department agrees with Newstead’s interpretation of U.S. and international law, a spokesperson said, adding that, after her confirmation, Newstead “will be in a position to review the legal issues in depth with the benefit of the full range of information and expertise of the U.S. government.” Tuesday marks the 1,000th day of the Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The civil war, which pits Iranian-backed Houthi fighters against the internationally recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Gulf patrons, has exacted a devastating toll on civilians. International aid officials call it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. A shortage of fuel has caused dozens of water treatment and pumping stations to shut down, aggravating a record-setting outbreak of cholera. A United Nations report this month warned that 8.4 million people are now at risk of starvation. The United States helps refuel aircraft, provides precision-guided munitions, and shares intelligence with the Saudi-led coalition. But the Saudis and their Gulf partners are no closer to victory after launching their intervention in March 2015. Amid growing frustration in Congress and with Newstead’s nomination stalled, the administration in recent weeks urged Saudi Arabia to ease its restrictions on aid, and the White House took the unusual step of issuing a public statement repeating the request. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan summoned the Saudi ambassador over the issue, and senior White House officials have conveyed their dissatisfaction with the humanitarian situation. In response to U.S. pressure, the Saudis partially lifted a halt on aid and shipments to ports, but they have continued to restrict fuel and some other commercial deliveries. Britain is also taking a tougher line. “It is very clear that if you are using starvation as a weapon you are in breach of international humanitarian law,” said Penny Mordaunt, U.K. international development secretary, during a visit to Djibouti this week. “And what I have seen on my visit is that what is being held up is aid.” In a phone call Tuesday with Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the two leaders agreed on “the vital importance of reopening humanitarian and commercial access to prevent famine and alleviate the suffering of innocent Yemenis.” Saudi Arabia’s embassy was not immediately available to comment. In Washington, Young has repeatedly pushed the White House — publicly and privately — to use its leverage with the Saudis to ease the humanitarian crisis. While acknowledging Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Houthi cross-border missile attacks, the conservative Republican warned last week that Riyadh’s siege warfare risked backfiring catastrophically. “The worsening humanitarian crisis caused by Saudi Arabia’s actions are transforming noncombatants in Yemen into life-long enemies of Riyadh and the United States — providing opportunities for Iran that it will use to further undermine Saudi and U.S. security and economic interests, destabilize the region, and advance Tehran’s malign activities,” the senator said in a letter to the president. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who along with Young had held up Newstead’s confirmation, said he was “glad the Trump administration is starting to listen to concerns from Congress and take steps to address the needless suffering within Yemen.” But he added that rather than fueling the war, Washington should be pressing for a diplomatic solution. Without more progress from Riyadh, Young, Murphy and other lawmakers could soon look to cut off arms sales or other military assistance to the Saudis. “If the Saudis do not eliminate the impediments to humanitarian assistance in Yemen, there are additional legislative ways to apply pressure,” the congressional aide said. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/19/trump-nominee-concedes-saudi-siege-of-yemen-could-be-violating-u-s-law/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=flash%20points%2012/19&utm_term=Flashpoints (C) 2017 Foreign Policy

By Christopher Ayres One hundred and forty nine countries have signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948. These signatories present themselves as the authorities who are committed to and entrusted with preventing genocide. But none of these countries are held accountable when they ignore the duties set out in the convention. One need look no further than Cambodia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Balkans, and Myanmar for evidence of a serious flaw in the Convention. It should be amended to ensure that repeated failures to thwart genocide are remedied. The amendment should be to the Convention’s first Article, which compels signatories to “undertake to prevent and to punish” genocide. This is not an impossible task. Tanzania, a decade before the Rwandan genocide, entered Uganda in support of a rebel movement there and prevailed. This demonstrates that an alliance of only two third world forces is capable of forcing an army to stand down. Likewise, any number of Convention countries could have done the same in Rwanda, particularly first world signatories with enormous military power. It shouldn’t be forgotten that troops from signatory countries were in Rwanda at the time of the genocide and fled. The United Nation’s General Assembly, which adopted the Convention, would be an apt forum to debate the proposal I offer here; to shine a light on signatories’ past omissions; and to request their resignation from the Convention if they fail to remedy its shortcomings. The history Neither the term nor the concept of genocide existed in the first half of the 20th century, except in the minds of a handful of thinkers. Chief among them was Polish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin put the notion of genocide forward at the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis. It was later used to draft the Convention. The scholar’s relentlessness heralded what promised to be one of the century’s most important developments in international law, a tale well chronicled in Philippe Sand’s 2017 book “East West Street”. Despite the adoption of the Convention, signers have never made an effort to end mass killings. This disregards the obligation of signatories to “prevent” genocide. The duty is stated in the title of the Convention and its first Article. But it hasn’t compelled a single nation to lift a finger. Nations have taken action only after the fact – to punish. But, those appointed to punish are drawn from the same parties that failed to prevent. And the argument that punishment deters would-be genocidal killers has proven empty. The timeline shows that Cambodia came after Nuremberg. Rwanda and the Balkans after Cambodia, the DRC after Rwanda, followed by Myanmar. Punishment did not deter in these cases. Specific deterrence means that those convicted won’t commit genocide again because they are locked up. General deterrence implies that because people are punished, would-be violators will think twice and stop, a doubtful proposition. Prevention, on the other hand, deters. It leaves nothing left to punish. It saves lives, saves billions spent on punishment, and spares the victims from sorrows that persist for generations. The obstacles When signatories fail to prevent genocide, why are there no penalties? Why are there no tribunals to punish those who don’t meet the obligations they’ve signed up to under the Convention? Signatory countries escape condemnation and get a free pass. A big challenge is that if punitive measures were included in the Convention aimed at the signatories themselves, few nations would sign. But this raises the question: when signatories can ignore their obligation with impunity what does it say about international law? In addition, there are instances where the international community is temporarily unaware of genocidal activities. In such circumstances prevention is not possible. But it’s mandatory for signatories to act when credible information emerges. Yet every time the Convention’s foremost provision has arisen, it has been abandoned. That’s why I would propose that Article 1 be amended to include subsections “(a)” and “(b)”. Article 1(a) would read the same as Article 1 does now. That is to say: (a) The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Subsection 1(b) would add: (b) The Contracting Parties further confirm that if they fail to meet their commitment to undertake to prevent genocide, it is a crime of omission and punishable as Complicity under Article 3(e) of this Convention. “Never again”: an empty phrase The murky refrain “never again” has faded through the decades like an echo on a dry canyon wall. It is an empty, meaningless phrase. What will the signatories do the next time they are called upon to prevent genocide? History says they will do nothing. Today, the only framework for punishment in the Convention is triggered by the omissions of its own signatories. Where they fail to make an effort they ought to face proportional punishment for complicity. Amending Article 1 would be a start toward removing the dark stain from what might otherwise have been a praiseworthy and lifesaving instrument of international law. Amending the Convention to include Article 1(b) would be a good way to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda that’s coming up in April. Copyright © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

L’essentiel des violences liées à l’élection présidentielle s’est concentré dans le fief de l’ancien président Henri Konan Bédié, où la situation reste instable. Publié par Le Monde le 06 novembre 2020. By Cyril Bensimon and Youenn Gourlay Une dizaine de motos calcinées à Yamoussoukro après des violences, début novembre 2020. (Youenn Gourlay/Le Monde). Leur attitude est quasi militaire. Une centaine de jeunes hommes, torse nu, certains armés d’un fusil de chasse, s’enfoncent d’un pas discipliné dans la forêt qui borde le bitume. La scène se déroule entre Yamoussoukro, la capitale ivoirienne, et Tiébissou, dans le centre du pays. Si les forces de l’ordre ont commencé à opérer des actions pour rétablir la circulation, les routes de la région demeurent dangereuses. Les troncs d’arbres massifs et les feuillages brûlés repoussés sur les bas-côtés rappellent les nombreux barrages qui ont bloqué un temps quelques grands axes du pays et où plusieurs cortèges ministériels se sont retrouvés pris en embuscade. Après la réélection samedi 31 octobre du chef de l’Etat sortant, Alassane Ouattara, les tensions restent vives en Côte d’Ivoire et principalement dans le centre du pays, fief de l’opposition. Les autorités locales et les chefferies villageoises s’inquiètent de cette milice qui semble s’organiser dans le secret de la brousse. Les forces de l’ordre sillonnent les environs mais le groupe en file indienne s’est évaporé dans les fourrés. L’une des autorités de la région est persuadée qu’il s’agit là des mêmes personnes qui ont tenté de bloquer le scrutin et semé le trouble à Tiébissou, ancienne ville de démarcation entre le nord rebelle et le sud loyaliste durant la guerre civile ivoirienne de 2002 à 2011. Opposition identitaire Là-bas, le jour du vote, il y aurait eu quatre morts : « Deux électeurs dioula (les populations du nord majoritairement acquises à Alassane Ouattara) , puis deux baoulé (la communauté à laquelle appartient l’ancien président Henri Konan Bédié) en représailles » selon la mairie, et des dizaines de blessés. Sur fond d’opposition identitaire, les responsables politiques sont devenus des cibles privilégiées. Dans cette ville, un membre du parti au pouvoir - le RHDP - ferait partie des quatre victimes. La maison d’un adjoint au maire a été saccagée, alors que celles d’un député et du conseiller régional ont été en partie incendiées. Ces derniers jours, plusieurs cortèges de ministres ont été la cible de tirs. « Ils étaient cachés en forêt avec leur calibre 12 et nous ont surpris plusieurs fois alors que nous étions en train de tronçonner les arbres sur la route » , explique l’une des personnalités visées par une attaque nocturne qui a fait plusieurs blessés dans sa garde rapprochée. « C’est une jeunesse désœuvrée, droguée et alcoolisée, payée pour semer le trouble » précise-t-il. Le frère du ministre de l’équipement Amédée Kouakou a, quant à lui, perdu deux de ses jeunes collaborateurs dans une agression similaire près de Toumodi, au sud de Yamoussoukro. Yamoussoukro scindée en deux La capitale aussi a connu des troubles importants. Bloquée à ses entrées nord et sud durant quelques jours, Yamoussoukro revit doucement mais reste méconnaissable. Restaurants et véhicules brûlés ou saccagés, boulevards jonchés de restes de barrages, rues inanimées le soir à l’exception des patrouilles de police, la ville réputée calme voire endormie a brusquement été tirée de son profond sommeil. « Nous ne laisserons pas passer Ouattara dans ces conditions , assure Firmin Kouassi qui dit avoir manifesté avec les bloqueurs. Mais nous, les Baoulé, je vous l’assure, nous préférons le dialogue à la violence. » Pourtant, deux jours avant l’élection du 31 octobre, les cars faisant la campagne d’Alassane Ouattara circulaient en ville, la sono crachait des messages à sa gloire et les mains étaient tendues vers les tee-shirts à l’effigie du président. Le chef de l’Etat a remporté l’élection avec un score de 94,27 %, alors que l’opposition a boycotté activement le vote. Yamoussoukro s’est scindée en deux : pro-pouvoir d’un côté où l’on a voté tant que possible, pro-opposition de l’autre où l’on s’est insurgé contre cette « candidature inconstitutionnelle » d’Alassane Ouattara à un troisième mandat. Des actions de guérilla Le partage politico-communautaire est à l’image d’un pays fracturé. « Ce n’est pas un problème ethnique, il n’y a jamais eu de palabres à ce sujet ici, c’est politique , tente de tempérer un haut cadre de la ville. Ce sont des exécuteurs de basses œuvres qui manipulent depuis chez eux une jeunesse inculte et sans emploi. On mène des enquêtes, on a des noms et des preuves. » Plusieurs chercheurs souhaitant rester anonymes dans cette période incertaine s’inquiètent d’une structuration politique et d’une professionnalisation de la violence. Du côté du pouvoir, on craint que ces événements se multiplient à l’intérieur du pays et que des actions de guérilla armée s’intensifient, au point de donner l’image d’un pays en totale instabilité. « Yamoussoukro, Tiébissou, Toumodi (où une famille de quatre personnes est décédée le week-end de l’élection présidentielle), ils veulent faire sauter le verrou du pays baoulé » , peste un élu local. A Abidjan, la violence politique est aussi le fait du pouvoir. Dans la commune de Koumassi, des riverains affirment que, dans la soirée après la fermeture des bureaux de vote, des jeunes hommes armés de machettes sont apparus dans le quartier escortés par un véhicule de la police municipale. Un « acte de sédition » Si les leaders de l’opposition sont aujourd’hui en résidence surveillée ou en détention après avoir annoncé la formation d’un « Conseil national de transition » amené à se transformer en gouvernement d’union nationale, un « acte de sédition » pour le gouvernement qui a saisi la justice. Guillaume Soro, l’ancien chef de la rébellion, a appelé le 4 novembre l’armée à « désobéir aux ordres illégaux » de « l’ex-président » qui, selon lui, est « installé dans le schéma mental de tous les dictateurs tropicaux ». Un appel à peine voilé au coup d’Etat. « Le seuil de l’inacceptable a été franchi » , déclare un ministre. « Il ne peut pas y avoir deux ministères de la défense. Semer le doute sur l’unité de l’armée, c’est la fragiliser » , poursuit-il. « Guillaume Soro (qui fut le ministre de la défense d’Alassane Ouattara avant de rompre avec lui) a contacté des gens dans l’armée où il a toujours des relais. Mais ces soldats ont été tracés. Certains n’ont pas suivi, d’autres ont été arrêtés » , assure une autre source gouvernementale qui voit derrière les violences dans le centre la main de l’ex-chef rebelle dont il fut pourtant proche. La communauté internationale prône le dialogue et l’apaisement entre les deux camps tout en appelant au respect de « l’ordre constitutionnel » . Une reconnaissance a minima de la réélection d’Alassane Ouattara après un scrutin qui laisse un pays divisé. L’apaisement pourrait-il passer par Laurent Gbagbo, toujours dans l’attente de quitter Bruxelles pour Abidjan ? L’ancien président, « résolument dans l’opposition » mais défavorable à la création d’une autorité parallèle, s’est entretenu le 4 novembre au téléphone avec le premier ministre ivoirien Hamed Bakayoko pour l’ « inviter à apaiser la situation en favorisant le dialogue plutôt que la répression » , a fait savoir son avocate, ajoutant qu’il « s’est réjoui de la très bonne disponibilité du premier ministre » . © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

Published by The Washington Post on November 30, 2020. By Danielle Paquette People attend a funeral for those killed in the attack [Jossy Ola/AP Photo] The farmers had tried to fight back. They were tired of Boko Haram extremists stealing their money and crops, a local official said, so when they saw a chance to capture one of their tormentors, they tied him up to face justice. In response, gunmen on motorbikes stormed the village of Koshobe on Saturday, killing at least 110 people in one of the region’s deadliest attacks in years. “The entire country is hurt by these senseless killings,” tweeted Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, whose office described the loss as “insane.” No one has asserted responsibility for the bloodshed. Grief surged in Nigeria’s Borno state, which has grappled with a relentless insurgency for more than a decade. Residents have long blasted leaders in the capital, Abuja, for failing to protect them. Boko Haram has killed more than 30,000 people since 2009 and continues to stage regular attacks across Borno. Millions have been forced from their homes. The violence didn’t stop after Buhari declared the group “technically defeated.” An offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa, has since spread, assaulting military outposts and collecting taxes from villagers it intends to rule. Both groups want to govern Nigerians with an extreme version of Islam. They have driven scores of aid workers and federal helpers out of the country’s remotest corners, leaving residents with little recourse. The assailants who struck Koshobe this weekend — about an hour’s drive from Borno’s capital, Maiduguri — targeted people who worked on rice fields. They tied up the victims and slit their throats, the local government said. Most were migrant workers who had come from the nation’s northeast. Then the suspected militants set fire to the land in an agricultural community that depends on it. In addition to the 110 people who died in the ambush, many others were wounded, said Edward Kallon, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria. Several women were kidnapped, he added. “The incident is the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians this year,” Kallon said. Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 22 farmers working on irrigation fields in two separate attacks in October in Borno. A June attack near the village of Gubio left 81 people dead . Most were young adults who had been out fetching water to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Help often arrives too late, residents said at the time. Buhari’s office pushed back against that assertion Monday, saying the victims of Saturday’s attack did not have permission to work in that part of Africa’s most populous country. “Much of those areas have been liberated from Boko Haram, but there are a number of spaces that have not been cleared for the return of villagers that have been displaced,” the president’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, said in an interview with the BBC World Service . People in Borno can’t wait for the government’s approval to return, said the state’s governor, Babagana Zulum. “If they stay at home, they may be killed by hunger,” he told reporters Sunday. “If they go out to their farmlands, they risk getting killed by insurgents.” The day before the attack in Koshobe, a lone gunman had been harassing farmers in the area, said Ahmed Satomi, a local politician. The assailant had ordered them to cook for him. While some prepared rice, another group struck back. They tied up the attacker and called security forces. “Boko Haram came back to retaliate,” he said. “They slit the farmers’ throats one by one.” © 1996-2020 The Washington Post.

Réélu pour un troisième mandat controversé, le chef de l’Etat n’a pas réussi à transcender les clivages communautaires et régionaux. Pire, il en a joué. Publié par Le Monde le 10 novembre 2020. By Christophe Châtelot Le président guinéen, Alpha Condé, lors d’un meeting à Conakry, le 16 octobre 2020. (JOHN WESSELS / AFP) Sans surprise aucune, la Cour constitutionnelle guinéenne a confirmé, samedi 7 novembre, les chiffres annoncés la semaine précédente par la Commission électorale nationale indépendante (CENI), consacrant la victoire d’Alpha Condé à la présidentielle du 18 octobre. Personne n’attendait autre chose de la part de deux institutions accusées d’être inféodées au pouvoir en place. Les juges ont repoussé les recours déposés par l’opposition. Alpha Condé peut entamer un troisième mandat consécutif, acquis en piétinant les principes républicains qu’il défendait lorsqu’il se battait contre le dictateur Sékou Touré (1958-1984) ou l’autocrate sourcilleux Lansana Conté (1984-2008). Pour imposer sa candidature, Alpha Condé a dû tripatouiller une nouvelle Constitution dont la légitimité est, depuis le début, remise en question. Officiellement, il s’agissait de doter la Guinée d’une loi fondamentale plus en adéquation avec son époque, prenant davantage en compte les questions d’égalité des genres ou de protection de l’environnement, notamment. Le texte devait remplacer celui, loin d’être parfait, bricolé durant la transition politique instaurée entre la fin violente de la junte de Moussa Daddis Camara, en décembre 2009, et les premières élections démocratiques et pluralistes l’année suivante. Un référendum chaotique Las, la greffe de la Constitution version 2020 a du mal à prendre. Le texte a été rédigé en catimini, sans débat, provoquant même la démission du ministre de la justice, Cheick Sako. Dans une lettre au chef de l’Etat, le garde des sceaux s’étonnait de ne pas avoir été « associé à la rédaction de la nouvelle Constitution » . Le texte a finalement été adopté en mars à l’issue d’un référendum chaotique organisé sur la base d’un fichier électoral qui, quinze jours plus tôt, comportait encore 2,5 millions d’électeurs douteux, soit un tiers de la liste. A tel point que l’Organisation internationale de la francophonie (OIF) et la communauté économique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Cédéao), qui par le passé ont avalé d’autres couleuvres électorales sur le continent, avaient préféré ne pas envoyer d’observateurs pour ce vote couplé à des législatives, tous deux boycottés par l’opposition. Complétant ce triste panorama, la Constitution finalement publiée au Journal officiel est, sur plusieurs points, différente du texte soumis à référendum. Le barreau des avocats a dénoncé « une délinquance juridique » et demandé le retrait de la loi fondamentale. En vain. Dès le départ, un large mouvement d’opposition, réunissant société civile, syndicats et partis politiques d’opposition réunis au sein du Front national de défense de la Constitution (FNDC), s’était dressé contre cette initiative présidentielle. Le FNDC ne décelait qu’une intention derrière la démarche du pouvoir : non pas moderniser les institutions, mais faire sauter le verrou limitant à deux le nombre de mandats présidentiels et, ainsi, autoriser Alpha Condé à en briguer un troisième. Ce qui fut fait. Après avoir nié toute intention cachée, la présidence guinéenne avait ensuite posé la question du principe en vertu duquel le nombre de mandats doit être limité à deux. L’interrogation est légitime, à condition que la course électorale soit juste et transparente. Parallèlement, le pouvoir guinéen s’étonnait du double langage de la France. L’ancienne puissance coloniale, remarquait-on à Conakry, n’a pas les mêmes scrupules pour Idriss Déby, son indispensable allié tchadien dans la guerre contre le terrorisme au Sahel, au pouvoir depuis 1990. Le spectre de Lansana Conté Il reste que l’Union européenne, la France ou les Etats-Unis ont émis des doutes sur la régularité du scrutin présidentiel, marqué notamment par des taux de participation suspects dans les fiefs du pouvoir. Deux commissaires de la CENI ont d’ailleurs démissionné peu de temps avant l’annonce de la victoire d’Alpha Condé au premier tour. La Chine, dont les entreprises sont très présentes dans le secteur minier, n’a pas eu cette réserve et a félicité le vainqueur. Alpha Condé est donc arrivé à ses fins, mais à quel prix ? Les résultats de la présidentielle montrent une Guinée toujours autant et dangereusement polarisée. Le Rassemblement du peuple de Guinée (RPG) d’Alpha Condé ou l’Union des forces démocratiques de Guinée (UFDG) de son principal concurrent, Cellou Dalein Diallo, recrutent essentiellement sur des bases communautaires et régionales. En dix années de pouvoir, non seulement le président ne sera pas parvenu à transcender ces clivages, mais il en joue. Ce fut le cas durant la campagne, lorsqu’il a agité la menace d’une « alliance peule » entre les présidents nigérian et sénégalais, Muhammadu Buhari et Macky Sall, pour porter « leur frère » Cellou Dalein Diallo à la présidence. Celui-ci a donc manqué son objectif pour la troisième fois de suite, de nouveau battu par Alpha Condé (avec respectivement 34 % et 59 % des voix). Comme en 2010. Comme en 2015. Cette année encore, le scrutin est entaché de soupçons de fraude et de violences meurtrières. Plusieurs dizaines d’opposants au troisième mandat ont été tués en marge des manifestations, dans les mois précédant ou les jours suivant le vote, par les forces de l’ordre. Ces dernières ont également payé un lourd tribut, avec huit morts. Absente du Parlement après avoir décidé de boycotter les législatives de mars, l’opposition conduite par l’UFDG n’a plus que la rue pour se faire entendre. Cellou Dalein Diallo a promis d’en user. Jusque dans l’entourage du président, on s’inquiète de ces violences et de la capacité d’Alpha Condé à ouvrir un jeu politique singulièrement verrouillé. Dans les couloirs du palais Sékhoutouréya, on commence également, à voix basse, à évoquer un autre risque. La candidature d’Alpha Condé n’a pas fait l’unanimité dans son propre parti. On lui rappelle aujourd’hui le slogan que l’ancien opposant lançait à la face de Lansana Conté lorsque, usé et vieillissant, le général refusait de passer la main. « Le poisson pourrit par la tête » , disait alors Alpha Condé pour décrire un système en bout de course, miné par la « médiocratie » et la corruption. Certains redoutent de voir resurgir le spectre de Lansana Conté alors que son successeur entrera le 4 mars prochain dans sa 84e année. © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.