GERA, Germany (Reuters) - Should former members of the Syrian security forces who have defected from President Bashar al-Assad’s government be prosecuted for war crimes, or should they serve as key witnesses in an effort to bring senior officials to justice? By Joseph Nasr FILE PHOTO: Syrian defendant Anwar Raslan (2nd R), 57, accused of crimes against humanity, in the first trial of its kind to emerge from the Syrian conflict, arrives at court, in Koblenz, Germany June 4, 2020. Thomas Lohnes/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo The question has divided Syrian refugees and exiles who have fled a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and that has been marked by atrocities since it broke out in 2011. In Germany, home to 600,000 Syrian refugees, prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to prosecute crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world to seek justice for victims of alleged torture and extrajudicial killings by Assad’s forces. In the first case to be brought to a German court, the trial opened in April of two former Syrian intelligence officers on charges of torture and sexual assault. The two suspects had defected in 2012 and were granted asylum in Germany. Many of the Syrians now in Germany are asking if the defectors are friends or foes. “The trial in Germany is wrong, strategically and morally. Defectors risked their lives to join the opposition and discredit the regime,” said Fawaz Tello, a veteran Syrian dissident. “Who in their right mind is going to defect now when they see that people who had defected in the first months of the revolution are being put on trial?” The Syrian government has regularly rejected reports of torture and extrajudicial killings documented by international human rights groups. JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS Mahmoud Alabdulah, a former colonel in the Syrian army’s elite 4th Division, is one of hundreds of defectors who have given testimonies to German and French judicial officials collecting evidence of alleged war crimes by the Syrian government during the still-unresolved war. He says a military card identifying his rank is the most valuable item of the few belongings he carried when he left Syria six years ago. The pink, plastic-covered piece of paper has given more credence to testimonies he delivered in France and Germany against the Syrian government, he says. “I saw soldiers being executed for refusing to open fire on protesters and heavy artillery fired toward civilian areas,” said Alabdulah, a 56-year-old father of five, rolling a cigarette in a modest apartment in the eastern German city of Gera where he lives with his wife. “I remember the night I decided to defect: February 13, 2012,” Alabdulah said. “I was praying in my room, lights off, at the Saboura military base (west of Damascus) and I said, ‘God, I don’t want to take part in such crimes, please help me get out of here’.” Campaigners have hailed the process in Germany as a first step toward justice for thousands of Syrians who say they were tortured in government facilities after attempts to establish an international tribunal for Syria failed. “No one has the right to tell victims they should not seek justice,” said Anwar al-Bunni of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) which is representing victims in the torture trial. “Ignoring suspected war criminals is equivalent to white-washing the Assad regime.” The main defendant in the trial, Anwar R., is charged with 58 murders in a Damascus prison where prosecutors say at least 4,000 opposition activists were tortured in 2011 and 2012. He has denied all the charges. He was an intelligence colonel in Assad’s security apparatus but defected in 2012 to Turkey, where he became active in the opposition Free Syrian Army. He came to Germany in 2014 and was granted asylum. The dissident Tello said Anwar R. was a member of an opposition delegation at U.N.-sponsored talks in Geneva six years ago aimed at ending the conflict, which makes his trial a “humiliation” for opposition groups marred by infighting. Former army colonel Alabdulah questioned whether it was realistic for everyone who committed a crime to face justice. Asked if he feared charges could be filed against him, Alabdulah told Reuters his conscience was clear. He fought against Assad’s forces and Islamic State militants before he fled to Turkey, he said. “We are not even close to winning the war. Even if we did, there should be some kind of a general amnesty,” he said. “The Assad family and its most loyal lieutenants should be tried.” (Story refiles to correct spelling of Assad’s name in lead) Editing by Angus MacSwan © 2020 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.

President Iván Duque announced Monday that the Venezuelan migrants who fled an economic collapse at home can legally stay in Colombia for 10 years if they register with the authorities. By Julie Turkewitz BOGOTÁ, Colombia — President Iván Duque of Colombia announced Monday that his government will provide temporary legal status to the more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants who have fled to Colombia in recent years, a far-reaching move that will allow the migrants to work legally and establish lives out of the shadows. The decision was hailed by the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency, Filippo Grandi, as “historic” and “the most important humanitarian gesture” in the region in decades. The decision will allow Venezuelan migrants who register with the Colombian government to stay in the country for 10 years. More than half the 1.7 million Venezuelans in the country do not currently have legal status. Under the new measure, those who entered Colombia without permission before Jan. 31 are eligible for legalization. And those who already have legal status will now be free, for at least a decade, from having to reapply for permission to stay. Venezuela, run by a socialist-inspired government for the last two decades, has been in crisis since 2014, prompting a collapse that economists have called the worst in decades outside of war . As food, gasoline and medicine have disappeared, and as the government of President Nicolás Maduro has becoming increasingly repressive, about 5.4 million people have left the country, leading to one of the largest migration crises in the world. About a third of Venezuelan migrants landed in neighboring Colombia. In a speech on Monday, Mr. Duque, a conservative whose government is closely aligned with the United States, characterized his decision in both humanitarian and practical terms. He urged listeners to have compassion for migrants around the world. “Migration crises are by definition humanitarian crises,” he said. But he also stressed that the move would aid the government in doing its job, by helping officials identify people in need, and by helping them track down anyone who violates the law. “We have close to a million migrants who are in our country whose names we don’t know,” Mr. Duque said, adding: “We don’t know where they are, how old they are, what their socioeconomic condition is. And that is a bad situation. It’s a bad situation because it doesn’t allow us to have a clear social policy. It’s a bad situation because it doesn’t allow us to have a clear security policy.” The arrival of the nearly two million Venezuelan migrants in a country of 50 million has stretched budgets and angered some Colombians, who view the newcomers as competition for jobs and other services. Mr. Duque’s announcement Monday is likely to exacerbate some of that anger. In his speech, he reiterated a call for more global aid to help Colombia deal with the humanitarian crisis, which the Brookings Institution has called one of the most underfunded in modern history. On Monday, Yohany Gonzalez, 46, a Venezuelan immigrant originally from Caracas, called the new Colombia policy “the best thing that could have happened to me.” Ms. Gonzalez crossed into Colombia on foot three years ago, with two of her children and a grandchild, and has not been able to find work because she has no legal status, she said. She spends her time in the street, trying to sell trash bags and candies. “I don’t want to continue in the street, begging,” she said. “I want a real job.” Sofía Villamil contributed reporting. © The New York Times 2021

By Julie Turkewitz BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The testimony is searing. “They tied me to a tree,” said one victim of Colombia’s guerrillas. “They put us in a cage,” said another. “I was kidnapped for four years.” “Until then, I had not heard of ‘mass graves,’” said a victim of the military. “Finally I understand that those in charge of protecting civilians killed thousands of Colombians.” After decades of civil war, Colombia has created a historic postwar court designed to reveal the facts of a conflict that defined the nation for generations, morphing into the longest-running war in the Americas. Thousands have testified. Wide-ranging investigations are underway. The first indictments were issued in January — and the first pleas are expected in April. Perpetrators will be punished, with those who admit responsibility receiving lesser, “restorative” sentences, like house arrest or remaining free while doing hard physical labor. Those who refuse to do so will face trial, and the possibility of decades in prison. The goal of the court, which began its work in 2018, is to give the country a common narrative about the conflict, one that will allow Colombians to move forward, together. The success of the court, called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace , could help change the trajectory of a nation that has been at war for much of its history, with one conflict rolling almost immediately into the next. Its failure could mean the repetition of that cycle. “We have a window — a generational opportunity — to leave behind the insane violence we have lived in all our lives,” said Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate who was kidnapped and held by guerrillas, sometimes in chains, for more than six years. “I would like us to be able to open that window and let the light in.” Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate, during her captivity in a FARC jungle encampment. ( Colombian Government, via Associated Press) Colombia’s most recent conflicts date to the 1960s, when a leftist rebel group called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, launched an insurgency meant to remake a sharply unequal society. The war grew into a complex battle among left-wing guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries, the military, drug cartels and the United States, which supplied and advised the military. For years, everyday life was marked by bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. At least 220,000 people died and more than five million were displaced. The war ended in 2016, when the FARC and the government signed a peace deal that included the creation of the postwar court. But if the goal of the court is to dig up buried truths, it is clear that this search is also exhuming and exacerbating longstanding divisions — and that the road to a common narrative, if one can be found, will be lined with conflict. Some see the court as their best chance to find answers about lost loved ones, and the country’s best hope for peace; others are angered that assassins and kidnappers will not receive prison sentences; still others simply dismiss the court’s findings, saying the institution is biased in favor of the former guerrillas. Eduardo Cifuentes, the president of Colombia’s post-war court. “The essential task,” of the court, he said, “is to ensure that there is peace without impunity.” ( Federico Rios for The New York Times) The court’s most prominent critic is former President Álvaro Uribe, who presided over some of the final years of the war, and who remains the country’s most divisive and influential political figure. A recent report by the court implicates the military in more than 6,400 civilian deaths from 2002 to 2008, during his presidency. Mr. Uribe responded to the report by calling it an “attack” with “only one purpose,” “to discredit me personally.” The court is held in an imposing black building on a main avenue in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. Some testimony is public, and has been streamed on social media or released in public documents , offering a window into decades of suffering. To protect participants’ safety, much of it takes place behind closed doors. So far, the court’s findings have been explosive, revealing victim counts far higher than previously confirmed and hard-hitting accusations that many skeptics did not expect. In January, magistrates issued their first indictment , accusing eight top FARC leaders of orchestrating a kidnapping-for-ransom operation that lasted decades and resulted in more than 20,000 victims, many of them civilians, some of whom were raped or murdered. The kidnappings were used to fund the insurgency, said the court, and amounts to crimes against humanity. The accused former FARC leaders have indicated that they will admit guilt. If they do, they will receive non-prison sentences, which could include up to eight years digging up old land mines or tracking down bodies. If they don’t admit guilt, they’ll face a trial and the possibility of decades behind bars. They have until late April to reply to the court. “We are assuming collective responsibility,” said Julián Gallo, who is among the indicted leaders, in an interview. “These were practices that in some form delegitimized our fight,” he went on. “What we have asked for is forgiveness.” Julián Gallo, a former FARC commander, is among those accused of orchestrating a kidnapping-for-ransom operation that lasted decades. ( Federico Rios for The New York Times) Some see the charges and the defendants’ response as signs that the court’s decisions will be taken seriously, enabling it to establish that common narrative. Héctor Angulo’s parents, a metalworker and housewife, were kidnapped by the FARC on April 19, 2000. He sold his home and paid a ransom for their release, but the guerrillas never returned his parents. He has spent two decades searching for their bodies, he said. He’s not sure he can ever forgive, he said, “because the pain one feels for a family member is irreparable.” But he supports the court’s work, he added, because “it’s what we have.” Héctor Angulo’s parents were kidnapped by the FARC in 2000 and are presumed dead. ( Federico Rios for The New York Times) Ximena Ochoa opposes the court. Her mother was kidnapped by the rebels on Dec. 16, 1990, held for four terrible months and released after her family paid a hefty ransom. She believes that the court is a distraction designed to gloss over the FARC’s unresolved crimes. The guerrillas, for example, have yet to hand over much of their war chest. The court, she said, will allow the former rebels to admit to some things, an effort to placate the international community by claiming that justice has been served in Colombia. “This whole transitional justice thing is a hoax,” she said. Of the FARC, she added: “They are never going to tell the whole truth.” Ximena Ochoa, whose mother was kidnapped by the rebels, believes that the court is a distraction designed to gloss over the FARC’s unresolved crimes. ( Federico Rios for The New York Times) Two of the rebel leaders accused of crimes against humanity are sitting senators, including Mr. Gallo — the result of a provision in the peace deal that transformed the FARC into a political party and gave it 10 seats in the 280-person legislature. Some victims are calling on the indicted senators to step down. Others, including Ms. Betancourt, believe they should be allowed to stay. “It’s very important that we say to Colombia that we are building a democracy that is mature enough to listen to the political voice of people who committed crimes,” but then “accepted and signed the peace accord,” she said. In February, magistrates turned their attention to the crimes of the military, issuing the scathing report that implicated officials in the intentional killing of at least 6,402 civilians when Mr. Uribe was in office. The killings were part of a previously revealed strategy in which Colombian soldiers or their allies lured civilians from their homes with the promise of jobs, and then killed them and tried to pass off their deaths as combatant kills. Many of the victims were poor, some were mentally disabled. The idea was to show that the government was winning the war. A FARC encampment in the Colombian mountains in 2016. ( Federico Rios for The New York Times) In Colombia, the scandal is among the most-discussed aspects of the conflict, and victims have become known as “false positives.” A previous report from the country’s top prosecutor had put the number of victims at 2,248. The court’s new number is nearly three times as high, and implies that a significant percentage of combat kills in that era were actually civilian murders. The association of retired military generals responded to the court’s announcement by calling the numbers “inflated,” and an attempt to “delegitimize the commendable work” of the military. Magistrates are expected to begin announcing indictments in that scandal later this year. Mr. Uribe, who has repeatedly said he did he everything he could to stop the killings, is exempt from the court as a former president. During one of the court’s public hearings , Jacqueline Castillo described how her brother Jaime, a civilian, disappeared one day in August of 2008, and reappeared days later in a mass grave far from home, identified by the military as a rebel killed in combat. She went to the grave, she said, and watched as men pulled her brother from the earth. Before, she had idolized the Colombian military. “They were my heroes,” she said, pressing her palm to her heart. “Now they make me sad.” Sofía Villamil contributed reporting. © 2021 The New York Times Company

Youths were present, the defense minister said, calling them “machines of war,” but he would not give the ages of the dead. Reports that minors were killed outraged a war-weary public. By Julie Turkewitz BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombia’s defense minister said Wednesday that several young people were at a rebel camp recently attacked by the military, but would not confirm reports that children were among those killed, an allegation that fueled deep outrage in a nation reeling from decades of war. In an interview on W Radio, the minister, Diego Molano, said that “young combatants,” who had been recruited and transformed into “machines of war” by criminal actors, were present at a military operation meant to target a violent armed group. But he declined repeatedly to reveal the ages of the dead, amid reports from local officials and news outlets that one or more of those killed were minors, including a 9-year-old girl. In the interview, Mr. Molano called that information “illegitimate” and part of a “political war to give information that sought to delegitimize our military.” On the program, the host read out the names of those reported dead in local news reports. The accusations instantly resonated in a nation scarred by decades of brutal internal war involving the U.S.-backed government, left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and powerful drug cartels — fighting that frequently included child combatants and claimed many civilian casualties. Today, the country is divided over a 2016 peace deal that sought to put an end to that era, but has had only limited success. On Wednesday morning, the Colombian military announced it had killed 12 people in a military operation that targeted the “criminal structure” of an armed group run by Miguel Botache, known by the alias Gentil Duarte, a former member of Colombia’s largest rebel group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The FARC signed a peace deal with the government in 2016 , officially ending the war between the two sides. But some rebels, including Mr. Duarte, abandoned the peace deal and returned to arms. As the FARC has pulled out of vast swaths of territory, other violent groups have moved in, turning many communities into battlegrounds between the military, old and new rebel groups, and paramilitaries. For many in Colombia, the war has not ended. President Iván Duque has been the subject of growing criticism that he is not doing enough to stop the violence. In late 2019, his former defense minister, Guillermo Botero, left his position after failing to disclose that several children died during a military raid on a criminal group. In the radio interview, Mr. Molano said that the most recent operation, which took place on March 2 in the department of Guaviare, fell within the bounds of international law. He blamed the leaders of armed groups for the deaths. “We’re not talking about young people who didn’t know what they were doing,” he said of those who join such groups. “Who is responsible for the recruitment, for converting them into machines of war?” he added. “It’s those organizations, not the national army.” Those comments drew immediate criticism from several sectors of Colombian society, who said that young people recruited by armed groups should be treated as victims, not perpetrators. The country has been consumed for decades in a conversation about how to deal with child recruitment. “They are not combatants but victims of war,” wrote Diego Cancino , a councilman in Bogotá, the capital, on Twitter. “Minister Diego Molano, you can’t justify the unjustifiable.” Sofía Villamil contributed reporting. © The New York Times 2021

By Julie Turkewitz Venezuelans near the Arauca River, the border between Venezuela and Colombia, after crossing by boat into Arauquita, Colombia. Fernando Vergara/Associated Press April 2, 2021 BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Venezuela is waging its most concerted military campaign in years, targeting what it says is a criminal group operating within its border near Colombia but also sending an estimated 5,000 of its own civilians fleeing into the neighboring country. The assault — which began with several days of airstrikes that security experts described as Venezuela’s largest use of firepower in decades — represents a significant departure from the largely hands-off approach it has long employed toward the illicit organizations that flourish along its border. For years, officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government have tolerated and sometimes even cooperated with these armed groups, many of them with roots in Colombia, as they moved drugs and other contraband between nations. Now it has lashed out at one of them, though the reasons remain murky. Mr. Maduro has claimed in recent days that the attack reflects his government’s policy of “zero tolerance toward irregular Colombian armed groups.” Analysts cast skepticism on the official explanation. “We’ve never seen something like this on this scale,” Kyle Johnson, founder of Conflict Responses, a Bogotá-based nonprofit focused on security issues, said of the fighting. The military campaign began on March 21 in Apure, one of the country’s poorest states, and has led to the deaths of at least nine people whom the Venezuelan government considers to be guerrillas and two of its own personnel, the defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, said. Several Colombian rebel groups have operated in Venezuelan territory in recent years, including dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia who have refused to lay down their weapons following a 2016 peace deal. The Venezuelan assault, centered around La Victoria, a town of about 10,000, has been aimed at a faction of FARC dissidents known as the Tenth Front, according to local residents, leading security experts to suggest that they may have broken unwritten rules laid out by the Maduro government or its allies. A Venezuelan killed in the campaign was buried last week in Arauquita, Colombia. Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters The airstrikes that kicked off the campaign have been followed by ground fighting between the Venezuelan military and the Tenth Front that “has escalated every day,” said Juan Francisco García of the Venezuelan human rights group Fundaredes, which has an extensive communication network in the region. He described “a civilian population trapped between warring groups.” In interviews, witnesses in and around La Victoria described waking up on March 21 to the rumble of government trucks passing through town, followed by the roar of low-flying planes. “It was still dark when I began to hear the trucks,” said Miguel Antonio Villegas, 66, the chief spokesman for the community council in La Victoria, who saw the military convoy through his window. Soon, he said, “the bombs began.” As the villagers awoke, Mr. Villegas said, they gathered outside and saw explosions just to the east. In the following days, Mr. Villegas said, bombing continued in the area near La Victoria, and soldiers began to pour into town, interrogating civilians and entering their homes, accusing them of collaborating with the guerrillas. The FARC dissidents apparently responded. Two days after Venezuela’s military campaign began, a bomb exploded at the tax office and the town lost power in an attack that Fundaredes attributed to the FARC group . Colombian troops at the border with Venezuela. Fernando Vergara/Associated Press By the next day, bombing from government planes was so close to La Victoria that “even the floor moved,” said Mr. Villegas. Terrified, he stuffed a backpack with belongings and fled with two family members to the bank of the narrow river that separates La Victoria from the Colombian town of Arauquita. The bank was packed with neighbors who were also fleeing, said Mr. Villegas, who used a small boat to cross over to Colombia, where he and his family remain. The military has since stepped up its presence in La Victoria, according to a civilian witness who asked not to be named, fearing retribution from Venezuelan security forces. The man, the owner of a small market, described soldiers rounding villagers up, demanding identification, pinning them against walls and pointing weapons at them. In one instance, he said, a resident was forced to kneel and was then beaten and detained. One man who spoke with a Human Rights Watch researcher said that four members of his family — his mother, father, brother and uncle — had been killed by Venezuelan security forces, which accused the family of being guerrillas, the group said. At least 11 civilians, said the researcher, had been detained by Venezuelan security forces. Venezuelan migrants inside a coliseum where a temporary camp has been set up in Arauquita, Colombia. Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters The Venezuelan government has assigned two prosecutors to investigate accusations of human rights abuses, the country’s attorney general, Tarek Saab, said . But the government has also sought to limit news coverage of the military campaign, according to Fundaredes. On Wednesday in La Victoria, the Venezuelan authorities detained two journalists with the Venezuelan channel NTN24 and two human rights activists with Fundaredes who had been trying to document the crisis. They were kept for a day before being released, according to family members and friends. Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch, called abuses documented by her organization as “a case study in the atrocities that the regime has been carrying out, and continues to carry out, with impunity.” She continued: “This should be a wake-up call for the International Criminal Court, which has the duty and the power to criminally investigate those who are ultimately responsible for the most heinous international crimes.” Isayen Herrera contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela. © Copyright The New York Times

Les autorités tentent de combattre les discours de haine et les fausses nouvelles relayés sur les médias et les réseaux sociaux. By Jean Fernand Koena Publié par Deutsche Welle le 14 décembre 2020. United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic - Pacome Pabamdji (AFP/Getty Images) Comme partout ailleurs, les réseaux sociaux influencent les débats en République centrafricaine en colportant des informations pas toujours vérifiées. Le problème toutefois est que les médias traditionnels sont eux aussi accusés de manipuler l'information. C'est une préoccupation majeure pour les Centrafricains rencontrés dans les rues de Bangui. "Un média c'est comme un arbitre, il doit être neutre en cette période. Le rôle des médias n'est pas de s'aligner derrière des partis politiques" , estime un habitant. Un autre appelle les décideurs à "surveiller de près" les médias qui propagent des discours de haine. "Je ne pourrais pas dire le nom de ces médias mais ce que je veux dire c'est arrêtons les injures et espérons que les élections se passent bien." Yé Fanda, une initiative de blogueurs contre les infox Face aux fausses nouvelles qui circulent sur internet, l'association des blogueurs est en train de créer un site de vérification. " Nous allons lancer un site internet dénommé Yé Fanda : en sango cela veut dire preuve" , explique Rosmond Zokoué, un de ses initiateurs. "La désinformation passe généralement à travers les médias et il y a des gens derrière ça. Une partie de notre travail consistera à apporter des démentis par rapport à ces fausses informations." Certains médias considérés comme favorables à la Russie, comme la radio L'engo Songo et le quotidien Ndjoni Sango, mais aussi les médias d'Etat, tiennent des propos violents contre les membres de l'opposition. Campagnes de diffamation contre des candidats Des appels ont ainsi été lancés au mois de septembre pour une marche contre Anicet Georges Dologuélé. François Bozizé et plusieurs autres ténors de l'opposition se plaignent aussi de ce qu'ils considèrent comme une campagne conduite contre eux sans droit de réponse. Face à cela, le Haut conseil de la communication a pris la décision d'interdire deux émissions : le Club de la presse et le Grand rendez-vous sur la radio nationale à qui il est reproché de relayer des propos violents. "Nous avons estimé nécessaire de mettre un accent sur la question d'impartialité et d'équité" , déclare José Richard Pouambi, président du Haut conseil de la communication. "Pour nous, ce sont des règles d'or en journalisme et les journalistes doivent faire montre d'impartialité." Ces campagnes de diffamation sur les ondes et dans les journaux ont provoqué un durcissement de ton des leaders politiques qui ont ignoré l'offre de l'ONU et l'Union Africaine de signer un code de bonne conduite pour ces élections générales. © 2020 Deutsche Welle

By Jeff Seldin WASHINGTON - The Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan – seemingly pushed to the brink last year following unrelenting pressure from the U.S. and Afghan militaries, and by multiple Taliban offenses – appears to have recovered and may soon look to strike further afield, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. The turnaround for IS-Khorasan, as the group’s Afghan affiliate is known, contrasts with its waning fortunes just over a year ago, when U.S. officials estimated it had lost “up to half its force” while suffering a string of defeats in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. Stripped of its key territories, U.S. intelligence estimates at the time suggested IS-Khorasan was down to as few as 1,000 fighters. So too, there were growing questions about its offensive capabilities. But more recent intelligence suggests the bleeding has, at least stopped. “New leadership allowed it to stabilize and increase localized and lone wolf attacks throughout the second half of the year [2020],” U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who oversees U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told a virtual forum Monday. And while there are doubts about whether IS-Khorasan will again be able to hold territory as it once did, the group is showing few signs of slowing down in 2021. “The group maintains a steady operational tempo and probably retains the ability to conduct attacks in Kabul and other urban centers,” a U.S. official told VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the latest intelligence assessment. And though most of the attacks have been focused on areas in which IS-Khorasan has historically had a presence, the group’s leadership has not given up on some of its grander ambitions. “We are concerned about the group’s demonstrated interest in conducting external operations,” the official said, noting IS-Khorasan is still “of the largest and most lethal branches of ISIS’s global network and maintain a direct relationship with ISIS leaders in Iraq and Syria.” The U.S. and other intelligence agencies have also seen signs of the terror group’s ability to persist in parts of Afghanistan it once called home. “Despite its significant loss of territory, ISIL-K has not been entirely eradicated from the districts of Manogay, in Kunar, and Achin, in Nangarhar,” according to a new United Nations report, referring to the group by one of its many acronyms. “Sleeper cells are active in other parts of the country, particularly in Kabul,” the U.N. report added, noting that is where new IS-Khorasan leader Shahab al-Muhajir, also known as Sanaullah, is based. Estimates from global intelligence services now put the number of IS-Khorasan fighters at between 1,000 and 2,500. While not the 5,000 fighters it once boasted, it has been enough for the group to carry out a series of high-profile attacks, including the 20-hour-long assault on a prison in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad this past August, which killed at least 29 people as well as November’s attack on Kabul University, which killed at least 19. In all, the recent U.N. report concluded IS-Khorasan has been responsible for the deaths of some 600 civilians and about 2,500 Afghan security forces over the past 12 months. Some analysts caution there could be more to come, warning it would be a mistake to write-off IS-Khorasan despite the real and significant setbacks over the past year or so. “This is indeed part of the ebb and flow of the jihad,” said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warning that as long as IS-Khorasan is able to generate publicity with deadly attacks, it has a chance to rebuild. “ISKP appeals to the most radical elements of the jihadists, and its penchant for extreme violence without concern for civilian casualties attracts a significant number of followers,” Roggio said, using another acronym for the IS affiliate. “They are able to replenish some losses from disaffected Afghan and Pakistani Taliban members, as well of from the pool of radicals in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. Some intelligence services of U.N. member states also suspect IS-Khorasan is getting help from an unusual source -- the Haqqani Network, which maintains ties with both the Taliban and IS rival al-Qaida. One intelligence service told the U.N. that the new IS-Khorasan leader, al-Muhajir, was once a mid-level Haqqani commander and has maintained close ties with his former associates. Those ties have paid off, the service said, with the Haqqanis providing IS-Khorasan “key expertise and access to networks” as it sought to recover from losses in its former Afghan strongholds. © Voice of America 2021

By Ihsaan Haffejee Violence against foreigners has flared up again in parts of South Africa. Earlier this month, immigrants' homes and businesses were looted and torched in suburbs of Johannesburg and Pretoria, the capital city, raising concerns about anti-foreigner sentiment in the country. The latest attacks follow previous bouts of xenophobic violence in 2008 and 2015 which resulted in the deaths of foreign nationals and the displacement of hundreds of migrants who were too afraid to continue living in the new communities they now called home. With the end of apartheid and the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa opened itself up to the world. A steady stream of migrants from around Africa made their way south in search of safety and better opportunities, in what was once the continent's fastest-growing and largest economy. But nowadays, with the economy static and youth unemployment rising, some locals are accusing foreigners of stealing jobs and of being involved in criminal activities, such as drug peddling and prostitution. Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise with community leaders and some in government echoing the dangerous rhetoric heard in parts of Europe and the United States. On Friday, authorities gave permission to a group of people to hold an anti-immigrant rally in Pretoria. The march descended into violence when some protesters attempted to storm into a suburb of Pretoria West, which is home to a predominantly migrant community. The migrants in the area mobilised and vowed to fight back as a large contingent of riot police had to be deployed to avoid large-scale violence between the two groups. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Al Jazeera News

By Ida Sawyer On the night of March 18-19, 2015, security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo secretly dug a mass grave on the edge of a cemetery near the capital, Kinshasa, and dumped several hundred bodies inside. The next day, local residents of the municipality, Maluku, reported the stench of dead bodies and the soldiers and mysterious truck they had seen in the middle of the night. Mass gravesite on the edge of the Fula-Fula cemetery in Maluku, on the outskirts of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where government officials say 421 bodies were buried during the early morning hours of March 19, 2015. © 2015 Human Rights Watch Congolese government officials soon publicly admitted that 421 bodies had indeed been interred at the site that night, but said it was a “normal procedure” and that the bodies included relatives of poor families who could not afford burial, unidentified bodies, and stillborn babies. Local Red Cross officials and employees at Kinshasa’s hospitals and morgues, who are usually involved in such burials, strongly contested that claim. Many Kinshasa residents were outraged. Members of parliament demanded answers about who was buried in Maluku and why security forces buried them in the dark of night. Threats against a resident who had witnessed the burial, and the suspicious death of Claude Kakese, a nurse who had been in charge of one of Kinshasa’s morgues, heightened tensions. Many family members of victims who had been summarily executed or forcibly disappeared by Congo’s security forces during protests in January 2015, and in “Operation Likofi,” an earlier police operation against gang crime, immediately suspected that their loved ones were among those buried in Maluku. In both operations, security forces took away the bodies of some of those killed and never returned them to their families for burial. On June 5, the families of 34 victims filed a public complaint with Congo’s national prosecutor demanding justice and the exhumation of the Maluku mass grave. Congo’s justice and interior ministers said that if there were any doubts about who was buried at the site, the bodies would be exhumed. Yet despite numerous calls from members of parliament, rights groups, the United Nations, the European Union, and others, no decision was made to open up the grave. The edge of the Fula-Fula cemetery in Maluku, on the outskirts of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where government officials say 421 bodies were buried during the early morning hours of March 19, 2015. © 2015 Human Rights Watch A security force officer later told Human Rights Watch that members of the Republican Guard presidential security were involved in the burial, and that the bodies included victims killed during Operation Likofi and the January 2015 demonstrations. He said that the nurse, Kakese, had become an “inconvenient witness,” and that a Republican Guard sergeant had received the order to execute him. “I refuse to accept that [my son might be buried in the Maluku mass grave], because I still have hope to find my child one day,” the mother of Dane, who was taken away by the police during Operation Likofi, told us this week. “But to know for sure, the authorities need to order an exhumation of the bodies and carry out DNA.” Crispin, a member of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) political party, was arrested during a demonstration on January 19, 2015, and taken to an unknown destination. More than two years later, his older brother still doesn’t know whether Crispin is alive. “The authorities must at least exhume the bodies buried in the Maluku mass grave so we would know whether our brother was buried there or not,” his older brother told us. “And if he’s alive, they should tell us where he is.” Families of others killed by security forces more recently have also had trouble organizing burials, including for victims of the September and December 2016 repression. Fortunat was killed in Kinshasa on September 19 by men in Congolese army uniforms. The Red Cross took his body to a hospital morgue, but it later disappeared. “Fortunat’s mother sometimes passes out because the body of her son was never found,” Fortunat’s uncle told us. “How can soldiers kill someone and then deprive his family of seeing his body or organizing a funeral?” Congolese authorities should give victims’ families the answers and the justice they deserve. The authorities, with the help of international forensics experts, should exhume the dead in Maluku and reveal their identities. Then they can bring those responsible for summary executions and enforced disappearances to justice. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

By Ida Sawyer The leader of the Mai Mai Sheka militia group, Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, campaigns for a seat in parliament ahead of the November 2011 national elections, despite being sought on a Congolese arrest warrant for crimes against humanity, including sexual violence. Walikale, North Kivu, November 24, 2011. © 2011 AFP/File A militia leader, Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, who has been implicated in numerous atrocities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, surrendered today to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo. In January 2011, Congolese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sheka for crimes against humanity of mass rape. However, he remained at large for more than six years as his armed group, known as the Nduma Defense of Congo, continued to commit grave crimes. It is unclear what prompted his surrender. According to the United Nations, between July 30 and August 2, 2010, Sheka’s militia and two other armed groups raped at least 387 women, men, girls, and boys in 13 villages along the Kibua to Mpofi road in eastern Congo’s Walikale territory. Since the warrant was issued, Human Rights Watch has documented further crimes. Sheka’s forces killed at least 70 civilians, many of whom were hacked to death by machete. In some cases, Sheka’s fighters mutilated the bodies of those killed and later paraded the body parts around town, while chanting ethnic slurs. Sheka’s forces have also continued to rape women and girls and forcibly recruited scores of young men and boys into their ranks. Congolese judicial officials, with the support of UN peacekeepers, attempted to arrest Sheka as early as July 2011, but he escaped, allegedly tipped off by authorities. Four months later, Sheka openly ran for public office in eastern Congo and police made no efforts to arrest him as he held public campaign rallies. Since then, government and UN officials met with Sheka on three occasions, encouraging him to surrender but making no efforts to arrest him. Human Rights Watch found that some Congolese army officers, Rwandan officials and other armed groups, including the M23, provided financial and logistical support to Sheka’s armed group. There is a serious risk that some of Sheka’s former collaborators will want to silence him. Sheka’s chief of staff died under mysterious circumstances in prison following his arrest in 2011. Altogether, four armed group commanders and four army deserters have been sought on arrest warrants for their alleged involvement in the Walikale mass rape. Thousands of civilians in eastern Congo have been harmed by crimes committed by troops under Sheka’s command, and many still fear future attacks. His surrender brings hope for justice and a possible reprieve from the violence. Congolese authorities, with support from the UN, should ensure Sheka’s safety in detention and promptly bring him to justice in a fair trial before an independent, impartial and credible court. Authorities should also strengthen their efforts to arrest Sheka’s former military commander, Guidon Shimiray Mwissa, whose troops continue to wreak havoc on civilians in eastern Congo. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

Detained Migrants Allege Torture, Killing in Detention, Fears of Covid-19 (Beirut) – A deportation center in Riyadh is holding hundreds of mostly Ethiopian migrant workers in conditions so degrading that they amount to ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said today. Detainees alleged to Human Rights Watch that they are held in extremely overcrowded rooms for extended periods, and that guards have tortured and beaten them with rubber-coated metal rods, leading to at least three allegations of deaths in custody between October and November. The Saudi authorities should immediately release the most vulnerable detainees and ensure that detention is only used as an exceptional measure of last resort. It should immediately end any torture and other ill-treatment, and ensure that detention conditions meet international standards. “Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s richest countries , has no excuse for detaining migrant workers in appalling conditions, in the middle of a health pandemic, for months on end,” said Nadia Hardman , refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Video footage of people crammed together, allegations of torture, and unlawful killings are shocking, as is the apparent unwillingness of the authorities to do anything to investigate conditions of abuse and hold those responsible to account.” In November 2020 Human Rights Watch spoke by telephone with seven Ethiopian migrants detained in a deportation center in Riyadh, and with two Indian men who were detained in the same facility before they were deported. The majority of detainees were arrested and detained by the authorities because they did not hold valid residency permits. All interviewees said the Saudi authorities kept them in cramped, unsanitary rooms with up to 350 other migrants for months on end. Two men have been in detention for over a year. Detainees explained they do not have enough room to all lie down, so some sleep during the day and others at night. Guards have not provided mattresses, just unclean blankets. Photo images and video corroborated the witness accounts, including two videos showing hundreds of men either standing or lying on top of each other in a crowded room with piles of rubbish and debris in the corner. Despite being in the middle of a global health pandemic, detainees described how overcrowding has made social distancing and hygienic living impossible. Interviewees said guards took their temperature at the outset of their detention, but no other measures are in place to minimize the spread of Covid-19. Migrants said they shared between two to five toilets with 350 other detainees. The detainees said they had no access to shower facilities and no soap has been distributed. Detainees use the water from faucets above squat toilets for bathing. Many migrants who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that contracting Covid-19 is their major concern, as they have observed other detainees showing Covid-19 symptoms. The Saudi authorities in the deportation center have apparently taken no special measures to protect groups at higher risk, such as older inmates and those with pre-existing medical conditions. Video footage received and analyzed by Human Rights Watch depicts a South Asian man in the corner of a crowded detention room, visibly emaciated and unwell. Security complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia identified by Human Rights Watch. Satellite image ©️ 2020 Maxar Technologies. Source: Google Earth All interviewees said that guards wearing green, black, and grey uniforms had either assaulted them or that they had witnessed guards beating other detainees with rubber-coated metal rods. Beatings usually occurred when detainees asked for medical attention or complained about the conditions. Six out of nine interviewees said that they witnessed guards beat migrants so severely that they were taken from the detention room and were never returned. In one case, a 27-year-old man from Ethiopia witnessed the unlawful killing of three other detainees, two of whom were beaten so badly by the guards that they died immediately as a result of their injuries; the third died two hours later. Human Rights Watch was not able to independently verify the allegations. Migrants also described verbal abuse by guards, including racial slurs, threats, and frequent swearing. The detention of migrants in deplorable facilities in Saudi Arabia is a longstanding problem. In 2014 , Ethiopian nationals in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, told Human Rights Watch that thousands of foreign workers were being held in makeshift detention facilities without adequate food and shelter, before being deported. In 2019 , Human Rights Watch identified approximately ten prisons and detention centers where migrants were held for various periods. In August 2020 , Human Rights Watch identified three detention centers in Jizan and Jeddah province where thousands of Ethiopian migrants were being held in deplorable conditions since they were pushed from northern Yemen in April. Ethiopian interviewees said they were the largest nationality among those being held in the same room with them; the others being Chadians, Ghanaians, Kenyans, Nigerians, and Somalis. Human Rights Watch has received and analyzed footage of a room in the same deportation center filled with South Asian detainees and spoke to two migrant workers who were held in the same Riyadh facility, and recently returned to India, who said that South Asians, mostly Indians and Pakistanis, were held in separate rooms from the sub-Saharan African groups. Human Rights Watch has not been able to ascertain the exact breakdown of nationalities at the Riyadh center. South Asian migrants detained in unsanitary and abusive conditions at an immigration detention facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. September, 2020. © 2020 private An October 2020 report estimated that there are approximately 10 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, spread over most sectors of work, especially the energy and service sector. Saudi Arabia has carried out regular sweeps of undocumented migrant workers, including major arrest campaigns beginning in November 2013 and August 2017. About 260,000 Ethiopians, an average of 10,000 per month, were deported from Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia between May 2017 and March 2019 , according to the International Organization for Migration. Seven out of the nine migrants Human Rights Watch spoke to said they were undocumented when they were detained by the Saudi authorities. Two interviewees had valid residency permits, which the Saudi authorities ignored, including one Indian man who had worked in the country as an engineer for 25 years but was accused of selling vegetables, a profession he was told is restricted to Saudi nationals. None of the detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed said they had been given an opportunity to challenge their arrest or detention, including those with valid residency permits. Prolonged detention without access to judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention and is prohibited under international law. The Saudi government should investigate allegations of abuse and unlawful killings at migrant detention centers, and appropriately discipline or prosecute those found responsible. The absolute prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in international law is guaranteed in the UN Convention Against Torture, to which Saudi Arabia is bound. Torture includes the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering by a public official for purposes such as intimidation and coercion. The Special Rapporteur on Torture has deemed administration of severe beatings a form of torture, as has the Human Rights Committee. Saudi Arabia should open up its detention and deportation centers to inspection by experts in torture prevention. Beyond this, Saudi Arabia should ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture which make such inspections mandatory. Saudi authorities should only use migration detention as an exceptional measure of last resort and ensure that its migrant detention and deportation centers comport with international standards under the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (“Mandela Rules”). Every detainee should be brought physically before a judge for judicial review of the legality and necessity of their detention within 48 hours of being detained. Detainees should be released, as a rule unless those detaining them can show a clear legal and factual necessity, on an individual basis, for their detention pending trial or imminent deportation. Saudi authorities should urgently engage with Ethiopian authorities and other governments whose nationals are languishing in Saudi Arabian detention and deportation centers, the International Organization for Migration, and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), to arrange for the voluntary return of migrants who remain in detention and assist with their reintegration support in their country of origin, including psychosocial (mental health) services. UNHCR should have complete access to assess any claim for refugee status and should also assess whether any organized return facilitated by the UN’s humanitarian agencies is voluntary. The Ethiopians interviewed by Human Rights Watch all expressed concern about returning to a country currently facing a rights crisis as well as conflict in the eastern region of Tigray which has resulted in mass displacement into neighboring Sudan. The Saudi government should sign and ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. It should enact refugee law consistent with international standards, and establish fair asylum procedures for foreign nationals who may be at risk of persecution in their home countries, Human Rights Watch said. In the meantime, it should allow UNHCR to exercise its mandate to determine the refugee status of asylum seekers and facilitate durable solutions for those recognized as refugees, including, where appropriate, integration in Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia should act fast to end the abusive conditions in the Riyadh deportation center and contain the potential of a devastating outbreak of Covid-19. Governments with nationals inside the facility should pressure the authorities and do all they can to facilitate voluntary repatriation,” Hardman said. © 2020 Human Rights Watch

Zarni Analysis of the military in Burma ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 maungzarni