The commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic says rebels there continue to challenge authorities and threaten neighboring countries like Cameroon. General Daniel Sidiki Troare made the comments during a weekend visit to Cameroon for talks with defense officials. By Moki Edwin Kindzeka General Daniel Sidiki Troare, Burkina Faso-born force commander of MINUSCA, says rebel attacks and human rights violations on C.A.R. civilians and institutions are frequent. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA) The U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission, MINUSCA, says the situation in the Central African Republic remains fragile. General Daniel Sidiki Troare is the Burkina Faso-born force commander of MINUSCA. He said rebel attacks and human rights violations on C.A.R. civilians and institutions are frequent. He said the fundamental objective of the U.N. peacekeeping mission is to protect civilians, U.N. Mission staff and offices, the country’s state institutions and restore definitive peace is facing lots of challenges. He says he is visiting Cameroon because more cooperation is needed between U.N. troops and Cameroon’s military to stop rebel advances and bring back order to the C.A.R. Troare spoke in Cameroon where he was visiting as the head of a MINUSCA delegation. MINUSCA reports that since August 1, it documented 18 incidents of abuse and cases of human rights violations perpetrated by rebels. Thirty victims of the abuses are receiving psychosocial care in Bangui. In July, another 20 people reported abuses in the C.A.R. capital Bangui. More than 25 C.A.R. communities suffered bloody attacks from rebels. MINUSCA reports that in July, 5,500 wounded civilians received health assistance in its hospitals. Troare said C.A.R. rebels facing reprisals from U.N. peacekeepers hide on both sides of the Cameroon border. Joseph Beti Assomo is Cameroon’s defense minister. Assomo said Cameroon will be sending 800 troops to the C.A.R. in September because Cameroon faces insecurity when attacks occur in C.A.R. He said when rebels block the road linking Cameroon’s coastal commercial city Douala and Bangui, economic activity Joseph Beti Assomo, Cameroons Defense Minister declines and thousands of transporters are (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA) deprived of their source of livelihoods. Assomo said since December when post-election violence erupted in the Central African Republic, rebels have blocked the road linking Douala to Bangui at least six times. He said the number of people displaced within the C.A.R. rose from 300,000 in December to 500,000 in July. Assomo however said that many of the displaced have returned to safe localities. Assomo and Troare did not say where in the C.A.R. that Cameroon’s troops will be deployed. But Assomo said they will be expected to secure the border. He said Cameroon has deployed several hundred additional troops to its eastern border to stop rebels from entering Cameroon. Violence in the C.A.R. degenerated into an armed conflict in 2014 when a coalition of armed groups known as the Seleka overthrew then-President Francoise Bozize. Cameroon shares a 900-kilometer boundary with the Central African Republic and hosts 300,000 refugees from the neighboring country. © 2021 Voice of America

As Officials Look Away, Hate Speech in India Nears Dangerous Levels The New York Times By Mujib Mashal, Suhasini Raj, and Hari Kumar February 8, 2022 Activists and analysts say calls for anti-Muslim violence — even genocide — are moving from the fringes to the mainstream, while political leaders keep silent. Pilgrims performing rituals in the Ganges river in Haridwar, one of India’s holiest cities. A group of militant monks used Haridwar as the site to call for violence against Muslims. Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times By Mujib Mashal , Suhasini Raj and Hari Kumar HARIDWAR, India — The police officer arrived at the Hindu temple here with a warning to the monks: Don’t repeat your hate speech. Ten days earlier, before a packed audience and thousands watching online, the monks had called for violence against the country’s minority Muslims. Their speeches, in one of India’s holiest cities , promoted a genocidal campaign to “kill two million of them” and urged an ethnic cleansing of the kind that targeted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. When videos of the event provoked national outrage, the police came. The saffron-clad preachers questioned whether the officer could be objective. Yati Narsinghanand, the event’s firebrand organizer known for his violent rhetoric, assuaged their concerns. “Biased?” Mr. Narsinghanand said, according to a video of the interaction. “He will be on our side,” he added, as the monks and the officer broke into laughter. Once considered fringe, extremist elements are increasingly taking their militant message into the mainstream, stirring up communal hate in a push to reshape India’s constitutionally protected secular republic into a Hindu state. Activists and analysts say their agenda is being enabled, even normalized, by political leaders and law enforcement officials who offer tacit endorsements by not directly addressing such divisive issues. A statue of the Hindu god Hanuman at Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad, India.Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times After the monks’ call to arms went viral, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his top leaders remained silent, except for a vice president with a largely ceremonial role who warned that “inciting people against each other is a crime against the nation” without making a specific reference to Haridwar. Junior members of Mr. Modi’s party attended the event, and the monks have often posted pictures with senior leaders. “You have persons giving hate speech, actually calling for genocide of an entire group, and we find reluctance of the authorities to book these people,” Rohinton Fali Nariman, a recently retired Indian Supreme Court judge, said in a public lecture. “Unfortunately, the other higher echelons of the ruling party are not only being silent on hate speech, but almost endorsing it.” Mr. Narsinghanand was later arrested after he ignored the police warning and repeated calls for violence. His lawyer, Uttam Singh Chauhan, said his speeches may have been a reaction to anti-Hindu comments by Muslim clerics. Mr. Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party did not respond to requests for comment. “Does the prime minister or home minister need to address every small, trivial issue?” said Vinod Bansal, a spokesman for the World Hindu Council, a party affiliate. “The accused have already been arrested. The secular groups will always highlight such incidents, but not when Hindus, Hindu gods and goddesses are under attack.” The hate speech is stoking communal tensions in a country where small triggers have incited mass-death tragedies. The monks’ agenda already resonates with increasingly emboldened vigilante groups. Vigilantes have beaten people accused of disrespecting cows, considered holy by some Hindus; dragged couples out of trains, cafes and homes on suspicion that Hindu women might be seduced by Muslim men; and barged into religious gatherings where they suspect people are being converted. The chief priest at Dasna Devi temple, Yati Narsinghanand, has called for violence against Muslims. A sign bearing his image warns Hindus to have at least five children or see their lineage destroyed. Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times In recent weeks, global human rights organizations and local activists, as well as India’s retired security chiefs, have warned that the violent rhetoric has reached a dangerous new pitch. With right-wing messages spreading rapidly through social media and the government hesitant to take action, they are concerned that a singular event — a local dispute, or an attack by international terror groups such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State — could lead to widespread violence that would be difficult to contain. Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, a nonprofit group, who raised similar warnings ahead of the massacres in Rwanda in the 1990s, told a U.S. congressional briefing that the demonizing and discriminatory “processes” that lead to genocide have been well underway in India. In an interview, he said Myanmar was an example of how the easy dissemination of misinformation and hate speech on social media prepares the ground for violence. The difference in India, he said, is that it would be the mobs taking action instead of the military. “You have to stop it now,” he said, “because once the mobs take over it could really turn deadly.” The Dasna Devi temple in Uttar Pradesh state, where Mr. Narsinghanand is the chief priest, is peppered with signs that call to prepare for a “dharm yudh,” or religious war. One calls on “Hindus, my lions” to value their weapons “just the way dedicated wives value their husbands.” The temple’s main sign prohibits Muslims from entering. At the Dasna Devi temple, a placard read: “This is a holy place for Hindus. Entry of Muslims is forbidden.”Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times The monks’ anger is rooted in a sense of internalized victimhood that dates to the founding of India’s republic after independence from British rule in 1947. When Pakistan was carved out of India in a bloody partition that left hundreds of thousands dead, the Hindu right was incensed that the founding fathers turned what remained of India into a secular republic. They celebrate a Hindu hard-liner’s assassination of Mohandas Gandhi — a renowned symbol of nonviolent struggle, but to them a Muslim appeaser. Pooja Shakun Pandey, a monk at the Haridwar event, has held re-enactments of Gandhi’s assassination, firing a bullet into his effigy as blood runs down. The forces that shaped the ideology of Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, have slowly risen from the fringes to dominate India’s politics. Hindu nationalists put garlands on a statue of Mohandas Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, in 2020.Credit...Smita Sharma for The New York Times Mr. Modi, the prime minister, spent decades as a mobilizer for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the century-old right-wing organization to which Mr. Godse belonged. Mr. Modi’s party sees the group as the fountainhead of its political ideology and has relied heavily on its vast network of volunteers to mobilize voters and secure victories. When he was chief minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi saw firsthand how unchecked communal tensions could turn into bloodletting. In 2002, a train fire killed 59 Hindu pilgrims. Although the cause was disputed, violent mobs, in response, targeted the Muslim community, leaving more than 1,000 people dead, many burned alive . Rights organizations and opposition leaders accused Mr. Modi of looking the other way. He rejected the allegations as political attacks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid homage at a memorial to Gandhi in New Delhi on Jan. 30, the anniversary of his killing in 1948.Credit...Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images After he rose to the country’s highest office in 2014 on a message of economic growth, there was hope that Mr. Modi could rein in the fury. Instead, he has often reverted to a Hindu-first agenda that inflames communal divides. In 2017, Mr. Modi picked Yogi Adityanath, a monk who had started a youth group accused of vigilante violence, to lead Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state with more than 200 million people. In his saffron robe, Mr. Adityanath has legislated a ban on religious conversion by marriage, an idea that he calls “love jihad,” in which Muslim men lure Hindu women to convert them. His group has served as moral police, hounding interfaith couples and punishing anyone suspected of disrespecting cows. As Mr. Adityanath campaigned for re-election, the group held a meeting in New Delhi around the same time as the monks’ event. With a picture of Mr. Adityanath behind them, attendees took an oath to turn India into a Hindu state, even if it meant killing for it. Swami Amritanand, an organizer of the event in Haridwar where monks called for violence, defended Mr. Narsinghanand: “He said nothing wrong.”Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Mr. Adityanath’s office would not address his current relations with the group, but said the chief minister “had nothing to do” with the meeting. Dhirendra K. Jha, a writer who has studied the rise of Hindu nationalism, said he worried that extremists now dominate India’s politics in such a way that those who call for violence feel protected. “Unless this is dealt with, the kind of consequences that may happen — I can’t even imagine, I don’t dare to imagine,” said Mr. Jha. The choice of Haridwar as the venue for a bold call to violence was strategic — the city attracts millions of visitors annually, often for religious festivals and pilgrimages. The riverbank was recently busy with seers and worshipers. Families picnicked and took dips in the chilly water. Even as some religious authorities appeared troubled by the calls for violence, they were reluctant to condemn them. Pardeep Jha, who organizes a pilgrimage festival in Haridwar, said he believed in making India a Hindu state through peaceful means. Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Pradeep Jha, the main organizer of the city’s largest pilgrimage festival, said he shared the vision of a Hindu state, not through violence but by urging India’s Muslims to convert back; in such a view, everyone in India was Hindu at one point. “I believe we need to pursue our goals with patience, with peace,” he said. “Otherwise, what is our difference with others?” Mr. Narsinghanand has made a name for himself doing the exact opposite. As he sees it, India’s Muslims — who account for 15 percent of the population — will turn the country into a Muslim state within a decade. To prevent such an outcome, he has told followers that they must “be willing to die,” pointing to the Taliban and Islamic State as a “ role model. ” In 2020, Mr. Narsinghanand was among the hard-liners stoking tensions during monthslong protests over a citizenship amendment seen as discriminatory toward Muslims. He called for violence, using the language of a “final battle.” “They are jihadis, and we will have to finish them off,” he said . The choice of Haridwar as the venue for a dangerous call to violence was strategic — the city attracts millions of visitors annually, often for religious festivals and pilgrimages.Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Riots followed in New Delhi, with 50 people killed, a majority of them Muslims. Mr. Narsinghanand was always observant, but not an extremist, according to his 82-year-old father, Rajeshwar Dayal Tyagi. He was a top college student, earning a scholarship to study food technology in Moscow. There, he helped open a vegetarian restaurant for Indian students that still operates. Returning to India in 1996, he started a computer training institute with money from Mr. Tyagi’s pension. He soon dedicated his life to being a monk, leaving behind his wife and young daughter, said his father. “I feel pained, I feel angry, it gives me stress,” his father said. “It’s not a good idea to use harsh words against anybody.” Despite the police warning, Mr. Narsinghanand and his fellow monks repeated their messages of hate, including on national television and social media. “This Constitution will be the end of the Hindus, all one billion Hindus,” Mr. Narsinghanand said at a virtual event. “Whoever believes in this system, in this Supreme Court, in these politicians, in this Constitution, in this army and police — they will die a dog’s death.” Pilgrims on a bank of the Ganges in Haridwar in April.Credit...Idrees Mohammed/EPA, via Shutterstock When the police came to arrest an associate, he threatened the officers, who politely urged him to calm down. “You will all die,” Mr. Narsinghanand is seen in a video telling them . The police arrested Mr. Narsinghanand on Jan. 15, and he was charged in court with hate speech. “He said nothing wrong,” said Swami Amritanand, an organizer of the Haridwar event. “We are doing what America is doing, we are doing what Britain is doing.” Mr. Amritanand said the call for arms was justified because “within the next 10 to 12 years there will be a horrible war that will play out in India.” Late last month, the monks again sounded a violent call to create a Hindu state, this time at an event hundreds of miles away from Haridwar in Uttar Pradesh. They threatened violence — referencing a bombing of India’s assembly — if Mr. Narsinghanand was not released. Ms. Pandey described their actions as defensive. “We must prepare to protect ourselves,” she said. To the Haridwar police, the event in Uttar Pradesh did not count as a repeat offense. Rakendra Singh Kathait, the senior police officer in Haridwar, said Mr. Narsinghanand was in jail because he had acted again in the city; others like Ms. Pandey got a warning. “If she goes and says it from Kolkata, it doesn’t count as repeat here,” Mr. Kathait said. A statue of Gandhi in New Delhi. Gandhi is a symbol of nonviolent struggle around the world, but to some Hindu monks, he is a Muslim appeaser.Credit...Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Divisions in India Mujib Mashal is The New York Times Bureau Chief for South Asia. Born in Kabul, he wrote for magazines such as The Atlantic, Harper’s, Time and others before joining The Times. @MujMash Suhasini Raj has worked for over a decade as an investigative journalist with Indian and international news outlets. Based in the New Delhi bureau, she joined The Times in 2014. Hari Kumar is a reporter in the New Delhi bureau. He joined The Times in 1997. @HariNYT A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 8, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: India Officials Are Silent as Hate Speech Against Muslims Grows. Copyright 2022 The New York Times Company

India Country Report March 2023 By Areeka Khan Illustrations: Dominic Xavier/ Rediff.com Prime Minister Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) threatens India's secularist constitution and its future as a democratic nation. Modi’s Hindu nationalist “Hindutva” agenda promotes intolerance counter to India's pluralistic traditions. The discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Anti-Conversion laws have attacked the rights of Muslims and Christians. Hate speech against Muslims and immigrants flourishes. Anti-minority acts of terrorism have grown at an alarming rate across India, especially against Muslims. With open calls for the genocide of Muslims by Hindutva monks , hate speech and hate crimes against Muslims have become endemic. In February 2023, two Muslim men were accused of “ cow smuggling ,” abducted and set ablaze by members of the pro-Hindutva Bajrang Dal. The murderers were publicly hailed as heroes. Since November 2022, a coalition of right-wing Hindu nationalist groups has been touring Maharashtra , delivering communally charged hate speeches against Muslims. No action has been taken against the agitators. In March 2023, a Muslim cattle trader was murdered by a gang of Hindutva extremists. The Hindu majoritarian Hindutva ideology of the government has even resulted in bias in the justice system. In August 2022, the BJP government approved the early release of eleven men sentenced to life in prison for gang rape and murder during the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim massacres. Dalits, formerly known as "untouchables," are at the bottom of a rigid caste-based social hierarchy in India. Violence against Dalits has increased since Modi came to power in 2014, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In July 2022, a Dalit boy was beaten to death by his upper-caste teacher for drinking water from a pot that was exclusively meant for the upper-castes. Under so-called “anti-terrorism laws,” journalists have been detained for reporting anti-Muslim incidents. According to the Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), India ranked 150th out of 180 nations, a major decline. Police routinely arrest journalists and human rights activists in Kashmir . The Modi government has banned the BBC documentary , “India: The Modi Question,” which implicates Modi in the 2002 anti-Muslim genocidal massacres in Gujarat. The Congress party leader, Rahul Gandhi , has been convicted of trumped-up charges of “defamation” of Modi, expelled from parliament, and prevented from running in the upcoming 2024 elections. The Modi government is turning India into an “electoral autocracy” rather than a constitutional democracy. Genocide Watch considers the BJP government's attacks on Muslims and Dalits to be Stage 6: Polarization, Stage 7: Preparation, and Stage 8: Persecution . Modi’s statements at Aligarh Muslim University perversely claimed that his new anti-Muslim laws are intended to "uplift the Muslim community" demonstrate Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends: The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues should investigate India's discrimination against Muslims and report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Indian Supreme Court should appoint an Independent Commission to investigate the Anti-Muslim pogroms of 2020 as well as continuing anti-Muslim lynchings. Indian Army and police who committed crimes in Kashmir should be prosecuted. Prime Minister Modi should order BJP leaders to stop inciting anti-Muslim violence. International universities should stand in solidarity with Indian academic institutions. Journalists around the world should report with alarm on Modi’s attacks on India’s free press.

Indonesia Country Report May 2023 By Areeka Khan Papuan activists scuffle with police and soldiers during a rally near the presidential palace in Jakarta. President Widodo has pledged action against racial and ethnic discrimination against Papuans Photograph: Dita Alangkara/AP West Papuans have been the targets of oppression since Papua was integrated into Indonesia in the 1960s after a widely criticised referendum known as the Act of Free Choice. The referendum, often dubbed "the Act of No Choice," led to 53 years of repression of West Papuans by Indonesia. To crush both armed and peaceful Papuan pro-independence groups, Indonesian security forces have violently carried out unlawful killings, torture, rape, and enforced disappearances. In August 2019, Indonesian vigilante mobs in Surabaya surrounded the boarding house of Papuan university students and hurled racial slurs at them, calling them "monkeys," "pigs," and "dogs.” Several students were detained. At least 33 people were killed, and 8,000 Papuans were displaced as a result of the protests and riots that followed this incident. In August 2022, residents of Iwaka village, outside the town of Timika, discovered the mutilated bodies of four indigenous Papuans. Six Indonesian soldiers were arrested. The country’s legal system is rife with prejudice and discrimination against Papuans. In December 2022, an Indonesian court acquitted a retired army officer in the December 2014 killing of five Papuans, including four teenagers, in the town of Enarotali, Papua province. Violence against religious minorities is on the rise. Fundamentalist Islamists target Ahamadiyah and Shia Muslims and Christians. In November 2020, four Christians were killed and had their homes burned down. In September 2021, a mob of Islamists burned down the Ahmadiyah community's mosque in Balai Harapan, West Kalimantan. Thousands of Shia Muslims remain displaced after their village i n Madura was razed by a mob of Indonesian Sunni Islamists. Laws imposing religious discrimination include the Blasphemy Law passed in 1965. It has resulted in members of religious minorities being convicted for statements on social media. In December 2022, the Indonesian parliament passed a new criminal code which criminalises apostasy, extramarital sex, insulting the president, and expressing any opinion that contradicts the Pancasila state ideology. Due to dehumanization of Papuans, extrajudicial killings and other rights abuses in West Papua, Genocide Watch considers Indonesian West Papua to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization and Stage 8: Persecution . Due to persecution of religious minorities, Genocide Watch considers Indonesia to be at Stage 1: Classification , Stage 2: Symbolization , Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 6: Polarization , and Stage 8: Persecution . Genocide Watch Recommends: Indonesia must permit unrestricted access for journalists and human rights workers to West Papua. The Indonesian government should provide resettlement aid to displaced West Papuans. Designation of religion should be removed from Indonesian national ID cards. Indonesia should repeal the 1965 Blasphemy Law and the 2006 Decree on Houses of Worship.

October 2023 By Areeka Khan A Darfur conflict survivor moves past temporary shelters near Sudan-Chad border. [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters] Since mid-April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) commanded by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan have been locked in a murderous power struggle, causing thousands of deaths and displacing over four million people. RSF and the SAF combatants have fired indiscriminately in heavily populated civilian areas of Khartoum, killing at least 9,000 civilians . Combatants have systematically looted and destroyed towns in war-torn areas. Across Darfur, the Rapid Support Forces have destroyed at least 27 towns and looted 57 warehouses and 61 offices of international and humanitarian organizations. As of October 2023, the conflict has claimed the lives of at least 435 children and injured more than 2,000. Malnutrition and disease have claimed the lives of more than 1,200 children . Both the RSF and the SAF have committed sexual and gender-based violence. Since April, the number of rape cases reported have risen to 136 . RSF have been identified as a repeat perpetrator of these attacks. Sudan's Unit for Combating Violence Against Women suggests that the total number of cases could be as high as 4,400. More than 1,000 people have been killed by the RSF , whose remains were found in mass graves in El-Geneina. Those buried in the mass grave were of the Masalit ethnic group, a non-Arab group that is frequently the target of Arab militias backed by the RSF. According to Human Rights Watch, the RSF executed 28 Masalit young men in Misterei. Such discoveries reveal ethnically motivated violence by the state against non-Arab ethnic groups. These massacres constitute genocide. Sudan flagrantly violates the Genocide Convention, the Torture Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Both the RSF and the SAF have violated common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. The warring parties deliberately attack civilians , loot and destroy civilian towns, hospitals, and churches, and engage in mass rape. The SAF and the RSF have disregarded fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law by deliberately targeting non-combatants. They make no distinctions between military and civilian targets. These are war crimes. The distribution of vital humanitarian aid has been severely hampered by attacks on warehouses, hospitals , and over 50 healthcare centers which have been forced to close. The warring parties have obstructed delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need, a transgression of international humanitarian law. Genocide Watch recommends: The U.N. Security Council should apply the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Principles and authorize a U.N. Peacekeeping Force with a mandate to stop attacks against civilians by the RSF and SAF. Both Hemedti and Burhan should be charged and tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide at the International Criminal Court. The RSF must be defeated and disbanded, and be replaced by a disciplined, multiethnic security force with international oversight and accountability. Omar Al-Bashir must be extradited to the ICC to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Slaughter of El Geneina Reuters Published September 22, 2023 Mass graves at Al Ghabat cemetery in El Geneina. Masalit residents buried hundreds of slain relatives and friends under cover of night amid a weeks-long assault by Arab forces. Photo: Roots for Human Rights and Monitoring Violations   As Sudan plunged into civil war, the ethnic-African Masalit tribe came under weeks of systematic attacks in West Darfur by the paramilitary RSF and allied militias. In the city of El Geneina, at least 1,000 bodies were buried in Al Ghabat cemetery – which filled with hastily dug mass graves.   By  MAGGIE MICHAEL  and  RYAN MCNEILL Visuals by  ZOHRA BENSEMRA  and  EL TAYEB SIDDIG September 22, 2023 This story contains graphic images ON THE CHAD-SUDAN BORDER https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-politics-darfur/ They were determined  to bury their dead – even if the snipers on the surrounding rooftops meant they were risking their lives to do so. To give themselves cover, they buried the dead at night, putting multiple bodies in the same hastily dug graves. They worked quickly, forced to dispense with much of Islamic burial practice, as they placed fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and neighbors in the ground. The bodies revealed the brutal way their lives had ended. Some were burned beyond recognition. Some were missing limbs. Others had gashes across the throat. The flow of corpses was constant. On April 24, schoolteacher Abdel-Majed Abdullah says he helped carry 52 bodies wrapped in blankets – 27 men, 16 women and nine children – and line them up in newly dug pits. On April 27, surgeon Kamal Adam says he accompanied the body of his slain father, shot dead inside his own home, and placed him in one of three large pits along with 107 other bodies. On April 29, 56 more were buried. On May 7, lawyer Khaled Ismail attended the burial of 85 people, including a colleague who he says was burned alive, after attackers locked the man in his home and set it alight. The burials in Al Ghabat cemetery continued for more than seven weeks, from late April until mid-June, turning the rectangular plot into a sprawling mass grave for at least 1,000 residents of the Sudanese city of El Geneina in West Darfur. The carnage, according to dozens of eyewitness accounts, was the result of more than 50 days of attacks on the city’s majority ethnic African tribe by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force drawn largely from Arab groups, and allied Arab militias known as Janjaweed. The killing frenzy reached a climax over several days in mid-June, as El Geneina was turned into “swamps of blood ,” according to one survivor. Another described the bloodletting as “the end of days.” The peril was so unrelenting that many survivors told Reuters they were unable to give their dead the prompt burial called for by Muslim and local custom. Fatma Idriss says Arab militiamen shot dead her husband and three other men in her home, then prepared to incinerate the corpses. “Don’t set them on fire,” she begged. Idriss says she managed to drag her husband away and cover him with a blanket before escaping and later finding refuge across the border in Chad. She promised herself she would return to bury him. The tenacious resolve of survivors to bury El Geneina’s dead with honor is one of the signature features of the conflict that tore apart the city. Reuters interviewed more than 120 people who fled El Geneina to Chad, where Idriss and hundreds of thousands of other refugees are now living in camps. Survivors, many in tears as they spoke, described children being shot, women and girls raped, people picked off by snipers in the streets, and others slaughtered inside mosques where they had sought shelter. Burying the dead en masse Reuters used satellite imagery to trace how Al Ghabat cemetery expanded rapidly as the Masalit community buried its dead. Through their accounts, supported by an analysis of satellite imagery, photographs, social media footage and lists of the dead compiled by local rights activists, Reuters has assembled the first comprehensive chronicle of the violence that consumed El Geneina earlier this year. It was a rolling ethnic killing campaign that lasted for weeks. The target: the city’s darker-skinned Masalit tribe, for whom West Darfur is their historical homeland. The Arab attackers, multiple survivors said, often referred to the Masalit as “anbai,” meaning slave. [Genocide Watch comment: This is classic genocide.] The killings, dozens of witnesses recounted, included executions of El Geneina residents who were identified as Masalit, sometimes after being interrogated by RSF and Arab militia fighters. The militiamen, survivors said, were particularly focused on killing Masalit men and boys, seen as potential fighters. Desperate to save their sons, mothers described dressing them in girl’s clothing, hiding them under beds or beneath their flowing robes, or shoving them out of windows so they could escape before RSF and Janjaweed fighters arrived. Hundreds of thousands of people fled West Darfur to Chad as the violence spread across the region. The refugees are now living in camps, like this one in the town of Adre, Chad, near the Sudan border. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra   The belongings of people who fled the violence in West Darfur are transported in carts across the border between Sudan and Chad in early August. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra   The survivors’ accounts reveal a campaign that was systematic and coordinated. Mortar fire was directed at specific areas of El Geneina where the Masalit lived. Roadblocks were set up on main arteries to control movement in the city. Arab militiamen specifically hunted for prominent figures in the Masalit community. When the campaign was over, RSF and Arab militiamen oversaw an effort to hide the atrocities , which included burying bodies on the city’s outskirts, more than 15 witnesses told Reuters. What happened in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, was part of a two-decade campaign of “ethnic cleansing, occupying land and demographic change” by the RSF and Arab militias, alleges Hobeldin Hassen, a Masalit rights activist from El Geneina who fled to Chad. Their members, he said, “are mobilized and indoctrinated to annihilate the original inhabitants of Darfur.” The RSF didn’t respond to questions from Reuters for this report. Arab tribal leaders couldn’t be reached. In public comments, Arab tribal leaders have denied engaging in ethnic cleansing in El Geneina, and the RSF has said it wasn’t involved in what it described as a tribal conflict. In a news conference posted on an El Geneina community social media page on Aug. 21, Arab tribal leaders in West Darfur blamed the Masalit for instigating the fighting. The Arab leaders said the Sudanese military had colluded with the Masalit, supplying them with weapons to attack the Arab community. The RSF played no role in the fighting, they said. [Genocide Watch comment: As usual, the RSF is lying.] “You started the war; you rolled up your sleeves for war,” said Emir Massar Aseel, the leader of the Rizeigat tribe, from which many RSF commanders hail. “Take responsibility for the results of the war.” The Sudanese army didn’t respond to questions for this report, including why soldiers stationed in El Geneina didn’t intervene to protect civilians under attack. Source: Natural Earth Reuters was unable to independently corroborate some of the survivors’ accounts. But witnesses were consistent in the violence they described and in the details and sequence of specific events in El Geneina. In many cases, multiple survivors described the same event. In some cases, satellite imagery bore out what was happening on the ground, including images that reveal widespread destruction across large swathes of the city. A Reuters analysis found at least 1.8 square kilometers of destruction emerged in El Geneina from April 19 through June 29. That’s equal to about 250 soccer pitches. Reports issued by human rights organizations have outlined similar patterns of violence. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, told the U.N. Security Council in July that his office had begun investigating alleged atrocities in West Darfur, including extrajudicial killings, arson and looting. Earlier this month, the United States imposed sanctions on two senior RSF figures, including Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo [aka Hemedti], the paramilitary’s deputy leader. Dagalo described the U.S. decision as “unfair” and based on information “from one side.” Hassan Zakariya, who ran one of two field hospitals that operated in El Geneina during the violence, shared a list of names of more than 880 people he said had been killed between April 24 and June 9. The full toll, he estimated, was more than 4,000 dead and at least 10,000 injured in Geneina alone. More than 290,000 people have fled the city for Chad, according to an estimate by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). Before the violence, El Geneina had about half a million people as of 2022, according to the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF). Hassan Zakariya, a medic who ran a field hospital in El Geneina, shared a list of more than 880 people he said were killed in attacks by the RSF and Arab militias. He estimates more than 4,000 died in total. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra Violence erupted in Darfur days after war broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF in Khartoum, some 1,400 kilometers to the east. The fighting in the Sudanese capital started on April 15, sparked by tensions between the army and the RSF over a plan to integrate their forces as part of a transition to civilian rule. The army, along with the RSF, had taken over in a coup in 2021, two years after toppling long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir.   Khartoum has been devastated by air strikes and artillery as the army has battled RSF fighters, who have taken up positions in homes, hospitals and schools. RSF fighters have been accused by human rights groups of looting and widespread rape in the capital. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. In West Darfur, home to 1.8 million people, the violence was not confined to El Geneina. Reuters spoke to 30 people in towns across West Darfur, one of five states in the Darfur region. They described bloody ethnic targeting and being expelled from their land by the RSF and its allied militias. Many said their homes were burned to the ground. Satellite images of West Darfur show areas with burn scars where residents reported attacks. The U.N. refugee agency said tens of thousands of people from these areas have fled to Chad. Satellite pictures also reveal how the northern part of Al Ghabat cemetery expanded markedly in the weeks after violence erupted in El Geneina. The mottled earth, clearly visible in the pictures, is consistent with on-the-ground photographs obtained by Reuters from a local lawyer who said he participated in the burials. The photographs show multiple mounds of brown sand in the cemetery – each one a mass grave where city residents said they buried the dead. “The cemetery is packed full with bodies,” Sultan Saad Bahreldin, the traditional leader of the Masalit, told Reuters. “The deaths never stopped.” Besides Al Ghabat, more than 20 people spoke of six other cemeteries in El Geneina where they buried their dead in mass graves. Satellite images reviewed by Reuters showed that multiple new graves appeared during the violence in at least three of the cemeteries. On Sept. 13, the head of the U.N.’s Sudan mission said the organization had received credible reports of at least 13 mass graves in the city and surrounding areas. The RSF has its roots in the violence that ravaged Darfur in the early 2000s. The force was born out of the Janjaweed militias – meaning “devils on horseback” in Arabic – that were armed by the Sudanese regime at the time to help crush a revolt by rebels who accused the government of neglecting the region. The Janjaweed carried out attacks on civilians. By 2008, an estimated 300,000 had died, many from starvation, and 2 million had been driven from their homes. The United States had earlier declared the violence amounted to genocide, and in 2007 a joint peacekeeping force of the African Union and United Nations deployed to Darfur. Most of those uprooted were from the non-Arab tribes in Darfur, including the Masalit. They were forced to live in camps for internally displaced people, or IDPs. In El Geneina alone, dozens of these camps were destroyed in the recent assault on the city, according to satellite imagery and dozens of residents who fled to Chad. El Geneina, Arabic for “The Garden,” has historically been the seat of power of the Masalit. Traditionally farmers, the Masalit made up the majority of the population of El Geneina and its surroundings until the recent violence. The rest of the population is made up of Arab tribes and other non-Arab ethnic groups. RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti – with supporters in 2019. A former camel trader, Hemedti rose to power after helping crush a Darfur rebellion from 2003. REUTERS/Umit Bektas The leader of the RSF, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, is a member of the large Arab Rizeigat tribe, traditionally a nomadic people. The paramilitary’s West Darfur headquarters is in El Geneina. The head of the RSF, Hemedti, is a former camel trader. His power base is in the Darfur region, where he was involved in the conflict that erupted in 2003. He joined the government’s campaign at the time to quell the rebellion in Darfur as part of the Janjaweed. Under Hemedti, the militia was ultimately transformed into the RSF paramilitary, which was recognized by law as an independent security force in 2017. The force was estimated to number around 100,000 before the war started. Hemedti’s role in helping crush the 2003 rebellion won him influence and ultimately served as a springboard for his political ambitions. In 2019, after he helped topple his one-time benefactor Bashir, he became deputy head of state. That made him Sudan’s second-most powerful person, behind his then-ally, military chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. After vying for dominance, Hemedti and al-Burhan are now at war. At the heart of the violence that has plagued West Darfur is a competition for land, water and other scarce resources between non-Arab farming communities and nomadic Arab livestock herders. According to the United Nations, over 60% of the population of West Darfur was “food insecure” even before the latest violence erupted. There have been eruptions of ethnic conflict in recent years, but none as protracted and systematic as what unfolded in West Darfur from April to mid-June. Since 2019, hundreds of non-Arab residents in the region had been killed in attacks by RSF and Arab militias, according to the United Nations. In 2017, the U.N. approved a phased drawdown of the peacekeeping force. The force’s mandate ended three years later – a turning point in West Darfur. Internal U.N. reports written in 2021, reviewed by Reuters, warned of the risks of removing the peacekeepers. According to one report, the “closure of the mission and the withdrawal of physical protection assets” would create “a protection void in Darfur.” Another report described the RSF as a “primary conflict actor.” Tensions had been rising since 2019. A peace deal forged in 2020 between the Sudan transitional government and rebel groups had paved the way for displaced Masalit people to return to land seized by Arabs. But some Arab inhabitants were unhappy with the deal, another report warned. “Attacking Masalit civilians living in El Geneina or the IDP camps around town,” the report said, “is a way of sending a signal to the Masalit people that they are not welcome in the area and that they no longer have a traditional claim over the land in the area.” Two years later, those tensions would explode. At around 7 a.m. on April 24, Badreldin Abdel Rahman was getting ready to leave his house when he heard gunshots. A staffer for an international humanitarian organization in El Geneina, he lived 400 meters from the RSF headquarters in the city. Skirmishes had erupted between the RSF and a Sudanese army unit, based in northern El Geneina, he and other residents said. Abdel Rahman and dozens of other witnesses, all of whom subsequently fled to Chad, recounted what happened next. The Sudanese army soldiers, they said, quickly retreated to their base on the far northeastern edge of El Geneina. As they withdrew, RSF and Arab militia forces turned their fire on residents in the largely Masalit areas of the city’s southern districts. Some of the Arab militiamen, their faces obscured, arrived on horseback, others on motorbikes or in mud-covered land cruisers. Masalit residents grew worried about a repeat of past hostilities in which they were targeted. Around 2 p.m., hundreds of Masalit residents rushed to police weapon depots, according to six people present. Police officers, some of them Masalit, opened the doors, allowing the crowd to grab thousands of Kalashnikov rifles. Elderly men, women and teenagers, untrained in how to use the guns, were seen in the streets with rifles, five witnesses told Reuters. “El Geneina at this point became fully militarized, and the entire city found itself forced to fight to deter the brutality of the militias,” said an activist in the city. That night, the first bodies were buried in Al Ghabat cemetery – more than 50. The desire to do right by the victims was intense. Muslim and local custom call for a quick and respectful burial – washing the body, placing it in a shroud, making sure it has its own spot in the grave. “It's a show of extreme shame and humiliation if people are forced to leave the dead unburied,” said Hobeldin Hassen, an El Geneina activist who said he buried multiple victims in the cemetery. “Burying the dead is the ultimate display of dignity and respect for the deceased.” But with snipers lurking and so many dead, survivors often lacked time to do it right. “Bodies were wrapped in mosquito nets or blankets,” said Adam, the surgeon who placed his slain father in a mass grave. “There were no lines separating the bodies from each other. There was no time or space.” And not all those killed on April 24 could be laid to rest. Idriss, 45, a mother of 11 children, said militiamen stormed into her home in the Al Jabal district, yelling, “Where are the men?” Once inside, she said, they shot her husband, her brother, a neighbor and a relative. The attackers, Idriss said, referred to them as “anbai” – slaves. They wanted to burn the bodies, she said. She grabbed the hands of the militiamen and implored them not to. She succeeded in dragging her husband’s body back to their bedroom and covered him. She was determined to bury him, she said, but the fighting that raged the next few weeks made it too dangerous. In mid-June, she fled to Chad with her children, leaving his body in the room and vowing to come back. Fatma Idriss recounted how RSF and Arab fighters killed her husband. She was unable to bury him before fleeing to Chad – but vowed to return. Photo by Abdullah Mohammed Orphan As in the 2003 violence, rape again became a weapon of war in the region. Reuters interviewed 11 Masalit women and girls who said they were raped by RSF and Janjaweed fighters. Another three people said they witnessed women being raped. A Human Rights Watch report published on Aug. 17 said the RSF and its allied militias had raped several dozen women and girls. “The assailants appear to have targeted people because of their Masalit ethnicity and, in some cases, because they were known activists,” the report said. A 15-year-old girl described to Reuters how she saw her father and mother killed and was then gang raped. She spoke in short sentences, avoiding eye contact, sitting next to her elder sister in the sprawling refugee camp that has sprung up in Adre, a town on the Chad-Sudan border. A drawing by a 15 year old survivor of sexual assault.   In the early hours of April 27, the girl said, the displacement camp in El Geneina where she lived with her family was shelled. Then RSF and Janjaweed fighters arrived on foot. They dragged her father into the street and shot him in the chest. “My mother was pleading with them to stop,” she said. “They shot her in the neck.” Then they poured petrol on the family’s home and set it alight. Terrified, the girl said she and about 15 other people ran to a building across the street and took shelter there – only to fall into the hands of RSF fighters occupying the building. Five of the fighters she recognized as part of the group that killed her parents. They locked her and a friend in a room. The men wore military fatigues and the red caps of the RSF, she said. For five hours, they took turns raping her and her friend. She heard her friend shouting: “Kill me.” Then there was a gunshot. “They killed her because she was talking back,” the girl said. “I stayed silent.” The men left after the assault. “I couldn’t move,” she said. Hours later, a man from the neighborhood passed by with a cart and helped her climb in. He took her to the outskirts of the city, and she ultimately made her way to Chad. The teen has only ever known life in an IDP camp. Like many who fled to Adre, this wasn’t the first time she’d been forced from her home. She was born in an IDP camp in Krinding, east of El Geneina, after the family was attacked in 2003 by the Janjaweed and forced off their land, where they raised cows and other livestock. In 2019, she said, Krinding came under attack by RSF and Arab militias and her family’s hut was torched. The family sought shelter at yet another IDP camp in El Geneina. The girl’s elder sister, Khadija, 20, sat next to her as she spoke, confirming elements of her account. When the girl arrived in Adre, Khadija said, she was in pain and still bleeding from being raped, so she took her to a field hospital. But the doctors said they were only able to treat the large number of people arriving in Adre with gunshot wounds, Khadija said. They gave the girl painkillers and turned her away. Rape is being used again as a weapon of war in Darfur, as in prior conflicts. Reuters interviewed 11 survivors of sexual violence, who said they were raped by RSF and Arab militiamen. Several of these women can be seen here after fleeing to Adre, Chad. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra   In June last year, Hemedti visited El Geneina. He released a white pigeon – a symbol of peace – at an event where he announced he was in the city to help mediate between the various tribes. Masalit activists issued statements at the time accusing Hemedti of trying to conceal atrocities committed by his forces and of buying the loyalty of Arab tribal leaders and militias with cash and cars. Hemedti didn’t respond to questions sent to the RSF by Reuters. On June 20 this year, several days after the violence ended, Hemedti accused the Sudanese army of fueling the conflict by arming tribes. In comments posted on an RSF social media page, he said he had proof that the military had a “sinister plan to inflame tribal war in Darfur, starting in El Geneina.” Hemedti didn’t provide any evidence. Satellite images show the destruction of Abu Zor IDP camp in El Geneina. The first image was taken on April 19, before the violence erupted. The second image, showing the damage, was taken on June 21, after the violence subsided. Source: Pléiades Neo © Airbus DS 2023   He said he had ordered his forces to stay out of the conflict in El Geneina. “We pay tribute to all the innocent civilians who fell victim to the tribal conflict,” he said. [Genocide Watch comment: As usual, Hamedti was lying.] More than two dozen people interviewed by Reuters, including Masalit tribal leaders, fighters and lawyers who fled El Geneina, said they saw RSF commanders and Arab tribal leaders overseeing the assault on the city. This included directing mortar and RPG fire at IDP camps and government offices in El Geneina, they said. Sporadic battles raged throughout May, as Masalit fighters, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, tried to keep the better-armed RSF and Arab militias at bay. Thousands who fled from IDP camps under attack took refuge in the El Geneina district of Al Madaris, near the office of the governor of West Darfur, himself a Masalit. Six Masalit fighters told Reuters that some 2,000 armed Masalit men deployed to the area and set up sandbag barricades to protect the people sheltering there. Among them were members of the Sudanese Alliance, an umbrella group of armed factions that have fought in Darfur’s past wars. Operating under the command of the governor of West Darfur, it was outgunned by the RSF, six fighters said, and many of its fighters would later flee to Chad. The RSF began setting up checkpoints on the main streets of El Geneina, blocking people from leaving. “They imposed a siege on the city, so getting in or out was like committing suicide,” said Noah Alfadeil, 30, a resident who made it to Chad. “If the men tried to get out, they would be gunned down.” By early June, the Masalit fighters were being overwhelmed by the superior firepower of the RSF and its allied militias. The city’s Al Majlis district was devastated. Homes were torched. Many of the inhabitants fled or were killed. One of the holdouts was Tarek Bahreldin, an older brother of the sultan of the Masalit. The sultan, whose powers include mediating disputes among his people, had fled the family home several weeks earlier after it was attacked by militiamen. He was hiding with friends in the city, and would later escape to Chad. Tarek Bahreldin, brother of the sultan of the Masalit, was slain. His body lay in the street for two weeks.   On June 8, some 50 RSF and Janjaweed militiamen entered the green complex that housed the sultan, his siblings and their families. Fatma, a daughter of Bahreldin, described what happened that day. The militiamen weren’t aware who the family was, she believes. They demanded to know if the family were “Arab or Masalit,” she said in an interview in Adre. “I told him, ‘We are Arabs.’ If we’d said we are Masalit, they wouldn’t leave any of us alive.” Bahreldin held his favorite prayer beads and waved them at the men occupying his home. “This is my only weapon. God’s verses,” she recalls him saying. The family decided to leave home and move to a safer area in northern El Geneina. But Bahreldin wouldn’t go. They ate what would be their last meal together. Then, at 4 a.m. on June 9, the family left. Bahreldin’s wife, Mariam Ismail, promised they would come back for him. But snipers in the surrounding streets made that impossible, Fatma and other family members said. Three days after they left, the family got word that Bahreldin was dead. Mariam said he’d gone to a mosque across the road to eat. An Arab cleric who knew him offered shelter in the mosque and tried to convince him to stay. But Bahreldin told the cleric that if he was going to die, he wanted to die in his own home, Mariam says the cleric later told her. Bahreldin was shot dead as he left the mosque, Fatma said. For the next two weeks, his body lay in the street outside his home as RSF and Arab militia forces prevented the family from burying him. Snipers lined the rooftops, ready to shoot should they try to retrieve him. “The entire family could see his body from a distance and couldn’t do anything,” said Fatma, tears rolling down her face. Only once the fighting ended did the RSF allow Bahreldin’s body to be moved. The family said they asked the Red Crescent for help burying him. Bahreldin was finally laid to rest in Al Ghabat cemetery. When Red Crescent workers brought his body to the cemetery, the family said, the RSF forced them to bury him in a mass grave with others. Asked about the role played by the Red Crescent, Aida Elsayed Abdalla, secretary general of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, told Reuters her organization doesn’t “talk about individual cases to respect the confidential process around dead-body management.” Events on June 14 would set off several days of slaughter that residents described in apocalyptic terms. That day, Khamis Abbakar, the governor of West Darfur, gave an interview to the Saudi-owned Al Hadath TV channel. He accused the RSF of “genocide” and called for “international intervention to protect those left.” “This nation is being killed in cold blood,” he said, as gunfire crackled in the background. The same day, Abbakar was killed by RSF forces, Reuters reported in June, citing two government sources. The fighters who seized and killed him were led by the RSF's West Darfur sector commander, Abdul Rahman Juma, the U.S. State Department alleged this month in announcing sanctions against Juma over the killing. Abbakar was seen being led into Juma’s office in footage posted on social media. Hours later, images of Abbakar’s battered corpse were circulating on social media. In footage posted later, celebratory cheers can be heard in the background as a truck rolls over the governor’s body and women hurl rocks at the corpse. A relative and four aides told Reuters the body shown in the footage was that of the governor. In his June 20 message on social media, RSF leader Hemedti said he condemned “the assassination” of the governor and pledged to investigate. The killing of the governor was a blow to the morale of the thousands of Masalit and other non-Arab residents sheltering near the government compound and in surrounding areas. The residents now faced a choice, said Abdel Khaleq Douidan, an adviser to the governor. They could head to the Sudanese army base in northern El Geneina – a gamble because they could be intercepted by the RSF and Arab militias. Or, they could remain where they were. Douidan was against heading to the base, saying the Arab militias “have no ethics.” But they chose to risk it, believing that if they could reach the base before sunrise they would evade the militias. Around midnight on June 14, thousands began leaving the government compound and making their way to the base, about seven kilometers away. There were people in cars, on donkeys and on foot. Some pushed carts loaded with the wounded. The sheer size of the group slowed their advance. They still hadn’t reached the base when dawn began to break and calls to prayer came blaring through mosque loudspeakers, awakening the RSF and Arab militiamen. Hundreds of Arab fighters armed with machine guns, sniper rifles and knives descended on the crowd, according to Douidan and dozens of other people present. A massacre ensued, at least 30 people in the crowd told Reuters. The fighting spread beyond El Geneina to other West Darfur towns where the RSF and Arab militias carried out similar attacks, said multiple people who fled the area. This group of men injured in the fighting in the town of Misterei received treatment after reaching Adre, Chad. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra Nussayba Mohammed Adam, 6, from El Geneina, sits in a hospital in Adre, Chad, in late July. Nussayba’s father said she was injured when RSF fighters rammed vehicles into a crowd of people heading to the Sudanese army base in northern El Geneina on June 15. Other children with similar injuries were in the beds alongside her. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra   People were cut down by machine gun fire. Some were crushed as militia fighters rammed their vehicles into the crowd. Others were cut open by militiamen wielding knives. Three Masalit fighters who had guns told Reuters they fired back. Weam Ezzeldin, a 30-year-old sociologist who said she previously worked for a Western charity in El Geneina, was trapped in the crowd that day. She says she grabbed her mother with one hand and her sister with the other as they tried to escape the hail of bullets. There was carnage all around. A young girl cried for help after her mother was shot. Another woman, her baby tied to her back, fell after being struck by bullets. A wounded infant was left behind by her parents as they tried desperately to carry away their other injured children. “I can’t express what I have seen,” said Ezzeldin. “Is it normal to stomp over dead bodies while running?” Hundreds of thousands of people fled to Chad as the violence spread across West Darfur. Throngs of people can be seen heading out of El Geneina toward Chad in video posted on social media. In the chaos, Ezzeldin had to choose who to help. She grabbed her mother, who had been shot, as well as the baby still strapped to the back of its dead mother, and led them to a nearby house. From a corner of the house she saw Arab militiamen storming in. They lined up young men who were hiding inside and shot them dead, she said. “You are Masalit. You are cursed. You killed us,” the Arab fighters told the young men. Then they executed them, she said. Some in the crowd tried to escape by heading to Kaja Valley, which cuts across El Geneina. But it was filled with rainwater. Elderly people and young children drowned after wading into the water, said dozens of people who were there. Others were killed as militiamen picked them off with rifle fire. “The water turned red,” said Arafa Abdel-Shafi, a young woman caught up in the violence with her family. Her niece drowned that day, she said. Many people fled the area and sought cover in other parts of the city. But RSF and Arab militiamen continued to hunt them down, according to at least a dozen survivors. Asaad Arbab, an activist who kept records of people killed in IDP camps, said he found shelter with 200 people in Al Madina al Manawara mosque in central El Geneina. RSF and Arab militiamen stormed the mosque’s courtyard and killed more than 30 people, he said. Most of the survivors escaped through another exit, he said. As the attacks continued on June 15, many decided their only chance was to make the 30-kilometer journey to Chad. They moved west out of El Geneina, most on foot, as they began an eight-hour walk to the border. The route proved fatal for many. The RSF and Arab militias had set up checkpoints on the roads, said people who were stopped along the way. Men were separated from women and shot. Bodies littered the roads to Chad, eight people who survived the journey told Reuters. At the checkpoints, young women were taken away by militiamen and raped, according to a dozen eyewitness accounts. Some said they directly witnessed the rapes. Others said they saw women picked up by RSF and Janjaweed fighters and taken into the bushes. They came back in tears. Gamar Khater, a Masalit elder from El Geneina, shows notes he took on the atrocities he says he witnessed during the RSF and Arab militia assaults in the city. One section, titled “Ways of killing African tribes,” listed snipers, swords and “beheading with knife.” Gamar Khater, an El Geneina elder   Gamar Khater, a prominent El Geneina elder, said 17 of his family members were killed, most after the governor’s death. Khater kept notes of what he and others witnessed during the weeks of violence. “I saw bodies along the road at these sites,” one entry reads. He then lists the names of five locations where he’d seen corpses on the journey to Chad. One section in the notes is titled “Ways of killing African tribes.” The list includes mortars, snipers, swords, “beating to death with clubs” and “beheading with knife.” In the ICC’s investigations, prosecutor Khan said he had given “clear instructions” to his office “to prioritize crimes against children and crimes of sexual and gender based violence.” Key places and incidents in the April-June massacres in El Geneina. A Reuters analysis of satellite imagery found that at least 1.8 square kilometers of destruction emerged in the city from April 19 through June 29. Sources: Open Street Map; Shuttle Radar Topography Mission; Reuters reporting and analysis of satellite imagery from Copernicus, Planet Labs PBC, Maxar Technologies and Airbus Seven weeks of mayhem The ICC said in response to questions that it could not elaborate on its probe due to “confidentiality,” which is essential “to protect the integrity” of its investigations and “ensure the safety and security of victims.” A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department would not say if further sanctions on RSF leaders are being considered. But in response to questions, the spokesperson said: “We will not hesitate to use these tools to respond to the atrocities and other abuses committed by any of the warring parties.” At their Aug. 21 press conference, Arab tribal leaders denied committing atrocities. They sat at a table in front of a tank. During the conference, they set fire to a Masalit flag. The Masalit, they said, were the “aggressors.” El Geneina’s governor and his supporters had initiated the attacks, they said, while the Masalit had looted police stations, grabbing thousands of rifles. The Arabs had been forced to defend themselves. “Arabs don’t want wars,” said Massar Aseel, the Rizeigat tribal leader. “But in the name of God,” he added, “if you want war, we are ready.” Telecommunications were down in El Geneina during much of the violence, making it difficult to get evidence of the attacks to the outside world. And during and after the violence, the RSF and Arab militias took measures to cover up its actions, dozens of residents said. Almost all the people interviewed by Reuters – more than 100 – said their mobile phones were seized by militiamen during attacks on their homes or at checkpoints along the road to Chad. The RSF and Arab militias specifically hunted for prominent figures among the Masalit, such as activists, lawyers and doctors, according to more than two dozen people who made it to Adre. In mid-June, the fighting was over and the RSF and Arab militias were in full control of El Geneina. They began efforts to "sanitize" the city. Decomposing bodies lay in the streets amid the personal belongings of the fleeing throngs, said a Red Crescent volunteer. There were blankets, shoes, clothing, bags of flour, kitchen utensils and ID documents. “I couldn’t take the smell of human beings decomposing in front of my house,” said the volunteer, a schoolteacher, who helped collect bodies after the fighting. “The least we can do is to honor them by burying them.” Three people who say they volunteered to help the Red Crescent bury bodies after the fighting said militiamen prevented them from taking pictures or keeping any record of the dead. They said they were also told by the RSF and Arab militias not to help the wounded, and said they saw RSF and Arab fighters shooting injured people. Since the conflict began, Red Crescent staff and volunteers have done “all they can to help others, day in day out, in an extremely volatile security environment,” the organization’s Abdalla told Reuters. Five Red Crescent volunteers were killed in the first month of the conflict in El Geneina, she said, and the organization’s local branch was looted and burned. The situation, she said, remains “full of risks for staff and volunteers.” Some tried to assist the injured. One woman who was searching for her three missing brothers said she hid an injured man in a bread oven inside a house in an attempt to save him. She left a sign so that a group of activists helping the injured would know he was in the house. She doesn’t know what became of the man. Six people told Reuters that under instruction from the RSF and Arab tribal leaders, bodies were loaded onto trucks, taken to an area on the outskirts of El Geneina called Al Torab Al Ahmar and buried in pits. On July 13, the United Nations accused the RSF of ordering the burial of “at least 87 ethnic Masalit and others” in a mass grave at Al Torab Al Ahmar. Farah Yahia said he too saw bodies dumped on the outskirts of El Geneina. Yahia, an El Geneina merchant, said he was rounded up with 10 other men by masked RSF fighters and Arab militiamen on June 15 and held in a water facility that was used as a detention center. For three days they were locked in a room without food or water. Some of the men, he said, started to drink their own urine. “It was a terrible thing, but they were so thirsty,” he said. Adam Abdullah, 45 said he escaped death on the morning of June 15. He was sitting on a bed in Sadaka hospital, a makeshift infirmary in southern El Geneina, waiting to be treated after getting hit by shrapnel in his leg. Around 7 a.m., he said, a group of armed men burst in and shot everyone. He was struck in the arm by a bullet and could feel blood flowing down his back. He held his breath. “I pretended to be dead,” he said.   Maab Abu Zaar, 12 sustained face injuries after a mortar fell on her house on June 12, killing her 27-year-old mother. Maab’s father had been missing since the war broke out on April 15. Now orphaned, Maab and her five siblings hid under beds or behind the wardrobe through days of shelling and bombing of her district. Maab’s 57-year-old grandmother, Amna Abu Bakr, eventually took the children and fled to Adre. “I felt a lot of pain,” Maab said.   Abdel Azim Khater, 32 said he was shot multiple times as he tried to make his way on foot from El Geneina to Chad in mid-June. He was left wounded by the side of the road after militiamen shot him in his right side, he said. The next day, militiamen who found him there shot him in the leg, he said. The day after that, he was shot again, in the shoulder. “I pointed at my forehead and pleaded with them, ‘Please shoot me,’” he said. “‘I want to die.’”   Adam Hassan sat in the refugee camp in Adre, Chad, looking through an album with pictures of his son and father, who he said were killed by the RSF and Arab militias in the West Darfur town of Murnei in June. “My son was killed and they threw his body in the fire,” he said. “Don’t call these battles. There were no battles. They didn’t want to see any Blacks in the town,” he said.   On the third day, the men were lined up. Their captors quizzed them about their tribal affiliation, promising not to harm them. “In the name of God, fear nothing,” Yahia recalls them saying. “What is your tribe?” Those who answered “Masalit,” he said, were executed. Yahia said he lied and lived. He told his captors he was a member of another non-Arab tribe. The RSF fighters then brought him along as they disposed of the bodies of the executed men. The corpses were placed in trucks, driven to the city’s outskirts and dumped in trenches, Yahia said. Two other people held at the detention center told Reuters they also saw bodies being loaded onto trucks and driven out of the facility. All three men said detainees were tortured. One of the three, Salah Moussa, said he was tied to a mango tree and forced to hang by his arms for two days. He now has difficulty lifting his arms or holding objects. “My body became numb,” he said. Bruising was still visible around his ankles and wrists where he said he was tied up. Yacoub Yahia said he was held in a makeshift detention center in El Geneina in mid-June. He shows scarring on his arms which he said he sustained when his captors hung him from a mango tree in the facility. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra After several days, Yahia said he bribed his way out of the detention center. His captors let him go after relatives and neighbors paid them a sum equivalent to $800. In late June, 58 days after leaving the body of her slain husband behind in their bedroom, Fatma Idriss left her tent in the Adre refugee camp and walked the 30 kilometers back to her hometown. She traveled with a group of other women who also wanted to bury their dead. Two of them confirmed her account. Idriss found a wheelbarrow, loaded it with her husband’s remains and pushed it to Al Ghabat cemetery. With the fighting over, she set about burying him in the full light of day. Other people at the cemetery helped her place his body in one of the mass graves. Then she walked back to Adre.   REUTERS INVESTIGATES The Slaughter of El Geneina By Maggie Michael in Adre, Chad, and Ryan McNeill in London Photography: Zohra Bensemra Video: El Tayeb Siddig Additional reporting: Nafisa Eltahir, Aidan Lewis, Eleanor Whalley and Milan Pavicic Photo editing: Edgar Su and Zohra Bensemra Data: Ryan McNeill and Lena Masri Graphics: Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa and Simon Scarr Art Direction: Catherine Tai Design: Catherine Tai and John Emerson Edited by Peter Hirschberg © 2024 Reuters.  All rights reserved

Genocide and Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan By Areeka Khan Women from the city of Al-Junina in West Darfur cry after receiving news about the deaths of their relatives as they waited for them in Chad on November 7, 2023 [El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters] The report attached below is an abridged compilation of reports by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UN Human Rights Council, UNHCR, and UN, AU, IGAD, WFP, MSF, and other Press Releases. The compilation is organised into five topics: 1. Genocide in Sudan [Pages 1 - 95] 2. Aid blocked and looted [Pages 96 – 101] 3. Sexual violence [Pages 102 – 107] 4. Foreign interference with peace [Pages 107 – 113] 5. Other relevant developments [Pages 113 - 118] A one-page executive summary of each topic is being prepared by Genocide Watch. All information in this report is directly quoted from source documents.

Graphic displaying vote totals for each candidate for Iran's Presidency By Maziar Motamedi Tehran, Iran – The snap presidential election in Iran is heading into a run-off next week after reformist-backed Masoud Pezeshkian and hardliner Saeed Jalili emerged at the top but failed to secure a majority in a vote with a record-low turnout. Only 40 percent of more than 61 million eligible Iranians voted, the Ministry of Interior said on Saturday, a new low in presidential elections since the country’s 1979 revolution. The final numbers from election headquarters at the ministry showed that the moderate Pezeshkian received more than 10.41 million votes from a total of more than 24.5 million ballots counted, trailed by former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili with 9.47 million votes. This is only the second time since the 1979 revolution that a presidential election has gone to a second round. Conservative Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with 3.38 million votes, and conservative Islamic leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi, with 206,397 votes, were knocked out of the race. Two other candidates, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and government official Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, dropped out . Ghalibaf, Zakani and Ghazizadeh called on their supporters to vote for Jalili in the run-off next Friday in order to ensure victory for the “revolution front”. The snap election on Friday came within the 50-day constitutionally mandated period to select a new president after Ebrahim Raisi and seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, died in a helicopter crash on May 19. Like all major elections in the past four years, the vote on Friday saw a low turnout, but the final number was much lower than the 45-53 percent suggested by polls. The lowest presidential turnout in the more than four-decade history of the Islamic republic was the one that got Raisi into office, with 48.8 percent. At just below 41 percent, the parliamentary election in March and May previously had the lowest turnout of any major polls since Iran’s 1979 revolution. The voter apathy comes as many are disillusioned in the aftermath of deadly nationwide protests in 2022-23 , and as the economy continues to deal with myriad challenges including more than 40 percent inflation due to mismanagement and United States sanctions. Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh, an Iranian foreign policy expert, attributed the low turnout to what he said was the reformist camp’s failure to activate the sector of the electorate which usually votes for it and drives participation up. Despite the endorsement of heavyweight reformists such as former President Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, Pezeshkian “failed to awaken that part of the society which is usually when we have a turnout above 50 percent – that usually comes from the reformist side”, Gholamzadeh told Al Jazeera. “And I would interpret that as people saying they want change,” Gholamzadeh added. A higher turnout appears likely when Iranians vote in the July 5 run-off since it would present a clearer choice between two opposing camps. That would mostly benefit Pezeshkian, who would need more votes to defeat the combined forces of the conservative and hardliner camps. Pezeshkian, a prominent politician and former health minister, is backed by former centrist and reformist presidents and other top figures. He has promised to lift sanctions by restoring the country’s comatose 2015 nuclear deal with world powers  and to bridge the widening gap between the people and the establishment. Jalili, a senior member of the Supreme National Security Council, has promised to bring inflation down to single digits and boost economic growth to a whopping 8 percent, along with fighting corruption and mismanagement. He advocates a harsher stance against the West and its allies. Pezeshkian was the only moderate of six people approved to run by the Guardian Council, the constitutional body that vets all candidates. His backers have presented him not as a miracle worker, but as a prospective president who could make things slightly better while claiming a victory for Jalili would signal a major backslide. Jalili’s name is tied with years-long nuclear negotiations in the late 2000s and early 2010s that ultimately led to Iran’s isolation on the global stage and the imposition of United Nations Security Council sanctions. The hardline politician, who has been trying to become president for more than a decade, blames the camp backing Pezeshkian for compromising the country’s nuclear programme as part of the landmark accord signed in 2015, which then US President Donald Trump reneged on in 2018. Accusing his opponent of inefficiency, Jalili and other conservatives have claimed a Pezeshkian victory would only mark a third administration of former centrist President Hassan Rouhani. Two security forces were killed in an attack targeting their vehicle that was carrying ballot boxes in southern Sistan-Baluchestan province after voting concluded. According to state media, armed attackers targeted the car that was returning the boxes to the local governor. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian speaks at the shrine of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, on July 6, 2024. Vahid Salemi/AP By Nadeen Ebrahim and Michael Rios CNN — Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has won Iran’s presidential election, the country’s electoral authority said Saturday, defeating his hardline rival in a pivotal vote amid heightened tensions both domestically and internationally. Out of 30.5 million votes counted in Friday’s runoff, Pezeshkian won 53.6%, edging out ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, who had 44.3% of the votes, state-run Press TV reported. Voter turnout was 49.8%, Press TV reported. Pezeshkian was elected in a second round of voting after securing the highest number of ballots in the first round, ahead of Jalili. The first round saw the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. In a victory speech in Tehran on Saturday, Pezeshkian thanked the Iranian people and vowed to serve as a “voice of the voiceless.” “I am the servant of the people of Iran. We will serve you, dear people of our country,” Pezeshkian said at the burial site of Imam Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The 69-year-old trained heart surgeon and lawmaker acknowledged the challenges facing the country as he called for unity in what he described as a new chapter for Iran. “Let’s come together, let’s stick together, let’s get united and work together,” he said. “We would be able to deal with every aspect and area of the government: economic, financial, military and social challenges.” The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, thanked the candidates and congratulated the president-elect. Khamenei praised the country for quickly holding “free and transparent elections” in the wake of President Ebrahim Raisi’s death. A snap election was held after Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May in Iran’s remote northwest, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials. Khamenei advised Pezeshkian to act “in continuation of the path” of Raisi. The Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member body tasked with overseeing elections and legislation, must certify the vote before Pezeshkian can take office. Pezeshkian will take the helm in a country that is facing increasing international isolation, internal discontent, a spiraling economy and the prospect of direct conflict with its archenemy Israel. The lawmaker was the only reformist candidate vying for the top elected seat in the country after dozens of other candidates were barred from running. He has favored dialogue with Iran’s foes, particularly over its nuclear program, and sees that as a means to address the country’s domestic issues. “The primary issue is the perspective: Do we want to solve our problems with the world or not? I believe we must get out of the deadlock to solve the country’s problems,” he said at a presidential debate ahead of the second round of voting. The leaders of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Syria were among the first to congratulate Pezeshkian. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said he was “keen to develop and deepen the relations that bring together our two countries and peoples, and serve our common interests,” according to state-run Saudi Press Agency. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped Pezeshkian’s election would expand bilateral cooperation “in all areas” in the interest of “simplifying regional security and stability,” according to a statement from the Kremlin. The US State Department acknowledged Pezeshkian’s victory, but said the elections “were not free or fair” and would “not have a significant impact on our approach to Iran.” “We have no expectation these elections will lead to fundamental change in Iran’s direction or more respect for the human rights of its citizens,” a spokesperson for the department said. While the Iranian president does enjoy some powers, the ultimate authority lies with the Supreme Leader, who has the final say on all matters of state. Who is Masoud Pezeshkian? A health minister under reformist president Mohammad Khatami, Pezeshkian is a trained heart surgeon and lawmaker. He gained prominence for his stance against the crackdown on the 2009 pro-democracy protests and violence perpetrated by the notorious morality police in 2022 in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death. Amini died in the custody of the morality police after being detained for not adhering to the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women. Hundreds were killed and thousands arrested as the authorities sought to crush the protests, according to the United Nations. During the 2022 protests, Pezeshkian said in an interview with Iran’s IRINN TV: “It is our fault. We want to implement religious faith through the use of force. This is scientifically impossible.” “I bear part of the blame, the distinguished religious scholars and the mosques bear part of the blame, and the (Iranian) broadcasting authority bears part of the blame,” he said. “Everybody should step forward and be held accountable, rather than capture that girl, beat her up, and eventually deliver her body (to her family).” He has presented himself as a candidate for all Iranians. “Among my supporters are both left and right, even those who do not pray,” he said at a recent presidential debate . After losing his wife and one of his children in a 1994 car crash, he devoted much of his time to politics. Pezeshkian ran for president in the 2013 and 2021 elections, but failed to make headway. The 69-year-old hails from an ethnically mixed family – his father is Azeri and his mother is Kurdish. Persian isn’t his mother tongue. That has burnished his image for Iran’s minorities but left him open to xenophobic attacks from some opponents. Can he bring change to Iran? Experts say a more moderate face in the presidency could facilitate dialogue between Iran and Western states. Domestically, Pezeshkian may also introduce some social changes, which he emphasized during his electoral campaign, though experts caution that such moves are far from guaranteed. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House think tank in London, said it’s unlikely that Pezeshkian’s election would immediately translate into policy changes. “But Pezeshkian has made it clear that he will try to work through and within the system in order to perhaps accommodate a less repressive environment.” The reformist did not guarantee that he could make those changes, Vakil said, adding that this demonstrates the limits of presidential powers in Iran. “But it may add a bit more room for maneuver on social freedoms,” she noted. Ra’na Rajabi, an Iranian woman, she was happy that Pezeshkian was elected. “Honestly speaking, I just hope the expensiveness decreases, and jobs are easily found for young people, and that’s it, I do not have any other special feelings,” she said, adding that she hoped “girls and people can easily walk in the street without being anxious about anyone picking on them.” Other factors may be more difficult to change, particularly Iran’s foreign policy. Pezeshkian assumes the presidency at a time when his country is embroiled in escalating tensions with Israel and its Western allies, triggered by the war in Gaza and the advancement of Iran’s nuclear program. Just three months ago, Iran and Israel exchanged fire for the first time as the Gaza conflict widened. Israel is now preparing for a potential second front against Hezbollah, Iran’s primary regional proxy, in Lebanon. Rhetoric between Iran and Israel escalated last week as Iran’s mission to the United Nations said that should Israel “embark on full-scale military aggression” against Lebanon, then “an obliterating war will ensue.” “All options, including the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table,” it said on X. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded that “a regime that threatens destruction deserves to be destroyed.” Pezeshkian is not expected to change the current trajectory on Israel, experts said. He has also praised General Qasem Soleimani, the controversial head of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, who was assassinated in a US strike in 2020. “I consider him a source of national pride and a thorn in the eyes of our enemies,” he said in a recent presidential debate. A friendlier face to the West But while Western states aren’t expecting this election to change their relationship with Iran, Pezeshkian is certainly their preferred candidate, as his opponent would have only escalated those existing tensions, experts said. Former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, a key ally of Pezeshkian and a reformist who oversaw a comparatively warm period of international relations nearly a decade ago, has been mooted as a potential candidate to reoccupy his old post under the new president. Zarif was Iran’s top diplomat when the regime struck a deal with the US and world powers to limit Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief (a deal that has since all but collapsed). While he is popular among Iranian youth, he has also faced criticism from hardliners at home for being too friendly to the West. “With Mr. Pezeshkian, the sanctions will likely be lifted, and that’s very good for people,” Hossein Imani, a Tehran resident, said. “I have a positive feeling (about Pezeshkian) for now, with the condition that he fulfils the promises he has made.” Ahead of the elections, however, Supreme Leader Khamenei condemned those seeking improved relations with the West. And Pezeshkian has publicly stated that he would defer to Khamenei on matters of foreign policy, so Zarif’s appointment is far from assured. © 2024 Cable News Network.

By Matthew Brunwasser A man holding a “Ratko Mladic Boulevard” placard during a gathering in Belgrade, Serbia, on Wednesday in support of the Bosnian Serb general convicted of war crimes. CreditOliver Bunic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images When a general convicted of war crimes gave a lecture last month to cadets at the military academy in Serbia’s capital, he received a warm welcome from the defense minister. The nation should feel “proud” of veterans like the general, “the bravest of the brave,” the minister said. So it was no surprise that after another general, Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes this week, President Aleksandar Vucic called the verdict “unjustified.” He also told reporters, “I would like to call on everyone to start looking to the future and not to drown in tears of the past.” The conviction of General Mladic, 75, whom the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia sentenced to life in prison for a campaign of genocide in the 1990s against Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs, was meant to close a chapter on the brutal Bosnian wars that unleashed Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II. One of the tribunal’s goals was to foster reconciliation in the Balkans and strike a blow against impunity for the most serious human rights abuses. But Serbia — seen as the aggressor in the wars and accused by international rights organizations of atrocities on a larger and more organized scale than any of its former enemies — has never accepted responsibility for the crimes committed in the name of the Serbian people. Serbia, political analysts say, is creeping steadily backward politically to the ominous days of the 1990s amid a groundswell of nationalist sentiment. The government in Belgrade is even welcoming convicted war criminals and associates of Slobodan Milosevic, the former dictator and indicted architect of Serbia’s genocidal program who died in 2006, back into the fold. And as Russia pushes to expand its influence in the Balkans — Europe’s “soft underbelly,” in the words of the political scientist Ivan Krastev — it is finding a receptive ally in Serbia. This comes even as the country is likely to become the next member state of the European Union. As Serbia pursues a closer relationship with Russia while enacting the difficult reforms demanded by Brussels, European officials have accused the government in Belgrade of playing a strange double game — pursuing both Brussels and Moscow for maximum benefit. In response to Serbia’s creep toward Moscow, Washington pushed back in a rare public rebuke in October. Hoyt Brian Yee, the American deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, met with President Vucic and called on Serbia to make a decisive choice between Russia or Washington and Brussels if it wanted to join the bloc. “You cannot sit on two chairs at the same time,” Mr. Yee said, “especially if they are that far apart.” Mr. Yee’s statement rankled certain members of the Serbian leadership. “This is not a statement made by a friend or a person respecting Serbia, respecting our right to decide independently,” the defense minister, Aleksandar Vulin, said last month. “Serbia makes its decisions on its own, without paying attention to the importance of those who believe that they can decide for us.” Serbia is the only country outside the former Soviet Union with a free-trade agreement with Russia. And it has the most pro-Russian political positions of any European Union candidate, refusing to join European sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. Conspiracy theories about Western plots against Serbs are rife in the country, spread by the pro-government news media, which also orchestrates smear campaigns against government critics. The former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who was convicted of war crimes and genocide, was removed from a United Nations courtroom for shouting and swearing at the judges. By ICTY VIA REUTERS. Photo by Pool photo by Peter Dejong. A former Serbian general, Vladimir Lazarevic, served two-thirds of a 14-year sentence for crimes against humanity for his role commanding the Yugoslav military in the forced deportations of more than 700,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. After being released from The Hague in 2015, General Lazarevic received a hero’s welcome at the Serbian airport, where he was met by two government ministers, the head of the Serbian military and other senior officials. Last month, he gave a lecture to cadets at the military academy in Belgrade. The title of the lecture: “The heroism and humanity of Serbian soldiers in their defense against the NATO aggression.” The European Union warned against letting a war criminal give a lecture to the academy, but the general received high praise from the defense minister, Mr. Vulin, a former close political ally of Mr. Milosevic’s widow, Mirjana Markovic. Mr. Vulin told a group of veterans last month that Serbia no longer needed to feel shame over officers like General Lazarevic. The public support for a war criminal appalled human rights activists and Western officials. “We expect political leaders to honor the victims of the past conflicts and sincerely promote reconciliation in the Western Balkans,” Maja Koncijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Union, said in a statement. The American ambassador to Serbia, Kyle Scott, posted on Twitter in Serbian: “Unfortunately, months of work on improving Serbia’s image in the U.S. can be undermined with just one statement.” Some analysts say that Mr. Vucic’s attempt to maintain the appearance of embracing progressive European values while pursuing a nationalist agenda is untenable. “Vucic wants to have his cake and eat it too,” said Mr. Bechev, the Atlantic Council fellow. “He wants to be a good European when it suits him but also be a proper Serbian patriot or nationalist. He wants to be a reformer and a modernizer but also a national leader.” The question remains, then, whether Serbia will ever have to commit to only one foreign-policy orientation. Jelena Milic, the director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, said that Serbia would not be pressed to align its foreign policy solidly toward the West until it began and completed negotiations on Chapter 31 of its accession agreement with the European Union, which spells out member states’ foreign, security and defense policies before they join the bloc. Ms. Milic said that Russian propaganda had influenced how the Serbian government portrays the difficult democratic reforms required by the bloc: they are cast as “pressure” from Brussels, enabling Serbian politicians to present resistance as patriotism. “We can give up our E.U. membership bid and easily get rid of the pressure,” Ms. Milic said. “But if we want to be a part of it, we have to make up our minds, and sooner rather than later. “This is our last chance, or we will remain on the periphery of the civilized world.” ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times

By Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham Introduction Myanmar’s widely hailed transition from military dictatorship to a Chinese model of great commercial opening and calibrated political liberalization— “discipline flourishing democracy,” as the generals call it—has had one unintended consequence for the country’s military-controlled government: ugly things have been exposed.4 Suddenly, the dark secrets of this predominantly Buddhist nation of 51 million people with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds have been laid bare. The world now has access to hitherto-closed-off sites of religious and ethnic persecution via international media such as CNN, BBC, wire news agencies, and so on. First, the world witnessed the eruption of two large bouts of violence in 2012 between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist Rakhine communities in the Western coastal region of the country. Within a year, there were incidents of organized violence against Muslims in about one dozen towns and neighborhoods across the country. Burmese social media sites were littered with various hues of genocidal comments, articles, analyses, and updates, and remain so to date. Many openly call for the slaughter of all Muslims (or Kular, in Burmese), while others are more specific about the type of Muslims that should be killed: the phrase “kill all illegal Bengalis,” a popular racist reference to Rohingyas, indicates that they belong in former East Bengal (Bangladesh) and not in Buddhist Myanmar.7 Led by Buddhist monks, protests sprang up in the Rakhine state and in other major urban centers such as Mandalay and Yangon; they called on the quasi-civilian, military-backed government of ex-general Thein Sein to crack down on Muslims and expel all Bengalis to any country, Muslim or Western liberal, that would take them. In fact, in President Thein Sein’s meeting with António Guterres—the then visiting head of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)—in Naypyidaw in August 2012, Thein Sein stated that “the only solution” to the troubles in Rakhine was either to send unwanted Rohingyas to countries that may be prepared to accept them as refugees or to contain them in UNHCR-administered camps.8 Burmese media outlets, including those run by former Burmese political exiles, echoed the official and popular view that Rohingyas were illegal Bengali migrants with no organic ties to the country. In the eyes of experts on democratic transitions, these voices from the mushrooming private media outlets are a sign of Myanmar’s civil society relish- ing its newfound press freedoms in a liberalizing political system. Freedom to protest, freedom of speech, and freedom of press have finally arrived, or so it is felt. Oblivious to background histories, or simply uninterested in the relevant past, many Burma-watchers and journalists view the organized violence against Rohingyas as simply an inevitable, if painful, byproduct of multiethnic societies in political transition, à la the Balkans.9 In this piece, we argue that the two unfolding parallel phenomena—namely a sharp rise in fear, loathing, and organized violence against Muslims across Myanmar and the official persecution of and mass violence against Rohing- yas—are in fact part of a continuum of racist strategic choices made by both the country’s most powerful military leaders and the democratically elected govern- ment controlled by Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. This conclusion is based on five consecutive years of our research, including archival works in Burmese and English, bilingual discourse analyses, and hundreds of interviews and in-depth conversations with the members of the Muslim and Rohingya communities, as well as interfaith activists from inside Myanmar, such as Buddhist monks and Christian leaders. Those who frame several large-scale bouts of violence in Rakhine since 2012 and the violence against Muslim communities across the country as sectarian disputes between the country’s Buddhists and Muslims overlook the crucial history of the region and the peoples concerned. Both phenomena predate, by several decades, the country’s military-led democratic transition, which began in 2011. We argue, however, that it is not the process of opening up that has catalyzed simmering and latent religious and communal tensions to boil over. Rather, the violence is a direct outcome of the central, military-controlled state playing the race and faith card for its own evolving strategic ends in a country rich in religious and ethnic diversity. The Revival of the Popular Notion of “the Indian Peril” and Its “Transference” The issue of the identity and presence of Rohingyas in the Rakhine region of Myanmar has been much debated. Aung San Suu Kyi herself weighed in on the debate, citing their historical presence as a “non-factual” but “emotive” proposition.10 The presence and identity of Rohingyas as an ethnic community of Islamic faith belonging to Arakan, or Rakhine, were irrefutably established in the primary historical sources published soon after the Burmese annexation of Rakhine, a fact that effectively undermines today’s official and popular narrative that Rohingyas were colonial-era seasonal farm “coolies” who settled in Northern Rakhine only after the British conquest of the Western region of the Burmese kingdom in 1825.11 the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham To better understand how the well-documented, popular anti-Muslim fear among the majority non-Muslim public has been mobilized and how the systematic persecution of Rohingyas in Western Myanmar is enabled, it is help- ful to take a glance at the past. Myanmar’s pre-colonial expansionist kingdom of Buddhist Burmese from the Dry Zone plains centered around Pagan, Ava, Amarapura, Mingun, Saggaing, and Mandalay. The Upcountry Myanmar Court took the Western coastal kingdom of Buddhist Rakhine as its final colonial pos- session through a bloody military campaign in 1785. As the result of Upcountry Myanmar Court’s successful, if bloody, annexa- tion of this multiethnic Rakhine Kingdom in 1785, hundreds of thousands of Rakhine war refugees—both Muslim and Buddhist subjects of the fallen Rakhine Buddhist kingdom—fled into the British protectorate of East Bengal (called East Pakistan after the Indian-Pakistan partition in 1947 and renamed Bangladesh in 1971, after the war of independence). It was this new interface between the recently Burmese-controlled territories—Rakhine—and East Bengal westward of Rakhine that finally led to the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1824. After two more successive wars between the two empire-building powers, the Burmese met the same eventual fate as their previously conquered people to the West: the Burmese Empire collapsed and was swallowed up into British India by 1886. Through Burmese eyes, the threat and introduction of colonial British rule was not simply seen as an economically-defined imperialist attempt to conquer new territory and its constitutive population and natural resources (for instance, teak, minerals, and precious stones). In his Royal Declaration of War against Britain, the last King, Thibaw, openly framed the British as anti-Dhamma Kala (or alien heretics) whose victory would be a menace to Buddhism.12 As the king, he was the chief patron-protector of Buddhism. Several decades later, in the 1870s and 1880s, the British colonial adminis- tration began the large-scale importation of Indians, both Muslims and Hindus in roughly equal numbers, into British Burma.13 The colonial administration subsidized the inflow of Indian laborers and other agriculturalists, including Indian Chettiar moneylenders, to fill labor and financing needs of the fast- growing rice industry in sparsely populated, British-controlled Lower Burma following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. This sharp increase in Indians and the resultant interface between the local communities and the newer ar- rivals caused major unease among the local Burmese population, especially the British-educated Burmese elite with their awakened nationalist consciousness. The general sentiment of the threat of “Indian penetration” and its impact on the future of Burma as a predominantly Buddhist society spread among the Burmese political elites, including those who ran the Burmese press and participated in the limited parliamentary politics of the 1920s.14 This nationalist concern became more acute as the result of the worldwide Great Depression, which caused widespread economic hardships. Popular Burmese sentiments of fear and resentment toward other colonized peoples of Indo-Aryan features, be they Muslim, Hindu, or any other religious affiliation, sharply rose in this period. The nationalist Burmese newspapers and their allies in the colonial parlia- ment seized on this rising anti-Indian racism and dusted up a 10-year-old, little- known Burmese language publication entitled Mawli and Yogi, which contained anti-Buddhist views—thus inflaming the already tense racial atmosphere. Race riots between Muslims and Buddhists subsequently broke out in Rangoon, where the Indians made up 60 percent of the city’s population.15 The British Colonial Government’s Riot Inquiry Committee, set up in 1938 to investigate both the im- mediate trigger and the underlying causes, published in its Interim Report: “We think it would be altogether misleading for us to suggest that the jealousy or suspicion or fear (whatever is the right expression) of the Burman towards the Indian in Burma as it exists today is a mere passing phase. There will always be found people who will exploit it for their own purposes.”16 This popular anti-Indian migration sentiment was based on economic and cultural grievances and fears on the part of the local majority Buddhist popula- tion. Popular economic grievances were rooted in the progressively dispropor- tionate share of farm and landownership in the hands of the Indian settlers, including moneylenders. Additionally, interracial marriages, particularly those between Buddhist women and Indian Muslim men, were seen as a threat to the predominantly Buddhist national way of life. However, the situation only boiled over into violence when mobilized by the Burmese press, the radical nationalist Thakhins, and colonial era Burmese politicians working for their own agendas. The committee report picked up on this when it wrote: In June 1938, the “Thiha,” a Burmese owned weekly newspaper, warned Indians that by monopolizing all kinds of commercial enterprise they would incur the displeasure of the Burmese. The example of the Jews This sharp increase in Indians and the resultant interface between the local communities and the newer arrivals caused major unease among the local Burmese population. the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham in Germany was mentioned, and it was suggested that such a state of affairs might occur in Burma.17 Since the publication of this report, both the alien rulers and the large number of people of Indian origin had long since gone home. The Union Jack came down in January 1948, and the country saw two large exoduses—the first on the eve of Japanese invasion in 1942 and the second after crippling economic nationalization by the Burmese military in 1964. The majority of these Indians had indeed made Buddhist Burma their sole home and had come to love their adopted country. Myanmar’s population from the Indian subcontinent with an Islamic background today is only 2.3 percent, compared to an overwhelming Buddhist majority.18 The country’s politics and economy are under the tight control of Burmese Buddhists, civilian and military—not Indians of any faith. After the last sectarian riots of the 1930s, the popular fear of the “Indian Peril” was replaced by the pressing need to focus on gaining independence from the British colonial administration, which returned to Rangoon after the three-year interregnum of the Japanese Occupation during World War II. The Burmese political class—now led by the Marxist-inspired nationalists, most prominently Aung San, with their strictly secularist, non-racialist, inclusive view of “Burmeseness”—steered public discourse away from the pre-war racial- ist sentiment.19 Within a year of independence, as the country plunged into a three-way civil war between Burmese communists, non-Burmese ethnic minori- ties, and the first ethnically Burmese-controlled government in Rangoon, the old fear and loathing of Indians faded into the background for the time being. Still, collective memories of “the Indian penetration” or the Indian—both Hindu and Muslim—domination of the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar endured, though latently. Apparent in recent anti-Muslim violence are the fin- gerprints of the military-controlled state and state-backed societal actors, such as prominent Buddhist monks, in the opening up of this can of racial worms.20 Interestingly, the visibly heavy presence of Yunnan Chinese—and their hold on the informal sector of the economy in the upper half of the country—has not given rise to organized violence despite pervasive anti-Chinese sentiments within all segments of Burmese society, including the leadership and the rank and file of the military.21 Organized violence has exclusively been directed at the Muslim communities, rather than at Chinese businesses or their wealthy residential quarters. The question, then, is who is directing public frustrations and discontent toward one community but not the other, even while they are both conceived of as “guests” or “non-indigenous.”22 One must confront the elephant in the room, namely the military-controlled state and the societal actors that enjoy blanket impunity for any acts of harm or words of bigotry against Muslims and Rohingyas, but not the Chinese.23 Crucially, the Myanmar military regime chooses to make sure that anti- Chinese sentiments do not boil over because the giant next door, China, is too powerful to anger and because Beijing served as the external protector of the Myanmar regime when it was treated as an international pariah, particularly during the period when Myanmar was under international sanctions from the 1990s until their gradual lifting from 2011 onwards.24 State and non-state actors have instead reworked—in their official and popular discourses—the old fear of the Indian Peril to make it applicable in the contemporary context. Two signifi- cant developments came about during the two eras of military rule (1962–88 and 1988–2011), namely Islamophobia resulting from global perceptions of the rise of Muslim power and the state-manufactured perspective of Rohingyas as illegal and/or unwelcome “Bengali” immigrants who do not belong in the Buddhist Rakhine lands of western coastal Myanmar. The Rekindling of Anti-Muslim Racism in Society for Political Use The military coup of 1962, launched under the leadership of Ne Win as Chair of the newly formed Revolutionary Council, was met with protests from political monks and campus activists who had become political allies in their opposition against military authoritarianism. Military leaders and strategists identified political monks, students, and other segments of society as “above- ground threats to building a new socialist order,” with the generals as the order’s revolutionary managers.25 Indeed, the traditional alliance of monk-student- opposition-dissidents, with Aung San Suu Kyi as the rallying figure, remained a threat that the military sought to neutralize until very recently. Military leaders concluded that Western liberal democracy was ill-suited to their country and that civilian politicians were not strong and patriotic enough to bind the multi- ethnic society in which ethnic minority populations made up an estimated 30–40 percent of the total population. The generals were acutely aware of the need for an umbrella ideology to justify their grip on power.26 They have tried hoisting different ideological banners over the years, including “the Burmese Way to Socialism,” “restoration of law and order,” “peace and development,” and more recently “discipline-flourishing democracy.” Military leaders have kept pursuing their vision of uniting the country under the aforementioned slogans and banners. Implementing the military’s unchallengeable version of a unified Burma in a country that is ethnically and the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham religiously diverse with differing class interests has typically been met with a natural resistance from different national communities. Problematically and increasingly, military leaders have looked to the old Buddhist kingdom of warrior-kings as a model for Burma, where the generals and their power base, namely the Armed Forces, serve as the guardians of the Buddhist nation, the dominant race, and Buddhism. When the non-Buddhist communities and minority ethnic groups have resisted the military’s nation-building processes, the generals have opted to consolidate power through the tactic of divide and rule. Simultaneously, the leadership perseveres with its official call for national unity, national consolidation, and peace.27 The strategic and political uses of race and faith by those in power have been well-documented—not least in the previously cited Interim Report of the Riot Inquiry Commission of 1939. On the eve of Burma’s independence in 1946, the slain national hero and former Thakhin nationalist leader, the late U Aung San, publicly accused the last colonial administration of attempting to destabilize the country’s political situation by playing the race card.28 Similarly, Prime Minister U Nu, a close colleague of Aung San, was accused during his election campaign of exploiting the Buddhist majority’s religious sentiment by offering to make Buddhism “the state’s official religion” in 1960.29 By this time, the Burmese military, through its public relations department (or “psychological warfare division”), had also begun to mobilize Buddhist identities by framing Burmese communist challengers as “the Enemy of Buddhism.”30 By the early 1990s, following the global advance of human rights, the most senior Burmese military leadership—Senior General Saw Maung, head of the ruling junta—had actively pursued the manufacturing and propagation of anti-Muslim racism through the government’s Department of Religious Af- fairs, as documented by Reuters’ journalists in their Pulitzer-winning series of investigative articles.31 Before the advent of Facebook and other social media sites, the fear-mongering narrative relating to Muslims—which portrays Muslim men as rapists, abusers of Buddhist women, and economic exploiters of a poor Burmese public—was disseminated through short monographs and carefully planted moles among Buddhist monks, as well as through classic “whisper campaigns.”32 Twenty years after the deaths (under house arrest) of the Muslim cleanser of the armed forces and the initiator of this anti-Muslim propaganda campaign, ex-general Ne Win and his hand-picked successor Senior General Saw Maung, their legacy—a repackaging of the colonial-era Indian Peril as Muslim Peril—has taken root in the popular consciousness. Reverend Wirathu, a young, charismatic monk who hails from the Buddhist heartland of Mandalay, openly made the call for the liquidation of Myanmar’s Muslims. He declared, as early as 2001 and to rousing cheers of his fellow Buddhist monks, his intention to “boycott, ostracize and eventually starve the Muslims of Myanmar.”33 This was ten years before the country’s military-led “transition.” In other words, the spread of anti-Muslim popular hate speech was already in wide circulation long before the military’s media reforms and the arrival of social media on Burmese soil. After the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from her last house arrest in No- vember 2010, military leaders witnessed the continuing popularity of their nemesis, both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, the call for genuine democ- ratization—which included changing the military’s constitution of 2008 that puts the military above the law on all matters it deems to be of concern to “national security”—remained strident and popular throughout the country. At the same time, Rakhine nationalists had mobilized their communities into pressuring the central government of ex-general and President Thein Sein for a more equitable share of revenues from the sale of natural gas and for greater political and administrative autonomy for Rakhine people. Then came the collapse of the 17-year bilateral ceasefire—the only one in writing—between a powerful Kachin Independence Organization/Army and the Burmese military. Notably, the sharp rise in anti-Muslim racism—in the form of hate speech and organized violence against Muslim communities—and the fear-mongering of illegal Bengalis taking over the Western Burmese state of Rakhine took place alongside these parallel developments. Many of Myanmar’s Western-educated professionals, intellectuals, and technocrats proactively spread the perception of Rohingyas as ignorant descendants of illegal Bengalis through both social media sites and Burmese-language services of the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and the Democratic Voice of Burma.34 Using the rhetoric of freedom of speech and press, the military-backed, semi-civilian government of Thein Sein in effect provided blanket impunity against any form of hate speech, however severe and genocidal, against Myan- mar Muslims and Rohingyas.35 Meanwhile, in direct violation of the country’s existing law—which only allows one national Buddhist Order (or Sangha) to prevent discord among different circles of monks and keep the order under one national governing body of monks—Thein Sein’s government allowed the establishment of a new parallel monk organization under the banner of “the Association for the Protection of Race and Faith.”36 In its final months in power, the military’s proxy government passed four “national race and faith protection” laws and touted the passage of these laws as one of its major achievements as it the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham went into the election of 2015.37 The great majority of Buddhists in the Burmese press, human rights circles, intelligentsia, and creative communities were swayed by the revival of anti-Mus- lim sentiment.38 Civil society circles bought into the official view of Rohingyas as “illegal” Bengalis who pose an imminent threat to the Buddhist Nation of indigenous peoples. These civil society groups spread the image of Muslims as a menace and Rohingyas as illegals who could in due course morph into “jihadists,” supposedly receiving funding and other forms of support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and even the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). A case in point is the half-hour Burmese-language interview in July 2017 between Irrawaddy News Group chief-editor Aung Zaw and former Information Minister ex-Colonel Ye Htut where both amplified the official narrative of how Bengalis who do not belong in the Western Myanmar state of Rakhine are fast-becoming potential jihadists.39 National-Securitization of Muslim Lives Today, the everyday activities of Myanmar’s Muslims, from Rakhine State to Mandalay, have been branded as threats to national security. This development has resulted in state intrusion into many aspects of Muslims’ lives, causing varying degrees of symbolic and physical harm. Food donations to Muslims— both in humanitarian and religious/cultural contexts—now come under the purview of Myanmar’s security forces. In the latter part of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year, Myanmar authorities in the central administrative office of the second-largest division—the Mandalay Division—issued a general directive ordering its township and ward administrative branches, including Myanmar Police Force units, to ensure that international philanthropic and humanitarian groups do not distribute any in-kind or food donations intended for consumption during the fasting month to Muslim communities under their local jurisdictions without prior official permit. Even those with official permits can only donate under close supervision by state authorities.40 The message implied by the involvement of Myanmar security forces is that food stuff and other consumer goods for household use donated by groups outside Myanmar The everyday activites of Myanmar’s Muslims, from Rakhine State to Mandalay, have been branded as threats to national security.are a national security concern. Meanwhile, in the western Myanmar state of Northern Rakhine, the World Food Program has reportedly discovered alarming levels of food depriva- tion among Rohingya Muslims, severely affecting upwards of 80,500 children. Human Rights Watch identifies the emergence of extreme malnutrition as the intended outcome of Myanmar authorities, who have locked down large areas where Rohingya reside in response to a few isolated incidents of armed attacks on Myanmar border security posts since October 2016.41 The population has long been forced to exist in abysmal conditions where malnutrition levels have been compared to famine-like situations in sub-Saharan Africa.42 This situa- tion amounts to what Amartya Sen, a leading scholar on famines, calls acts of “institutionalized killings” of the Rohingya on the sole basis of their ethnic and religious identity, as well as their physical presence on the Rakhine Buddhists’ land to which Myanmar officially and popularly claims Rohingya Muslims do not belong.43 The deliberate policies and administrative orders that have blocked humanitarian aid over sustained periods restrict “nutritional opportunities”— in Amartya Sen’s words—for Myanmar Muslims and Rohingya.44 Between the two communities, Myanmar Muslims and Rohingya, the lat- ter are incomparably worse off as the victims of what many believe to be ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and slow genocide. Because these commu- nities are subjected to monitoring, control, and restrictions on life-sustaining food, coupled with denial of access to adequate or even basic medical services, Myanmar may be using food as “a weapon of persecution.” In his article entitled “The Nazis Used It, We Use It: The Return of Famine as a Weapon of War,” Alex de Waal discusses the use of (man-made) famines as a weapon of war to target a specific population, illustrated by the Nazis as well as other Western pow- ers.45 As Gregory Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch and former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars notes, “Since the beginning of genocide studies with Lemkin, Hilberg, Kuper, Charny, Fein, Hovannissian and many others, ‘genocide by attrition,’ including starvation, has been a major concern of genocide scholars.”46 Religiously Motivated Demographic Engineering The Myanmar military has held a 50-year firm grip on what Louis Althusser called “Ideological State Apparatuses” (e.g., education systems, religious institutions, community groups, and information ministries). They have consistently and falsely told the domestic public that there is no such ethnic group as the Rohingya the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham and that they are Muslim interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh who only came to Rakhine as colonial era farm laborers after the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824. Typically, when confronted with the irrefutable primary historical evidence dating back to 1799 and official documentation from the Ministry of Defense validating the Rohingyas’ claim of historical and official belonging to both pre-colonial and post-colonial Myanmar, even the educated class of Burmese—Buddhist clergy, technocrats, journalists, writers, human rights activists, not to mention diplomats and pro-democracy ex-military officers— refuse to accept the truth.47 In the public’s eyes, the growth and presumably continuing inflow of these “illegal” Muslim migrants threatens to replace the dwindling Rakhine Buddhist majority of this Western region of the country. Therefore, they need to be shipped out of the country. Neither the public nor the political and military leaders are keen to restore their full citizenship rights. This state-manufactured myth about Rohingyas as unwanted Bengali migrants, both from the colonial era and contemporaneously, has taken root in the popular Burmese mind. However, the military leaders who have long maintained a tight military and administrative grip on the predominantly Rohingya region of Northern Rakhine know for a fact that there is no inflow of migrants, legal or illegal, from Bangladesh—as clearly stated by the ex-Brigadier Khin Yi, who served as the Minister of Immigration under President Thein Sein (2011–15).48 In his book Our Country’s ‘Western Gate Problem,’ ex-military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt—considered Myanmar’s most powerful military leader while in office—opened his introduction to the book with the patently false assertion that “the pre-colonial Rakhine State of Myanmar had never had any Muslim presence.” He then went on to explicitly link Islam with the wars, violence, and terrorism in the Middle East, insinuating that the presence of Muslim Rohingyas—Bengali in his racist reference—spells deep trouble for Myanmar.49 What is little known beyond the well-publicized periodic waves of violence—both vertical (state-directed acts of violence) and horizontal (locally organized communal violence)—against Rohingyas as members of an ethno- religious group is the demographic engineering in which the military govern- ments have been engaged over decades since Operation Crow (Kyi Gan Sit Hsin Yay) in 1966.50 Since the country’s independence, the Burmese military has viewed western Burma’s Muslim population through a national security lens, as they were the borderlands Muslim community with bicultural ties to both the adjacent East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the western Burmese region of Arakan, or Rakhine. Further, Rohingyas also waged a short-lived armed secession- ist movement, thereby accentuating the military’s security concerns. However, this secessionist revolt was not unique to the Rohingyas. Virtually all ethnic borderlands peoples, including Arakanese Buddhists (now popularly referred to as Rakhine), saddling long and porous borders of Burma—with China, India, Thailand, Laos, and East Pakistan—staged armed revolts against the majority Burmese rule from the center at various points in the post-independence period. But because Rohingyas are the only Muslim community in Burma with their own geographic pocket next to Bangladesh, their record of secessionist attempts continues to inform the military’s policies towards the Rohingya population. According to ex-General Khin Nyunt, the former head of the Directorate of Defense Intelligence Services (military intelligence), the military has two major demographic objectives: first, to double the country’s total population (up to 100 million) because of the country’s geographic position sandwiched between India and China, and second, to radically (read: unnaturally) change the Muslim (Rohingya, ethnic) character of the Northern Rakhine State.51 In pursuit of this two-fold goal, the military has done three things. Firstly, they have turned a blind eye to the fact that ethnic Han Chinese from the neigh- boring Yunnan state of Southern China have entered and settled throughout upper regions of Myanmar. Secondly, they have subjected the population to a “campaign of terror” under the disguise of “immigration checks,” the direct result of which is the drastic reduction of the number of Rohingyas from Rakhine as hundreds of thousands periodically flee western Myanmar for Bangladesh and other refugee-receiving countries amid the instant illegalization of the great majority who choose to remain inside Myanmar. Thirdly, they have established Buddhist settlements where the military and local authorities implement the scheme of state-directed transmigration of Buddhists. The government facilitates the transporting and resettling of different Bud- dhist populations composed of retired Myanmar civil servant families, Myanmar criminal convicts with Buddhist backgrounds, Bangladeshi-born Buddhist Rakhines, and other non-Muslim groups who were settled in the region when the two adjacent regions of East Bengal and Western Burma were joined under the rule of a single monarch.52 Obviously, increasing Myanmar’s population (specifically of non-Muslims) was a strategic goal of the military leaders as early as the 1990s. Several years ago, ex-general Thein Sein’s government granted blanket citizenship status to about 80,000 Han Chinese living in the Eastern Shan state pocket near the Yunnan Chinese border. The government even created a new ethnic category, “Mon Yaung Myanmar,” and announced to the public that the newly minted citizens the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinhamwere to be referred to as such while the military—and now the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi—continued to maintain the official stance that Rohingyas did not belong in Myanmar. It is the religious identity of Rohingyas that ultimately accounts for this sharp contrast in Myanmar’s official treatment of non-Muslim migrants from China or of those from the Sino-Burmese borderlands, and of Rohingyas from the Burmese-Bangladesh borderlands. During the civil war of 1971 between West and East Pakistan (now Ban- gladesh), Pakistani General Tikka Khan (known as the “Butcher of Bengal”) ordered his troops: “I want the land, not the people.”53 What befell “the people,” unwanted on that wanted land of East Pakistan, was left to the local command- ers. In the midst of the two bouts of horizontally organized violence in June and October 2012 during which Rohingya communities bore the overwhelming hu- man costs, a decorated Burmese brigadier general who was stationed in Rakhine told a Burmese author pointedly, “What can we do, brother, they [Rohingyas] are too many? We can’t kill them all.”54 Indeed, Myanmar military leaders, the architects and implementers of this religion-based demographic engineering, know they cannot kill all Rohingyas. But they have resorted to various strate- gies of destruction of Rohingya communities on an ethnoreligious level. The most deplorable human conditions, where life essentials such as food and access to basic medicine are deprived or restricted, are the direct outcome of central policies regarding Rohingyas.55 Indeed, Myanmar’s exceptionally hostile treat- ment of Rohingyas as a group oscillates between acts of ethnic cleansing and slow genocide.56 How can it be otherwise when Rohingyas have been kept like “chickens in a vast cage” awaiting their time of death and destruction, on land or high sea, as a young Rohingya put it in a personal Facebook message to us, after he and a group of Rohingya Internally Displaced People (IDPs) met with the visiting UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee on 12 July? 57 Alas, a century after the perceived Indian threat to colonial Burma’s future—the “Indian Penetra- tion” or “Indian Peril”—stirred the Buddhists’ imagination, post-independence Myanmar is engaged in the act of transference, this time targeting Rohingyas as caged chickens, potential agents of foreign jihadists. A New Muslim-Free Myanmar under the Military-NLD Partnership of Islamophobes The perceptions of threats—real or imagined—to a nation are the raison d’être for military institutions the world over. Based on popular, historical, and official discourses about people of Indian ancestry, Myanmar’s most powerful institution, Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril Fall/Winter 2017 • volume xxiv, issue 1 the military, has framed Rohingyas as “a new threat to national security” since 1966.58 The colonial-era nationalist calls to pass laws protecting Buddhist women from Indian men, who are presumed to be abusive and predatory, have also come to fruition: ex-General Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government enacted four “National Race” laws, strictly controlling proposals for interfaith marriages between Buddhist women and Muslim men. With Communist threats fading into a non-concern at home with the collapse of the longest-existing political party, the Communist Party of Burma, in 1989—the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall—and ethnic groups having jet- tisoned their original aim of independence from the Union of Myanmar, the military indeed needed a common enemy of the Buddhist nation. While the first persecution of Rohingyas began as a state-organized project of national se- curity, leading to a large-scale campaign—which drove out upwards of 270,000 Rohingyas into neighboring Bangladesh in February 1978—the military found it in its strategic interest to involve both the nationalist Rakhines in the region and the Buddhist public at large. This has enabled the military to steer the growing popular discourses of, and demand for, speedy and genuine democratization among the traditionally religious and anti-Muslim electorate. It has forced the NLD party to move away from its push for a constitutional amendment to make Aung San Suu Kyi president and phase out the military’s hold on the parliaments at all levels. The increasingly Islamophobic Buddhist electorate is more concerned about the supposedly imminent threat from potential jihadists than about democracy and human rights: none of which they have ever really tasted in their lives. It has effectively nipped the Rakhine nationalist demand for greater revenue shar- ing from the central government, the offshore lucrative gas and oil industry of the Rakhine coast line, and other multi-billion dollar projects in the Rakhine state. The Rakhine population has become consumed by fear and loathing of Rohingyas, who in their view take Rakhine land and threaten the Rakhine Buddhist way of life. What we call the “double-persecution” of Myanmar’s Muslims and Ro- hingyas has become a powerful unifying issue among the traditionally distrustful social forces in Burmese society: the ruling military, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD, the culturally revered Buddhist Order, and the Burmese intelligentsia and culture industry of movie-makers, artists, and others. They share this “global percep- tion of the rise of Muslim power”—as Aung San Suu Kyi put it in her BBC interview in October 2013—and the attendant fear and loathing of Muslims in and outside Myanmar.59 the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham Aung San Suu Kyi, From Global Icon of Liberal Freedoms to Genocide Denier? At the time of this writing, Aung San Suu Kyi’s spectacular fall from grace has been repeatedly headlined in major news outlets around the world. As 500,000 Rohingyas fled Myanmar into the neighboring Bangladesh in a span of a mere five weeks, her moral and intellectual leadership has crumbled in the eyes of the world community. Following the removal of the Burmese Nobel Laureate’s portrait in the main hall at her old college at Oxford (St. Hugh’s), Oxford City Council and Glasgow City Council have stripped her of the honors they had conferred on her. Though these moves by English and Scottish city councils are symbolic, as BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson put it, “I think it is perfectly natural to look around for ways of saying we disapprove utterly of what you (the past honoree) are doing.”60 Simpson called “extraordinary” Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to denounce or even acknowledge “the crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing” which her government and the military are credibly accused of committing.61 Aung San Suu Kyi typically sprinkles her essays and speeches with canoni- cal Buddhist concepts and passages—such as loving kindness—in her attempt to both explain her political views to the outside world and communicate with her domestic Buddhist electorate. To the dismay of many of her supporters around the world, Aung San Suu Kyi attempted to explain the violence against both Myanmar Muslims and Rohingyas on Britain’s national flagship radio program by excusing her “generally peaceful” fellow Buddhists. She said, “Fear is not just on the side of the Muslims, but the fear is on the side of the Buddhists as well.”62 The Myan- mar Armed Forces today, unlike in the past, can boast of being Muslim-free. As a matter of fact, last year the serving Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief, added the protection of Buddhism and “Buddhist race” to the existing list of the military’s bounden national duties, besides prevention of the “disintegration of the Union of Myanmar,” the maintenance of “territorial integrity,” and “peace and stability” at home.63 With different yet parallel reasons, both Aung San Suu Kyi’s National Aung San Suu Kyi’s spectacular fall from grace has been repeatedly headlined in major news outlets around the world League for Democracy party and the army-backed USDP, its rival, have effec- tively emptied all political institutions of any Muslim citizens—regardless of how many centuries of lineage they have in the country. The Fiction of “ImmigrantRace” or “Guest” as aWeapon againstRohingya Muslims What makes the persecution of Rohingyas—as opposed to the persecution of Myanmar Muslims—stand out as a case of potential state-sponsored genocide is not simply the acts as defined in the Genocide Convention of 1948 (and subsequently Article 6 of the Rome Statute), but also the original conception of a genocide put forth persuasively by Raphael Lemkin. As the noted genocide scholar Daniel Feierstein argues, genocide essentially involves both the destruction of the group’s identity by the perpetrators and the imposition of a new group identity on the victims. In the words of Feierstein, “They [victims] don’t exist. They never existed. They will never exist as who they say they are.”64 Elsewhere we have detailed how the initial concerns of cross-boundary fluid migration of Rohingyas have evolved regressively into a case where the Myan- mar government can be credibly accused of “crimes against humanity,” “ethnic cleansing,” and even a “slow genocide.”65 Against this long post-independence history of the state’s direct involvement with Rohingya affairs, it is misleading to frame the plight of Rohingyas as primarily the outcome of sectarian conflict between them and local Buddhist Rakhines. Rohingyas exist—not live—under human (or inhuman) conditions in the western coastal region, which is ripe with chronic violence; “intentional deprivation” of food and basic medical services; all forms of freedom, including physical movements; forced labor; sexual violence with state impunity; execution; extortions; and false blanket accusations of “terrorism”—and all this is induced by policies made centrally by the successive Burmese military regimes in Rangoon and, since 2006, in Naypyidaw.66 These deplorable conditions on land, coupled with chronic and large scale violence— mostly military-organized and at times communal—have forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas to flee their birthplace and homeland, both on foot across the land border into Bangladesh and by boats to not only Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, but also to places as far-flung as Canada and Australia. Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingyas have long been economically interdependent in eking out a living in one of the poorest states among Myan- mar’s administrative regions. Cross-border trade, retail businesses, transport of goods, fishing, and other trades necessitate the cooperation between these two the brown journal of world affairscommunities—with Rakhine Buddhists controlling state bureaucracies and Rohingya Muslims engaging in primary production, financing, and more.67 Myanmar’s persecution of Rohingyas in the state of Rakhine and the sharp rise, again with the state’s blanket impunity, of hate speech and bouts of orga- nized violence against the general Muslim population throughout Myanmar need to be seen on a continuum of strategic choices pursued by the military leaders out of their own institutional agendas and informed by their personal fear and loathing of Muslims. Aung San Suu Kyi—who was, until recently, seen worldwide as an icon of freedom and human rights in the same league as Gandhi, Mandela, and King—proved capable of cleansing her parliament and government of her fellow country people whose only sin is being Muslim. Since then, Myanmar’s most powerful institution, the Tatmadaw, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government have both been arguably playing the race-and-faith card at the expense of the country’s Muslims and committing systematic and sustained persecution against Rohingyas. Heavily swayed by the military’s manufactured propaganda regarding both scapegoated Muslim communities, the public has come to view the latter as two integral components of a single common threat to the nation. If indeed Buddhist Myanmar is united in this two-fold crime against these populations because of their religious and ethnic identity, then the prospects of Myanmar seeking or finding homegrown solutions—without external interventions—are nonexistent. Given that there is little political will, coherence, or even capacity within the global governing institutions to protect these communities, the future of these two religious and minority groups looks incredibly bleak. Nearly 30 years since the Great Uprisings of 8 August 1988, the majority Buddhist population of Myanmar has not enjoyed genuine freedoms, democracy, or human rights, despite Aung San Suu Kyi playing the respectable façade of the current transition. When the oppressed majority falls prey to the military’s systematic mobilization and partakes in everyday acts of injustice and systemic repression of their fellow countrymen and women such as Muslims and Ro- hingya, they end up undermining their own ultimate struggle for freedom and their collective humanity. This may well prove to be the greatest act of self-harm that the patriotic Burmese are committing against the future of their beloved country. Conclusion As we were completing the final draft of this essay, Myanmar’s Rakhine Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril Fall/Winter 2017 • volume xxiv, issue 1 Commission, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, delivered its Final Report entitled “Towards a Peaceful, Fair and Prosperous Future for the People of Rakhine State” to Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who established the commission.68 Even before the report’s ink dried, the Myanmar military launched a scorched-earth campaign against a large segment of the Rohingya population of Northern Rakhine—those who have not been displaced and caged in the IDP camps.69 The Burmese military has justified this violence by citing the emergence of a group of young Rohingyas who began to fight back against the Burmese military. The military has launched periodic waves of direct killings and destruction of entire village tracts and neighborhoods while portraying the target community of Rohingyas as infested with jihadist ideals and agendas along the lines of the Islamic State.70 In its new public relations campaign, the hybrid Myanmar government—that is, Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian party in partnership with the powerful military—publicly accused the World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian NGOs of supporting Rohingya “terrorists.”71 As proof of their claim, Myanmar offered two pictures of a box of high energy biscuits with WFP packaging, which the military said it found in an abandoned camp reportedly used by young Rohingya militants.72 In fact, the WFP and NGOs have been the ones that have long kept alive a large population of Rohingya, particularly thousands of children, who would otherwise have died of extreme malnutrition. For a government with provable genocidal intent toward Rohingyas, any entity, foreign or local, that attempts to keep the target population alive stands in the way—hence the labels of supporter of terrorism and extremism. All major media networks are reporting that, over a six-day period, the Burmese military slaughtered hundreds of Rohingyas— by Myanmar’s official count 400, although the death toll is expected to be at least four or five times higher than that figure. 73 Meanwhile, the Myanmar government has recently announced its national plan to develop the Northern Rakhine border town of Maung Daw as a multi-billion dollar Special Economic Zone.74 In the Maung Daw township, the military is currently engaged in the genocidal killings of Rohingyas, including the infants, with navy gunboats, ground troops, and gunship helicopters. There have also been reports of titanium and other mineral exploration concessions that Myanmar has made to Chinese companies.75 Alas, today’s killing fields will be turned not into national museums of the slow genocide but into ethnically cleansed sites where only Buddhist generals and local Rakhines will enjoy peace and prosperity as envisaged by Kofi Annan’s Commission. the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham Notes 1. This essay draws on our five consecutive years of research (June 2012–June 2017), including archival works in Burmese and English language discourse analyses; daily-monitoring of hate speech in Burmese language social media sites including Facebook and Twitter; hundreds of interviews and in-depth conver- sations conducted with members of the Muslim and Rohingya communities from within Myanmar and diaspora in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden; and numerous in-depth conversations with inter-faith activists from within Myanmar, including Buddhist monks, Christian leaders, Hindu leaders, Muslim elders, and community organizers concerned about the rise of mass violence and hatred towards Muslims in general and Rohingyas in particular. 2. Riot Inquiry Committee, Interim Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee (Rangoon, Burma: Govern- ment Printing and Stationery, 1939). 3. Personal communications with a young Muslim resident via Facebook Messenger. 4. “US President Obama hails Myanmar’s ‘remarkable journey,’” BBC, November 19, 2012, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20386066. For the official military’s view of democracy, see: Tommy Pauk, “Democracy vs. Discipline,” The Global New Light of Myanmar, January 31, 2016, http://www. globalnewlightofmyanmar.com/discipline-vs-democracy/. 5. See: “Burma: End ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims,” Human Rights Watch, April 22, 2013, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/22/burma-end-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims; “Burma authori- ties accused of ‘ethnic cleansing,’” Channel 4 News, April 22, 2013, https://www.channel4.com/news/ burma-ethnic-cleansing-myanmar-rohingya. 6. For a detailed case study of one of the incidents, see: “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence in Myanmar: Case Study of the Mandalay Riots,” Justice Trust, Policy Report, March 2015, http://www. burmalibrary.org/docs21/Justice_Trust-2015-03-Hidden_Hands-en-to-rev1-red.pdf. 7. In the old Burmese, Kular was a highly respectable reference to people of the Indian sub-continent from which the old feudal Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Burma got the model of kingship and legitimation rites. It has, however, come to be used as a racist slur with a connotation similar to that of the n-word in the United States. See: “Facebook in Myanmar: Amplifying Hate Speech?,” Al Jazeera English, June 14, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/06/facebook-myanmar-rohingya-amplifying-hate- speech-2014612112834290144.html. 8. See: Natalie Brinham, “The conveniently forgotten human rights of the Rohingya,” Forced Migration Review 1, no. 41 (2012): 40–41. 9. The International Crisis Group’s experts typically advances the view that “it is not unusual for countries emerging from authoritarianism to experience inter-communal strife” while dismissing the instrumental role of the Burmese military behind these “communal” conflicts in Myanmar’s case. See: “A Dangerous Resurgence of Communal Violence in Myanmar,” ICG, March 28, 2013, http://blog.crisisgroup.org/ asia/2013/03/28/a-dangerous-resurgence-of-communal-violence-in-myanmar/. 10. “Aung San Suu Kyi tells UN that the term ‘Rohingya’ will be avoided,” Guardian, June 21, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/aung-san-suu-kyi-tells-un-that-the-term-rohingya-will- be-avoided. Also see: Richard C. Paddock, “Aung San Suu Kyi asks U.S. not to use the term ‘Rohingya,’ New York Times, May 6, 2016. 11. See: Gregory Poling, “Separating Fact from Fiction about Myanmar’s Rohingya,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2014, https://www.csis.org/analysis/separating-fact-fiction-about- myanmar%E2%80%99s-rohingya. 12. Royal Declaration of War signed by King Thibaw and His Ministers (original in Burmese), Man- dalay, November 7, 1885; English translation in Yebaw Hla Myo, Pyidaungsu Myanmar Naing Ngan Thamai Wun Sar Choke Sar Tan Mya (Yangon: Official Historical Records of Myanmar State, 1968), 74. 13. For a concise discussion of the Indian migration to the colonial Burma, see: Riot Inquiry Commit- tee, Interim Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee, 14–20. 14. Ibid. In particular, see: Chapter VI, “The Press and Other Political Influences,” 33–48. 15. Maung Shwe Hphi, Malwi and Yogi, (Mandalay: Tha Tun Aung Press, 1931). Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril Fall/Winter 2017 • volume xxiv, issue 1 21 16. Ibid., 22. 17. Ibid., 36. 18. This census data does not include over one million Muslim Rohingyas. See: “Myanmar census data on Muslim population raises doubts,” AA News Agency, July 23, 2016, http://aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/ myanmar-census-data-on-muslim-population-raises-doubts/614078. 19. For the most comprehensive, secularist, and inclusive national vision ever articulated by a Burmese political leader—in Burmese—see: “Aung San’s address (20 January 1946) to Shwedagon Middle Terrace Conference, Rangoon,” in The Collected Speeches of Bogyoke Aung San (Rangoon: Literary House, The Union of Burma Government Press, 1971), 50–51. 20. See: Maung Zarni, “Myanmar’s neo-Nazi Buddhists get free rein,” Asia Times, April 9, 2013, http:// www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-090413.html; “Military Roots of Racism,” Asia Times, September 3, 2013, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-030913.html. Also see: “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence.” 21. Beth Walker, “Anti-Chinese sentiment on rise in Myanmar,” China Dialogue, May 13, 2014, https:// www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6969-Anti-Chinese-sentiment-on-rise-in-Myanmar. 22. In his remarks to the 1982 Citizenship Act Drafting Committee held at his Presidential Residence in Rangoon on October 8, 1982, Chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party and ex-general Ne Win spelled out the three categories of citizenship. Here he introduced to the country who is a “guest” and who is a “host” in terms of the country’s inhabitants. See: “Translation of the speech by General Ne Win provided in The Working People’s Daily (the official English language newspaper of Burma),” October 9, 1982, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs6/Ne_Win%27s_speech_Oct-1982-Citizenship_Law.pdf. Echoing the old racist sentiment propagated by the late despot General Ne Win, Myanmar’s best known racist hate-preachers, such as Sitagu Abbot and Wirathu, continue to promote this ‘guest-host’ view of citizens, portraying all non-Buddhists as “guests.” 23. Andrew R.C. Marshall, “Special Report: Myanmar gives official blessing to anti-Muslim monks,” Reuters, June 27, 2013, http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-969-specialreport-idUS- BRE95Q04720130627. 24. Edith M. Lederer, “China, Russia Veto Myanmar Resolution.” Washington Post, January 14, 2007. 25. Report of the General Secretary, Brig-Gen. San Yu, to the Burma Socialist Program Party, Rangoon, November 1968 (Burmese language). 26. The articulation of this view dominated the state-controlled media outlets following the bloody crackdown of 1988 popular uprisings nationwide. Personal communications and interviews with serving and ex-military personnel from Myanmar Armed Forces conducted in Thailand, Philippines, and in the United States between 2004 and 2009. 27. For an in-depth discussion on the Burmese Armed Forces in terms of their ideological orientation, mode of operations, self-perception, class position in society, etc., see: Maung Zarni, “Myanmar’s Black Hole: Evolution of a Mafia State in Myanmar,” Asia Times, October 16, 2013, http://www.atimes.com/ atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-03-161013.html. 28. “Aung San’s address (20 January 1946) to Shwedagon Middle Terrace Conference, Rangoon,” in The Collected Speeches of Bogyoke Aung San. 29. Donald Eugene Smith, Religion and Politics in Burma (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 237. 30. The Burmese author grew up and lived under the military rule for 25 years. This “communist as anti-Buddhist, Dhamma-less heretics” was part of our everyday vocabulary. 31. Andrew R.C. Marshall, “Special Report: Myanmar gives official blessing to anti-Muslim monks,” Reuters, June 27, 2013, http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-969-specialreport-idUS- BRE95Q04720130627; Andrew Marshall, “Myanmar’s gives official blessing to anti-Muslim monks,” Reuters, June 26, 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-969-specialreport/special-report- myanmar-gives-official-blessing-to-anti-muslim-monks-idUSBRE95Q04720130627. 32. “Whisper campaigns” is the term that the late Colonel San Tha, a former Central Executive Committee member with General Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party regime in 1970s, used to describe how the military intelligence (MI) disseminated misinformation among the Burmese public. The the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham 22 MI continued to rely on the same misinformation campaign in the 1990s before there was any Internet and social media penetration in Myanmar. See Kyaw Yin Hlaing, “Challenging the Authoritarian State Buddhist Monks and Peaceful Protests In Burma,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 32, no. 1 (2008): 125–44, specifically 138. 33. Kate Hodal, “Buddhist monk uses racism and rumours to spread hatred in Burma,“ Guardian, April 18, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/18/buddhist-monk-spreads-hatred-burma. Also on file with the authors is Reverend Wirathu’s full audiotaped sermon during which he publicly called for “starving all Muslims” in Mandalay in 2001. 34. For a typical Burmese language interview on “Rohingyas as illegal Bengali descendants,” see: “In- terview with Dr Yin Yin Nwe of Myanmar Presidential Rakhine Commission,” Voice of American Burmese Service, May 12, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6tIdlb1YmI. [Dr Yin Yin New is the former Head of UNICEF China and a Cambridge-educated geologist. She is also the former daughter-in-law of the late General Ne Win.] 35. Marshall, “Myanmar’s gives official blessing to anti-Muslim monks.” Also see: “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence.” 36. Tin Maung Maung Than, “Sangha Reforms and Renewal of Sasana in Myanmar: Historical Trends and Contemporary Practice,” in Buddhist Trends in Southeast Asia (Social Issues in Southeast Asia), ed. Trevor Ling (Singapore: ISEAS, 1993), 6–63. 37. “Hyper-nationalists celebrate four ‘race and religion’ laws,” Myanmar Times, September 15, 2015, http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/16477-hyper-nationalists-celebrate-four-race- and-religion-laws.html. Thein Sein’s Government released a three-minute Burmese language YouTube clip as part of its election campaigning against Aung San Suu Kyi’s then flagship opposition party of NLD as the 2015 general election approached. 38. The renowned former student leaders caused deep dismay among their international supporters, including human rights organizations, when they began talking about the primacy of “national security” over basic human rights of Rohingyas. Even Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD government was defending the anti-Muslim national race and faith laws at the UN. See “New govt to defend ‘race and religion’ laws at UN meeting,” Myanmar Times, July 6, 2016, http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/21218- new-govt-to-defend-race-and-religion-laws-at-un-meeting.html. 39. See: “Interview with Ye Htut,” Irrawaddy Burmese Edition, July 12, 2017, https://www.facebook. com/theirrawaddyburmese/videos/1683383938372418/. 40. Maung Zarni, “Myanmar to Humanitarian Groups: THOU SHALL NOT FEED THE MUS- LIMS—without Gov. Knowledge & Monitor,” Transcend, July 4, 2017, https://www.transcend.org/ tms/2017/07/myanmar-to-humanitarian-groups-thou-shall-not-feed-the-muslims-without-gov-knowl- edge-monitor/. 41. “Starvation hits Burma’s Rakhine state as food supplies dwindle,” Asia Correspondent, July 9, 2017, https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/07/starvation-hits-burmas-rakhine-state-food-supplies- dwindle/#Y3sfb6ZHRjG36uH6.99. 42. Personal communications with a former UN senior official previously based in Yangon, 2005. 43. “The Slow Genocide of the Rohingya by Amartya Sen,” YouTube, Harvard University, November 4, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugHhAwARb98. 44. Ibid. 45. Alex de Waal, “The Nazis Used It, We Use It: The Return of Famine as a Weapon of War,” The London Review of Books, June 26, 2017, https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n12/alex-de-waal/the-nazis-used-it-we-use-it. 46. Email communications with the authors, July 13, 2017. 47. For the most learned discussion on the issue of respective claims for “indigeneity” made by both Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists, see: Michael Charney, “Arakan or Rakhine in Myanmar since the 14th Century: From Inclusion to Polarisation and Exclusion,” remarks delivered at the Conference on Myanmar’s Democratic Transition and the Persecuted Rohingyas, Oxford University, May 11, 2016, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=1ZNe8WysEqM. Also see: Gregory B. Polling, “Separating Fact from Fiction about Myanmar’s Rohingya,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 13, 2014, https://www. csis.org/analysis/separating-fact-fiction-about-myanmar%E2%80%99s-rohingya. Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril Fall/Winter 2017 • volume xxiv, issue 1 23 48. Interview with ex-Immigration Minister U Khin Yi, Part I, “The Problem of Myanmar’s Western Gate,” Voice of America Burmese Language Service, August 31, 2017, https://burmese.voanews.com/a/ weekly-news-analysis-rakhine-arakan-affairs/4006422.html. 49. Khin Nyunt, Our Country’s Western Gate Problem (Yangon: One Hundred Flowers Literary House, 2016), Introduction. 50. Ibid., 15–19. 51. General Khin Nyunt’s Burmese Language Lecture (marked Top Secret) delivered at the National Defense University Management Course In-take 3/93, on 30 November 1993, in Myat Khaing, Inter- view with ex-General Khin Nyunt (Yangon: Quality Publishing House, 2013), 158. Nyunt, Western Gate Problem, Introduction. 52. Ibid., 38–40. 53. Sonu Patel, “The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971,” Prezi Presentation, March 5, 2012, https://prezi. com/gwtaxlpkhfda/the-indo-pakistani-war-of-1971/. 54. See: Maung Zarni & Alice Cowley, “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya,” Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 23, no. 3 (2014): 684. 55. Ibid. 56. For a brief legal analysis on the subject presented by former staffer with the U.S. State Depart- ment’s Office of the Legal Adviser who also clerked in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), see: Katherine Southwich, “Confronting Genocide in Myanmar,” Policy Forum (of the Asia and Pacific Policy Society), December 2, 2016, https://www. policyforum.net/confronting-genocide-myanmar. 57. Personal communications, July 12, 2017. 58. General Khin Nyunt’s National Defense Lecture, 1993; Nyunt, Our Country’s Western Gate Problem, Introduction. 59. “AUNG SAN SUU KYI ‘ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS NOT ETHNIC CLEANSING,’” BBC, October 24, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNVE_Ch_Q18. 60. “Aung San Suu Kyi stripped off Freedom of Oxford,” BBC, October 3, 2017, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/uk-england-oxfordshire-41481521; Alan Simpson, “Glasgow moves to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of honours,” Herald, October 5, 2017, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15579765.Glasgow_moves_ to_strip_Aung_San_Suu_Kyi_of_honours/. 61. For the detailed analysis of why Aung San Suu Kyi has come to be widely viewed as a genocide denier, see: Mehdi Hasan, “Burmese Nobel Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi Has Turned Into an Apologist for Genocide Against Muslims,” The Intercept, April 13, 2017, https://theintercept.com/2017/04/13/burmese- nobel-prize-winner-aung-san-suu-kyi-has-turned-into-an-apologist-for-genocide-against-muslims/. 62. Ibid. 63. “Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing pledges to help safeguard Buddhism,” Myanmar Times, June 24, 2016 http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/21035-snr-gen-min-aung-hlaing-pledges-to- help-safeguard-buddhism.html. 64. See “Genocide Roundtable,” Conference on the Rohingya, University of Oxford, May 24, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Ww8GLpVUo. 65. Alice Cowley and Maung Zarni, “An Evolution of Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar: From Strategic Embrace to Genocide,” Middle East Institute, American University, April 20, 2017, http://www.mei.edu/ content/evolution-rohingya-persecution-myanmar-strategic-embrace-genocide. 66. “Starvation hits Burma’s Rakhine state as food supplies dwindle,” Asia Correspondent, July 9, 2017, https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/07/starvation-hits-burmas-rakhine-state-food-supplies- dwindle/#Y3sfb6ZHRjG36uH6.99. Myanmar’s attempts at turning its persecution of Rohingyas into an issue of terrorism have gotten some traction within the ASEAN region since 2016. See, for instance: Jasminder Singh and Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani, “The Rohingya Crisis: Regional Security Implications,” Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore, December 2016, https://www.rsis.edu. sg/rsis-publication/icpvtr/co16293-the-rohingya-crisis-regional-security-implications/#.WWkgg4jysSU. 67. Face-to-face interview with a Rakhine-Rohingya researcher and civil society activist, Bangkok, Thailand, October 2016. the brown journal of world affairs Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham 24 68. “Final Report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State,” Rakhine Commission, August 2017, http://www.rakhinecommission.org/. 69. “‘There is genocide going on there’: Rohingya huddle on Bangladesh border,” CNN, September 1, 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/01/asia/rohingya-bangladesh-myanmar-crisis/index.html. 70. C. R. Abrar, “BANGLADESH AND THE ROHINGYA INFLUX: Misframed facts, prejudiced responses,” Daily Star, September 1, 2017, http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/human-rights/misframed- facts-prejudiced-responses-1456924. 71. Oliver Holmes, “Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s office accuses aid workers of helping ‘terrorists’ in Myanmar,” Guardian, August 28, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/28/aung-sang-suu-kyis-office- accuses-aid-workers-of-helping-terrorists-in-myanmar. 72. “Gory Days: An army crackdown sends thousands fleeing in Myanmar,” Economist, August 31, 2017. 73. “Nearly 400 die as Myanmar army steps up crackdown on Rohingya militants,” Reuters, September 1, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/nearly-400-die-as-myanmar-army-steps- up-crackdown-on-rohingya-militants-idUSKCN1BC3T8. Also see “Yanghee Lee, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, reacts to the reports coming out of the country,” Channel 4 News, September 1, 2017, https://www.channel4.com/news/yanghee-lee-aung-san-suu-kyi-needs-to- show-leadership-over-rohingya. 74. Kyaw Min, “Maungdaw, Rakhine Slated for Special Economic Zone,” Myanmar Business Today, August 30, 2017, https://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/maungdaw-rakhine-slated-special-economic-zone. 75. Nyein Nyein and Khin Oo Tha, “Chinese Prospectors Stake a Claim in Arakan State,” Irrawaddy, January 2, 2013, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/chinese-prospectors-stake-a-claim-in-arakan- state.html. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham

By Lev Golinkin One of my big shocks upon arriving in America from Ukraine in the 1980s was learning that the United States had museums to commemorate the Holocaust. We Soviet Jews didn’t meticulously construct exhibits — we walked past Nazi killing grounds on the way to buy groceries. Eastern Europe is crisscrossed with ravines holding bones of the millions who, instead of being deported to concentration camps, were massacred on the spot. Three times cursed are the dead Jews of the old Communist bloc: gunned down outside their towns and villages, ignored and whitewashed by the Soviet Union, and now, their killers glorified by the resurging nationalism of today’s Eastern European governments. Holocaust remembrance posed a threat to the atheist Kremlin dictatorship, which didn’t tolerate unsanctioned monuments, houses of worship or any location that could become a potential focal point for ethnic and religious organization; additionally, acknowledging the ethnic roots of the genocide would invariably draw attention to the Soviet Union’s own anti-Semitism. As a result, the Holocaust sites went unmourned and unmarked. The ravines where oblivious schoolchildren played by day and drunk men sprawled at night taunted Soviet Jews, reminding us of our impotence under Communist rule. “Von tam” (“over there”), Jewish fathers whispered to sons in Russian while discreetly nodding at trash-covered pits such as Babi Yar in Kiev and Drobitsky Yar in my home city of Kharkiv. “Von tam” was a rite of passage, like a bar mitzvah in the land where the rabbis had been sent to the gulags and synagogues were refurbished into Komsomol youth centers. Even after being shamed into confronting its silence by Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s seminal 1961 poem “Babi Yar,” the Kremlin refused to fully acknowledge the Holocaust. Instead of ignoring the dead Jews, Moscow conscripted them into the Soviet mythos of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II was known. Inconspicuous plaques mentioning “Soviet victims of Nazi aggression” were placed at a handful of the larger sites, where they joined the thousands of plaques and memorials on every corner of the Soviet Union. The K.G.B. continued to monitor the ravines for signs of organized prayer, and the Soviet Jews remained consigned to whispers. It was only during the late ’80s, with restrictions loosened by Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost, that the Holocaust began appearing in the Soviet press. On Oct. 4, 1991, two months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a monument to Jewish victims was erected in Kiev. “Today at Babi Yar the Spirits Will Rest,” proclaimed The New York Times’ headline about the opening ceremony. And so they could. For a while. The Nazis did not act alone. The Holocaust, especially in Eastern Europe, was made possible with the aid of local governments and paramilitaries, which rounded up and massacred Jews, sometimes in the service of the Nazis, sometimes on their own volition. Today, these collaborators — groups and individuals responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews — are being glorified and rehabilitated as part of the ultranationalism surging across Eastern Europe. Nationalists seek to rally around men who fought for independence against both Russia and Germany; unfortunately, the World War II-era figures being chosen had expressed their vision for independence by murdering Jews. In 1947, Josef Tiso, a Slovak priest and Nazi collaborator, was hanged for crimes against humanity because of his eager deportation of Slovakia’s Jews. Today, he is celebrated with parades and memorials across Slovakia. Marches commemorating local SS units wind through Baltic capitals. With festivals, marches and street names, Ukraine has been glorifying paramilitaries responsible for slaughtering thousands of Jews. Hungary and Croatia are both whitewashing their World War II-era Nazi collaborationist governments. Lithuania has gone so far as to bring criminal charges against Jewish partisans who fought Nazi collaborators. Today’s Eastern European states are, in their way, following in the Kremlin’s footsteps by recasting Nazi collaborators as “fellow victims” and “freedom fighters,” while whitewashing their anti-Semitism and participation in the Holocaust. Particularly ominous are recent steps taken by some governments, which emulate the Soviets by enforcing the official state narrative using censorship and the threat of imprisonment. In 2015, Ukraine passed laws making it a criminal offense to deny the heroic nature of two World War II paramilitaries. Earlier this month, Kiev made headlines by banning “Stalingrad,” an award-winning book by Antony Beevor, an acclaimed British historian, on account of a single paragraphthat mentions a Ukrainian unit killing Jewish children. Poland’s ruling far-right Law and Justice Party proposed legislation making it illegal to accuse Poles of participating in the Holocaust, and targeted authors and journalists for daring to say otherwise. Once again, the Jews of Eastern Europe may face persecution and censorship for honoring their slain. During the Cold War, with Eastern European Jews incapacitated by Communist dictatorships, the American Jewish community was at the vanguard of Holocaust remembrance. One of the most touching revelations I had in the United States was learning that in 1982, when Babi Yar still had no plaques mentioning the slain Jews, Americans had built a Babi Yar memorial in Denver. Today, however, the American Jewish community — including Jewish lawmakers in Washington — is largely silent about the widespread Holocaust distortion being carried out by Eastern European allies. Breaking that silence is imperative, especially given the current global rise of anti-Semitism and the disturbing correlation between Holocaust revisionism and violence against living Jews. American Jews are already waking up to Holocaust denial on social media and vandalism of Holocaust museums at home. They should not forget to cast their gaze to the Nazi killing fields of Eastern Europe, where old battles are still being waged, and the perpetually inconvenient dead can find no rest. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/holocaust-eastern-europe.html (c) 2018 The New York Times