Five years after a genocidal wave of anti-Muslim violence forced more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims into camps in the primarily Buddhist nation of Myanmar, the recently-elected government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have given up any pretense of trying to protect the Muslim minority. Among the victims of the systematic persecution of the Rohingya is Rosmaida Bibi, a tiny frail 4-year-old with big brown eyes, one of a multitude of Rohingya children suffering terribly from malnutrition in a camp that authorities refuse to let anyone leave. Barely the size of a 1-year-old, Rosmaida can hardly walk or even speak. Bones protrude visibly against the pallid skin of her chest. “This is worse than a prison,” said Rosmaida’s 20-year-old mother, Hamida Begum, referring to the makeshift hut where her daughter was born. Told The Associated Press. “I want to give her an education. I want to send her to school like all the other kids. But it’s not possible because she’s so sick … she cannot grow.” The Rohingya have long been denied citizenship, freedom of movement, and other basic rights in Myanmar. But Begum says that back at her former home in Sittwe, Buddhists and Muslims had managed to coexist peacefully. Then, on June 5, 2012, Buddhist mobs began attacking Muslims and burning their homes. Begum says she ran away barefoot, only realizing later that her feet had been badly bloodied during her escape. Today, with the exception of a single district, Muslims are banned from walking the streets of Sittwe. Despite optimism after Suu Kyi’s party swept elections last year, Myanmar’s government has continued to condone persecution, and even “mass killing, mass rape, [and] widespread forced labor,” according to the advocacy group Fortify Rights. In response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group that killed nine officers in October, the government responded by burning entire villages, raping their women, and killing an unknown number of people as 75,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. Myanmar’s government offers a differing account of events — according to the government, only 52 people went missing or died during the attacks, and only extremists carried out any killings. A UNICEF report from May estimates that 150 children under the age of 5 die every day in Myanmar. But the U.N. lacks statistics from within the Rohingya camps, where aid workers say the situations is far worse — and where half of all inhabitants are children. Watch video of the Rohingya camps below. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 New York Times

By Nicholas Kristof “Ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” are antiseptic and abstract terms. What they mean in the flesh is a soldier grabbing a crying baby girl named Suhaifa by the leg and flinging her into a bonfire. Or troops locking a 15-year-old girl in a hut and setting it on fire. The children who survive are left haunted: Noor Kalima, age 10, struggles in class in a makeshift refugee camp. Her mind drifts to her memory of seeing her father and little brother shot dead, her baby sister’s and infant brother’s throats cut, the machete coming down on her own head, her hut burning around her … and it’s difficult to focus on multiplication tables. “Sometimes I can’t concentrate on my class,” Noor explained. “I want to throw up.” In the past I’ve referred to Myanmar’s atrocities against its Rohingya Muslim minority as “ethnic cleansing,” but increasingly there are indications that the carnage may amount to genocide. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, backed by a Myanmar-focused human rights organization called Fortify Rights, argues that there is “growing evidence of genocide,” and Yale scholars made a similar argument even before the latest spasms of violence. Romeo Dallaire, a legendary former United Nations general, describes it as “very deliberate genocide.” The U.N. human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, told me, “It would not surprise me at all if a court in the future were to judge that acts of genocide had taken place.” You judge: Here’s what Noor and her mother, Dilbar Begum, say happened in their village, Tula Toli. First, the Myanmar Army separated the women and girls from the men and boys. “Then they shot the men and boys,” Dilbar recalled. “I saw them kill my husband and son. I was screaming.” I delicately tried to probe whether Noor had seen the murders of her father and brother, who was just 4 years old. “I saw everything,” Noor said, biting her lip. In a rush of words, she added: “My father was the best man in the world. We were a good team.” Rohingya women waiting for aid along the Teknaf Road in Bangladesh. Myanmar is visible beyond the Naf River. CreditTomas Munita for The New York Times She began to cry, and soon my interpreter was wiping away tears, too. And so was I. The Myanmar soldiers herded the women and girls into huts to be raped. Noor and Dilbar were taken into one hut, along with Noor’s 2-year-old sister, Rozia, and another brother, Muhammad Kashel, a baby still nursing. “They took my baby and cut his throat,” Dilbar said in a trembling voice, adding that the soldiers then cut Rozia’s throat, too. Shortly afterward Noor remembers a machete blade smashing down repeatedly on her own head, her mother screaming in the background. Then she collapsed unconscious. Dilbar said the soldiers then yanked an earring from her ear — she pointed to her torn lobe — and assaulted her beside the bodies of her children: “One soldier held me down, and another raped me.” When they were finished, she said, the soldiers chopped her on the head with the machete — she has the same angry scars on her scalp as her daughter — and left her for dead while setting fire to the hut. The fire and smoke roused her, she said. She checked the bodies of her children and found that Noor was still breathing. Grabbing the girl, she ran into the woods. Dazed, they hiked for two days through the woods to get to the Bangladesh border. The global and American responses have been feeble, so Myanmar is getting away with murder and rape intended to change the country’s demography. The lesson that the world’s complacency sends to other countries is that this is an ideal time to eradicate a vexing ethnic group. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, has become the apologist for these mass atrocities. Daw Suu does not control the Myanmar Army, but she has defended the military operation and mocked “a huge iceberg of misinformation.” Her Facebook page scoffed at a Rohingya woman’s report of sexual assault by soldiers as “fake rape.” Daw Suu, if you’re reading this, I hope that for a moment you’ll open your heart and listen to the story of Hasina Begum, 21, and her 1-year-old daughter, Suhaifa. (Begum is a common honorific for women.) Hasina Begum, right, with her sister-in-law, Asma Begum. CreditTomas Munita for The New York Times Myanmar soldiers held Hasina and other village women at gunpoint, she said, while the troops executed the men and boys, doused the bodies with gasoline and turned the corpses into a bonfire. Then the troops led the women and girls, five at a time, toward a hut. “I was trying to hide my baby under my scarf, but they saw her leg,” Hasina recalled, her voice brittle, her mouth trembling. “They grabbed my baby by the leg and threw her onto the fire.” Hasina said she collapsed on the ground, screaming. The impatient soldiers then began to club her — she showed me scars from the beating — and dragged her into a hut with her sister-in-law, Asma Begum. The soldiers stripped the women naked and raped them, she said, and finally closed the door and set the hut on fire. As bits of the burning roof fell down on them, Hasina said, she and Asma broke a hole in the side of the hut and ran away naked. They rolled in mud to soothe their burns, and the next day they found a Rohingya house and begged for the man inside to throw out clothes so that they could cover themselves. A three-day hike took Hasina and Asma to Bangladesh. But Hasina still suffers from the beating and from the emptiness left by the murder of Suhaifa, and she has trouble sleeping. “When I fall asleep, I look for my baby,” she said. “I wake up screaming.” It’s tempting to say: That’s terrible, but it’s not our problem. But Noor’s plight, like Anne Frank’s in the 1940s, should prick the global conscience, for one lesson of history is this: Crimes against humanity are an offense against all humanity and require a response from all of us. The latest slaughter began in August after a shadowy Rohingya rebel force attacked police and army posts, killing 12 members of the security forces. Myanmar’s Army embarked on a scorched-earth counterinsurgency, and when soldiers couldn’t find rebels they unleashed their fury on civilians. The brutality varied widely by area, and what happened in Noor’s village was worse than typical. Human Rights Watch says, based on satellite images, that some 345 villages were burned. No one knows exactly what happened to many Rohingya: I searched for people from Rohingya villages I had visited in Myanmar in 2014 and 2015 but couldn’t find them. The line for aid at a refugee camp in Unchiprang, Bangladesh. CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times Doctors Without Borders calculated that at least 9,000 Rohingya, including 1,000 small children, died after the army’s attacks, which were undertaken with a savagery that left hardened war correspondents shaken. These attacks involved the systematic use of rape to terrorize the Rohingya. One 14-year-old girl confided her deepest secret: Four soldiers had gang-raped her. She had intended to keep the secret forever, but then she became pregnant and quietly sought medical help. An aid worker helped her get an abortion, but she still hasn’t told even her parents. She shared her story with me only because she is so grateful to the aid organization and it told her that I could be trusted. It’s impossible to know how many women and girls have been raped, but doctors in the refugee camps report a surge in pregnancies as a result of rape, and I encountered two women who suffered fistulas caused by rape. The Rohingya who have reached Bangladesh live in vast, sprawling refugee encampments, where I interviewed them in their tents and shacks; aid organizations provide desperately needed food, water, toilets and medical care, but cannot offer hope. Bangladesh does not want the Rohingya and does not allow aid organizations to teach Bengali, the national language, or to offer an education beyond primary school. “My drawing shows a bullet hitting my next door neighbor. First they told us to leave, then they shot my neighbor. His name was Aiyukhan. When we were running away, we saw people killed. First, they shot them, and then if they didn’t die they stabbed them and then they cut their throats.” — Ashidulla, 12CreditAlessandra Montalto/The New York Times An organization called BRAC runs child centers where children are given paper and pens. Their drawings are wrenching: soldiers shooting guns, friends bleeding, huts burning. “That man being shot is Sayid Azam, my neighbor,” said Ismal, an 11-year-old orphan, explaining his drawing of a huge gun firing at a man. “I saw it. I was hiding behind a bush.” China has proposed a plan that would result in the return of the refugees to Myanmar, presumably to live stateless in concentration camps like the ones for Rohingya that I’ve previously reported on. But most are too terrified to contemplate returning. It would be an outrage to force refugees back. Photo Shafika BegumCreditPatrick Brown/Panos, via UNICEF Consider Shafika Begum, a 15-year-old who may be the only survivor in her family. She said she saw soldiers shoot dead her father and four brothers; they then took her, her mother and her 11-year-old sister into a hut. The soldiers cut her sister’s throat in front of her, and she said that when she screamed the soldiers clubbed her on the head and knocked her out. Flames and smoke brought her back to consciousness: The soldiers had locked the door of the hut and set it on fire. Her mother and sister were dead, and Shafika’s clothes were on fire, but she broke through a wall and fled. Was she raped? “I was unconscious, so I don’t know what they did to me,” she said. But she added that someone had rearranged her clothes. Shafika walked for four days through the jungle to get to Bangladesh. Her back, left hand and both feet are burned, and she has no money to buy burn medicine. I was concerned that interviewing her might traumatize her again, but she was determined to speak. “I want to tell the whole world my story,” she said. “I want to tell what happens in Myanmar.” The three people whose stories I’ve focused on — Noor, the 10-year-old; Hasina, whose baby was thrown onto the fire; and Shafika, disfigured by burns — are all from the same village, Tula Toli. All these atrocities that I’ve described unfolded on a single dot of the map — and in every direction there are other villages with tragedies of their own. Are the stories they recount true? “My mother died earlier, and my father was killed by a bullet. We were running away, and I heard him killed, but I didn’t see it. My father ran back to get things, and he was shot. I heard him groaning, but I didn’t see him killed. Others told me that he had died. My two older brothers and my sister are looking after me now.” — Ismal, 11 CreditAlessandra Montalto/The New York Times One thing I’ve learned over the decades (originally while covering China’s murder of Tiananmen democracy protesters in 1989) is that victims lie as well as perpetrators. Outrage leads to exaggerations, to elevated death tolls, to rumors becoming eyewitness accounts. But the attack on Tula Toli has been well documented by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights, and it is substantiated by satellite photos showing the burned huts. In all, I spoke to seven people who said they were survivors from Tula Toli, and their stories meshed and cross-confirmed one another. There is no easy solution to possible genocide; there never is. But accountability helps, so there should be a major push to prosecute Myanmar military officials in the International Criminal Court. Judges can resolve whether these crimes against humanity also amount to genocide. An open letter from 58 human rights and aid groups has rightly called for targeted sanctions on Myanmar officials. The House of Representatives this month passed a resolution denouncing the ethnic cleansing, and both the Senate and the House have bipartisan legislation pending that would impose sanctions on Myanmar officials, yet it seems unlikely to become law any time soon. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has commendably described the situation as ethnic cleansing and has said that “the world can’t just stand idly by and be witness to the atrocities.” But I fear that’s exactly what is happening. Myanmar may have concluded that its slaughter is a success — denunciations from bleeding-heart journalists and human rights groups are an acceptable price for eliminating half of its Rohingya population. We do know that international sanctions and pressure matter to Myanmar’s generals, because those were what led them to step back and hold elections. But so far there hasn’t been enough pressure exerted to stop the barbaric treatment of the Rohingya. “I saw people killed. If we hadn’t run, it would have happened to us.” — Sawyid Korim, 12CreditAlessandra Montalto/The New York Times For individuals wondering how to help, there are fine organizations working on the ground in the camps, among them BRAC, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and the Hope Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh. First-rate advocacy on behalf of the Rohingya has been led by Fortify Rights, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. A Times colleague asked how I can report on these atrocities and not lose faith in humanity. The answer is that I see not only the evil, but also among the survivors a truly inspiring resilience and courage. I am awed by people like Dilbar, Hasina and Shafika with the physical and mental strength to escape through the mountains and then the moral strength to speak out about sexual violence meant to humiliate them into silence. Hasina may be exhausted from nightmares about searching for her baby, but she displays a moral clarity that world leaders can emulate. “They killed my family members, and they killed my world,” she told me. “When I tell my story, I feel terrible, and afterward I go cry to myself. But we need justice, and maybe this will help.” Brave survivors like her ensure that we will never be able to shrug and say: If only we had known. We know. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times

By Nicholas Kristof A lifetime ago, Anne Frank’s family applied for visas to the United States to escape Hitler, but we rejected the Franks and other desperate Jewish refugees. We thought: This is Europe’s problem, not ours, and we don’t want to be overrun by “those people.” Today President Trump is again slamming the door on desperate refugees. Indeed, the Trump administration is going a step further by wrenching children from the arms of asylum-seekers, apparently as a way of inflicting gratuitous cruelty to discourage new arrivals. José Demar Fuentes, a 30-year-old college graduate, arrived in November with his 1-year-old son, Mateo, from El Salvador, where Fuentes was on a gang’s execution list, according to his lawyer, Noreen Barcena. Father and son entered the United States legally, presenting themselves to an immigration officer, providing birth certificates and other documentation, and requesting asylum to save their lives. Several days later, immigration officers came and took Mateo. “They basically pried my client’s son from his arms and told him that he had to give up his son,” Barcena told me. “They were both crying.” Mateo ended up in foster care in Texas for about three months and had little or no contact with his family. Even kidnappers allow more communication. Caitlin Dickerson of The Times reported that more than 700 children have been separated from immigrant parents since October. I sought a comment from Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, but she declined to respond. Tyler Houlton, a spokesman, said Homeland Security “does not currently have a policy of separating families at the border for deterrence purposes.” The administration notes, correctly, that some asylum-seekers bring in unrelated young children to create sympathy. Obviously, the authorities should crack down on that, but it’s increasingly clear that family separation is in part about traumatizing children so as to discourage parents from coming to the U.S. Indeed, the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, said publicly last year that he was considering routine family separation “to deter” new arrivals. The White House later backed the plan, although it has never been announced. Why do we tolerate a policy that is so cruel to young children? For precisely the reason Dr. Seuss identified in a 1941 cartoon, which accompanies this column. While Dr. Seuss is best known for the likes of “The Cat in the Hat,” he published this cartoon as a commentary on America’s turning away Jewish refugees trying to flee Hitler. (Image Credit: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library) As Dr. Seuss wrote in the caption, “Those were Foreign Children and it really didn’t matter.” Refugees are fleeing real terror. Consider a Honduran girl, Elena, who at age 11 was asked to be a gang leader’s “girlfriend.” One of Elena’s friends had been similarly propositioned but declined — and then Elena saw the girl stagger naked down the street after she had been raped and shot. Elena finally fled when the gang threatened to kill her entire family. I strongly criticized Barack Obama on immigration, but the difference is that Obama’s policies were unintentionally cruel, while Trump’s are deliberately so. Trump goes out of his way to dehumanize immigrants and even complains about them “breeding.” Fuentes’s wife eventually was able to come to the U.S. and request asylum, and this time immigration officers released her and returned Mateo to her, even as her husband is still in detention. The disparate treatment is a reflection of how random the process is. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a different mother, one who fled violence in Congo and arrived seeking asylum with her 7-year-old daughter. Immigration authorities took the girl away from her mom, screaming and terrified. The suit says the girl “sits all alone in a Chicago facility, frightened and traumatized, crying for her mother and not knowing when she will see her again.” Trump has also slashed the numbers of refugees accepted for resettlement in the U.S., from a historical average of 95,000 per year. This year only about 20,000 will be resettled. As David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee noted in The Washington Post, more Syrians were killed by poison gas in Douma (at least 60) than have been admitted so far in this fiscal year (44). (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/family-separation-border-immigration.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

By Nicholas Kristof Central American asylum-seekers waiting in April for buses to take them to the Mexico-United States border.CreditJohn Moore/Getty Images We as a nation have crossed so many ugly lines recently, yet one new policy of President Trump’s particularly haunts me. I’m speaking of the administration’s tactic of seizing children from desperate refugees at the border. “I was given only five minutes to say goodbye,” a Salvadoran woman wrote in a declaration in an A.C.L.U. lawsuit against the government, after her 4- and 10-year-old sons were taken from her. “My babies started crying when they found out we were going to be separated.” “In tears myself, I asked my boys to be brave, and I promised we would be together soon. I begged the woman who took my children to keep them together so they could at least have each other.” This mother, who for her protection is identified only by her initials, J.I.L., said that while in El Salvador she was severely beaten in front of her family by a gang, and she then fled the country to save the lives of her children. Who among us would not do the same? J.I.L. noted that she had heard that her children might have been separated and sent to two different foster homes, and added: “I am scared for my little boys.” Is this really who we are? As a parent, as the son of a refugee myself, I find that in this case Trump’s policy has veered from merely abhorrent to truly evil. Family separations arise in part because of the new Trump administration policy, announced last month, of “zero tolerance” for people who cross the border illegally. That means that parents are jailed (which happened rarely before), and their kids are taken away from them. “That’s no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an adult of a family commits a crime,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told NPR this month. “If you as a parent break into a house, you will be incarcerated by police and thereby separated from your family. Yet Mirian, a Honduran woman who arrived in the U.S., broke no law. She simply followed the established procedure by presenting herself at an official border crossing point and requesting asylum because her life was in danger in Honduras — nevertheless, her 18-month-old was taken from her. “The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle,” Mirian said in a declaration accompanying the A.C.L.U. suit. “My son was crying as I put him in the seat. I did not even have a chance to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat.” Likewise, Ms. G, a Mexican in the A.C.L.U. suit, went to an official border crossing point and requested asylum with her 4-year-old son and blind 6-year-old daughter. None of them had broken American law, yet the children were taken from their mother. “I have not seen my children for one and a half months,” Ms. G wrote in her declaration. “I worry about them constantly and don’t know when I will see them.” Granted, this does not happen to all who present themselves at the border and do not cross illegally; it seems arbitrary. But even for those parents who commit a misdemeanor by illegally entering the U.S. — because they want to protect their children from Central American gangs — the United States response seems to be in effect to kidnap youngsters. If you or I commit a misdemeanor, we might lose our kids for a few days while we’re in jail, and then we’d get them back. But border-crossers serve a few days in jail for illegal entry — and after emerging from criminal custody, they still don’t get their kids back soon, said Lee Gelernt, an A.C.L.U. lawyer. In one case, he said, it has been eight months and the child still has not been returned. It’s true that immigration policy is a nightmare, we can’t take everyone and almost no one advocates open borders. Some immigrants bring small children with them and claim to be the parent in hopes that this will spare them from detention. Yet none of that should be an excuse for brutalizing children by ripping them away from their parents. I was at times ferociously critical of President Barack Obama’s handling of Central American refugees, but past administrations managed these difficult trade-offs without gratuitously embracing cruelty. One fruitful step has been to work with countries to curb gang violence that forces people to flee. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly hails family separation as a “tough deterrent” and shrugs that “the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” So what’s next, Mr. President? Minefields at the border would be an even more effective deterrent. Or East German-style marksmen in watch towers to shoot those who cross? We as a nation should protect our borders. We must even more assiduously protect our soul. (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/opinion/immigration-family-separation-border.html?te=1&nl=nickkristof&emc=edit_nk_20180531

Don’t Turn Away From These Images and These Crimes By Nick Kristof Rahel, a rape survivor in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Credit...Lynsey Addario Meet Rahel, 19, a human face of a brutal "ethnic cleansing" now underway in Ethiopia. [Genocide Watch comment: "Ethnic cleansing" is a euphemism used for genocide denial. Mass rape is genocide.] “There were three soldiers,” she said as she lay on a bed in a crowded hospital. “They were asking me to take off my dress. I refused. I said, ‘You can kill me.’” The men paid no heed and gang-raped her, part of a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign of murder, rape, pillage and famine by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops against rebels and also against innocents like Rahel in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Countless thousands of Tigrayans have already been killed, and tens of thousands of children are in imminent danger of starving to death. This month the United Nations declared that Tigray was in the midst of the world’s worst famine in a decade. Tigray has attracted little attention, partly because Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has kept out most journalists ( expelling one working for The New York Times), so there aren’t many photos or video clips of the suffering. Women and babies in clinic in Tigray...Credit...Lynsey Addario These photos were taken by Lynsey Addario , a conflict photographer and old friend who happened to be in Ethiopia to shoot photos for National Geographic , a visit approved long before the latest attacks. She interviewed nine women who had been raped as part of the "ethnic cleansing" [genocide]. Rahel told Addario: “When I got home, I told my mother that I was raped and that I thought I might be pregnant. My mother kicked me out of the house and said, ‘How can you get pregnant with these killers?’” Rahel was being treated at a hospital in Tigray that soldiers had looted earlier. A hospital official said troops had carried off everything that they could and destroyed the rest, including X-ray machines, neonatal equipment, the contents of an OB-GYN center, pharmaceuticals and even medical records. The violence follows decades of ethnic tensions in Ethiopia. For many years, Tigrayans ruled the country harshly, but Tigrayan domination ended in 2018, and Prime Minister Abiy initially won the Nobel Peace Prize for taking genuine steps toward peace and democracy. Then last November he dispatched armed forces to crush a mutiny in Tigray, leading to civil war. Abiy then invited in Eritrean soldiers who have been particularly brutal toward Tigrayans and who now seem unwilling to leave. A Times colleague reported that soldiers had beaten a man to death with beer bottles. The United Nations reports that girls as young as 8 have been targeted for sexual assault. CNN chronicled a massacre of people attending Mass at a church. Child in Tigray ...Credit...Lynsey Addario In contrast to other countries where atrocities are unfolding, including Myanmar and Syria, Ethiopia is one where the United States has considerable influence, if we will use it. President Biden has denounced the “large-scale human rights abuses.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken has bluntly referred to “ethnic cleansing,” and the United States has imposed visa sanctions on some Ethiopian officials. That’s all welcome but seems tepid in the face of mass atrocities and starvation on this scale. I worked with Biden during the Darfur genocide and I know he cares about distant suffering; after seven months of brutality in Tigray, we need to see more signs of that concern. The newest catastrophe in Tigray is mass starvation, with the U.N. reporting that 350,000 people are already suffering famine conditions. “This is going to get a lot worse,” said Mark Lowcock, the U.N. humanitarian chief. The famine appears in part a tactic to starve a restive people into submission. Ethiopia has allowed some assistance, but soldiers have blocked or impeded much emergency aid, and Addario talked to one farmer who had four sons shot dead for working in their fields. Shamefully, the U.N. Security Council has yet to discuss the crisis publicly. That’s because China and Russia are preventing a public meeting, claiming that this is Ethiopia’s internal matter. Child in Tigray ...Credit...Lynsey Addario Here is a photo Addario took of a 5-year-old girl screaming in pain as her wounds were being cleaned after her family home was destroyed. An internal matter? Addario says nine people in the house were killed, including the girl’s sister, mother and grandfather. When governments turn weapons on their own people, that is no longer a domestic affair. That is a challenge to our shared humanity. “Rape is being used systematically to terrorize and brutalize women and girls,” Lowcock told a closed session of the Security Council this week, according to a copy of his remarks that I obtained. “Eritrean soldiers are using starvation as a weapon of war. … Aid workers have been killed, interrogated, beaten, blocked from taking aid to the starving and suffering and told not to come back.” We can’t stop every atrocity. We can’t avert every murder or rape. We can’t save the life of every starving child. But this is a rare case where we do have significant leverage: Ethiopia is the largest recipient of American aid in sub-Saharan Africa and a close security partner of the United States. We should apply every ounce of leverage we have to rein in a savagery in Tigray that increasingly reeks of genocide. [Genocide Watch comment: Finally Kristof uses the right word for the crimes.] Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The Times since 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2021, Section A, Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: Don’t Turn Away From These Images and These Crimes

By Joost Hiltermann What's new?   Since the 2011 Arab uprisings, conflicts of divergent origins across the Middle East have intersected and metastasised. This has drawn in regional and international powers, poisoning relations between them, creating more local conflict actors and greatly complicating the task of policymakers to respond effectively. Why does it matter?  Policy responses that treat conflicts in isolation and ignore their root causes may end up doing more harm than good. Stabilising war-torn states or de-escalating crises requires an understanding of the interconnectedness and the deeper drivers of regional conflicts. What should be done?  A new methodology is required to effectively address the Middle East’s post-2011 conflicts. Two analytical concepts – conflict clusters and concentric circles – can help policymakers disentangle the region’s conflicts, provide greater clarity in diagnosis and accompany a simple principle that should underpin all approaches: first, do no harm. Overview: A New Way of Looking at MENA Conflicts The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) does not lend itself to quick analysis. Post-2011 events, occurring at dizzying speed and full of apparent contradictions, compound the problem. Widening and increasingly intersecting conflicts are having a deleterious impact on the region’s social fabric and its people. As a result, what happens in the region is no longer confined to it: radiating crises have started to infect relations between regional and global powers, forcing policymakers in world capitals to respond in pursuit of their nations’ strategic interests. The challenge is to untangle the knot of conflicts analytically: to understand how various historical strands have interacted to create the bewildering composite of conflict drivers and actors that pose myriad threats to local, regional and even global stability and then to articulate policy responses that chart paths toward de-escalation and, eventually, more sustainable arrangements for states’ and communities’ peaceful coexistence. Most importantly, they should not make matters worse. Grasping the roots and primary characteristics of the region’s swift-changing complexion requires a new way of looking at it. We can no longer simply study conflicts in isolation, such as the Israeli-Arab conflict. This remains important, but we need to add new dimensions: how a single conflict has yielded secondary conflicts to form conflict “clusters”; how conflicts within a cluster have started to bleed into conflicts in another cluster; and how individual conflicts in the MENA region have broadened to suck in, first, regional powers and, then, global actors as a result of power and security vacuums created in the chaos of war. The Arab-Israeli conflict, for example, which dates from Western powers’ decision a century ago to support the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East (first enunciated in the Balfour Declaration), has sprung the confines of the territory known as Israel and Palestine to cover new terrain, in particular Lebanon, and sprout new conflict actors, such as Hizbollah. Today, Hizbollah participates in the Syrian civil war, which has roots outside the Israel-Arab conflict, and is allied with Iran, whose ascendancy in the region following the failed 2011 popular uprisings has provoked destabilising responses from Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, especially in Yemen. Meanwhile, these same states are projecting influence in North Africa to prevail in what was originally a separate struggle between competing political expressions of Sunni Islamism, involving the Muslim Brotherhood. To make matters worse, the suppurating Syrian and Yemeni wars have infected global powers such as Russia and the U.S., who are deploying their tremendous weight on behalf of one side but are so far unable to do so decisively and forge durable settlements. Policy responses directed toward individual events in individual conflicts – say, the Libyan migrant crisis, or the rise of jihadists in Syria –may end up doing more harm than good. Not only because such policies tend to be rushed and overly securitised, but also because they ignore the deeper drivers behind these individual events, thereby aggravating them. External military support of certain Kurdish parties in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a good example: it boosted Kurdish hopes of outside support for their longstanding aspiration for greater autonomy, even independence. They chose to become outside powers’ willing proxies to advance their own agendas. This, in turn, gave rise to new and additional crises instead of lowering regional tensions. A new methodology is needed to address these post-2011 conflicts through both analysis and policy. The risk of pursuing policies that do further harm has increased, especially as conflicts of different origins metastasise and intersect, creating a new generation of non-state conflict actors and drawing in both regional and global powers. I propose two analytical concepts to help bring greater clarity, one new, the other old: conflict clusters and concentric circles. I then explore how these interact with external interventions of various sorts. Instead of policy prescriptions for individual conflicts, I place the perplexing array of intersecting MENA conflicts and conflict actors in a framework that elucidates what motivates these actors and what drives their conflicts. And I will suggest a set of principles that should undergird any approach by global and regional powers toward these conflicts, based on the need to contain the current situation without making matters worse. This study is based on years of field research in the MENA region by me and my colleagues at the International Crisis Group. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/syria/tackling-mena-regions-intersecting-conflicts (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

By Katharine Quinn-Judge It is common for Ukrainian officials and their international backers to say that Russia’s 2014 invasion, which was partly motivated by Moscow’s anger at Ukraine pivoting toward Europe and the U.S., has unified the country and turned it even more resolutely westward. In one sense, they are correct: Moscow’s aggression has consolidated support among many Ukrainians for membership in the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). But talk of unity among Ukraine’s 44 million people is misleading. It leaves out over two million inhabitants of Crimea, annexed by Russia, and up to three million residents of Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine partly controlled by Moscow-backed rebels. Millions more are displaced within Kyiv-controlled areas or have left for Russia. A 450km frontline cuts across Donbas, separating its major cities – now under separatist rule – from suburbs, and neighbours and families from each other. A darker theme often bleeds into remarks about unity. Many in Kyiv say Ukraine – at least for now – is better off without the people of Donbas, who they argue have been anti-democracy and pro-Russia at least since the Soviet Union’s downfall. According to this logic, the exclusion of Donbas residents from the political process underway since the start of the conflict has been key to Kyiv’s efforts to pass progressive reforms and draw closer to the Euro-Atlantic zone. But in reality, the reform agenda – particularly the battle against corruption – has bogged down, while Kyiv’s attitudes toward Donbas residents raise doubts about its commitment to the democratic, inclusive values that the EU espouses. They will also make reintegrating the war-torn region – something Kyiv has promised its own citizens and the international community that it will do – considerably more difficult. Dismissive attitudes toward Donbas citizens can be glimpsed in legislation like the December 2017 law on policy toward the territories Kyiv regards as Russian-occupied. Commonly known as the “reintegration law”, the document contains no concrete provisions for bringing the breakaway regions back into the fold. Another draft law, on “collaborators”, would potentially apply this term even to rank-and-file civil servants in the separatist administrations. These views are also evident in periodic calls in parliament to isolate the breakaway territories – that is, to close down the five checkpoints where people cross the front to visit family, buy goods and collect pensions – until separatist-held areas weaken to the point where “they either collapse”, as one Kyiv commentator put it, or the Ukrainian army can retake them. Supporters of these measures often couch their views in humanitarian terms. Yet they struggle to hide their hostility toward the people of Donbas. Last autumn, a parliamentary opposition leader declared that renouncing Kyiv’s responsibility for separatist-held areas would protect their inhabitants, as the international community would be obliged to defend them from rights abuses for which Moscow would have sole responsibility. But he also called the Western preoccupation with “saving the three million people of Donbas” misguided: the priority, he implied, should be European-minded Ukrainians – like the schoolchildren he had visited in the centre and west of the country, whose “shining eyes” showed no trace of what he called Soviet-style servility and suspicion. A top security official who was a driving force behind the reintegration bill has said isolating the self-proclaimed republics would hasten their demise – and their residents’ return to the Ukrainian family. Yet according to a close adviser, this senior security circle is ambivalent at best when it comes to the question of whether Donbas civilians are Ukrainians. “I keep asking [my colleagues]”, the adviser said, “‘do you want to liberate the land or the people?’” Opinions polls suggest most Ukrainians harbour little animosity for the civilians of the conflict-torn region, whom they see largely as victims. Yet contempt for locals pervades the military and civilian bureaucracy in Kyiv, and even the aid operations in the Kyiv-controlled section of Donbas, where roughly 200,000 civilians live along the front. According to a widespread – and partly ahistorical – narrative, people in Donbas are descended from petty criminals whom the Soviet government imported from Russia after Stalin’s manmade famine of 1933 decimated the Ukrainian peasant population. In conversations over the past autumn, several high-ranking frontline officials, as well as a priest involved in humanitarian work, used variations of this trope to explain their difficulty working with Donbas residents, whose origins they said made them mercenary and often hostile to “native” Ukrainians. This narrative ignores the fluidity of identity in the country’s east, where many people have historically felt kinship both with their neighbours in the Russian Federation and their fellow citizens to the west. It also conveys a perverse acceptance of the Kremlin’s rationale for its invasion – that the values of people in eastern Ukraine are incompatible with those in the rest of the country. While some Kyiv representatives in Donbas are sympathetic to civilians on the frontline, they often interpret the grim living conditions there as signs of innate immorality. Many frontline residents, who are disproportionately female, have lost their livelihoods to the war: the cities where they worked are in separatist-held territory and the fields where they sowed crops are mined. Prostitution is all too common. During a community outreach expedition, a soldier casually mentioned a teenage girl in an oft-shelled village whose father was “making money off of her”. A brief discussion followed about whether to intervene, which he concluded by saying that “maybe she’s happy”, as she had not yet left. It was a sad fact, a commander present explained, that many civilians chose to “sit in the village and receive aid” rather than go somewhere else. He did not mention that Kyiv has no mechanism to relocate civilians in frontline areas and no durable solution for the displaced, or that this village, like many nearby, was on a mined road closed to non-military vehicles. A humanitarian volunteer who had previously worked in the presidential administration described frontline residents as people “with a minimum level of human development”, many of them single mothers by choice, content to prostitute themselves and their children to soldiers. Such perceptions feed the notion that reintegrating the people of Donbas should not be a priority. The humanitarian volunteer, for one, said she could not stomach the idea. Schoolmates of hers from western Ukraine had died in the war, sacrificing themselves “to build an entirely new society”. Making concessions to the separatist-held areas – that is, the self-government and amnesties to which Kyiv has committed itself as part of the Minsk agreements that were supposed to end the Donbas conflict – would be an affront to the memory of her schoolmates. “What did all these guys die for, only for us to live together? It would be a bad peace.” But for those living near the frontline, rebuilding links with their neighbours is critical and the notion of “bad peace” largely meaningless. Most, regardless of their political leanings before the war, now dream of normalcy and want the war to end through “political compromise” – a phrase that, in light of Moscow’s past intransigence, makes much of the Ukrainian intelligentsia shudder. While frontline residents generally lack the energy for political hatred, their anger is aimed at hawkish attitudes in Kyiv, not people in separatist-controlled territories. A conversation with teachers in a frontline town brought this home. When I asked whether the arrival of new students whose families had moved from separatist-held territories had provoked conflict at school, they let me know the question was absurd. “We knew we were one people before the war, and we know that now”, one said grimly. Asked about her thoughts on isolating these territories, she snapped, “it shouldn’t even be under discussion”. Russia’s aggression – which many Donbas residents acknowledge – has divided Ukrainians physically and mentally. But the deepest rift is not between “pro-Russians” and “pro-Ukrainians”. It is between those who portray the war as an integral part of nation building for Ukraine – notwithstanding the stalled reforms – and those for whom nation building is moot as long as the war grinds on. The former have the upper hand. In the name of building a European-style state based on rule of law and respect for life, Kyiv may have chosen to treat millions of its citizens as expendable. If Ukraine and its Western backers are serious about the values they proclaim, they must recognise this self-defeating approach for what it is. https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/reunite-ukraine-kyiv-must-overcome-its-own-prejudices?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=18e19f81c2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-18e19f81c2-359909997 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

By Joanne Lu For the first time ever, the UN secretary-general is including Myanmar Armed Forces on an annual blacklist of groups that are “credibly suspected” of carrying out sexual violence during conflict. The report, presented Monday to the Security Council, says the acts were allegedly perpetrated during military “clearance” operations in October 2016 and August 2017, after a spate of insurgent attacks by members of the ethnic minority Rohingya community. The UN has since described the security operations as “ethnic cleansing.” Although the Myanmar Armed Forces, known as the Tatmadaw, has been called out in previous UN reports for abuses against other ethnic minority groups, it now joins 51 other government and rebel groups on the conflict-related sexual violence “list of shame,” as Human Rights Watch called it. For generations, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state have struggled for citizenship and rights. But the Buddhist-majority population and government do not recognize Rohingya as an ethnic minority. Instead, they are called “Bengalis” and considered illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Tensions have flared into bloodbaths throughout the years. Since the security operations began, nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh. And according to the UN report, international medical staff and aid workers have reported that many of them “bear the physical and psychological scars of brutal sexual assault.” “The widespread threat and use of sexual violence was integral to their strategy, humiliating, terrorizing and collectively punishing the Rohingya community and serving as a calculated tool to force them to flee their homelands and prevent their return,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote. The report describes what it calls “specific and indicative” cases of sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls. The United Nations verified the following specific and indicative cases of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated during the military “clearance” operations in northern Rakhine: seven rapes reportedly perpetr ated by Tatmadaw elements in Buthidaung on 4 and 5 May; the rape of 32 Rohingya women and one girl, allegedly by the Tatmadaw and border guard police, also in Buthidaung, as part of perceived “punitive operations”; the rape of a girl by a Tatmadaw soldier in Maungdaw in January; 30 girls subjected to sexual violence by Government forces during military operations; and one girl allegedly raped by a member of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. In early 2017, Tatmadaw soldiers allegedly raped a 16-year-old girl and her 20-year-old sister during operations in Maungdaw. After mentioning the incident to visiting journalists, she was arrested and forced to undergo a medical examination. On 30 August, a report was received of the alleged arbitrary detention and rape of several women in the village of Maung Nu in Buthidaung township. Three girls who reported sexual violence were provided with case management services in northern Rakhine, as well as four children who were victims of sexual assault, in central Rakhine. The prevailing security environment precludes more complete documentation, given the climate of impunity, intimidation, reprisals and access restrictions. In November, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten visited Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, where she heard accounts from “almost every woman and girl” of rape, gang rape, invasive body searches, forced nudity, sexual harassment and abduction for sex slavery. As security forces looted and burned down their villages, many Rohingya women who were impregnated by their rapists then set off by foot on a long and dangerous journey across the border. The report linked the acts of sexual violence to a circulating narrative that high fertility rates among the Rohingya posed an existential threat to the majority population. Therefore, violence was carried out against women – including pregnant women – in an attempt to extinguish the Rohingya ethnic identity, and on young children, who represent the group’s future. So far, according to the report, 2,756 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence have received help in Bangladesh, but nearly half of the refugee settlement areas still lack basic sexual and reproductive health care and services for rape survivors. Guterres also made note of alleged sexual violence against other ethnic minority groups amid escalating clashes that have not received as much international media attention in regions in such as Kachin, northern Shan and parts of the southeast. Among many recommendations, he called on the Security Council to consider recognizing conflict-related sexual violence as grounds for refugee status and to address funding shortfalls for sexual and gender-based violence programs and for sexual and reproductive health care. His report comes just as the Myanmar government announced it had repatriated the first group of Rohingya refugees – a family of five – according to a two-year deal signed by Bangladesh and Myanmar in November. But Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Abul Kalam called the announcement “propaganda,” while the UN Refugee agency said it had no prior knowledge of the case. On Monday, the Security Council also heard from Rohingya lawyer Razia Sultana, who urged the council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court for crimes against the Rohingya and other minority groups. “The listing of the Tatmadaw is an overdue and welcome step,” Joan Timoney, senior director of advocacy and external relations at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said in a statement. “Impunity, discrimination and denial of citizenship lie at the heart of this world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.” (c) 2018 UN Dispatch https://www.undispatch.com/myanmar-armed-forces-blacklisted-by-un-for-committing-sexual-violence-against-rohingya/

Dans la province du Sud-Kivu, des agriculteurs bantous qui se prétendent autochtones affrontent des Tutsi congolais aux lointaines racines rwandaises. Publié par Le Monde le 21 octobre 2020 - Mis à jour le 22 octobre 2020. By Joan Tilouine Une délégation de la MONUSCO à Fizi, l'un des territoires touchés par les violences récentes, le 16 mars 2019 [MONUSCO/Jacob de Lange] Le vieux Maguru Mohinda a le ventre vide. Il vient de passer une nuit glaciale sur la colline de Mikenge, un village perché sur les hauts plateaux du Sud-Kivu, et redoute la prochaine. L’octogénaire a beau rêvé de sa maison et de ses deux cents vaches, il n’est pas près de les retrouver. Comme lui, des milliers de Banyamulenge, des Tutsi congolais aux lointaines racines rwandaises, ont dû fuir les attaques des Maï-Maï, des milices d’agriculteurs bantous qui se prétendent autochtones. Sa case a été détruite et son cheptel pillé par des éléments de groupes armés qui ravagent cette région coupée du reste de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC) , faute de routes. « Ils disent qu’on est rwandais et qu’on doit rentrer. Mais si je dois mourir, c’est ici, au Congo, mon pays. C’est là que je suis né, de même que mon père et mon grand-père… C’est là qu’on m’enterrera » , précise M. Mohinda, en plantant son bâton de berger sur la terre où il survit désormais. Avec 2 747 autres déplacés, il s’est installé en septembre 2019 dans un camp de fortune adossé à une petite base de la Mission des Nations unies en RDC (Monusco). Le conflit a déplacé plus de 110 000 personnes, avance le Bureau de la coordination des affaires humanitaires des Nations unies (OCHA), un chiffre invérifiable sur le terrain. Des casques bleus pakistanais veillent et repoussent les incursions des Maï-Maï, déterminés à chasser les Banyamulenge. « Avant, nous étions riches avec nos vaches et nos terres. Nous voilà dépendants d’une aide humanitaire qui n’arrive pas. Et si on sort du camp, on risque de se faire tuer » , dit Chiza Philemon, instituteur et éleveur qui peine à nourrir ses neuf enfants en cultivant du chou et du maïs sur un lopin de terre. Les Banyamulenge, cibles des Maï-Maï Depuis plus de deux ans, la situation sécuritaire s’est considérablement dégradée sur les hauts plateaux où des villages sont incendiés, des habitants assassinés. Les violences entre communautés dévastent ces montagnes meurtries par les guerres passées et leurs métastases. Dans les années 1990, des jeunes Banyamulenge avaient été formés au maniement des armes en Ouganda par l’Armée patriotique rwandaise, la rébellion de Paul Kagame. Nul n’a oublié à l’est de la RDC qu’ils étaient en première ligne, vêtus de l’uniforme de l’armée rwandaise entrée sur le territoire lors de la guerre qui a renversé Mobutu Sese Seko en 1997. Certains, parmi ces jeunes officiers banyamulenge, ont ensuite choisi d’intégrer l’armée congolaise. D’autres ont combattu les groupes armés soutenus par le régime rwandais las de voir la communauté instrumentalisée pour déstabiliser la RDC. Jusqu’à ce jour, Kigali soutient discrètement des milices congolaises et burundaises hostiles au régime burundais du président Evariste Ndayishimiye. Aujourd’hui, les Banyamulenge se retrouvent ciblés par une constellation de groupes maï-maï électrisés par les discours de haine ethnique relayés par des politiciens et motivés par l’argent. La conquête de terres et le vol de bétail peuvent générer des sommes considérables. « Plus de 265 000 têtes de bétail ont été volées et des centaines de pasteurs tués. Le conflit n’a cessé d’empirer à cause des vaches qui sont devenues des butins de guerre. C’est devenu un business pour les Maï-Maï et un moyen d’aggraver la situation humanitaire », constate Rubibi Mporana, l’un des présidents de la communauté des éleveurs des hauts plateaux. A des milliers de kilomètres de là, à Kinshasa, la capitale, une bourgade des hauts plateaux s’est retrouvée au cœur des débats politiques. Minembwe, c’est son nom, compte environ 40 000 âmes, très majoritairement des Banyamulenge, et des vaches malingres rescapées des razzias de Maï-Maï. Un « nettoyage ethnique » en cours Contrairement à ce que veulent faire croire certains politiciens, il n’y a pas de projet d’aéroport international, mais une simple piste aménagée sur une plaine verdoyante. Son hôpital est un bâtiment décati dépourvu d’équipements et, comme dans la majeure partie du pays, il n’y a ni route asphaltée ni électricité. Les seules voitures qui empruntent les pistes ocre sont une ambulance, les véhicules de la Monusco et une jeep de l’armée congolaise. Le 28 septembre, ce groupement de villages a finalement obtenu le statut de commune. Le ministre de la décentralisation, Azarias Ruberwa, un leader politique de la communauté banyamulenge de Minembwe, ancien vice-président qui fut un cadre du RCD, la rébellion pro-rwandaise (1998-2002), avait fait le déplacement. Ce qui a provoqué un scandale national, qu’importe si un décret promulgué sept ans plus tôt prévoyait la création de cette commune selon des frontières clairement définies et qui en aucun cas ne s’étirent jusqu’au Rwanda, comme veulent faire croire des politiciens et des activistes pour qui ces Tutsi, arrivés du Rwanda par vagues successives à compter du XIXe siècle, ne sont pas des Congolais. Certains les considèrent toujours comme des « Rwandais » venus « coloniser » la RDC. De son côté, la diaspora banyamulenge, plutôt bien organisée pour acheminer quelques vivres et très active en ligne, dénonce un « nettoyage ethnique » en cours. La commune de Minembwe a subitement ravivé la crainte d’un projet de « balkanisation » de la RDC et le souvenir traumatisant de la présence d’armées étrangères à l’est du pays, dont celle de Kigali responsable de crimes de guerre impunis. Le président congolais, Félix Tshisekedi, surpris par l’ampleur de « l’affaire Minembwe », a fini par suspendre l’installation officielle de Mukiza Nzabinesha Gadi, le malheureux bourgmestre. « Démons » tutsi « Ça fait mal car il y a un besoin de la présence de l’Etat , dit ce dernier, assis sur une chaise en plastique dans son bureau dépourvu de tout équipement. En toile de fond, il y a toujours le problème de la reconnaissance de la nationalité des Banyamulenge encore considérés par certains acteurs politiques comme des occupants. Dans la région, certains parlent de “démons” tutsi. » Alors, pour obtenir des documents administratifs, les habitants doivent arpenter une centaine de kilomètres à pied au risque de tomber dans une embuscade des milices. Sur les hauts plateaux, une sorte de cessez-le-feu a été négocié avec les groupes armés et plusieurs initiatives de réconciliation ont été lancées par le gouvernement et la société civile. L’armée congolaise, soupçonnée par les chefs banyamulenge de collaborer avec des Maï-Maï et de participer au trafic de bétail, a décidé de limiter ses opérations – sauf contre les groupes armés étrangers – afin de laisser une chance à ces médiations. Le pillage de vaches n’a toutefois pas cessé, à en croire les éleveurs, et la situation reste tendue entre les communautés qui disposent chacune d’une ou de plusieurs milices et de stocks d’armes. Les Banyamulenge ne sont pas en reste. Leurs milices d’autodéfense, les Twigwaneho, elles aussi accusées d’exactions, ont brisé la trêve dès le 1er octobre en ciblant des villages bafuliro, selon l’armée congolaise. Les miliciens banyamulenge se sont toutefois jusque-là montrés incapables de protéger la communauté des assauts répétés des Maï-Maï. Le dernier espoir des Banyamulenge Près de 200 jeunes étudiants dans les pays des Grands Lacs sont rentrés pour prêter main-forte à un certain Makanika, le « héros » du moment ou plutôt le dernier espoir des Banyamulenge. Makanika, Michel Rukunda de son vrai nom, est un colonel de l’armée congolaise qui a déserté en janvier pour rejoindre les hauts plateaux et cordonner la « résistance ». Ce guerrier d’environ 45 ans dirige dans la clandestinité plusieurs centaines de combattants depuis son fief situé à une trentaine de kilomètres du camp de déplacés de Mikenge. « Il compte dans ses rangs d’autres capitaines et majors déserteurs en plus des jeunes qui sont bien entraînés et d’une partie des Twigwaneho » , explique un haut gradé de l’armée congolaise déployé dans la région qui connaît bien Makanika pour avoir autrefois combattu à ses côtés. C’était dans les rangs de l’armée patriotique rwandaise dans les années 1990 puis congolaise. Aujourd’hui, le colonel rebelle s’appuie notamment sur un autre déserteur de l’armée congolaise rentré de Kigali et qui bénéficie d’un soutien financier de la diaspora banyamulenge. Il n’hésite pas à coordonner des attaques contre les positions de l’armée congolaise. « Makanika se sacrifie pour nous défendre et, s’il le faut, pour mourir avec nous. Une partie de nos jeunes le rejoigne volontairement », précise un déplacé du camp de Mikenge. Sa priorité serait la protection de la communauté et la récupération de vaches pillées. Mais sa rapide montée en puissance intrigue et alimente les soupçons d’un éventuel soutien de pays voisins. « Ses hommes sont accompagnés d’étrangers, des Rwandais et des Burundais, qui massacrent des villages et violent nos femmes » , accuse un cultivateur bafuliru habitant d’un village récemment visé par les troupes de Makanika qui a mené des attaques ce lundi sur trois villages Bafuliru des environs de Mikenge. Ce nouveau groupe armé risque d’aggraver les soifs de vengeance et d’empirer la situation tant sécuritaire qu’humanitaire. Sur les collines des hauts plateaux, chaque communauté parle de la paix mais se prépare, une fois encore, à faire la guerre. © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

The tactic targets civilians in bid to stifle support for resistance fighters, but appears to be backfiring. By Emily Fishbein, Nu Nu Lusan, and Vahpual Protesters in Sagaing region hold a demonstration against the coup. Many say the military's brutal tactics have only stiffened their resolve [Facebook via AFP] On May 24 in Myanmar’s Kachin State, 13-year-old Awng Di walked over to his aunt’s house about noontime to feed her chickens. Thirty minutes later, heavy artillery crashed through the chicken coop; Awng Di died before reaching the nearby clinic. “Our family has never been involved in politics … We’re just trying to survive,” Awng Di’s mother told Al Jazeera. “Now, I want to curse [the military soldiers] every time I see them.” Momauk township, where Awng Di was from, has been the site of clashes between the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, and the Kachin Independence Army, the armed wing of an ethnic armed organisation, since April. The uptick in violence in Momauk and other parts of Kachin State has displaced more than 11,000 people, according to UN estimates. The clashes in Momauk mark a broader escalation in fighting across the country since the February 1 military coup, as decades-long conflicts between the Tatmadaw and ethnic armed organisations in Myanmar’s border areas resume or accelerate, and civilian defence forces emerge in townships that had not previously seen fighting. In response to the increase in armed resistance, the Tatmadaw has launched indiscriminate air and ground strikes on civilian areas, displacing 230,000 people since the coup. Security forces have also looted and burned homes, blocked aid access and the transport of relief items, restricted water supplies, cut telecommunications networks, shelled places of refuge, and killed and arrested volunteers seeking to deliver humanitarian assistance. According to Naw Htoo Htoo, programme director of the Karen Human Rights Group, the Tatmadaw’s patterns of violence since the coup mark the continuation of a strategy known as four cuts, which the military began using against Karen people in the 1960s and has since deployed against civilian populations in other ethnic minority areas. “[The Tatmadaw] doesn’t use the words ‘ four cuts ’ any more, but the strategy is definitely the same as the four cuts that they used on ethnic people for over 70 years,” said Naw Htoo Htoo. Through means including restricting access to food, funds, intelligence and recruits, the strategy seeks to starve the support base of armed resistance and turn civilians against resistance groups. In addition to Karen State, the armed forces have also used the strategy in areas including Kachin and Rakhine states, most notoriously in northern Rakhine State in 2017 when its ‘ clearance operations ’ sent hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. According to Kim Jolliffe, an independent researcher focused on security and conflict in Myanmar, the four cuts strategy “treats civilians not just as ‘collateral damage’ but as a central resource in the battlefield. “They are targeted directly with extreme violence and see their livelihoods intentionally destroyed so that armed groups cannot find sanctuary and civilian support,” he told Al Jazeera. Indiscriminate violence Since the coup, the Tatmadaw appears to have expanded its use of four cuts across the country, including in areas predominantly populated by the ethnic Bamar majority. In late March, after security forces looted homes in central Magway Region’s Gangaw township, locals began fighting back with hunting rifles. The Tatmadaw responded with heavy explosives and machine guns that killed four people and left more than 10,000 fleeing to the forest, according to local media group Myanmar Now. Magway Region’s Pauk township also saw indiscriminate violence on the night of June 15, when more than 200 houses in Kinma village burned to the ground, killing an elderly couple trapped inside their home . Two Kinma residents who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity said they did not know about any clashes leading up to the fire, but according to Myanmar Now, the incident occurred days after skirmishes between local resistance fighters and plainclothes police and soldiers. One of the villagers told Al Jazeera that he saw at least nine people in plainclothes enter the village at about 11pm on June 15, setting homes on fire and shooting at the village’s cattle, pigs and buffaloes. The Tatmadaw has blamed the incident on 40 “terrorists” and said that media who accused it of torching the village were trying to discredit it. The military spokesperson did not answer repeated calls from Al Jazeera seeking comment on the incidents of violence or the use of the “four cuts” strategy. Now, the residents of Kinma are scattered in nearby villages or staying in makeshift shelters in the jungle, where they are running low on food and supplies, according to Than Tun Aung, the pseudonym for one of the two villagers from Kinma interviewed by Al Jazeera. “Collecting aid is challenging because there might be police or soldiers along the way,” he said. “We are always alert and ready to run.” ‘All lives are threatened’ Kayah State and neighbouring southern Shan State, which had been peaceful before the coup, have also been the target of intense Tatmadaw attacks since May 23, when a group calling itself the Karenni People’s Defence Force overran a police station in the town of Moebye in Shan State’s Pekon township and fighting quickly spread across the region. While civilian defence fighters conducted targeted ambushes with homemade weapons, the Tatmadaw launched what the UN described as “indiscriminate attacks”, firing artillery and guns into civilian areas and displacing 100,000 people, most of whom are now living in nearby forests. Churches, where some have sought shelter, have been repeatedly attacked, including the Sacred Heart Church in Kayah State’s Loikaw township, which was shelled on May 24, killing four people. Aid delivery in Kayah and Shan is difficult and dangerous. The Tatmadaw has blocked the flow of goods into conflict-affected townships, killed and arrested aid volunteers, and killed two displaced people as they tried to fetch rice from their homes. The Myanmar military has stepped up attacks on civilians and aid deliveries as opposition to its coup has grown. Residents in Loikaw say this church, where people had taken shelter, was shelled by the armed forces [File: Kantarawaddy Times via AFP] Joseph Reh, a volunteer relief worker in Pekon township who preferred his real name not be disclosed for security reasons, told Al Jazeera that his group initially used white flags when delivering aid in the hope it would protect them, but that security forces shot at them anyway. His group stockpiled food and relief items in a school, but was initially unable to distribute the goods due to the risk of being attacked. On the afternoon of June 8, when volunteers attempted to carry sacks of rice to displaced people hiding in the mountains, he said that security forces fired at the group’s van, forcing it to turn back. “Because of that, they found out where we keep our food and supplies,” said Joseph Reh. “They came to the school, took all our supplies to a field, and burned them” that evening. In total, he said more than 80 sacks of rice were destroyed, as well as stockpiles of other dry food items, medical supplies, an ambulance and a car. “They destroyed things they weren’t supposed to destroy and which weren’t related to the people’s defence forces they are fighting,” said Joseph Reh. “The food supplies they burned were purely for displaced people … The ambulance they burned was not related to the fight at all. It said RESCUE and had a red cross logo.” According to Joseph Reh, security forces fired into the mountains for the next two days, further restricting aid delivery. In addition to shortages of food and supplies, displaced people face insufficient shelter and medical care. In Chin State’s Mindat township, where civilian defence forces took up hunting rifles and homemade weapons in mid-May, the Tatmadaw launched heavy weapon attacks which displaced more than 20,000 people. At least six displaced people have since died from lack of access to healthcare, according to Radio Free Asia. “Everything is under military control and all lives are threatened,” said Salai Shane, the pseudonym for the head of a volunteer emergency response group in Mindat. He described “extreme difficulties” when trying to access displaced people. Demonstrators in Mandalay prepare to burn a mock coffin for army ruler Min Aung Hlaing on July 3. The military’s use of extreme force against protesters is raising further anger at the regime [File: Time For Revolution via Reuters] On June 13, one of his group’s vehicles was seized en route from Pakokku, Magway region, to Mindat, while transporting food and raincoats; Salai Shane has since lost contact with the driver. Security forces arrested another member of the group on June 19 and confiscated his motorbike and the relief supplies which he was transporting to displaced people. During a week in custody, he was beaten and interrogated, according to Salai Shane’s account. With aid volunteers having been shot dead in Kayah State, Salai Shane says he is especially fearful of delivering aid on foot. “Sometimes there is no route for motorbikes and we have to carry items by ourselves over several trips,” he said. “If we are in the forest or the jungle, we can be killed and our bodies disappeared.” Military fuels anger According to independent researcher Kim Jolliffe, the Tatmadaw is willing to do “unfathomable things” to the general public in order to retain control. “It knows only one way to deal with opposition and that is to beat every dissenting element of society into submission through extreme force,” he said. But while the four cuts strategy may seek to turn the public against armed resistance or weaken resolve, Naw Htoo Htoo of the Karen Human Rights Group says the approach is likely to backfire. “In the short term, there might be some impact on armed resistance due to food and water shortages and limited access to resources, but for the long term, [the Tatmadaw] will not be able to govern anywhere,” she said. “The more they oppress the people, the more civilians become stronger, because when they deliberately attack everyone, the people hate them more.” Victims of Tatmadaw violence since the coup told Al Jazeera that the experiences have cemented their hatred of the security forces and made them even more determined to ensure their downfall. The burned-out remains of Kinma VIllage. Local residents say the military torched their homes. An elderly couple were unable to escape and died in the fire [File: Pauk Township News via AFP] “It will never be possible for us to view the military positively,” Than Tun Aung of Kinma village told Al Jazeera. “We just want to continue living peacefully as farmers … We have to end this military regime or we will suffer for our entire lives.” In Mindat, Salai Shane has come to a similar conclusion. “If civilian defence forces could defeat the military and remove them from the area, we would be able to freely resume business and agricultural activities and live better lives,” he said. “We cannot separate the two: armed resistance groups are made up of civilians, because we all hate the military regime and aim to abolish it. Restricting aid to civilians will only delay the armed resistance movement, but cannot stop it.” © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Mark Leon Goldberg A massive earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima, Japan. At time of publication, Tsunamis were bearing down on the coast and residents were being evacuated. Live updates here: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ Rohingyas flee Myanmar...“Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar crossed the border to Bangladesh over the weekend and on Monday, aid workers said, seeking shelter from escalating violence in the northwest that has killed at least 86 people and displaced some 30,000…Aid workers from other United Nations agencies and Reuters reporters in the IOM camps also reported seeing Rohingyas who said they had recently fled the fighting in Myanmar. The UN workers did not give specific numbers, but expressed concern about a sudden influx of people. The bloodshed is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in 2012, and is posing the biggest test yet for the eight-month-old administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Soldiers have poured into the area along Myanmar’s frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on Oct. 9 that killed nine police officers. (Reuters https://yhoo.it/2eZAOKe) Humanity Affirming News of the Day…The number of HIV-infected people taking anti-retroviral medicine has doubled in just five years, the UN said Monday, while highlighting high infection rates among young African women. (AFP https://yhoo.it/2eZATxw) Aleppo is just getting worse and worse… There are no more functioning hospitals in the rebel-held eastern part of Syria’s Aleppo, where more than 250,000 people are living under siege and many need urgent medical care, the UN has said. (AFP https://yhoo.it/2fiQbJ5) Worthwhile Canadian Initiative…Canada announced Monday it plans phase out the use of coal-fired electricity by 2030. The move is in stark contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to revive the American coal industry. (AP https://yhoo.it/2fLnOXP)

By Magdalena Grono The lung specialist I consulted for bronchitis recently in Abkhazia exuded competence, warmth and the poetic courtesy of Soviet-era intelligentsia. She apologised for the hospital as she flicked through a notebook from a year-old seminar on the latest treatment protocols in Russia. She said she had been lucky to attend the briefing: most doctors from Abkhazia or other conflict or breakaway regions in the former Soviet space do not learn about modern treatments. Most teachers have little access to new international best practices and methods. Police still work according to old manuals. A policy called “isolation” by residents of such regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have sought to secede from Georgia, and the Nagorno-Karabakh region at the heart of the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia – severely restricts their links with the world and contributes to a sense of living under siege, sometimes for over two decades. A tendency toward isolating populations is in place also in eastern Ukraine for separatist Donetsk and Lugansk. Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova, has more trade and travel ties but development has not followed. In all these regions, different though they are, isolation harms the people, creates resentment and causes positions to harden. A leading politician in Georgia, speaking privately, recently explained the de-isolation dilemma: those who want to engage the populations in conflict regions more substantively and let the world do so – without recognising their self-proclaimed independence, of course – fear this would “cement de facto realities on the ground”, leaving no incentive for the breakaway entities “to come back” to what they regard as their former countries. On the other hand, isolation proponents wish to put pressure on the breakaway regions, or simply take revenge on them. In the words of a Georgian architect of the approach: “they have made their bed, let them lie in it, whatever that brings.” Changing isolation-minded approaches is considered perilous by central governments like Tbilisi, Kyiv and Chisinau, which lay claim to these territories. They focus, understandably, on the danger of Russia’s economic and military backing for them. In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku is angry about the breakaway region’s links with Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora. The central governments fear that support for the people in these conflict regions might translate into their acquisition of resources to reinforce their separatism. They also worry that allowing increased engagement with the outside world is a slippery slope toward the very recognition of these territories that they have sought to prevent. These conflicts in Europe’s east are unlikely to be resolved soon. They play out at different levels – geostrategic, regional and local – all of which are stuck and have in the past years seen a deterioration. Formal conflict resolution processes can at best manage the conflicts for now, and in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh even that is not easy. Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan form part of the European Union’s (EU) “Eastern Partnership” – along with Belarus, which has no such conflict. But although the EU would willingly engage with the trapped populations of their breakaway regions, of course without their recognition, there is little diplomatic space for this. It is hard for governments that have lost control to devise the right approach to breakaway entities, especially when a big power supports that entity militarily, economically and socially or even acknowledges its claim to independence, such as in case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Nevertheless, isolation policies tend to forget the ordinary people, whose choices and calculations matter, and local initiatives can present opportunities for progress towards settlements. Opening up these societies to alternatives – to the degree possible given Russia’s involvement in the regions and also their own concerns about Western political agendas - by building professional, educational and business links, irrespective of political status, can improve lives and prepare long-term conflict transformation. When a Passport is Not a Passport Work being carried out on Rukhi bridge, located on the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict divide. A long overdue facelift for the bridge started in summer 2016. CRISIS GROUP Isolation policies have many faces and are rarely so named, since few would openly underwrite an approach that curtails human contacts. So what do they feel like in the conflict regions? Travel is restricted. I met a young Abkhaz scientist who would have wished to study in Germany. A pair of newlyweds would have loved to experience Italy’s culture. A South Ossetian professor wanted help to attend a Hungarian archaeological conference. A Nagorno-Karabakh businessman was interested in European brandy-making. A fortunate few could afford travel to Europe for medical help. All these people know it is not on the cards. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, people mostly obtain Russian passports from consulates created after Moscow recognised their unilaterally declared independence in 2008. Tbilisi and much of the international community consider these passports illegal. Visas are put in them rarely, and mostly in special cases, meaning that most Abkhaz and Ossetians can only travel to Russia. As an alternative, Tbilisi developed “status-neutral travel documents” in 2011-12, but the idea got little traction among people from the conflict regions. Most did not accept the Georgia country code on them, or traveling to the Tbilisi-controlled territory to acquire them. The divide is deep and loyalties matter. This is also why many in Abkhazia also say it is too optimistic to expect large numbers to take Georgian passports when Tbilisi finally receives the visa-free regime with the EU expected by year’s end. Abkhazia’s own de facto foreign passport is considered illegal by Georgia and not recognised by others, except Russia and the other three countries that recognise it. Some legal experts argue that if used purely for identity, that document would not imply recognition. But since Russia annexed Crimea, the appetite in the West for imaginative solutions is minimal, not to speak of migration concerns. Nagorno-Karabakh residents mostly hold an Armenian passport with a serial number tied to Karabakh residence into which Western embassies will rarely stamp visas. Azerbaijan also keeps a watchful eye for those who may represent Karabakh abroad even in apolitical civil society forums. Political hurdles block some much-needed dialogue, and even overshadow sports and culture. Would a football team representing a breakaway republic abroad be a sports enterprise or a political statement – or both? Abkhaz register in Russia and Karabakh Armenians register in Armenia, though the latter get regular passports and can travel more easily. But this forces them deeper into political dependency on third actors, and further away from those they would need to be addressing to reach a long-term settlement. The Sukhumi to Moscow train, passing through Novyi Afon station in Abkhazia. CRISIS GROUP Abkhaz from all walks of life – intellectuals from Sukhumi, war veterans from Gudauta, youths looking for jobs in the ancient monastery town of Novyi Afon on the coast – spoke of frustration at exclusion from the Europe they feel they belong to. Many call it a human rights violation that their visa applications are not even considered. However, the considerations have less to do with human rights than with politics of the conflict. But political hurdles also mean there could be space for pragmatic solutions. Transnistria, perhaps because there is no prominent ethnic component, is a rare post-Soviet conflict that evidences some pragmatism. Although a part of the population holds Russian passports, some also have Ukrainian and even Romanian passports, and a number of residents have Moldovan passports, which became more attractive with the visa-free EU access gained in 2014. But these solutions are hard to replicate. Holding Back Education Education and healthcare work have been held back in the conflict regions, where infrastructure was destroyed and post-war dilapidation followed. Like the Abkhaz doctor, professionals struggle to keep their knowledge current. Russian social and economic development and military aid supports Abkhazia, Ossetia and Transnistria. Armenia and its diaspora assist Nagorno-Karabakh. But support for human development is fitful. Russians occasionally invite doctors and teachers for training. Armenians seem more systematic about aiding Nagorno-Karabakh professionals. To a small degree, international organisations also help in health and education, but they are careful to avoid classical, long-term development strategies that could get them into political trouble. Regional governments should give more space to allow for external actors like the EU to provide more professional training and exchanges, locally and in Europe, without raising excessive central government concerns. Better trained, more empowered doctors, teachers and police would produce a more competent, better-adjusted population, whatever the political future. The environment is another apolitical sphere where the need for basic technology and know-how are high. Waste water management and garbage disposal need investment, especially after a generation of neglect. An ex-leader admitted that this could improve the Black Sea coast, shared by six countries and Abkhazia’s greatest tourist attraction. Engagement would benefit everyone, irrespective of geo-political disputes. It is local people who must buy into settlement processes, but a new generation has come of age in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh knowing no Georgians or Azerbaijanis on the other side of the front lines and considering them enemies. Their world may be smaller thanks to the internet but it is also very far away due to isolation. In eastern Ukraine, a propaganda war is working to deepen the polarisation. The isolation leads to entrenched self-sufficiency and saps any appetite for developing links across divides or recalibrating calculations about the conflicts. Yet, it is such links that can ultimately work to restore the ripped social fabric in eastern Ukraine or, in Karabakh, inspire some rethinking of the cost of conflict, and pave the way to enable compromise and sustainable transformation. Economies in Limbo One of Sukhumi’s Black Sea piers; some piers host cafés and restaurants. CRISIS GROUP Among conflict-region residents, there are always complaints about the lack of jobs and the attendant ills, from depression to drugs. Shadow business exists across borders, maintaining contacts but creating vested interests that perpetuate the conflicts. In the Georgian-Abkhaz context, there is for instance trade in the local cash-crop, hazelnuts. In eastern Ukraine, the scale is larger: coal from separatist areas goes, at least partly, to Kyiv-controlled Ukraine. Corruption, locals admit, is rampant. The term “kontraband” is used in all the conflict regions to describe informal trade that includes alcohol, tobacco and even drugs. While shadow business generally finds a way, developing local small and medium-sized enterprises is an uphill struggle. Investor confidence is low but the bigger hurdles are tied to politics: business cooperation with entities in conflict regions quickly hits status and legal issues. Georgia’s 2008 Law on Occupied Territories aimed to protect the country’s territorial integrity by penalising, among others, businesses with actors in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Tbilisi has also sought to block investment. Ukraine is preparing a law on occupation. Transnistria is again unique: textile production provides income and has helped ease disputes. The output, large enough to support meaningful export, gives Tiraspol an incentive to back the application to Transnistria of Moldova’s free trade deal with the EU. There is no similar large-scale business interest in Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which also have tendencies to self-isolate as a result of the conflict. South Ossetia seals its boundaries with Georgia, and there are few commercial exchanges. Abkhaz businessmen say registering on the Tbilisi side of the divide would be a non-starter. Even to test whether pragmatic solutions can be found to address legal considerations and legacies alike would require developing production capacities in these forgotten regions, which comes back to investment. Abkhazia’s main economic focus has traditionally been tourism and agriculture. Pre-war, an older leader said, the territory supplied the Soviet Union with half the tangerines which Turkey now ships to Russia. After the 1990s conflict, both sectors broke down. Tangerine orchards were not maintained and nearly 75 per cent of their capacity was lost; tourism suffered too, although today, Abkhaz sources say, 1.5 million people visit yearly, mainly from Russia. Finding a way to facilitate investment needed to boost small and medium business in agriculture would not only create jobs, but also help open up a society that has felt besieged. A small business in Gali, near the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict divide. CRISIS GROUP Nagorno-Karabakh is in practice increasingly integrated into the Armenian economy. For instance, an Armenian producer grows some of his tobacco in Karabakh and completes the cigarettes in Armenia. No exchange is likely across the heavily-mined line of contact with Azerbaijan, however, until a political framework is found. Baku makes clear its strongly negative reaction to any outside investment in the breakaway territory’s development. When political solutions to the conflicts are found, major investment will be needed to rebuild the conflict regions. But for now, the question is how best to develop small-and medium-scale businesses that can improve local lives, open horizons and might create productive links across the divides. What Engagement Could Do Summertime on Sukhumi's seaside promenade. CRISIS GROUP So how can isolated regions be opened up without crossing the red line of territorial-integrity? It requires Tbilisi, Kyiv, Chisinau and Baku to consider a shift in their thinking about affected populations, as opposed to thinking about the de facto leaderships in place in the conflict regions. Steps like offering free health care to people from separatist Donbas; prioritising education opportunities abroad for Abkhaz and Ossetians; developing professional capacities of Karabakh Armenian teachers would be a good start. The EU has resources and frameworks to help: in 2007, it offered a creative “engagement-without-recognition” policy for Georgia’s breakaway entities. The 2008 war changed the landscape, however. Georgia then favored a restrictive line that in practice limited much engagement; the 2014 annexation of Crimea made the context more sensitive. However, the framework is there and could be repurposed for pragmatic, apolitical solutions there and in other conflict regions. Encouraging conflict-region students to study at European universities, despite visa and diploma recognition issues, would be an important start. Other academic cooperation would also be useful, such as inviting more scholars for conferences and academic exchanges. Offering apolitical professionals from conflict regions training for new qualifications abroad would do much good. Doctors specialised in chronic disease management, infectious diseases, trauma medicine and psychology and teachers might benefit most. Farmers learning modern farming techniques could boost the local agricultural sectors. Engaging the conflict regions in status-neutral discussion of environmental issues – waste water treatment, garbage management and timber extraction – and helping to address them in practice, is equally urgent. Sustainable energy experts could help optimise the use of energy. Supporting small-and medium-sized enterprises in agriculture, tourism, service or water production could build new constituencies with forward-looking interests and a wider frame of reference. Local and regional conflict grievances would still need to be addressed, but they would not be the sole focus. While comprehensive political solutions seem distant, engaging populations in the conflict regions can help break their isolation and thus create a much-needed peace resource. The treatment prescribed by my Abkhaz doctor worked well. But many of her colleagues, especially the younger ones, crave more learning. Without a more open road to it and the other advantages of contact with the outside world, the populations of the breakaway regions will remain trapped ever more firmly in their isolated status quo. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2016 International Crisis Group