By Asli Aydintasbas Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan poses with students on Monday at the Presidential Palace to mark the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, in Ankara, Turkey. (Presidency Press Service via AP, Pool) Let’s start with the question of sanity. Here is a letter from Turkey’s leading civil society leader, Osman Kavala, who spent months in prison for the following reasons: having dinner with a visiting American academic; for organizing the failed coup of 2016; and funding an urban uprising in Istanbul in 2013 or supporting Kurdish separatists, depending on which version of the official story you chose to believe: “I have just completed the fifth month of my sojourn at Silivri [Prison]. My health is in good shape and I walk for almost two hours in my courtyard. I have no complaints about the food. At the recommendation of the prison doctor, I have started using glasses and that has made reading easier. Between reading, taking notes, walking and the laundry, time flies. My [penal] restrictions were lifted last week. Being now able to write and receive letters and have more time with the lawyers will make my life here easier. “Another significant change in my life is that I now get sunlight in the courtyard. The sun that was absent during the fall and the winter is now showing its face from above the walls. That brings a considerable amount of relief. Even though we cannot quite smell or see it, we can feel the arrival of the spring from here. [. . .] What we cannot feel is a change in the bad weather conditions that have taken over the judiciary.” Full disclosure: Osman is a good friend. He is a tall, handsome, middle-aged man who has selflessly devoted his wealth and energy into building a civil society in Turkey. His arrest under absurd allegations last November initially felt like a cruel joke. But now that he has spent months in prison, still without indictment, nothing about Turkey’s new regime looks funny after all. What struck me when I recently read Osman’s letter in a small Armenian newspaper was how calm he sounded. There’s no panic or despair, just a patient yearning for justice. Following political trials here, I have witnessed a similar composure and sense of humor among other prisoners caught up in Turkey’s dragnet, such as the famous group of nine journalists from the newspaper “Cumhuriyet,” or the former chairman of the pro-Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas, all of whom are accused of “supporting terrorism.” In many ways, those serving time have sounded healthier and more resilient than the millions of us living outside in the madhouse that Turkey has become. If you think I’m exaggerating, here is a glimpse of a few things that have happened recently. Three weeks ago, a group of students from Bosphorus University, Turkey’s most prestigious college, were dragged from their dorms and arrested for peacefully protesting another student group – which was tactlessly celebrating the Turkish capture of the Syrian town of Afrin by distributing sweets on the liberal campus. Our president condemned the anti-war students in a rally. “We will find these terrorist students through surveillance footage and do what is necessary. We will not give these terrorist, communist youths the right to study at these universities. We will catch those marginals by the ear and throw them to the ground.” And he did. Then we had our own version of a U.S.-style school shooting when an academic raided the university where he worked and killed four of his colleagues. The caveat was that in the Turkish case, the man had been a snitch who worked with the police and university administration to identify “Gulenists” in his university. He told on everyone, left and right, and along the way, started thinking they were too many crypto-Gulenists that ought to be eliminated. Our nation’s self-lobotomy starts at schools and extends through state institutions into every corner of society. Roughly 70,000 students are in jail in Turkey, but the figure doesn’t include those that have been kicked out of schools over the past few years on – what else? – terrorism charges. Then there are the academics on trial for signing a peace declaration, professors who have fled abroad, teachers who are unemployed. In the Orwellian world that has is being created in place of a Turkish democracy, televisions are awash with dramas about the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire, the media parrot the government, and religious schools are replacing secular ones to answer Erdogan’s desire for a “pious generation.” Our economy is sinking because no one wants to invest in a country that sneers at rule of law – but also because President Erdogan, who famously described himself as an “enemy of interest rates,” doesn’t understand how the market works. As our currency plunges in value, Erdogan blames our economic problems on his political enemies. The absurdity of life in Turkey today may be a natural outcome of the authoritarian drift at the top. No one can tell the boss the truth, and so everyone must pretend his desires are reality. Eventually, this collective delusion creates a level of daily insanity that feels unbearable. In many ways, a civil society leader like Osman describing the arrival of spring in the jailhouse courtyard is experiencing a saner, though harsher, truth than those of us outside. On release, he will move from the prison to the asylum. I will rejoice in his freedom but regret that he will now know what a madhouse Turkey has become. (c) 2018 The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/04/23/turkey-is-succumbing-to-collective-insanity/?utm_term=.088d82d8f0ee

By Bethlehem Feleke and Eoin McSweeney Nairobi, Kenya (CNN)Thousands of Ethiopian civilians have fled into neighboring Sudan to escape escalating conflict in their country's northern region, with many more expected to follow, according to Sudanese officials and the United Nations (UN). More than 7,000 refugees from the Ethiopian region of Tigray have entered Sudan, fleeing fighting between government and regional forces, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Wednesday. "There are also many displaced people in Tigray, and 96,000 Eritrean refugees," he said in a tweet . "If hostilities continue, the humanitarian impact will worsen." As of Tuesday night, more than 1,800 people from the Ethiopian region of Tigray had crossed the border and were traveling to the Sudanese state of Kassala, while hundreds more had arrived in the border area of Al-Luqdi, the Sudanese commissioner for refugees, Abdalla Suleman, told CNN. The movement comes after Ethiopia's federal government announced that it was "at war " with the ruling party of the Tigray region, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The federal army has since stepped up its military offensive, carrying out air strikes as part of Prime Minister and Nobel laureate Abiy Ahmed 's "law enforcement operation," which has led to clashes across the area. The governor of Kassala is preparing facilities to accommodate up to 20,000 people initially, a UN official told CNN. Although borders are officially closed, the governor has offered amnesty to refugees and the UN predicts up to 100,000 could cross over in the next year. Nine million people adjacent to the front line fighting along Tigray's borders are at high risk and conflict could lead to massive displacement of these people, the UN said in a statement. The escalating fighting has led to casualties across the region, according to local reports and state media. On Tuesday, state-affliliated broadcaster Fana TV reported that Ethiopia's federal army had killed 550 Tigray fighters. It is unclear whether these fighters were members of the TPLF. CNN was not independently able to confirm the death tolls. At least 17 Ethiopian military officers have breen arrested on suspicion of treason and accused of conspiring with the TPLF to cut off communications between North and Central Command, Fana TV reported Wednesday, citing the federal police commission. CNN has not been able to independently verify this. The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest situation report that an aerial and road blockade and the regional communications black-out are significantly affecting aid assistance within Tigray. Even before the conflict, more than 600,000 people in the region were dependent on food relief, according to UN agencies. Abiy came to power in 2018 on a reformist agenda promising to bridge divisions between regional governments, but officials in Tigray and other regions have complained that Abiy was only trying to solidify his rule from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. While lauded internationally, his leadership has seen ethnic and political tensions rise significantly in several parts of the country, often with deadly consequences. Violent conflict escalates In a press briefing on Tuesday, Redwan Hussein, Ethiopia's state minister for foreign affairs and spokesperson for the newly established state of emergency task force, told reporters that a dialogue with regional leaders would only take place once the TPLF was disarmed and members brought to justice.  "There will be a window of dialogue, that's inevitable, but the question is when," Redwan said, adding, "when is when these objectives are met, once we destroy these armaments."  Redwan claimed the TPLF had significant military capabilities, including a rocket that could strike the capital. He did not provide proof of this allegation. The spokesperson also confirmed that local forces had taken the Ethiopian military's Northern Command post in the Tigray capital of Mekelle. CNN was unable to get comment from the TPLF leadership. "They managed to subdue the whole compound because we did not have enough arms and personnel there," Redwan said.  On Tuesday, the head of the TPLF, Debretsion Gebremichael, accused the neighbouring Eritrean government of launching attacks on state of Tigray. The accusation was denied by both the Eritrean government and the Ethiopian national army. On Sunday, police detained Medihane Ekubamichael, the product editor of Addis Standard, the political news magazine said in a statement. He was released, but rearrested on Tuesday, his employer said in a tweet . Four other journalists were detained overnight on Tuesday, Ethiopia's chief human rights commissioner, Daniel Bekele, said on Wednesday. International focus International efforts are being stepped up to try and ease tensions in Ethiopia as the conflict threatens to drag the nation into a possible civil war. The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Monday he had been "holding talks to support efforts to restore peace and political dialogue in Ethiopia." Borrell said he had spoken to Abiy to convey "the EU's concern for the risks to the integrity of the country and the stability of the wider region should the current situation endure" and offered European support "for any action contributing to de-escalation of tensions, return to dialogue and securing rule of law." A United Nations spokesman said Monday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had delivered a similar message on Saturday, calling "for an immediate de-escalation of tensions." He added that "humanitarian colleagues and their partners are finalizing a humanitarian response plan for Tigray." "In addition to Tigray, there are nearly nine million people at high risk due to the conflict living near the area. More than 6,000 people are affected by COVID-19 in the Tigray region. It is also one of the areas most affected by the desert locust infestation," the spokesman said at a press briefing. The UK's Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said he spoke with Abiy on Tuesday. He added to the international pressure for de-escalation, saying in a tweet that "civilians and humanitarian access must be protected." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged "immediate action to restore the peace" in a tweet on November 4. Zecharias Zelalem and CNN's Schams Elwazer, David McKenzie, Brent Swails and Richard Roth contributed to this report © 2020 Cable News Network

By Caitlin Hu and Etant Dupain President of the Republic of Haiti Jovenel Moise on September 25, 2018 in New York City. Large crowds of Haitians took to the streets again on Sunday, as a standoff between President Jovenel Moise and the country's opposition movement stretched into its third week. "Those of us fighting, who want another Haiti, a Haiti pearl of the Antilles, say no to the dictatorship," one protester told Reuters in capital city Port-au-Prince, where Haitian opposition and civil society groups had called the demonstration. Another criticized the United States and international organizations for supporting the President. At the heart of protests is a dispute over the President's term limit: Moise has served only four years of the usual five, and says his term ends in 2022 -- a stance backed by the United States, United Nations and Organization of American States. Protesters, however, say he should have stepped down February 7, citing a constitutional provision that starts the clock once a president is elected, rather than when he takes office. "We want the international community (to) understand that the Haiti people won't back down on their demands. Jovenel Moise must leave the national palace for a peaceful transition that can lead us to the elections," opposition leader André Michel told CNN on Sunday. Moise has dismissed protesters as " a minority of people " seeking to destabilize the state and seize power, and has refused to contemplate calls for a transitional government, instead asking the opposition to wait until general elections later this year. Legislative elections are already long overdue in Haiti. After the country's parliament dissolved last year, Moise failed to organize new elections, leaving legislative and municipal positions empty across the country and the population effectively unrepresented. The vacant parliament means Moise is currently ruling by decree. Earlier this month, the President also ordered three Supreme Court justices to retire, accusing them of designs on his office -- a move that legal experts have told CNN is unconstitutional. In protest, Haiti's judiciary stopped work, putting courts and tribunals across the country on pause. Haiti's national bar association and the Superior Council of Judicial Power (CSPJ) -- a powerful body that appoints, fires and disciplines judges -- have sided with the opposition in calling for Moise to step down. So have some US lawmakers. However, the international community and the administration of US President Joe Biden have largely voiced support for Moise to remain in office until 2022, though his recent handling of the protests and Supreme Court is sparking some concern. "I am alarmed by recent authoritarian and undemocratic acts -- from unilateral removals and appointments of Supreme Court judges to attacks against journalists," tweeted Julie Chung, Acting Assistant Secretary for the US State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs on February 16. She urged Haiti to hold legislative elections " as soon as possible. " This month's protests also reflect years of increasing bitterness in Haiti over the country's economic pain and violent crime. Killings and a wave of hundreds of kidnappings in particular have driven public outrage, according to a recent United Nations report, which recorded a monthly average of 84 demonstrations in the second half of 2020. Moise has blamed his administration's poor record in dealing with such fundamental issues on the country's system of governance, and on complications and lack of clarity in the constitution itself. "Since the beginning of my term, the country has never known stability," he acknowledged in a February 12 tweet. With an eye toward empowering the office of the president for the future, he has vowed to hold a referendum on changes to the constitution in April. This will be his legacy project, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, told CNN. However, critics are skeptical of the legitimacy of any constitutional changes made in the current political climate and without institutional checks and balances in place. General elections are expected to follow in the fall. In a speech last Sunday, amid celebrations for Carnival, which he celebrated with large crowds of supporters and revelers, Moise expressed his determination to see the country through another year. "Haiti is for me, for my kids, for the people here dancing. The people who don't want me to do the people's work will stop, or I will make them stop. I was elected to do a job, and I will do it," he said. Link to Original Article CNN©2021

By Anna Reuss and Kristof Titeca Rights groups are urging Ugandan security forces to show restraint as they violently crack down on the members of a tribal militia in a remote area near the border with Congo. (Arne Gills/AP) In Western Uganda, police and military on Sunday raided the Rwenzururu kingdom’s palace in the town of Kasese. The crackdown on suspected militia members among King Mumbere’s royal guards left palace buildings ablaze and at least 46 royal guards dead. Police arrested another 139 royal guards and airlifted the Omusinga (king) to the Nalufenya counterterrorism detention center to face murder charges. The fighting came after clashes on Saturday in Kasese and attacks on police after royal guards reportedly threw an IED at security patrols. On Sunday morning, President Yoweri Museveni called on King Mumbere to surrender his royal guards and prevent further violence. The king — who has consistently rejected allegations of a move for a separate state or the existence of the militia — failed to oblige, and security forces raided the palace. By Tuesday morning, the weekend’s death toll in the district had risen to 126. Other skirmishes last week left eight suspected militia members dead when security forces cleareda suspected training camp of the Bakonzo militia, reportedly a group vying for an independent Yira State for the Bakonzo people and their fellow tribesmen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Banande. Both Kasese and Bundibugyo districts, in the Rwenzururu heartland, saw large-scale clashes between security forces and civilians in July 2014 (100 deaths) and March 2016 (50 deaths). But with no credible investigations of previous clashes, the identity and motives of those instigating violence in earlier years remain murky. The region’s recurring conflicts likely reflect long-standing tensions in the region, exaggerated by the government’s patronage policies and militarized responses to violence. A long history of ethnic struggle in Western Uganda This region has a long history of armed resistance involving minority ethnic groups struggling for recognition. In colonial times, the Bakonzo ethnic group felt marginalized and oppressed by the Tooro kingdom. In 1962, the Bakonzo (together with the Bamba, another marginalized ethnic group) launched the Rwenzururu rebellion, seeking to establish an independent kingdom. This conflict helped give rise to the NALU rebel group, which later joined up with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). In 2009, the Ugandan government recognized the Rwenzururu kingdom as a cultural institution and crowned Charles Mumbere as the king. It is important to understand that kingdom recognition and the creation of districts are the result of the government’s patronage politics, in which the state and its resources are used to consolidate the regime’s power, particularly for electoral reasons. Control over Uganda’s districts and kingdoms means control over public funds and land — as well as political representation and mobilization. So the recognition of the kingdom was an apparent attempt by the Ugandan government to swing the votes in a region that had overwhelmingly voted opposition. It didn’t work — the region still voted for the opposition in the 2011 general elections and the creation of the new kingdom created new tensions. Recognizing the Rwenzururu kingdom created new problems On the one hand, minority tribes in the region — the Bamba and the Basongora — now claimed separate kingdoms of their own: the Rwenzururu kingdom was regarded as a representation of the majority Bakonzo, rather than all ethnic groups of the region. Other tribes therefore sought to establish their own kingdoms. On the other hand, the Bakonzo saw these other kingdoms as a deliberate strategy of the government to limit the influence of the Rwenzururu kingdom. All actions of the government were therefore perceived as an intentional divide-and-rule plan to weaken their power. This led to major tensions. In June 2014, President Museveni yielded to the demands of the region’s second-largest group, and granted recognition to the Bamba kingdom in Bundibugyo district. Weeks later, Bakonzo youth staged attacks in various localities, triggering reprisal killings and counter-operations by security forces. The government arrested hundreds of suspected attackers, mainly Bakonzo youth and a handful of Rwenzururu kingdom officials, and charged them before military tribunals — but eventually let them go. No in-depth investigation into what happened took place, and there was no substantive reconciliation initiated between the various actors involved in the conflict. Instead, the government increased its military and security presence, and largely delegated the peace process to the kingdoms themselves. In doing so, the government has overemphasized the ethnic character of the conflict, and has left wider frustrations with the national government — a main cause for the 2014 attacks — unaddressed. After the February 2016 general election, deadly violence returned after disputed local council elections in two areas. The government blamed an alleged militia loyal to the Rwenzururu king. And local politicians instead blamed the government and police for raising tensions when they deployed security forces in the region. Land conflicts and marginalization are common Underlying these tensions are feelings of marginalization: various ethnic groups feel their communities are left out of employment opportunities or access to land. Land conflicts — including agriculturalists vs. cattle-keepers, land grabbing, tribal migration issues — are rife in Kasese, the country’s fifth-most populous district. Fueling these land conflicts are feelings of neglect: The Bakonzo believe the government favors other ethnic groups (such as the Bamba). “Ethnic” land tensions are a translation of frustrations with the Ugandan government and its perceived favoritism. Furthermore, high numbers of unemployed youth mean that opportunity costs to engage in violence are low. At the same time, traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution through elders have lost influence. So the existence of the Rwenzururu kingdom in combination with perceived marginalization by all ethnic groups involved has created an explosive situation. All sides of the conflict remain locked into their traditional roles and actions — the kingdom(s) seek to portray their symbolic power, while the government continues to rely on a combination of military power and patronage. In doing so, the government is primarily trying to consolidate the regime’s electoral power, but is further invigorating the Bakonzo’s frustrations with its perceived divide-and-rule policy. Both mechanisms continue to add fuel to the fire, rather than dousing the tensions. In October, for instance, the Rwenzururu kingdom celebrated its 50th anniversary, but denied security forces access to the ceremonial grounds. In turn, security forces stepped up their patrols in Kasese. This impasse shows little sign of abating — Museveni recently created four new districts in Kasese district, a move rejected by opposition MPs as well as the Rwenzururu kingdom. Addressing the root causes — through in-depth investigations into recent events and dialogue between all concerned parties — is key to resolving the current situation. A strictly military solution and short-term electoral calculations are likely to further fuel tensions rather than restore stability. Anna Reuss is a Kampala-based political and security analyst. She is pursuing her PhD at the Universities of Ghent and Antwerp. Kristof Titeca is a lecturer at the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Antwerp. © The Washington Post

The U.N. tribunal that just upheld Khmer Rouge convictions is slow, biased -- and entirely indispensable. By Alexander Hinton Photo Credit: CHOR SOKOUNTHEA/AFP/Getty Images In March, I watched as Nuon Chea, “Brother Number Two,” was wheeled into the courtroom of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia. He was momentarily ending an unofficial boycott of the court to contest the testimony I had given earlier as an expert witness based on my long-term anthropological research on the Cambodian genocide. On Nov. 22, the frail 90-year-old sat in his wheelchair as the tribunal’s Supreme Court Chamber rendered the final decision on his guilt, handing down a life sentence. I almost felt sorry for the enfeebled Nuon Chea, who had to be helped into his seat by two unarmed guards. Then I thought of the millions of Cambodians who suffered and died during the brutal Democratic Kampuchea (DK) era. Nobody, not even Nuon Chea himself, disputes that he worked closely with Pol Pot and served as deputy secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea that ran the DK regime from April 17, 1975, to Jan. 6, 1979. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal that oversaw the verdict is an attempt to find justice for the millions of dead under Pol Pot’s rule. It is also an attempt to set an international precedent. But the tribunal has raised as many questions as it answered. Given how compromised and sluggish the court has proven to be, it’s not yet clear whether Cambodians, and those hoping to pursue historical justice elsewhere in the world, will even find its judgments to be meaningful. Officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the Khmer Rouge Tribunal commenced operation in 2006 to try the surviving Khmer Rouge “senior leaders” and “those most responsible” for violations of international law. Pol Pot died in 1998. Nuon Chea, the second- highest-ranking Khmer Rouge leader, stood trial alongside former Khmer Rouge Head of State Khieu Samphan, who is in his 80s and also in poor health. The two other defendants in the case died before the ECCC Trial Chamber reached its 2014 verdict in the first of their two trials after three long years, convicting them, among other things, of crimes against humanity, including “extermination.” Some question whether its judgment even matters. The court has been mired in controversy, and its decisions increasingly scrutinized by the media, international civil society, academics, and foreign governments. But this is not entirely surprising. International justice is inherently political, often smacking of victor’s justice and skewed in terms of decisions about who can be tried and for what, when, and where. This politicization was true of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. Adolf Eichmann’s abduction by Mossad agents in Argentina to stand trial in Israel sparked protest. So, too, did his poor representation and the attempts of the Israeli state to use its domestic trial of Eichmann to forge a new national narrative instead of focusing on the overwhelming evidence against him. The ad hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have not fared much better, mired in complaints about bias, sentencing, and flawed trials. Most recently, several African countries announced they are pulling out of the International Criminal Court due to what they claim is Eurocentrism and neocolonial bias. Russia has joined the exodus. As the saying goes, international justice sails between the Scylla of politics and the Charybdis of law in the pursuit of truth and justice. The rule of thumb for jurists is as follows: Minimize the taint of politics; stick as close as possible to the shores of law. But they are trapped in a paradoxical position. A trial that adheres too closely to law renders a sterile, procedural justice. Listing toward politics, on the other side, leads to a show trial. The goal is to pass through this gauntlet, as the ECCC sought to do on Nov. 22, to provide at least a degree of justice and truth about the past. But some say the ECCC was doomed from the start. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal was established after years of negotiations by a 2003 agreement between the United Nations and Cambodia. As an international “hybrid” tribunal, it was comprised of both Cambodian and U.N.-nominated international judges and prosecutors. The court included checks to prevent the Cambodian side from dominating, including a requirement that decisions receive a “supermajority” that includes at least one international judge. Still, the agreement to create the tribunal ceded enormous influence to the Cambodian government, not known for its judicial independence or commitment to the rule of law. These concerns were amplified by the fact that Prime Minister Hun Sen and other leaders of his Cambodian People’s Party were themselves former Khmer Rouge and might limit the number of investigations and tightly control the proceedings. These concerns proved prescient. First there was a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks on the Cambodian side. Then a drawn-out battle over how many people to try ensued, with the Cambodian government pushing for the trial of just five suspects and the U.N. arguing that the court itself should decide on the numbers. In 2010, Hun Sen informed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that there would be no further trials. Key Cambodian personnel at the court, including judges, adhered to this government line. The following year they thwarted the efforts of an international investigating judge who sought to pursue additional investigations, stymieing his work at every turn. Defense teams highlighted allegations of political influence even as they called for Hun Sen and other Cambodian government leaders, some themselves former Khmer Rouge, to testify. The officials refused. Thwarted by this situation and other issues related to political influence and court bias, some defense lawyers quit. Others staged boycotts, including the defense teams for Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. Some called the court a “farce.” So is the Khmer Rouge Tribunal just a sham? Will sticking with it end up discrediting the case for historical and international justice elsewhere? Some say yes. There have even been calls for the U.N. to pull out of a tribunal that has cost over $250 million. Others reply, “Who cares?” noting that many Cambodians are more concerned with their daily struggles than dry legal proceedings. Some Cambodians offer a Buddhist perspective, claiming that the Khmer Rouge will suffer the karmic consequences of their actions when they are reborn. Or they invoke a Cambodian adage, “Don’t poke an old wound.” Yet supporters, such as the international donor “Friends of the ECCC,” point to the successes of the court, which has, amid all the turmoil that surrounds it, stayed the course, increasing historical understanding while delivering a verdict in the first trial of a notorious prison chief and then again in Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan’s trial. I pondered these questions before the final decision was announced, just as I had in March as I sat in the witness stand. I had observed the anger of defense lawyers upset by their treatment in the court. Noun Chea had broken his unofficial boycott to complain that the court was not addressing the involvement of foreign powers, including the United States, in the Cambodian violence. But I had also frequently glanced at the civil parties sitting in the courtroom. Many had been given the opportunity to take the stand and tell their stories in court. Tens of thousands more Cambodians had attended the proceedings, sitting in the 500-seat public gallery. The gallery was also packed when the ECCC Supreme Court Chamber, which heard the appeal of the Trial Chamber’s verdict, read its final decision on Nov. 22. They upheld the life sentences for Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, whom they found guilty of crimes against humanity, among other charges. But they threw out some of the Trial Chamber’s rulings, including its determination that the Khmer Rouge evacuations of the cities were an attempt at extermination. I thought of Reach Sambath, the dynamic spokesperson for the court, who was orphaned by the Khmer Rouge. He died unexpectedly from a stroke in 2011. He had always acknowledged that the court had shortcomings. But, he told me, there was no such thing as perfect justice, except as a goal to be pursued. Although Sambath officially served as the external face of the court, he viewed himself as a voice for the spirits of the hundreds of thousands of DK dead, including his parents and siblings. This role gave him his nickname: “spokesperson for the ghosts.” It was on their behalf as well, he stressed, that justice must be delivered. Justice is always partial. International justice remains heavily politicized. The ECCC has emerged from the gauntlet between the Scylla of politics and Charybdis of law damaged. Within limits, ones the ECCC has at times almost crossed, international justice with all its flaws is nevertheless better than the alternative, allowing genocide and crimes against humanity to go unpunished. Given the choice between this court and its imperfect justice and no court, I think most Cambodians would choose the ECCC and the final decision rendered on Nov. 22. Sambath likely would have told us better this justice than no justice — for the living and the dead. Photo Credit: CHOR SOKOUNTHEA/AFP/Getty Images

By Annerieke Smaak A 14-year-old girl holds her baby at her sister’s home in a village in Kanduku, in Malawi’s Mwanza district. She married in September 2013, but her husband chased her away. Her 15-year-old sister, in the background, married when she was 12. Both sisters said they married to escape poverty. © 2014 Human Rights Watch Malawi’s parliament took a historic step towards ending child marriage last week, when it removed from its Constitution a provision allowing children between the ages of 15 and 18 to marry with parental consent. Now, the minimum age of marriage under the Constitution is aligned with the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Act, a law that sets 18 as the age of marriage. While the Marriage Act was intended to stop child marriage, it could not override the country’s Constitution. This change will help girls like Elina V., interviewed by Human Rights Watch for a 2014 report on child marriage in Malawi. “I faced a lot of problems in marriage. I was young and did not know how to be a wife,” Elina V. said. At 15, Elina was forced by her mother to marry a 24-year-old man when she became pregnant “because it was her only option.” Elina spoke of the problems she faced in her abusive marriage, at a time when she was still a child herself. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, where approximately one out of every two girls marry before age 18. It has the ninth highest rate in Africa. Girls interviewed for our report spoke of the pressure they faced to marry by family members who wanted to receive dowry payments, because they were pregnant, or because they themselves saw marriage as a means of escaping poverty. Child marriage has detrimental consequences on the ability of women and girls to realize key human rights, including the rights to health, education, and freedom from violence. It puts girls at a greater risk of maternal mortality and other health risks. Many girls who attend school are forced to drop out when they marry. Child marriage also exposes girls and young women to violence, including marital rape, sexual and domestic violence, and emotional abuse. In removing this legal loophole, Malawi has taken an important step in addressing a major shortfall in the country’s efforts to protect girls against the harms of child marriage. With clear and consistent laws now regulating marriage, girls in Malawi may finally have the protection they’ve desperately needed. The government of Malawi should increase efforts to end widespread child and forced marriage, or risk worsening poverty, illiteracy, and preventable maternal deaths in the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today, ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2014. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights

By Andrew Wasike South Sudanese are surviving on tree leaves as a deadly famine declared in the East African country continues to spread nationwide, a humanitarian aid group said Monday. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in its report said the communities it visited in South Sudan have resorted to extreme famine coping techniques such as eating tree leaves as wild fruits run out. The humanitarian aid group notes that people are eating tree leaves even in areas where famine is yet to be declared. “The bitter leaves eaten by families we spoke to are from the Lalop tree, and have limited nutritional value. When families eat these leaves and little else, malnutrition quickly follows,” NRC’s Country Director in South Sudan Rehana Zawar said in a statement. 47-year-old Bhakita Abuk (mother of seven), a resident of Amothic village, said: “Children are eating leaves off the trees, Children are suffering because there is not enough food to eat. Some of the children have diarrhea from eating the leaves,” she said. NRC warns the situation is getting worse and calls on more funding to South Sudan to help cushion the effects of the famine. “International donors need to provide more funding for emergency aid for South Sudan to stop the famine and food crisis escalating,” Zawar said. NRC said the aid appeal for South Sudan requires $1.6 billion to support people in need. So far only 18 percent of the appeal has been funded. Analysts argue that South Sudanese leaders are forcing famine on their people by waging violent war and conflict leaving millions at risk. Thousands have died and more than 1.6 million people in South Sudan have been displaced since the conflict started in December 2013. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Anadolu Agency

By Amanda Taub and Max Fisher Even as Venezuela sinks into chaos, with clashes between protesters and the police escalating, why have its powerful political and military elites stuck by President Nicolás Maduro? The country would seem to be a prime candidate for something scholars call an “elite fracture,” in which enough powerful officials break away to force a change in leadership. Long-mounting rage against Mr. Maduro’s government exploded this past week when he called for a new Constitution, widely seen as the latest in a series of a power grabs. Demonstrators have overwhelmed city streets, so far undeterred by a police crackdown in which hundreds have been arrested and dozens killed. The violence deepens a monthslong crisis marked by food shortages, economic collapse and Mr. Maduro’s fumbling attempts to consolidate authority. In quasi-democratic systems like Venezuela’s, such pressures have often led elites to force a change, and have provided them an excuse to do so. “The fact that it hasn’t happened in the last two years is the biggest puzzle of all,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist. “If it happens next week, all of us will say, ‘Yeah, it was bound to happen.’” Still, splits are beginning to emerge, as a few figures in major institutions signal opposition to Mr. Maduro, hinting at growing dissatisfaction and the government’s inability to silence it. Recent actions by both elites and the government suggest they take the possibility of fracture seriously — maneuvering in a high-stakes contest that is potentially decisive but whose outcome remains uncertain. A Collective-Action Game Elite fracture operates as a kind of game in which each player tries to figure out what the others are about to do. Stay loyal to a failing government too long and you risk going down with it. But if you break with the government and others don’t, you’ll pay a high price for disloyalty. This may be as old as politics itself. Plato, the 4th-century B.C. Greek philosopher, wrote that a united elite could resist popular uprisings, but that when the ruling class fractured, power could change hands. Members of the elite, in this game, try to test one another over where they stand, as well as the government’s strength, in order to decide whether to remain loyal. If enough believe they have achieved critical mass to force a leadership change, they will all push at once. Luisa Ortega, the attorney general, conducted such a test, whether she intended to or not, in late March. When the pro-Maduro Supreme Court moved to seize many of the legislature’s powers, Ms. Ortega condemned the ruling as a “rupture of the constitutional order.” The government faced a dilemma. Tolerating Ms. Ortega’s dissent would signal that elites could more freely break with Mr. Maduro, making action against him easier. But punishing her would risk backlash from any elites who shared her view. Ms. Ortega went unpunished, and the ruling was reversed. “It’s a sign of enormous weakness inside the ruling clique that Luisa Ortega took the position that she did and kept her job,” said Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan political scientist who edits the Caracas Chronicles website. “That’s never happened before.” Rapid policy changes can open such fissures by forcing elites to decide whether to go along. In 2015, for instance, Mr. Maduro seemed to consider halting legislative elections, but ultimately agreed to hold them. “They tried to go too far,” Mr. Levitsky said. “That created too much conflict within the regime.” This is why periods of crisis can heighten risks of elite fracture, as governments make rapid changes to keep up. The Deciding Vote The deciding vote in these situations is often cast by the military, which has the power to break a deadlock among elites and, often, the popular legitimacy to lead a transition. In Venezuela, some are already calling on the military to step in. Luis Ugalde, a prominent Jesuit leader, said at a forum in February that Mr. Maduro’s government had shown “dictatorial character.” He called for a transitional government modeled after the 1958 military coup that then installed democracy. Such statements can hardly force change. But by conferring pre-emptive legitimacy, they signal to potential coup leaders that they would enjoy at least some elite support. Still, the government has been preparing its defenses since 2002. That year, amid major protests, Hugo Chávez, Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, ordered the military to impose order. It instead removed him in a coup that was quickly reversed. After that, Mr. Chávez packed the military with allies. The military also gained vast patronage streams, which some local officials say include control over gold mining. But 2002 also provided a warning that authoritarian leaders have learned repeatedly throughout history. Even a loyal military, when forced to resolve a political crisis, might decide against the leader who called it in. The impossibility of fully predicting how the military might decide in another crisis, along with growing unrest that could again test it, has left the government nervous. Last year, Cliver Alcalá, a retired major general, called for a referendum to unseat Mr. Maduro. Though Mr. Maduro ordered his arrest, Mr. Alcalá remains free and a vocal critic, although still under pressure. He recently claimed that rifle-wielding intelligence officers had tried to raid his home. In March, a video spread on social media showing three lieutenants who said they no longer recognized Mr. Maduro’s authority. The next month, they turned up in Colombia, where they requested asylum. The Venezuelan government has publicly demanded their return, which Mr. Levitsky called “pretty clear evidence that the government is worried about some sort of conspiracy” within the ranks. Because the government cannot be sure whether these voices represent wider opposition within the military, it has to guess at how severely to silence them — a guessing game it cannot afford to get wrong. A Shrinking Pie But Mr. Maduro can also play this game. He has enabled loyalists to profit from corruption and patronage, giving them a financial stake in the government’s survival. Loyalty was once purchased with oil revenue, but today, Mr. Toro said, the most valuable resource in Venezuela is access to favorable exchange rates. By leveraging official government rates, which value the bolívar considerably higher than the unofficial rate, someone with the proper connections can generate a small fortune out of thin air. Drug and food smuggling also generate revenue, including for the military. But as the economy worsens, elites compete over a smaller pie. “When elites begin to compete among themselves, usually somebody defects,” Mr. Levitsky said, using the formal term for an elite who turns against the government. Venezuela is also growing internationally isolated, forcing elites to fear they could face foreign sanctions or even criminal charges if they remain loyal and the government falls. As threats mount, Mr. Levitsky said, “even actors who were bought off with patronage tend to worry.” This is part of what makes the lack of widespread defection, amid Venezuela’s economic collapse, so unusual. Maduro’s Secret Weapon Pressed to explain Mr. Maduro’s resilience, Mr. Levitsky cited one of the only forces more powerful than economic self-interest: ideological polarization. Mr. Chavez’s hypercharged populism succeeded in so dividing society that crossing over remains, for many, unthinkable. And so ideological dedication remains widespread, including among elites. “Defection is harder when the other side isn’t just some guy you disagree with about tax policy but rather is the enemy,” Mr. Levitsky said. “Moving to opposition, calling for Maduro’s fall, is still akin to treason. That atmosphere makes defection much harder.” Zimbabwe, Mr. Levitsky said, might be the only other country whose government survived similar collapse. Its leader, Robert Mugabe, maintained elite support by framing his fight against dissent as a continuation of the revolutionary movement he had led against the white-supremacist colonial regime in Rhodesia. That same fervor could create an opportunity for dissidents, however. Venezuela’s few defecting elites have tended to portray themselves as the true guardians of Mr. Chávez’s cause and Mr. Maduro as the traitor. This past week, Ms. Ortega told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Maduro’s move for a new Constitution was an attack on “Chávez’s Constitution” — portraying Mr. Maduro as the one who had betrayed the system. The country’s widespread shortages of food and medicine could also provide an opening for Ms. Ortega and other defectors to claim that the government is not fulfilling its socialist mission. And younger, second-tier Chávistas may worry about Mr. Maduro’s damage to the cause and its longevity. “These guys have a stake in preserving some semblance of political capital in Chávismo,” Mr. Levitsky said. This is why coups are often led by colonels or civilians of equivalent rank, who also enjoy fewer fruits of patronage and so face less downside in defecting. But movement can come only when elites, junior or senior, are sure they have the numbers to win. And any contest over ideological loyalty will tilt toward the status quo. The rules of the game still favor Mr. Maduro, even if the state of play does not. ©, 2017, The New York Times

By Alberto Fernandez The Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate is crumbling, if all too slowly. Sadly, though, its ultimate collapse will not be the end of the story. It will leave behind a still-lethal insurgency that will almost certainly attempt to stage terrorist attacks around the world as well as a wide swath of physical destruction and devastated lives stretching from Aleppo to Ramadi. And yet, even while the Islamic State is “losing,” there is no denying that it has also “won” some things. It has created grim facts on the ground. It has wiped out communities that will never rise again. Many Yazidi villages and towns within its orbit are destined to remain permanently empty because of slaughter and the flight of despairing survivors. Islamic State jihadists also succeeded in destroying the ancient Christian community of Mosul, whose surviving members were robbed of everything they had when they were expelled from the city in July 2014. Many of the survivors of these same minority groups remain scattered around the region, and some still haven’t decided whether they should stay, with all the risks that it would entail, or leave forever. The Islamic State has torn a hole in the fabric of the region’s millennia-old diversity that can never be fully repaired. President Trump’s speech in Riyadh on Sunday sought, as two presidents before him have done, to break down the talk of hostile divides between civilizations. He should be commended for doing so. So, too, should those ordinary Americans who strive to break through long-established narratives of bigotry and stereotyping. In January 2017, when a fire destroyed a mosque in Victoria, Tex., ordinary Americans raised more than $1 million for its reconstruction. As the Islamic State recedes, there is a vital opportunity for majority-Muslim states to build on the positive vibe of the Riyadh gathering. Scholars such as William McCants and David Andrew Weinberg have made concrete suggestions on changes to Salafi proselytizing and Saudi textbooks, respectively. The U.S. and Saudi governments also announced a range of steps involving terrorist financing, arms sales and a messaging center. But we should also consider fresh ways for Muslim leaders to attack negative stereotypes by showing concrete support for restoring what the Islamic State sought to exterminate. Even the resurrection of a single community would be a powerful message of solidarity and diversity in a Middle East that is becoming increasingly monochrome while a globalized West grows more diverse. The situation in Mosul, now a uniformly Sunni Muslim city cleansed of its minorities, is dire. The same may be true soon in Raqqa, the “capital” of the Islamic State’s territory. Yet despite all the suffering it inflicted on its Sunni Muslim population, the Islamic State did not seek to exterminate and erase every trace of the community’s existence down to the last tombstone. In contrast, Yazidis were enslaved in large numbers and Christians mostly expelled, while the material culture of both was targeted for obliteration. There is no way all this damage can be repaired. But there are ways to take a stand against this policy of destruction. In Lebanon in 1939, a new settlement was established at the ancient site of Anjar incorporating survivors of the heroic Armenian stand against genocide at Musa Dagh. Some years later in Israel, one kibbutz incorporated and commemorated survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and other Jewish partisans. Imagine the resurrection of a non-Muslim community that the Islamic State sought to exterminate. What a powerful message that would send. And the message would resonate even more strongly if the work were to be done with the support of Muslim states. Such an initiative could be implemented almost anywhere. Syria or Iraq, of course, are the most likely sites. Given the complex political realities, probably the least problematic area would be on Iraq’s Nineveh Plain, either by restoring an already existing town or establishing a new settlement. Some have mocked the theme of Trump’s so-called “Abrahamic Adventure.” But any acts of kindness and solidarity by states, communities and individuals that break down barriers among the three great Abrahamic religions make good sense. This would be true no matter who is in the White House, and even if the Islamic State had never reared its hideous head. Moreover, restoring a community is a far more tangible result than the next round of interfaith meetings or well-meaning declarations about tolerance that rarely seem to have real impact. Religious and ethnic diversity has always been a major characteristic of the Muslim East. That was the reality, despite the despotism of the sultan or the prince of the day. Today, that precious quality is under threat like never before, and not only at the hands of the Islamic State. If the states of the region are indeed as united against the Islamic State as they claim, then they should also work to ensure that the results of the group’s zeal are not set in stone and that they are not complicit in reaping the fruits of its infamy. This requires not words, but action. It is entirely reasonable for the United States to encourage its partners to take steps to restore as much of the ethnic and religious diversity as possible in areas that were under the Islamic State’s control. Now is the time to start. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Washington Post

By Alan Posener Over the last decade, German filmmakers have begun churning out lavishly produced movies and television series dealing with the dark side of Germany’s recent history. The latest, most expensive, and internationally most successful example is Babylon Berlin , a crime series set in the dying days of the Weimar Republic, now streaming on Netflix in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Germany is not the only country looking backward, of course. Many recent British and American movies have also focused on the run-up to World War II and the war itself, including The King’s Speech and Darkest Hour . But these films are stories of redemption, culminating in the heroism of the war against Adolf Hitler. Germany, by contrast, has to deal with a history of guilt and shame. Most Germans today are proud of the way their country handles this legacy, but many of these recent productions fall short of what one might have expected from a generation of filmmakers and TV producers untainted by Nazism. While the shows dealing with communist East Germany are realistic, the Third Reich gets off too lightly. None of the new productions directly addresses the Holocaust or other Nazi crimes. The dramas don’t even focus on the resistance to Hitler. Instead, most Germans appear as victims. This trend began back in 2006 with Dresden , a two-part TV drama set against the destruction of the German city by British and American bombers in February 1945. Some 12 million Germans watched the show. A year later, more than 11 million tuned in for Die Flucht (released as March of Millions in English), which focused on Germans fleeing the Red Army. The 2013 miniseries Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (released as Generation War in English) continued the trend, tracing the fates of five young people from 1941 through to the end of the Third Reich. None of them are Nazis or have Nazi sympathies. As the series opens, the friends gather at a farewell party: Brothers Wilhelm and Friedhelm are off to the Eastern Front. Charlotte, a nurse, follows them. Greta, who stays home, seeks fame as a singer. Her lover, Viktor, is Jewish, despite the fact that Rassenschande — intimate relations between Aryans and non-Aryans — was already forbidden in 1935, punishable by prison and even death. Even more implausible is the fact that Viktor is one of the three friends who survive the war. Advancing through the Soviet Union, Wilhelm and Friedhelm do come face to face with the Holocaust — but not in the form of German Einsatzgruppen and police battalions mowing down Jews. Instead, it is Ukrainian peasants who club Jewish men, women, and children to death. The German friends watch in horror, and their fellow soldiers actually intervene to save one of the children, though she is then shot by an SS officer. What we don’t see is Germans screaming their allegiance to Hitler. Charlotte does expose the Jewish identity of a Russian nurse who has been conscripted to help in her field hospital, but she then agonizes over her betrayal, and the Jewish nurse returns, miraculously unharmed, at the end of the series. She is now a Red Army commissar and sends another Russian nurse to her death for supposedly collaborating with the Germans. This twist reinforces anti-Jewish stereotypes put out by the Nazis, who equated Jews with coldblooded Bolsheviks. All these productions show Nazis as caricatures of evil, distinct from ordinary Germans. Individual communists, on the other hand, receive more realistic portrayals, sometimes even sympathetic ones. The brilliant series Weissensee , which ran from 2010 to 2015, is a Sopranos-style family melodrama centered on a Stasi officer in the 10 years leading up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Tannbach , which ran from 2015 to this year, is based loosely on the real-life village of Mödlareuth, which was divided between East and West Germany. And Deutschland 83 — written by Anna Winger, a British-American — follows a loyal young East German army officer blackmailed by the Stasi into becoming a spy in the West German army. Each of these programs is crafted with a realism missing from the programs depicting World War II. The scenes in Tannbach that show the dispossession of the farmers in the Eastern part of the village are harrowing. Deutschland 83 shows how the Stasi infiltrated the West German peace movement. Why do German films and TV series portray communism realistically but shy away from depicting the full extent of Nazi evil? Possibly because it was the Germans themselves who ultimately threw off the East German regime. The Russians imposed communism from without, and East Germans celebrated when the wall finally fell. National Socialism, on the other hand, was a popular movement; Germans continued to fight fanatically for the Führer for years after it was obvious that they’d lose the war. Yet the country has still not come to terms with this central fact, and these recent shows perpetuate the self-serving myth that the worst crime their forebears were guilty of was naiveté. It is perhaps no coincidence then that Stefan Kolditz wrote both Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter and Dresden . Born in East Germany in 1956, Kolditz was a scriptwriter for communist state TV until the government collapsed. Like many East Germans who were quick to adapt to new realities, Kolditz advances the narrative that most people had nothing to do with the dictatorial regime. Both Nazism and communism appear as alien forces. © 2018 | Foreign Policy

False rumors set Buddhist against Muslim in Sri Lanka, the most recent in a global spate of violence fanned by social media. By Amanda Taub and Max Fisher “The house is burning.” Abdul Basith died when a Buddhist mob set fire to his family home in Digana, Sri Lanka. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times MEDAMAHANUWARA, Sri Lanka — Past the end of a remote mountain road, down a rutted dirt track, in a concrete house that lacked running water but bristled with smartphones, 13 members of an extended family were glued to Facebook. And they were furious. A family member, a truck driver, had died after a beating the month before. It was a traffic dispute that had turned violent, the authorities said. But on Facebook, rumors swirled that his assailants were part of a Muslim plot to wipe out the country’s Buddhist majority. “We don’t want to look at it because it’s so painful,” H.M. Lal, a cousin of the victim, said as family members nodded. “But in our hearts there is a desire for revenge that has built.” The rumors, they believed, were true. Still, the family, which is Buddhist, did not join in when Sinhalese-language Facebook groups, goaded on by extremists with wide followings on the platform, planned attacks on Muslims, burning a man to death. But they had shared and could recite the viral Facebook memes constructing an alternate reality of nefarious Muslim plots. Mr. Lal called them “the embers beneath the ashes” of Sinhalese anger. We came to this house to try to understand the forces of social disruption that have followed Facebook’s rapid expansion in the developing world, whose markets represent the company’s financial future. For months, we had been tracking riots and lynchings around the world linked to misinformation and hate speech on Facebook, which pushes whatever content keeps users on the site longest — a potentially damaging practice in countries with weak institutions. Time and again, communal hatreds overrun the newsfeed — the primary portal for news and information for many users — unchecked as local media are displaced by Facebook and governments find themselves with little leverage over the company. Some users, energized by hate speech and misinformation, plot real-world attacks. A reconstruction of Sri Lanka’s descent into violence, based on interviews with officials, victims and ordinary users caught up in online anger, found that Facebook’s newsfeed played a central role in nearly every step from rumor to killing. Facebook officials, they say, ignored repeated warnings of the potential for violence, resisting pressure to hire moderators or establish emergency points of contact. A false Facebook claim: “23,000 sterilization pills caught in Ampara. Thank you to the police. Muslim pharmacy owner from Akkaraipattu arrested. Who wants to sterilize the Sinhalese?” (Credit Amanda Taub/The New York Times) Facebook declined to respond in detail to questions about its role in Sri Lanka’s violence, but a spokeswoman said in an email that “we remove such content as soon as we’re made aware of it.” She said the company was “building up teams that deal with reported content” and investing in “technology and local language expertise to help us swiftly remove hate content.” Sri Lankans say they see little evidence of change. And in other countries, as Facebook expands, analysts and activists worry they, too, may see violence. Continue reading the main story The police guarding a restaurant run by the Atham-Lebbe brothers after violence broke out there. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times One Town, Two Versions Five hours east of Medamahanuwara lies the real Ampara, a small town of concrete buildings surrounded by open green fields. The road there passes over verdant mountains before coasting through tropical flatlands, contested territory during the civil war that ended in 2009, now distinguished mostly by quiet teahouses. But the imagined Ampara, which exists in rumors and memes on Sinhalese-speaking Facebook, is the shadowy epicenter of a Muslim plot to sterilize and destroy Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority. As Tamil-speaking Muslims, the Atham-Lebbe brothers knew nothing of that version of Ampara when, using money they saved laboring in Saudi Arabia, they opened a one-room restaurant there. They had no way to anticipate that, on a warm evening in late February, the real and imagined Amparas would collide, upending their lives and provoking a brief national breakdown. It began with a customer yelling in Sinhalese about something he had found in his dinner. Unable to understand Sinhalese, Farsith, the 28-year-old brother running the register, ignored him. He did not know that the day before, a viral Facebook rumor claimed, falsely, that the police had seized 23,000 sterilization pills from a Muslim pharmacist in Ampara. The irate customer drew a crowd, which gathered around Farsith, shouting: “You put in sterilization medicine, didn’t you?” He grasped only that they were asking about a lump of flour in the customer’s meal, and worried that saying the wrong thing might turn the crowd violent. “I don’t know,” Farsith said in broken Sinhalese. “Yes, we put?” The mob, hearing confirmation, beat him, destroyed the shop and set fire to the local mosque. In an earlier time, this might have ended in Ampara. But Farsith’s “admission” had been recorded on a cellphone. Within hours, a popular Facebook group, the Buddhist Information Center, pushed out the shaky, 18-second video, presenting it as proof of long-rumored Muslim plots. Then it spread. An aerial view of Kandy, Sri Lanka, where Buddhists and Muslims have clashed. (Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times) Vigilante Justice As Facebook pushes into developing countries, it tends to be initially received as a force for good. In Sri Lanka, it keeps families in touch even as many work abroad. It provides for unprecedented open expression and access to information. Government officials say it was essential for the democratic transition that swept them into office in 2015. But where institutions are weak or undeveloped, Facebook’s newsfeed can inadvertently amplify dangerous tendencies. Designed to maximize user time on site, it promotes whatever wins the most attention. Posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger or fear, studies have found, produce the highest engagement, and so proliferate. In the Western countries for which Facebook was designed, this leads to online arguments, angry identity politics and polarization. But in developing countries, Facebook is often perceived as synonymous with the internet and reputable sources are scarce, allowing emotionally charged rumors to run rampant. Shared among trusted friends and family members, they can become conventional wisdom. And where people do not feel they can rely on the police or courts to keep them safe, research shows, panic over a perceived threat can lead some to take matters into their own hands — to lynch. Last year, in rural Indonesia, rumors spread on Facebook and WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned messaging tool, that gangs were kidnapping local children and selling their organs. Some messages included photos of dismembered bodies or fake police fliers. Almost immediately, locals in nine villages lynched outsiders they suspected of coming for their children. Near-identical social media rumors have also led to attacks in India and Mexico. Lynchings are increasingly filmed and posted back to Facebook, where they go viral as grisly tutorials. Worshipers at a burned-out mosque that was ransacked and set afire along with neighboring Muslim shops and homes by a Buddhist mob in Digana. (Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times) ‘You Report to Facebook. They Do Nothing’ In a small office lined with posters in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, members of an advocacy group called the Center for Policy Alternatives watched as hate exploded on Facebook — all inspired by the video from Ampara, which had overtaken Sinhalese social media in just a week. One post declared, “Kill all Muslims, don’t even save an infant.” A prominent extremist urged his followers to descend on the city of Kandy to “reap without leaving an iota behind.” Desperate, the researchers flagged the video and subsequent posts using Facebook’s on-site reporting tool. Though they and government officials had repeatedly asked Facebook to establish direct lines, the company had insisted this tool would be sufficient, they said. But nearly every report got the same response: the content did not violate Facebook’s standards. “You report to Facebook, they do nothing,” one of the researchers, Amalini De Sayrah, said. “There’s incitements to violence against entire communities and Facebook says it doesn’t violate community standards.” In government offices across town, officials “felt a sense of helplessness,” Sudarshana Gunawardana, the head of public information, recounted. Before Facebook, he said, officials facing communal violence “could ask media heads to be sensible, they could have their own media strategy.” But now it was as if his country’s information policies were set at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The officials rushed out statements debunking the sterilization rumors but could not match Facebook’s influence. Officials had pleaded with Facebook representatives, in a meeting in October, to better police hate speech and misinformation, which they warned could spiral into violence. They asked the company to establish an emergency point of contact in case it did. In a separate meeting, civic leaders urged Facebook to hire Sinhalese-speaking moderators to staff its reporting tool. The Facebook employees left offering only vague promises, officials said. Facebook still appears to employ few Sinhalese moderators. A call to a third-party employment service revealed that around 25 Sinhalese moderator openings, first listed last June, remain unfilled. The jobs are based in India, which has few Sinhalese speakers. Facebook has no office in Sri Lanka, which officials say makes it difficult to impose regulations. Mr. Gunawardana, the public information head, said that with Facebook unresponsive, he used the platform’s reporting tool. He, too, found that nothing happened. “There needs to be some kind of engagement with countries like Sri Lanka by big companies who look at us only as markets,” he said. “We’re a society, we’re not just a market.” A charred Quran at a mosque that was attacked. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times The Thrill of Tribalism Facebook’s most consequential impact may be in amplifying the universal tendency toward tribalism. Posts dividing the world into “us” and “them” rise naturally, tapping into users’ desire to belong. Its gamelike interface rewards engagement, delivering a dopamine boost when users accrue likes and responses, training users to indulge behaviors that win affirmation. And because its algorithm unintentionally privileges negativity, the greatest rush comes by attacking outsiders: The other sports team. The other political party. The ethnic minority. Online outrage mobs will be familiar to any social media user. But in places with histories of vigilantism, they can work themselves up to real-world attacks. Last year in Cancún, Mexico, for instance, Facebook arguments over racist videos escalated to fatal mob violence. Mass media has long been used to mobilize mass violence. Facebook, by democratizing communication tools, gives anyone with a smartphone the ability to broadcast hate. Facebook did not create Sri Lanka’s history of ethnic distrust any more than it created anti-Rohingya sentiment in Myanmar. But the platform, by supercharging content that taps into tribal identity, can upset fragile communal balances. In India, Facebook-based misinformation has been linked repeatedly to religious violence, including riots in 2012 that left several dead, foretelling what has since become a wider trend. “We don’t completely blame Facebook,” said Harindra Dissanayake, a presidential adviser in Sri Lanka. “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind, you know?” “The house is burning.” Abdul Basith died when a Buddhist mob set fire to his family home in Digana, Sri Lanka. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times The Boiling Point As anger over the Ampara video spread online, extremists like Amith Weerasinghe, a Sinhalese nationalist with thousands of followers on Facebook, found opportunity. He posted repeatedly about the beating of the truck driver, M.G. Kumarasinghe, portraying it as further proof of the Muslim threat. Mr. Weerasinghe stoked anger through images overlaid with text. When Mr. Kumarasinghe died on March 3, online emotions surged into calls for action: attend the funeral to show support. Sinhalese arrived by the busload, fanning out to nearby towns. Online, they migrated from Facebook to private WhatsApp groups, where they could plan in secret. In a video posted to at least one group, a man dressed as a monk yells, “The sword at home is no longer to cut jackfruit so kindly sharpen that sword and go.” In another group, a user shared a photo of a dozen makeshift weapons with a list of targets: “Thannekumbura mosque and the mosque in Muruthalawa tonight. Tomorrow supposedly Pilimathalawa and Kandy.” A Sri Lankan WhatsApp user posted a photo of makeshift weapons and a list of mosques to target as anti-Muslim mobs descended on several towns. On Facebook, Mr. Weerasinghe posted a video that showed him walking the shops of a town called Digana, warning that too many were owned by Muslims, and urging Sinhalese to take the town back. The researchers in Colombo reported his video to Facebook, along with his earlier posts, but all remained online. Over the next three days, mobs descended on several towns, burning mosques, Muslim-owned shops and homes. One of those towns was Digana. And one of those homes, among the storefronts of its winding central street, belonged to the Basith family. Abdul Basith, a 27-year-old aspiring journalist, was trapped inside. “They have broken all the doors in our house, large stones are falling inside,” Mr. Basith said in a call to his uncle as the attack began. “The house is burning.” The next morning, the police found his body. In response, the government temporarily blocked most social media. Only then did Facebook representatives get in touch with Sri Lankan officials, they say. Mr. Weerasinghe’s page was closed the same day Mohammed Haniffa Lebbe Mohammed Ibrahim, second from left, an imam, had to hide when his mosque was attacked. (Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times) One Size Fits All No organization has ever had to police billions of users in a panoply of languages. Although Facebook prohibits incitement and hate speech, there is no clear line between prudence and censorship. Despite criticism and concerns from civil society groups, the company has done little to change its strategy of pushing into developing societies with weak institutions and histories of social instability, opening up information spaces where anger and fear often can dominate. When Facebook entered Myanmar in 2014, Buddhist extremists seized on the platform, spreading misinformation that set off a deadly riot that year. In 2017, hate speech on Facebook contributed to ethnic cleansing against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority. Amrit Ahuja, a company representative, says Facebook’s approach to hate speech “has evolved” globally. The company plans to hire more moderators and increase coordination with officials and civic groups, she said in an email, to “help keep our community in Sri Lanka safe.” Adam Mosseri, who runs Facebook’s newsfeed, said on a Slate podcast that he and his team were “losing sleep” over the platform’s role in Myanmar. Tweaks to the algorithm, he said, will privilege people’s long-term interests over their short-term preferences in an effort to address the problem. Change is not without risk for the company. In January, when Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, announced changes to the newsfeed, the company’s stock tumbled 4.5 percent in a few hours. And it is not without risks for users. From October to March, Facebook presented users in six countries, including Sri Lanka, with a separate newsfeed prioritizing content from friends and family. Posts by professional media were hidden away on another tab. “While this experiment lasted, many of us missed out on the bigger picture, on more credible news,” said Nalaka Gunawardene, a Sri Lankan media analyst. “It’s possible that this experiment inadvertently spread hate views in these six countries.” Atham-Lebbe Farsith, right, a Muslim restaurant worker, was attacked by a customer who accused him of putting “sterilization medicine” in the food. (Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times) ‘You’re From the Video!’ A week after the violence, Shivnath Thukral, Facebook’s public policy director for South Asia, and two of his colleagues flew to Colombo, for a meeting with a group of government aides. Mr. Thukral was conciliatory, acknowledging that Facebook had failed to address hate speech and promising better collaboration. In a call with civic leaders, he conceded that Facebook did not have enough Sinhalese moderators, pledging to hire more. Still, government officials said, they face the same problem as before. Facebook wields enormous influence over their society, but they have little over Facebook. Even blocking access did not work. One official estimated that nearly three million users in Sri Lanka continued accessing social media via Virtual Private Networks, which connect to the internet from outside the country. As officials met in Colombo, Atham-Lebbe Farsith, the Muslim restaurant worker, was in hiding. He had shaved his beard. Not to hide his faith, he said, but because even in the Muslim village where he found shelter, he could hardly make it a block without being recognized. “People would ask me all sorts of questions,” he said. “‘You’re from the video!’” Facebook had turned him into a national villain. It helped destroy his business, sending his family deeply into debt. And it had nearly gotten him killed. But he refused to abandon the platform. With long, empty days in hiding, he said, “I have more time and I look at Facebook much more.” “It’s not that I have more faith that social media is accurate, but you have to spend time and money to go to the market to get a newspaper,” he said. “I can just open my phone and get the news instead.” “Whether it’s wrong or right, it’s what I read.” (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/world/asia/facebook-sri-lanka-riots.html

By Sanne Webster In the hot seat? Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales. EPA Images Recent events in Guatemala have raised serious doubts about democracy in the Central American country, suggesting it might be following the increasingly authoritarian path of Nicaragua and Venezuela. In early January, Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales announced that he would immediately end the mandate of the UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), giving its prosecutors 24 hours to leave the country. The CICIG aims to investigate illegal security groups and clandestine organisations in Guatemala, and has led investigations into high-level cases of corruption. Morales, however, accuses the CICIG itself of corruption, and of putting public security and government at risk through selective and partial justice. The decision to end CICIG’s mandate did not come out of the blue. It is only the latest development in a battle that Morales has waged against the successful anti-corruption body for over a year. On August 31 2018, Morales announced that he would not renew the CICIG’s mandate after September 2019, claiming that it has “sown judicial terror in Guatemala”. He announced his decision while surrounded by senior armed forces and police personnel – military vehicles and masked soldiers were later deployed to the CICIG’s headquarters in an apparent attempt to intimidate. Since then, acclaimed Colombian prosecutor and head of the CICIG, Iván Velásquez, who was on a visit to the US at the time of Morales’ decision, has been unable to return to Guatemala. Nevertheless, the UN is adamant that the CICIG continues its work, even with Velásquez out of the country. High-level UN representatives, such as Antonio Guterres and Michelle Bachelet, have strongly criticisedMorales’s most recent decision, warning against the erosion of democracy and the rule of law in the country. Other international actors such as the EU and the UK have also expressed their concern – although the US has been more ambiguous in its support for the CICIG. The reason for Morales’ fierce opposition to the CICIG appears simple. Initially, Morales supported the CICIG and it has received nothing but praise internationally for its effective and independent investigations and its efforts to strengthen the Guatemalan justice system. And yet this success is also exactly what seems to be worrying the Guatemalan president. Morales, who was elected president in 2015 and was a comedy actor by profession, won the presidency by promising he was “neither corrupt, nor a thief”. The 2015 election took place in the wake of large-scale public protests against the corruption of the previous president, Otto Pérez Molina, allegations brought to light by CICIG investigations. Molina has been in jail since September 2015, awaiting trial, while his vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, was handed a 15-year prison sentence last October for her role in a massive fraud case. Since then, investigations by the CICIG and Guatemala’s public prosecutor’s office have found evidence of illegal donations to Morales’s political party and have launched investigations into some of Morales’s family members. It appears this has caused Morales to turn against the commission. Rule of law Worryingly, Morales has also turned against the country’s constitutional court. Over the past 16 months, the court has blocked several government attempts to obstruct the CICIG’s work – including this latest attempt to expel its investigators. But the government regularly ignores the court’s decisions – and the country’s inspector general’s office recently began actions to impeach several constitutional court judges. Furthermore, several senior members of the national police have been removed, allegedly for having assisted the CICIG. The government seems intent on protecting its immunity from investigation. On January 14, Morales presented his annual report – during which the streets around the presidential palace were blocked off by a strong police presence. Without mentioning the CICIG, he called for the Guatemalan people to defend their country’s sovereignty. Ripping up the constitution Many in Guatemala are extremely concerned. They see Morales’s actions as the greatest threat to democracy and constitutional order since Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict ended in 1996. Many worry that authoritarian tendencies are resurfacing, even more so because congress has been debating laws that would give it powers to facilitate the ousting of officials, including constitutional court judges. Discussions are also being held for reforms to the country’s Law of National Reconciliation, aiming to introduce a blanket amnesty to those accused of serious human rights violations committed during the conflict, including genocide and sexual slavery. Thousands of Guatemalans have taken to the streets to protest the government’s actions. Velásquez has also stated that he is willing to resign, if the government retracts its decision to shut down the CICIG. But neither is likely to change the position of a government whose real concern is the CICIG’s investigations which, since 2007, have exposed 60 criminal organisations and helped to imprison 300 people – including senior officials and executives. The CICIG has played an important role in making Guatemalans aware of the corruption of those who govern them – and only time will tell how far Morales will go to stifle it. Either way, the international community must pay close attention to Latin America. After a period of democracy and relative stability, the spectre of authoritarianism appears to be returning. Copyright © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.