Civilians, including children, killed or injured Remote sensing analysis confirms ethnic Rakhine villages ablaze on 3 September Amnesty International has gathered new evidence of indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Rakhine State, amid serious escalations in the ongoing armed conflict between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA). This evidence is based on firsthand testimony, photographs and video obtained from inside Rakhine State, and analysis of satellite imagery as well as media reports and civil society sources. Witnesses’ names have been changed. The Myanmar military’s utter disregard for civilian suffering grows more shocking and brazen by the day. The UN Security Council must urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. Ming Yu Hah, Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns “There are no signs of the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military abating – and civilians continue to bear the brunt,” said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns. “The Myanmar military’s utter disregard for civilian suffering grows more shocking and brazen by the day. The UN Security Council must urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.” Amnesty International is also concerned at recent reports of an increased presence of Myanmar military troops along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Images of antipersonnel landmines recently found in a civilian area were analysed by Amnesty’s weapons expert and identified as the MM2 type landmine often used by the Myanmar military. This device is larger than most anti-personnel landmines, and typically inflicts severe damage. Both the Arakan Army and Myanmar military use antipersonnel devices, and as such definitively establishing provenance is not always possible. Current restrictions on access preclude on-the-ground documentation efforts by Amnesty International. Several incidents involving civilians injured or killed by landmines have been credibly reported in Rakhine and Chin States in recent months by local civil society and media outlets. One of the most recent instances was on September 18, when a 44-year-old Chin woman stood on a landmine while collecting bamboo shoots near the Myanmar military’s Light Infantry Battalion 289 base in Paletwa. She died of her injuries a short time after. Amnesty International also notes with alarm recent local media reports of the Myanmar military using Rohingya children for forced portering in Buthidaung Township, in an area where clashes with the Arakan Army are ongoing. ‘I didn't think it could be our village’ On the morning of 8 September 2020, Maung Soe* was at work near his village of Nyaung Kan in Myebon Township when he heard heavy weaponry, which he describes as sounding like thunder. “I didn’t think it could be our village. I thought it was somewhere else. I tried to call my wife and she wasn’t answering. I heard it two times — jain, jain — within one minute. “I went to the village and I heard some people got injured. When I got home, my wife and my daughter were laid down on the floor. [My wife] was not saying anything. I tried to check my [seven-year-old] daughter and she was still alive. I picked up my daughter and tried to get out. “I didn’t see [any soldiers]. The weapon came from very far. And when I tried to run by hugging my daughter’s body, there was more shooting. I tried to lay over my daughter’s body, near the stream. Within two minutes, my daughter passed away. “Even after my daughter passed away, I could still hear the weapons coming… I had to run away, leaving my daughter’s body. I came back later when they stopped shooting.” I had to run away, leaving my daughter’s body. I came back later when they stopped shooting. Father of a seven year-old girl killed in a shelling attack Maung Soe says there were no Arakan Army fighters in Nyaung Kan. Villagers believe the heavy weaponry was fired from a Myanmar military base near the border with Ann Township. The shelling at Nyaung Kan village in Myebon Township claimed the lives of five people, including Maung Soe’s wife and daughter. All were from the Rakhine ethnic group, and two were seven-year-old children. Ten others were wounded in the attack. By one local civil society group’s estimate, the number of civilians killed in this conflict since December 2018 in Rakhine and Chin States stands at 289, with 641 injured. The true figure cannot be independently verified, as a mobile internet shutdown and broader government crackdowns on media reporting have impeded documentation efforts in conflict-affected areas. However, in July 2020, Amnesty International was able to document indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling by the Myanmar military, killing or injuring civilians, including children. On 14 September, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet told the Human Rights Council that in some recent cases in Rakhine State, civilians “appear to have been targeted or attacked indiscriminately, which may constitute further war crimes or even crimes against humanity.” Maung Soe is now displaced, and says he wants to see the Myanmar military withdraw from Rakhine State to prevent further harm: “As I suffer, and as I have lost my family, I don't want any other Rakhine people to have a similar experience in the future.” ‘One from the road and one from the mountain’: Burned village attacked from two directions Remote sensing analysis and new witness testimony gathered by Amnesty International suggest that Myanmar soldiers burned a village in central Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township in early September. Over 120 structures in Taung Pauk and Hpa Yar Paung appear burned in Planet imagery from 10 September 2020. Fires were remotely detected in the villages with satellite sensors on 3 September 2020. One witness, villager U Kyaw Tin*, who lives in the area, told Amnesty International that he was walking with his cow when the Myanmar military launched an assault on Hpa Yar Paung began on 3 September.  “[They] started shooting, they entered the village. I didn’t know exactly where the shooting came from … We were trying to run to the other side. We didn’t really see what exactly was going on, because we all were running.” He said that it appeared the village was closed in on by the Myanmar military from two directions: “Two [sets of] troops, one from each side – one from the road and one from the mountain. There was also shooting from [a remote location], but there was also something from the roadside, coming in by car.” A spokesperson for the Myanmar military, Major General Zaw Min Tun, told journalists a police vehicle was attacked by the Arakan Army with a remotely detonated improvised explosive device (IED) near the village. According to information supplied to Amnesty International, the Myanmar military were seen arresting two Rakhine men from the village that evening. Their bodies were reportedly found near the river with gunshot wounds the next morning. Their bodies have since been transported by the military for postmortem in Kyauktaw. The Myanmar military told the media “two enemy bodies and a gun” were seized from the site. “[The Myanmar military] started the arson attack around 9pm,” U Kyaw Tin told Amnesty International. “After they finished the arson attack they went to another site near the hill and they started to also attack there.” Satellite image analysis conducted by Amnesty International has found that over 120 structures in the ethnic Rakhine-populated villages of Taung Pauk and Hpa Yar Paung villages in Kyauktaw Township appeared burned to the ground, in imagery captured on 10 September 2020. Amnesty International also examined satellite sensor data from 3 September which showed thermal anomalies. Additionally, Amnesty International analysed a video of the charred village of Hpar Yar Paung, recorded on 4 September from a passing vehicle, which revealed a ground-level snapshot of the extensive destruction. All three information sources appear consistent with reports of the blaze on the night of 3 September 2020. U Kyaw Tin said around 80 houses were completely destroyed, and over 90 damaged. Hpar Yar Paung’s 500 residents are now displaced inside Kyauktaw Township, dependent on aid from Rakhine civil society groups in Kyauktaw town. New figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) indicate that 89,564 people were displaced to 180 sites in Rakhine State between January 2019 and 7 September 2020. These figures are based on numbers provided by the Rakhine State government and UNOCHA’s humanitarian partners. Local civil society groups indicate the true displacement figure is likely higher, as villagers have fled to areas now only nominally under government control. This adds to the existing mass displacement crisis in Rakhine, where over 130,000 Rohingya have been interned in camps since 2012. ‘We didn’t know anything’: Internet shutdown amid the pandemic The mobile internet shutdown that had been in place across parts of Rakhine State and neighboring Chin State for the last year was partially lifted in August; however, the authorities have throttled network speeds to 2G in some of the areas most affected by armed conflict. The Myanmar government had stated the mobile internet blackout was necessary to prevent “incitement” and remote detonations of anti-personnel explosive devices by the Arakan Army. However, the blackout has impeded the delivery of critical humanitarian aid and access to crucial information about the conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, with the virus increasingly spreading across Myanmar since mid-August, including and particularly in Rakhine State. We don’t have any connection and we don’t know anything about what’s going on, about the conflict and the attacks in other places. In Maung Soe’s case, the lack of connectivity meant his village has been kept in the dark about the scale and location of fighting. “We don’t have any connection and we don’t know anything about what’s going on, about the conflict and the attacks in other places,” said Maung Soe. In addition to the internet blackout, humanitarian access remains severely curtailed by government edict across much of Rakhine State and a township in Chin State. Healthcare access in Rakhine State remains abysmal, and particularly so for the Rohingya population, who have long been subject to severe movement restrictions and, often, extortion by police and military. The Myanmar government should ensure full, unfettered access to humanitarian actors and allow all people in the state to access healthcare. Amnesty International is concerned that the sweeping powers granted under COVID-19 orders are ripe for abuse – particularly in conflict-affected areas. Impunity and secrecy mar military sexual violence scandal On 11 September 2020, the Myanmar military admitted that three of its soldiers had raped an ethnic Rakhine woman during operations in Rathedaung Township on 30 June despite their outright denials when the allegations were first raised in July. Last week, in a statement on the incident, the military publicly named the survivor but not the perpetrators. “Even when the Myanmar military are compelled to admit wrongdoing, their handling of this appalling sexual violence case shows a complete neglect for accountability,” said Ming Yu Hah. “These shocking events speak volumes about the Tatmadaw, and how deep the assumption of impunity runs within its ranks.” "The international community must raise the alarm about the situation in Rakhine State now, or face questions later about why they failed to act – again.” © Amnesty International

Ethiopian authorities have banned peaceful protests against ethnically motivated killings which were due to take place on 28 October, in direct violation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, Amnesty International said today. The National Amhara Movement (NAMA), an opposition political party, had called for protests following the killing of scores of people from the Amhara ethnic minority in recent months. Officials of NAMA were on 27 October prevented by the police from accessing their party office in Addis Ababa, and from traveling to the various locations where the protests were to take place in the Amhara regional state. "The killings are abhorrent and serve as a clarion call to the Ethiopian authorities to safeguard the right to life. People have a right to protest and call for justice for the lives lost." Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa The spokesperson of the Amhara Regional government, Gizachew Muluneh, on 26 October described the protests as “illegal and unnecessary” and warned that regional security forces would be deployed, and that there was a possibility of violence if the protests went ahead. There has been a surge of deadly ethnic violence targeting Amharas in various parts of the country, including in Benishangul, Oromia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional states. “The killings are abhorrent and serve as a clarion call to the Ethiopian authorities to safeguard the right to life. People have a right to protest and call for justice for the lives lost. The authorities must ensure security forces are deployed to facilitate and manage the protests whenever they may occur, not to disperse or otherwise inhibit protesters,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa. "The authorities must ensure security forces are deployed to facilitate and manage the protests whenever they may occur, not to disperse or otherwise inhibit protesters." Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa According to the Ethiopian government, at least 45 people were in September, killed by groups of armed youths targeting Amharas in Benishangul. In October there were 31 more killings in the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) in such attacks. “The authorities must not only thoroughly, effectively and impartially investigate all the killings and hold those responsible to account, but also put in place measures to ensure protests take place peacefully,” said Deprose Muchena. In Oromia, at least 160 people were killed in June, including dozens of members of ethnic and religious minority groups, according to the Federal Police, following the violence that erupted after the killing of popular Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa. Although some of the protests were peaceful, others turned violent as organized youth attacked members of ethnic and religious minorities. People have a right to protest to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. They should not be killed, injured or arrested simply for expressing their views but instead they should be able to count on the protection of the authorities in exercising their right to peaceful assembly. Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa And since August, Ethiopian security forces have used excessive force to disperse peaceful protesters calling for the release of detained opposition leaders Jawar Mohammed and Bekele Gerba, killing at least 20 people in Oromia’s West Hararghe and Bale Zones. “People have a right to protest to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. They should not be killed, injured or arrested simply for expressing their views but instead they should be able to count on the protection of the authorities in exercising their right to peaceful assembly,” said Deprose Muchena. © 2020 Amnesty International

May 7, 2024 [Getty Images] Fourteen children killed and 17 civilians injured in strikes in March Families of victims should receive reparations Indiscriminate attacks may amount to war crimes Two strikes that killed 23 civilians during Somali military operations supported by Turkish drones must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International said today. Civilians killed in the strikes on 18 March 2024 included 14 children, five women and four men. Another 17 civilians were injured in the strikes: 11 children, two women and four men. All are from the marginalized Gorgaarte clan. The strikes hit the Jaffey farm, about three kilometres west of Bagdad village in the Lower Shabelle region, between 8pm and 8.30pm. Victims and other residents told Amnesty International that the drone strikes followed heavy ground fighting that started earlier that day between the armed group Al-Shabaab and Somali security forces close to the villages of Jambaluul and Bagdad. “The Somali and Turkish governments must investigate these deadly strikes as a war crime, and put an end to reckless attacks on civilians,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. “In Somalia, civilians have borne the brunt of suffering in war far too often. These horrific deaths must not be overlooked. The devastated survivors and their families deserve truth, justice and reparations.” [Satellite imagery from 12 September 2022 shows a Turkish built, Bayraktar TB2 drone at the Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia.] Amnesty International remotely interviewed 12 people, including four victims and eyewitnesses, and four family members of victims. Researchers also reviewed satellite imagery and medical reports, analyzed photos of victims and weapons fragments, and geolocated videos from the scene of the attacks and of Turkish drone operations at Mogadishu International Airport. Based on the photos of the munitions scrap metal, Amnesty International’s weapons investigator was able to confirm that the strike was conducted with MAM-L glide bombs, which are dropped from TB-2 drones. Both are manufactured by Türkiye. Attacks that fail to differentiate between military objectives and civilian objects are indiscriminate and may amount to war crimes. Deadly strikes According to an eyewitness interviewed by Amnesty International, Al-Shabaab fighters were present in Bagdad during clashes on 18 March. An initial drone strike hit a mosque in the eastern side of Bagdad at around 7.30pm, destroying the building and damaging nearby houses. Amnesty International was not able to independently verify who was targeted in the mosque, or if there were any casualties. Following that attack, eyewitnesses said many civilians fled to the Jaffey farm to seek refuge. The first strike on the farm killed and injured several civilians. A second attack, approximately 30 minutes later, killed and injured more civilians who had arrived from the neighbouring villages of Alifow and Gaalgube to rescue survivors following the first strike. On 19 March, Somalia’s Ministry of Information issued a statement saying that they had killed over 30 Al-Shabaab militants in the villages of Bagdad and Baldooska in coordination with “international partners”. The statement added: “The operation was launched in response to intelligence reports indicating that Al-Shabaab fighters were gathering in these areas and planning an assault against the Somali people… 15 Al-Shabaab members were killed in an airstrike in Bagdad.” [Fragments of the Turkish manufactured MAM-L glide bomb that struck the Jaffey farm. Copyright: Private.] It is unclear whether Turkish or Somali forces were in control of the TB-2 drone at the time of the strikes on Jaffey farm. One source in the Somali government told Amnesty International that members of the National Intelligence and Security Agency fly the TB-2s during combat operations against Al-Shabaab. However, in 2022, the UN Panel of Experts for Somalia reported that, according to the Turkish government, Türkiye did not transfer the drones to Somalia in violation of the UN arms embargo, but rather operates the drones themselves “in the fight against terrorism”. Also in 2022, Ahmed Malim Fiqi, Somalia’s then Interior Minister who is now Foreign Minister, was reported to have said that while Turkish forces operate the drones, Somali commanders provide the targets. In recent years, Türkiye has provided military equipment and support to Somalia. Satellite imagery and videos geolocated by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab show Turkish TB-2 drones on the runway at Mogadishu International Airport as early as 12 September 2022. After years of training the “Gorgor” unit of the Somali armed forces at Türkiye’s Camp Turksom in Mogadishu, the two countries signed a Defense and Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in February 2024. On 5 April, Amnesty International sent letters to the governments of Somalia and Türkiye, asking for details on the 18 March operation, including which military’s forces were controlling the drone at the time of the strikes. At the time of publication, neither government had replied. Amnesty International established that a total of five families belonging to the Gorgaarte clan were impacted by the two strikes on the Jaffey farm. Maalim Adan Hussein Hassan Adow, a 49-year-old farmer, lost his wife, Asli Buule Hassan, 40; his son Dahir Maalim Adan, 14; and his two daughters Ishwaq Maalim Adan, seven, and Asma Maalim Adan, six. His two nephews Abdi Ibrahim Duqow, seven, and Salah Ibrahim Duqow, nine, were also killed. His 30-year-old sister Fadumo Hussein Hassan Adow suffered a head injury and later died in Digfeer Hospital in Mogadishu. Maalim Adan Hussein Hassan Adow said he could not understand why his family was targeted. He told Amnesty International: “My wife, my three children and two nephews were all killed in the first strike that hit the farm. I was in Afgoye at the time. I immediately received a phone call from my relatives. It was not possible to travel at night for security reasons. I travelled to Bagdad the morning of the following day. “I identified the bodies of my wife and children at the scene. My wife and children were buried in one mass grave in Gaalgube village, while my nephews were buried in Alifow village. I don’t know why my family was targeted during the holy month of Ramadan. I am heartbroken.” Ismail Ali Deerey, a 37-year-old farmer, and his son Sadam Ismail Ali Deerey, aged nine, were also killed. His wife, two daughters, two sons and nephew were injured, and received care at hospitals in Mogadishu. Mohamed Ali Deerey, Ismail’s elder brother, told Amnesty International: “I was in Alifow village. We heard a deafening blast. Soon after, I received news that my brother Ismail had been struck by a drone attack. My son and I hurried to the farm. Upon reaching the farm, another [blast] targeted us covering the area in a cloud of dust. “The scene was chaotic. There were screams, blood, and bodies all over the ground. I luckily survived but my 22-year-old son, Ali Mohamed Ali Deerey, who was with me was seriously injured in his back… My brother Ismail and his son were brutally killed.” A relative of another family who lost six people, including three children, said: “I am horrified by what happened to my relatives. This is inhumane. This is a massacre.” The Somali government has a history of not providing reparations for civilian casualties of military actions, or seeking reparations from  foreign actors when they are involved in unlawful attacks. It also has a history of ignoring violations against marginalized communities, such as the Gorgaarte clan. An elder from the Gorgaarte clan said: “We feel neglected and unheard, with no one advocating for us or engaging in dialogue with us. There has been no explanation provided for the actions taken against my people, no follow-up investigations, and no offer of sympathy. Our priority is to receive information about why this tragic event occurred. We also need compensation for the losses we have suffered.” Background The armed conflict between the government of Somalia and Al-Shabaab continues to have a devastating impact on the country’s civilian population, with all parties to the conflict committing serious violations of international humanitarian law. Amnesty International has documented a series of air strikes by the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) that have killed and injured Somali civilians, including many as a result of apparent violations of international humanitarian law. On 5 April, Amnesty International wrote to AFRICOM, asking if US forces were involved in the 18 March operation against Al-Shabaab, but they did not reply by the time of publication. © 2024 Amnesty International

July 17 2024: Ahead of the trial scheduled on 18 July of prominent Hirak activist Mohamed Tadjadit, known as the “poet of the Hirak”, who has been arbitrarily detained for seven months over critical social media commentary and private online conversations Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “The Algerian authorities’ relentless targeting of Mohamed Tadjadit is further confirmation that the authorities’ repression of peaceful dissent continues. Once again, authorities are misusing terrorism charges to silence and punish, creating a climate of fear for people who want to express critical opinions. This is the fifth time Mohamed Tadjadit has faced trial since 2019. “Mohamed Tadjadit’s pre-trial detention for the past seven months is profoundly unjust. Algerian authorities must release him and drop all charges as they stem solely from his exercise of human rights. “Ahead of the presidential elections in September, it is essential for Algerian authorities to ensure that everyone, including those critical of the government, can exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.” Background On 29 January 2024, Algerian authorities arrested Mohamed Tadjadit at his home in Algiers and ordered his pre-trial detention. On 31 January, he appeared before a  prosecutor and investigative judge at the court of Rouiba, in Algiers, without the presence of a lawyer and was questioned in connection with charges of “glorification of terrorism” and “using communication technologies to support the actions and activities of terrorist organizations,” pursuant to articles 87bis 4 and bis 12 of the penal code, with reference to online communications with individuals, which  Algerian authorities subsequently designated as terrorists. Other evidence brought against Mohamed Tadjadit in the investigation  included videos he posted on his personal Facebook and TikTok accounts critical of the Algerian authorities and commenting on the political situation and socioeconomic conditions. Between 2019 and 2022, the authorities  prosecuted and detained Mohamed Tadjadit in at least four different cases, all for his participation in peaceful protests or for exercising his right to freedom of expression. Over the past five years, Algerian authorities have escalated their clampdown on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly by targeting dissenting voices, whether they are protesters, journalists or people expressing their views on social media. Since 2021, Algerian authorities have repeatedly used baseless terrorism charges to crack down on people for expressing dissent. In December 2021, a legal analysis from UN Special Procedures (OL DZA 12/2021) concluded that Algeria’s legal framework on counterterrorism – including its definition of terrorism crimes and its terrorist designation process – is in direct opposition of best practices in international human rights law. © 2024 Amnesty International

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has launched an initiative to foster healing over the 1980s killings, but survivor communities are sceptical. By Shola Lawal A mass grave bearing the names of six victims of the Matabeleland Massacres, near the now-abandoned Sitezi military camp, where army soldiers involved in the Gukurahundi were based [File: Jerome Delay/AP] Many survivors say the ghosts of Gukurahundi are not yet at rest. For decades, justice has eluded the thousands of people who were killed by a feared army unit in Zimbabwe’s southwestern and central provinces in the 1980s. The murders – which some call have termed a “genocide” – are believed to have been committed on the orders of late former President Robert Mugabe, who ruled the Southern African country for more than 29 years, as he targeted political dissidents. Some 40 years after the murders, Zimbabwean authorities last week launched a “community engagement” programme that officials say will promote “healing, peace and unity” in the survivor communities. However, many of those affected are sceptical, and say justice cannot come from a government made up of officials who are alleged to have been involved in the killings, and one they say has not yet fully recognised the weight of the atrocities committed. “It was a genocide, even the government knows that,” activist Mbuso Fuzwayo told Al Jazeera. “But there is no acknowledgement. That is one important aspect we expect from the government,” he said. What was the Gukurahundi massacre? Between 1982 and 1987, the Fifth Brigade, a North Korean-trained unit of the Zimbabwean army, cracked down on mostly Ndebele-speaking communities in the southwestern provinces of North and South Matabeleland, as well as the Midlands province located in the central area. Codenamed Gukurahundi, meaning “the rain that washes away the chaff” in Shona, the operation was meant to target dissident fighters of the political party, Zimbabwe Africa People’s Union (ZAPU). ZAPU, chaired by politician Joshua Nkomo, had the majority of its support from the minority Ndebele-speaking regions and was a rival faction to President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Africa National Union (ZANU). Although they both fought against white rule, and although Nkomo was minister of home affairs under Mugabe, both men distrusted each other. In 1982, Mugabe fired Nkomo, accusing him of plotting a coup to overthrow the newly independent country’s government, and promised to root out his supporters from positions of influence. The Fifth Brigade, however, not only attacked ZAPU members, it also targeted civilians in mass numbers, and at random, including women and children. People were executed in public squares after digging their own graves or marched into buildings and burned alive. “They killed, they raped, they tortured, they disappeared people,” Fuzwayo, who is secretary-general of the local rights group, Ibhetshu LikaZulu, said. His grandfather was one of those who went missing. “People were shot in broad daylight, people were starved to death because they were not allowed to move around to buy anything.” Hundreds of young men of fighting age considered to be potential rebels were also targeted, and taken to concentration camps. The massacres came to an end after the two rival factions agreed to integrate and form a national unity government in 1987. The exact number of those killed remains unclear, but local sources put it at at least 20,000 deaths. Bodies were left in the burned buildings or deposited in mine shafts. Survivors recovered thousands, which now lie in many mass graves in the region. Has the government tried to resolve the killings in the past? Although the government has never officially acknowledged the killings, and has denied there was a genocide, some attempts were made by Mugabe’s government to investigate. The first was the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry. It was set up in 1983 while the murders were still occurring, as the government faced immense pressure from international press and rights groups. The commission, named after chairperson Simplicius Chihambakwe, investigated the killing of 1,500 people, including Ndebele dissidents and civilians. However, the government never made the findings public, as it argued the results would provoke more violence. In 2013, Mugabe’s government established the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. However, while the commission’s mandate includes encouraging unity by “encouraging people to talk about the past” it is not specifically empowered to address the Ndebele massacres. Officials in the former president’s cabinet have said it was Mugabe who ordered the killings, but this has never been proven. Mugabe’s government at the time denied the allegations. In 2000, the former president called the murders a “moment of madness”, but did not acknowledge direct responsibility. The Zimbabwean government has also not officially apologised for the killings. Locals say they were not able to speak about the massacre for a long time, as they were fearful of reprisal attacks from soldiers. President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa [Amanuel Sileshi/AFP] What is the new reconciliation programme under Mnangagwa? Since former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over the presidency in 2017, he has promised justice to survivors. The president promised to conduct exhumations of the remaining victims’ bodies and conduct burials. He also pledged to work with local leaders and civil societies to issue death certificates for victims, as well as birth certificates to descendants – many of whom lost their identity documents when their parents were killed or when they were forced to flee amid the killings. For the first time, Mnangagwa encouraged people to discuss the painful history openly. In 2019, the president started to meet with Matabeleland chiefs and civil society organisations for consultations on how to bring about some form of restoration. This July 16, Mnangagwa launched the Gukurahundi Community Engagement Programme at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Bulawayo, the largest city in the Matabeleland region. “This chapter serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of unity and the devastating consequences of disunity,” Mnangagwa said in a speech at the launch. The programme is expected to see local chiefs lead the reconciliation process, supported by women’s representatives and religious leaders. It will consist primarily of community hearings where victims give their accounts and provide evidence. Officials say survivors will be provided with psycho-social support and benefits like pensions, health services, and free education. It is not clear when precisely the community hearings will begin. Some in survivor communities say they have little hope in the exercise, primarily because Mnangagwa is himself implicated in the killings because he was the minister of state for national security between 1980 and 1988. That encompasses the period during which the Gukurahundi massacres occurred. Mnangagwa has repeatedly denied allegations of involvement in the past. “There’s no difference between Mugabe’s government and Mnangagwa’s government, except that this government allows people to speak about what happened,” activist Fuzwayo said, arguing that a proper investigation should be run by external teams uninvolved in the massacre. “People who were active in the extermination of people still hold the levers of power, and this government has refused to accept publicly: ‘Yes, we killed people.’ Mnangagwa can come out and say: ‘We did this.’ As long as that is not done, there will always be a culture of impunity in this country,” he added. The Community Engagement Programme does not specify how perpetrators will participate, and if the shelved reports on the massacres will now be disclosed – a condition that many Ndebele activists have called for. It is also unclear if there will be monetary compensation for survivors and victims’ families. Ellis Ndlovu’s son, Edwel, was killed by Zimbabwe army soldiers in what many called the Matabeleland Massacres, or Gukurahundi [File: Jerome Delay/AP] Is Gukurahundi still affecting the Matabeleland regions? Members of the Ndebele-speaking minority, who make up about 14 percent of the population, accuse successive governments of “marginalisation and exclusion” based on tribalism despite the end of the killings. Most are distrustful of the Shona-majority government. The Matabeleland region, many say, is impoverished, lacks infrastructure or employment opportunities, and has failed to develop at the same pace as other provinces. Many also point to the fact that a core of professionals were killed in the massacres, adding to the region’s lag in development. “They killed the bulk of teachers, architects, the core of a society. Matabeleland has lost its identity – we were beaten into submission,” said Fuzwayo. Zimbabwe, under both Mugabe and Mnangagwa, has a history of human rights violations and discrimination. As president, Mnangagwa has been accused of filling his cabinet with members of the Karanga community, a subgroup of Shona to which he belongs. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

Hans Grundberg says recent developments suggest ‘threat against international shipping is increasing in scope and precision’. July 23 2024: The UN envoy for Yemen has said that recent developments in the Red Sea, Israel and inside the country “show the real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation”. In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on the situation in Yemen on Tuesday, Hans Grundberg warned of the danger of an escalation following new Houthi attacks on commercial shipping and the first confirmed Israeli air strikes on Yemen in retaliation for Houthi drone and missile attacks on Israel. “I remain deeply concerned about the continued targeting of international navigation in the Red Sea and its surrounding waterways,” Grundberg said. “Recent developments suggest that the threat against international shipping is increasing in scope and precision.” The Houthi attacks on Israel and the Israeli strikes on Yemen’s port of Hodeidahand its oil and power facilities represent “a new and dangerous level” of violence, he said. Commercial ships have been sunk and damaged, disrupting trade, civilians have died, the Houthis still detain the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship they hijacked in November, and the United States and the United Kingdom continue air strikes on military targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, he said. “It is alarming that there are no signs of de-escalation, let alone a solution,” Grundberg continued. The Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel and disrupted global trade through the Red Sea in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza. Israel says the Iran-aligned Houthis have launched 200 attacks against it since the war began, many of them intercepted. But a rare Houthi drone strike last Friday hit Tel Aviv, killing one person and prompting Israel to announce its first strikes against the group on Saturday. The air strikes hit near Hodeidah and killed six people, local medics said. Israel said it shot down a missile launched by the Houthis on Sunday. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

The conviction of Moussa Dadis Camara and other leaders came in a landmark trial centered on the massacre and mass rape of protesters by Guinean security forces. By Mohamed Barry and Rachel Chason Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, leader of the putschist camp, is seen on Dec. 25, 2008, in Conakry, Guinea. (Seyllou Diallo/AFP/Getty Images) CONAKRY, Guinea — A Guinean court ruled Wednesday that the country’s former president and other leaders had committed crimes against humanity in connection with a massacre and mass rape carried out 15 years ago by security forces. Former president Moussa Dadis Camara was found guilty based on his “command responsibility,” sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay reparations. The landmark trial centered on the events of Sept. 28, 2009, when Guinean security forces opened fire on peaceful protesters calling for democracy inside a stadium in the capital, Conakry. Camara was among 11 leaders, including one of his top aides and two government ministers, who were charged in the case, which kicked off in September 2022 after more than a decade of calls by victims and their families for justice. More than 150 civilians were killed and more than 100 women raped by forces who then tried to cover it up, according to a United Nations commission and accounts collected by Human Rights Watch. Lawyers for the victims had asked for life sentences for seven of the 11 defendants, including Camara, and reparations for the psychological and physical harm done to victims. Camara and nine other defendants sat next to each other in court Wednesday, their faces largely implacable as a judge spent several hours reading the charges and verdict in the case. The 11th defendant, Col. Claude Pivi, who was minister for presidential security, escaped from a detention facility in November 2023 and remains at large. Human rights experts warned that despite the verdict, there remain concerns about repression by Guinea’s government, which has been since 2021 run by a military junta. Lawyers for both the plaintiffs and defendants boycotted the trial on Wednesday, sending their assistants, because of a nationwide strike announced two weeks ago by the Guinean Bar Association over arbitrary arrests and secret detentions allegedly carried out by the junta. Soldiers on Oct. 2, 2009, unload bodies of victims shot dead by Guinean junta forces several days earlier at a demonstration in front of the Conakry great mosque. (Seyllou/AFP/Getty Images) Two prominent activists from the opposition party were detained earlier this month and are being held in an undisclosed location. The arrests are part of a broader crackdown on civil liberties that has been documented by Amnesty International and includes the suspension of media outlets and the killing of protesters. When the trial opened, survivors recounted the horrors they experienced. Djenabou Bah said she was just 9 years old when she headed with her friends to the stadium, where soldiers stabbed and raped her. Oumar Diallo recounted how a soldier broke his arms with a rifle, which prevented him from working as a truck driver for years afterward. Saran Cissé recalled begging security forces to kill her instead of rape her. They did not listen. “I’m scared,” Cissé said in an interview this week. “I want truth and reparations.” Cissé said she and other victims are nervous about their safety and that of their families. She said many of those who committed the atrocities in 2009 remain free. “Everyone knows where I live, how I go out, how I dress, everyone knows,” said Cissé, who called for help to leave Conakry, even if just for a few months. “It is the same for all the victims.” Aminata Soura Diallo, who was stabbed by a soldier in the chest during the protests in 2009, said she did not have enough money to treat her wound after the massacre and has suffered for years afterward. “We want truth to win,” she said in an interview. “There are many victims who have died, who are sick, who don’t have any hope for reparations.” © 1996-2024 The Washington Post

Tuareg separatists say they ‘obliterated’ enemy columns and seized a large amount of equipment and weapons. This undated photograph provided by the French military shows three Russian mercenaries in northern Mali [File: French Army via AP] A mainly Tuareg separatist coalition has claimed a major victory over Mali’s army and its Russian allies following three days of intense fighting in a district on the Algerian border. “Our forces decisively obliterated these enemy columns on Saturday,” said a statement by Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesman for the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) alliance on Sunday. “A large amount of equipment and weapons were seized or damaged”, and prisoners were taken, the statement said, adding that seven rebels were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting in the Tinzaouatene district. Mali’s military rulers, led by Colonel Assimi Goita, took power in 2020 and turned to Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries for security assistance, after expelling French forces in 2022. The Tuareg are an ethnic group who have been fighting for independence since 2012. Large-scale fighting broke out on Thursday between the West African nation’s army and the separatists in Tinzaouatene after the army announced it had retaken control of several districts. Tinzaouatene is almost entirely surrounded by Algerian territory and has been the scene of other battles between separatist forces and the army over the past decade. The CSP-PSD also said it damaged a helicopter, which crashed in Kidal, a rebel stronghold. Separatist groups lost control of several districts in 2023 after an offensive that saw forces from the military government take Kidal. The Malian army said in statements that two soldiers had been killed and 10 injured. One of its helicopters crashed in Kidal on Friday while on a routine mission, but no one was killed, it said. Adama Gaye, a journalist, author and former director of the Economic Community of West African States, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that Tuareg forces could be receiving outside help, including from the French military and regional armed groups with “allegiance to al-Qaeda”. Wagner fighters reportedly involved In some of the videos shared by the rebels with the AFP news agency, white soldiers were visible among the prisoners, the agency said in a report on Sunday. A local official and a former worker with the United Nations mission in Kidal told AFP the Malian army had retreated with at least 15 fighters from Russia’s Wagner Group killed or arrested. Mossa Ag Inzoma, a member of the separatist movement, claimed that “dozens” of Wagner fighters and soldiers had been killed or taken prisoner. Several Russian military bloggers reported that at least 20 from the Wagner Group were killed in an ambush near the Algerian border. “Employees of the Wagner PMC [Group], who were moving in a convoy with government troops, were killed in Mali … Some were captured,” said a prominent Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov, who uses the name War Gonzo. The Baza Telegram news channel, which has links to Russia’s security structures, reported that at least 20 Wagner fighters have been killed. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the blogger’s or the AFP’s reports. Mali has said Russian forces are not Wagner mercenaries, but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Russia. Baza’s report said on Sunday that Wagner fighters have been in Mali since at least 2021. Meanwhile, there have been several accusations of rights abuses of the civilian population by the Malian army and Wagner forces. Malian authorities deny the allegations. Violence by rebels linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as community self-defence and criminal organisations, has also rocked Mali since 2012. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Ammar Awad and Suleiman Al-Khalidi July 29, 20243:25 PM CDT A person mourns as he embraces the picture of his loved one killed at a soccer pitch by a rocket Israel says was fired from Lebanon, in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, July 29, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights, July 29 (Reuters) - For many of the Druze community in the Golan Heights mourning 12 youngsters killed in a missile strike at the weekend, the carnage came as a shock despite the months of daily rocket fire and air strikes between Israel and southern Lebanon. Even when the rockets were flying elsewhere, the community felt largely safe, said Raya Fakher Aldeen, a resident of Majdal Shams, the Druze village where children and teenagers were playing football when the missile landed on Saturday. "It was a shock because not once in the last nine months, even when the sirens were sounding, did we feel we were being targeted," she said. Israel has accused the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah of carrying out the strike and on Monday, during a visit to Majdal Shams, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a "harsh response". Hezbollah denies killing the youngsters but said it had launched strikes on what it said were military targets in nearby areas of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. As members of an Arab minority straddling Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the Golan Heights, the Druze, who practise a form of Islam, occupy a special niche in the complicated politics of the region. Unlike most Israeli Palestinians, many Druze in Israel serve in the military and police, including during the war in Gaza, and some have reached high rank. But in the Golan Heights, an area seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed by Israel in a move not generally recognised internationally, many still identify as Syrians and refuse Israeli citizenship. The ambiguity of the Druze position was reflected in the resolutely non-political funeral. Thousands mourned in Majdal Shams on Sunday but there was no sign of either Israeli or Syrian flags and political talk was largely absent. "Many Druze feel angry and do not want to be fuel in this war for any side," said Fakher Aldeen. The standoff between Israel and Hezbollah, which began soon after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border, but has so far stopped short of the full-scale war that many now fear. Sultan Abu Jabal, a 62-year-old who works and lives in Majdal and who lost a granddaughter in the attack, denounced what he said was a "crazy war". "They are all innocent people. Why is it my problem if there are troubles between Hezbollah and Israel?" NO ESCAPING REGIONAL POLITICS However the politics of the region is inescapable and though the youngsters killed in the strike do not appear to have held Israeli citizenship, Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have embraced them as their own. "A Jewish child murdered on the Gaza border on Oct. 7 and a Druze child murdered on the Golan Heights are the same. These are our children," Gallant said during a visit to Majdal Shams. On the other side of the dividing line, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a former Hezbollah opponent who has since reconciled with the movement, told Al Jazeera television the Israeli claim that Hezbollah fired the rocket was a fabrication. On the Syrian side, Druze Sheikh Yousef al-Jarbou offered prayers for the dead and accused Israel of "committing daily massacres" in a speech published by Syrian state media, accompanied by a photo showing Syrian and Druze flags behind him and a photo of President Bashar al-Assad, a Hezbollah ally. "The incident is being exploited by all sides," said Lubna Al Bassit, an anti-Assad activist in Sweida, the Druze capital of Syria, who reflects the views of Druze who blame Iran and Hezbollah. "There's rivalry. Who is the real voice of the Druze community - is it the Israeli Druze who are integrated in Israel and serve in the army, or is it the Lebanese who have been taking a stance against Israel, specifically Jumblatt who is a historic leader of the Druze," said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center. As Lebanon braces for Israeli strikes that are expected to be much heavier than those seen so far in the war, the Druze of Majdal Shams are left to wait. "We hope this war will end and this massacre will be the last one in this devastating war," said Sheikh Salim Abu Jabal. "We call for peace. We don't attack anyone and we don't accept being attacked by anyone." Suleiman Al-Khalidi reported from Amman; Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Writing by James Mackenzie Editing by Gareth Jones © 2024 Reuters. All rights reserved

Gabriela Sá Pessoa, 26 JUL 2024 Eneá de Stutz e Almeida, right, president of the Amnesty Commission lowers her head as she apologizes in Brasilia, Brazil Thursday, July 25, 2024. The Brazilian government on Thursday apologized for human rights violations in the persecution and internment of Japanese immigrants in the years after World War II. (Kyodo News via AP) Sao Paulo (AP) — The Brazilian government on Thursday apologized for human rights violations in the persecution and incarceration of Japanese immigrants in the years after World War II. “I want to apologize on behalf of the Brazilian state for the persecution your ancestors suffered, for all the barbarities, atrocities, cruelties, tortures, prejudice, ignorance, xenophobia and racism,” said Eneá de Stutz e Almeida, president of the Amnesty Commission, an advisory board of Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights that analyzes amnesty and reparation requests to victims of political persecution in the country. The board approved the apology plea in a session in Brasilia attended by members of the Brazilian government and prominent members of the Japanese community. Flags of both countries were displayed on the table where the speakers sat. A report by the Amnesty Commission acknowledged that 172 immigrants were sent to a concentration camp off the coast of São Paulo, where they were mistreated and tortured from 1946 to 1948. “The documents indisputably demonstrate the political persecution and justify the declaration of political amnesty for the Japanese community and their descendants,” said the commission’s rapporteur, Vanda Davi Fernandes de Oliveira. The reparation request was filed in 2015 by the Okinawa Kenjin of Brazil Association, which stated that after the outbreak of World War II, members of the Japanese community were mistreated and discriminated against. Brazil joined the Allies in 1942 and cut diplomatic relations with Japan, after which the Brazilian government confiscated Japanese-owned properties and immigrants were not allowed to gather or speak Japanese publicly. Mario Jun Okuhara, who documented the persecution and supported the complaint, said his ancestors were imprisoned, tortured and accused of being spies and saboteurs. “They were not at war; they were struggling to survive, seeking a place in the sun, and educating their Brazilian-born children,” Okuhara said Thursday. “Japanese immigrants shouldn’t be held responsible for the errors of their government during the war. They were civilians working in agriculture and other sectors, fully integrated into Brazilian society.” Brazil is home to the world’s largest Japanese community outside Japan, with over 2.7 million Japanese citizens and their descendants. The first ships from the Asian country arrived in Brazil in 1908, and immigration peaked between World War I and II. In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi praised the Japanese community’s contribution to Brazil and its relations with Japan. “People of Japanese descent in Brazil have tremendously contributed with their diligence to Brazil’s development. We praise their effort that has led them to hold an honorable place in Brazil, and we are so proud of them,” Hayashi said. Okuhara said the ceremony represented a moment to honor their ancestors and bring some emotional comfort to the Japanese community. “We can’t erase the atrocities committed against our parents and grandparents, but we can learn from these sad episodes and prevent them from happening again to anyone, regardless of their origin or ethnicity,” he said. © 2024 The Associated Press.

Un rapport met en évidence une hausse de 15 % du nombre d’assassinats d’autochtones en 2023, plus nombreux encore que sous la présidence de Jair Bolsonaro. Bruno Meyerfeld, 25 JUL 2024 Le 10 avril 2024, Anita reçoit une balle dans le bras. Chaque soir, autour de la communauté de Pyelito Kue, des hommes masqués tirent à l’aveugle. Ici, la communauté n’occupe que 100 hectares sur les 41 000 qui lui sont légalement attribués, et fait face à une violence extrême. Iguatemi, Brésil, le 27 mai 2024. Renaud Philippe. « Un gouvernement inerte et complice » : c’est avec des mots sévères, voire accablants, que le Conseil indigéniste missionnaire (CIMI) a choisi de décrire l’action de Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Publié le 22 juillet, le dernier rapport de cette organisation liée à l’Eglise catholique, référence en matière de défense des peuples autochtones, a l’allure d’un réquisitoire. Le pouvoir actuel y est accusé de « négocier avec les génocidaires » des indigènes. Selon le CIMI, 208 indigènes ont été assassinés au Brésil en 2023, soit une hausse de 15 % par rapport à 2022. Le rapport dénombre sur la même période 1 276 cas de « violences contre le patrimoine » des peuples autochtones, comme l’invasion des terres ou la destruction de propriétés. Mille quarante enfants indigènes sont également morts en 2023 faute de soins ou du fait de malnutrition. Ces chiffres dépassent les niveaux, déjà alarmants, atteints sous la présidence de Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), qui était opposé à toute avancée des droits des indigènes. Dans son rapport fourni, long de 253 pages, le CIMI dénonce d’ailleurs une « situation de continuité des violences et des violations contre les peuples originels » entre Lula et son prédécesseur d’extrême droite. Le dirigeant de gauche était pourtant attendu avec espoir au Brésil. Revenu aux affaires en janvier 2023, Lula a inauguré un tout nouveau ministère des peuples indigènes et restauré dans leurs budgets et prérogatives les principales institutions de défense des autochtones. Il n’a cessé de s’afficher aux côtés du vieux cacique Raoni Metuktire, 92 ans, présent notamment lors de la visite d’Emmanuel Macron au Brésil, en mars. Promesses de campagne oubliées Mais rapidement, la déception s’est installée. « Dénué de majorité au Congrès, Lula s’est vu forcé de gouverner avec des partis du centre et de la droite, favorables à l’agronégoce », déplore Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, anthropologue spécialiste des relations entre l’Etat brésilien et les peuples autochtones. Depuis le début de son mandat, le président de gauche n’a homologué que dix nouvelles terres indigènes, oubliant ses promesses de campagne. Pire : contre l’avis du Tribunal suprême fédéral, les parlementaires ont adopté, fin 2023, la loi dite du « repère temporel », disposant que l’homologation de nouvelles terres ne sera désormais possible que dans des zones peuplées par les indigènes au moment de l’adoption de la Constitution, en 1988, ignorant ainsi les expulsions et déplacements forcés subis par ces populations. « Une mesure aberrante, absurde et anticonstitutionnelle », tonne Mme Carneiro da Cunha. Acculé, Lula ne s’est que mollement opposé au « repère temporel ». L’atermoiement au sommet de l’Etat a eu un impact direct sur le terrain. Sur les 208 assassinats recensés par le CIMI en 2023, 47 ont eu lieu dans le seul l’Etat de Roraima, en Amazonie, où se trouve la grande terre autochtone Yanomami, prise d’assaut par des milliers d’orpailleurs clandestins et en proie à une crise humanitaire sans précédent. Viols et Assassinats L’autre point noir concerne l’Etat du Mato Grosso do Sul (centre-ouest), où vivent les Guarani-Kaiowa, deuxième plus grand groupe autochtone du Brésil, avec près de 50 000 personnes, et où 43 indigènes ont été tués en 2023. « Ici, ce ne sont pas de simples crimes, mais de véritables massacres ! », alerte Matias Rempel, coordinateur du CIMI dans la région, qui évoque « au moins 400 assassinats » commis contre des autochtones « en dix ans ». Engagés dans un processus de reconnaissance de leurs terres, les Guarani-Kaiowa subissent les assauts des riches latifundiaires. « Les fermiers arment des milices armées, cagoulées et montées sur des pick-up, qui envahissent les villages, torturent, violent et assassinent en toute impunité les indigènes, avec le soutien des autorités locales et de la police », témoigne Matias Rempel. Dans la région, le retour de Lula n’a rien changé. Le président a proposé au mois d’avril de racheter différentes fermes du Mato Grosso do Sul afin d’y installer les Guarani-Kaiowa. Une solution saluée par les fermiers, mais rejetée en bloc par les indigènes, qui réclament le droit au retour sur leurs terres ancestrales. Interrogé par le site d’information G1, Luis Ventura Fernandez, secrétaire exécutif du CIMI, a résumé la situation avec dépit : « A chaque fois que le gouvernement a été confronté à la nécessité de choisir entre les intérêts économiques (…) et les droits légitimes des peuples originels, ces derniers ont été sacrifiés. » Translation by Genocide Watch: A report highlights a 15% rise in the number of indigenous murders in 2023, even more than under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. "An inert and complicit government": This is how the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) has chosen to describe the actions of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, using harsh and damning terms. In its latest report, published on July 22, this organization linked to the Catholic Church, a key advocate for indigenous rights, delivers a strong indictment of the current government. The report accuses the administration of “negotiating with the perpetrators of genocide” against indigenous peoples. According to CIMI, 208 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil in 2023, a 15% increase from 2022. During the same period, the report documents 1,276 cases of “violence against the heritage” of indigenous peoples, including land invasions and property destruction. Additionally, 1,040 indigenous children died in 2023 due to lack of care or malnutrition. These figures surpass the already alarming levels seen under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), who was opposed to any advancement in indigenous rights. In its 253-page report, CIMI denounces a “continuation of violence and violations against indigenous peoples” from Lula's administration to his far-right predecessor. The left-wing leader was eagerly anticipated in Brazil. Upon returning to office in January 2023, Lula established a new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and reinstated the budgets and powers of key institutions dedicated to defending indigenous rights. He has consistently showcased his support for 92-year-old Raoni Metuktire, who was present during Emmanuel Macron's visit to Brazil in March. Forgotten Campaign Promises However, disappointment soon followed. “Lacking a majority in Congress, Lula was forced to govern with parties from the center and the right that favored agribusiness,” laments Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, an anthropologist specializing in the relationship between the Brazilian state and indigenous peoples. Since the start of his mandate, the left-wing president has approved only ten new indigenous lands, falling short of his campaign promises. Worse still, at the end of 2023, parliamentarians passed the so-called “temporal landmark” law against the advice of the Federal Supreme Court. This law stipulates that new land registrations will only be possible in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples at the time the Constitution was adopted in 1988, disregarding the forced expulsions and displacements these populations have suffered. “An aberrant, absurd, and unconstitutional measure,” says Carneiro da Cunha. Under pressure, Lula offered only weak opposition to the “temporal landmark” law. This indecision at the highest levels of government has had direct consequences on the ground. Of the 208 murders recorded by CIMI in 2023, 47 occurred in the Amazonian state of Roraima alone, home to the vast Yanomami indigenous land, which has been overrun by thousands of illegal gold miners and is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Rape and Murder Another troubling area is the state of Mato Grosso do Sul in central-western Brazil, home to the Guarani-Kaiowa, the second largest indigenous group in Brazil with a population of nearly 50,000. In 2023, 43 indigenous people were killed in this state. Matias Rempel, CIMI's coordinator in the region, warns of “at least 400 murders” committed against indigenous people over the past ten years. The Guarani-Kaiowa, who are in the process of having their lands recognized, face attacks from wealthy landowners. “Farmers arm militias, who invade villages in hooded pick-ups, torturing, raping, and murdering indigenous people with impunity, often with the support of local authorities and the police,” Rempel testifies. Lula's return to power has changed nothing in this region. In April, the president proposed buying various farms in Mato Grosso do Sul to settle the Guarani-Kaiowa. This solution was welcomed by the farmers but outright rejected by the indigenous people, who demand the right to return to their ancestral lands. Luis Ventura Fernandez, executive secretary of CIMI, expressed his frustration in an interview with the G1 news website: “Every time the government has had to choose between economic interests and the legitimate rights of indigenous peoples, the latter have been sacrificed.” © 2024 Le Monde.

Speech by Dr. Gregory H Stanton Looking Backward into The Future Dr. Gregory H. Stanton Founding President , Genocide Watch Chair, Alliance Against Genocide IAGS/Educators Institute for Human Rights/Alliance Against Genocide Conference on Teaching About Genocide April 26, 2024 During the twentieth century, over a hundred million people were murdered by their own governments. That is more deaths than from all wars combined. Deaths from genocide and political mass murder were only exceeded by deaths from diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, and influenza. Genocide is committed by people who have lost sight of our common humanity. All humans belong to one family. But we are born into thousands of ethnic groups that speak thousands of languages. We belong to hundreds of nations, and have scores of religions. Some think there are many races, but there is really only one race: the human race. Genocide is committed by us because we become ethnocentric, racist, nationalistic, or religiously intolerant. Genocide is idolatry. We worship our ethnic group, or race, or nation, or religion instead of God. We build golden altars and sacrifice human beings upon them. Instead of blessing all humans as God’s creations, we bathe our weapons with their blood. Looking Backward into the Future The United Nations World War Two was the deadliest war in human history.  85 million people perished.  Military deaths  totaled 25 million, including the deaths of five million prisoners of war.  Civilian deaths totaled 55 million.  The Soviet Union lost 27 million people. Nineteen million people died in China, including 8 to 9 million to famine and disease. The victors in World War II were determined to prevent future wars. So they founded the United Nations in 1945. In 1948, the UN passed the Genocide Convention and chose the UN to enforce it. But the UN has failed to end war. And it has failed to stop genocides. Since its founding, the UN has been crippled by the Perm-5 veto. In 1945, it was still the colonial era. The colonial powers, including the UK, France, Russia, and China wanted to keep their empires. The most powerful nation, the United States, wanted to maintain its military and economic dominance. These five nations insisted on having vetoes in the UN Security Council, the only UN body with power under the UN Charter to authorize the use of military force. If even one of these Perm-5 nations vetoes, the UN cannot authorize military intervention. From the beginning, Soviet vetoes paralyzed the Security Council. The Perm-5 veto has paralyzed the UN ever since. It is a fatal flaw in the UN Charter. In 1950, North Korea, with Soviet support, invaded South Korea. The USSR had made the mistake of walking out of the Security Council from January through July 1950 because the UN refused to recognize Communist China to take China’s seat in the UN. During its absence, the US, UK, and France pushed through creation of a UN Force to intervene in Korea. To get around Soviet vetoes and to provide a future alternative to the Security Council, the US sponsored Resolution 377 A, the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, which states that in cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members, fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed force when necessary, in order to maintain or restore international security and peace. It was adopted November 3, 1950. The resolution provides the UN with an alternative avenue for action when at least one P5 member uses its veto to obstruct the Security Council from carrying out its functions mandated by the UN Charter. To facilitate prompt action by the General Assembly in the case of a deadlocked Security Council, the resolution created the mechanism of the emergency special session. Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on eleven occasions, with the most recent convened in February 2022, to address Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Although the US originally sponsored the Uniting for Peace Resolution, the US has become very reluctant to use it. When I was a Foreign Service Officer in the US State Department, State Department lawyers told me, “Oh, we don’t favor Uniting For Peace anymore. After all, In the General Assembly, the US has no veto.” The US has again supported use of Uniting For Peace after Russia invaded Ukraine because Russia would have vetoed any UN action in the Security Council. The US and other members of the Perm-5 should use Uniting For Peace much more often to authorize armed UN Peacekeeping Missions to stop genocides and arrest their perpetrators. Our IRF/Alliance Genocide Working Group has written a letter to members of the UN Security Council urging reestablishment of a UN and AU Peacekeeping Force to stop the war in Sudan and to arrest the Generals who are fighting for power and committing genocide, killing thousands of Sudanese civilians. Please sign on to our letter to the UN Security Council. It is on the IAGS listserv and on the Genocide Watch website at www.genocidewatch.com. The Precautionary Principle In 2007, with my colleague, Dr. Elihu Richter, we submitted a proposal to the Albright- Cohen Commission considering establishment of the U.S. Atrocities Prevention Board. We told the Commission that The Precautionary Principle should be applied when risks of genocide appear. The Precautionary Principle states that when there is uncertainty concerning the possibility of the occurrence of a major catastrophic event, the costs of inaction far outweigh those of anticipatory preventive action. The Precautionary Principle shifts the burden of proof from those suspecting a catastrophic risk to those denying it. In everyday terms, the Precautionary Principle states that it is better to be safe than sorry. We were ignored.  The default policy of diplomats and world leaders when there are warning signs of genocide remains: Do Nothing.  Wait until the genocide is underway. Even then, because the cost will be so high, Do Nothing. Statistical studies by Barbara Harff have outlined the political risk factors for genocide: ongoing civil or international war; past genocide that has gone unpunished and is still denied; rule by an ethnically exclusive elite; official exclusionary ideology; autocracy or totalitarianism; closure of relations with the outside world; massive human rights violations: torture and extrajudicial killings. We know the risk factors. The anti-genocide movement should work against war and for punishment of perpetrators. We should press for broadly-based democratic governments. We should oppose ideologies of racial or class superiority. We should favor free trade and free speech.  We should strongly oppose violations of fundamental human rights by any regime. But these factors cannot tell us when genocide is likely to happen, and therefore are of limited use in prevention. That is why I developed a model of the genocidal process, “The Ten Stages of Genocide.”  I now regret choosing the word “stages” because it implies linearity in the model. In the first paragraph of the model, I state,” The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously.” I should just have called the “stages” processes. They are what structural anthropologists call a transformational structure – a system of transformations. The Ten Stages of Genocide provides the outline of a transformational grammar of genocidal processes. I owe these concepts of structure to Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable, but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear.  Many stages operate simultaneously.  It is a logical model for thinking about the genocidal process and what we can do to prevent or stop it. The Ten Stages of Genocide are Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination, and Denial. The original memo I wrote in 1996 was intended to educate State Department officers about the genocidal process and how to stop it.  I knew it had to fit on one page, back and front, or it would not be read. Little did I know that it would become a paradigmatic model used by teachers and policy makers around the world. Rethinking the Law of Genocide I am a lawyer, trained by Myres McDougal and Michael Reisman at Yale Law School. They taught that law and policy are not two separate realms: that law is concretized policy, and law should be evaluated as policy. I am also a cultural anthropologist, trained by Victor Turner, Marshall Sahlins, and Leo Kuper. They trained me to look beneath the surface for the deeper structures and schisms that underlie societies and conflicts. An anthropological analysis of lawyers may help us understand why the Genocide Convention has thus far failed to prevent genocide.  The Genocide Convention was born toothless, and lawyers have kept it from ever outgrowing its baby teeth. The training of lawyers creates a backward-looking, adjudication-oriented view of genocide. At a conference at Cardozo Law School in 2011, a colleague put it this way, “The convention was primarily meant to adjudicate an individual’s criminal responsibility.” The State Department Legal Advisors Office and UK Foreign Office even say they can’t use the term genocide unless a court does. They are wrong. Nothing in the Genocide Convention requires that a court first declare that a genocide is about to happen or is underway before governments can warn or use the word genocide. One purpose of the Convention is certainly to punish genocidists. But if that is all it is, we have forgotten the very name of the Convention: the “International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The Convention was meant to be forward-looking and preventive, not just a law for punishment. Why hasn’t the United Nations prevented genocide? 1.     The United Nations has failed to prevent war and genocide because it is built on the old nation-state system. National governments still claim the right to commit crimes, even genocide, against their own citizens. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was supposed to overcome claims of national sovereignty. R2P says that sovereignty doesn’t come down from rulers, but rather rises up from the people. It’s the same view of sovereignty that framed the US Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. When a nation is tyrannized by its own government, its citizens have the right to overthrow that government. Under R2P the United Nations and regional organizations have the right to intervene in nations that are murdering their own citizens. But very few nations are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own military troops to carry out such R2P interventions. R2P has not yet become enforceable international law. Like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is an aspirational doctrine. It is still rejected by all genocidal states. Many Asian and African nations as well as Russia and China see R2P as an attempt by Europe and the U.S. to reimpose colonial rule. 2.     There is still no United Nations Military Force. A UN Military Force consisting of forces from UN member states is authorized by Articles 43 through 47 of the United Nations Charter.  The Military Staff Committee composed of Chiefs of Staff of Perm-5 Security Council members has never been established. The main reason is that none of the Perm-5 want a strong UN military force that could oppose their own armies. Current UN Peacekeeping Missions are too weak to overpower national armies. They cannot stop genocides. It is time to create a UN Military Force like NATO’s, but without NATO’s requirement of unanimity to take military action. 3. The International Criminal Court has no police force to arrest people it charges. Courts cannot work without police forces. Today, there is no effective international police force to arrest people charged with crimes by the International Criminal Court or by international tribunals. National police forces usually refuse to arrest genocidists because the police serve under the same leaders whom the ICC has charged. The U.N. also lacks a police force to prevent genocide by arresting national leaders who are planning or perpetrating genocide. We need international police. But injecting them into a nation-state is still considered a violation of national sovereignty by many governments, especially genocidal regimes. The emerging international norm of The Responsibility to Protect may be invoked to answer such arguments. But how many nations are willing to send their army or police into other countries to face heavily armed national military forces determined to keep them out? The answer can be seen in the difficulty the UN has in recruiting troops for its Peacekeeping Operations, especially from countries with powerful militaries like the US, UK, France, Russia, and China. If the UN can’t muster the forces, other means must be found. One way to create an International Police Force would be to pass an Optional Protocol to the Treaty of the International Criminal Court to authorize one. It would have authority only to execute arrest warrants for persons charged by the ICC with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.  But even such a police force would face resistance from genocidal states. The fundamental problem is the persistent paradigm of national sovereignty. Genocide Watch has proposed an Optional Protocol to the Genocide Convention that would reaffirm the authority of the UN General Assembly to approve the use of force when the UN Security Council is paralyzed by a Perm-5 veto.  This authority already exists under the Uniting for Peace Resolution of 1950, and it has been used 11 times. It is currently being used to give the UN General Assembly jurisdiction over Russian aggression in Ukraine. The Optional Protocol Genocide Watch has proposed would restate and define the power of Regional Organizations to act under Chapter 8 of the UN Charter, which gives Regional Organizations such authorization even before they receive a UN Security Council mandate. 4. Very few national educational systems aim to create anti-genocidal cultures. Genocide requires popular participation.  200,000 people participated in the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Churches in Rwanda could have played a powerful role in creating a culture resistant to genocide in Rwanda, because many Hutus and Tutsis are Roman Catholics and attended the same churches. But the church was as ethnically divided as the rest of Rwandan society. Some clergy even participated in the killings. In re-thinking genocide prevention, we should pay special attention to the “bottom-up” dimension of genocide. How can anti-genocidal cultures be built? Religion has far too often been a cause of genocide. But what if every major religion regularly affirmed the core principle in all religions: that all human beings belong to one race – the human race?  We need to spark the efforts of people at the grass roots in schools, universities, seminaries, churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples all over the world. 5. To end genocide and war, women must be empowered. Women resolve conflicts very differently than men. When men have conflicts, they fight. When women have conflicts, they talk. Talking is a much better way to resolve conflicts than fighting. Not a single genocide or war in human history has been planned by groups of women. That’s the elephant in the room that theorists of war and genocide try to ignore. It doesn’t mean that women don’t participate in wars or genocide. They do. But the wars or genocides are always planned by men, even when a queen is head of state. The only possible exception to this rule was Queen Ranavalona I, the "Mad Monarch of Madagascar" who ruled from 1828 to 1861. Her use of warfare, forced labor, and trials by ordeal using poison, exacerbated by new infectious diseases, resulted in a mortality rate that reduced Madagascar's population from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839. But Mad Queen Ranavalona I is the exception that proves the rule. Women do not plan wars or genocides. Many more nations must elect women as their leaders. 6. We must create the political will to prevent genocide. Many people have said that the problem in the Rwandan Genocide and in Bosnia and Darfur was not the absence of early warning of the coming catastrophe. It was the absence of political will to prepare for and prevent it. Even when UN Peacekeeping Missions have been deployed, they are not given strong mandates to protect civilians by fighting and defeating genocidists. Yasushi Akashi, the pacifist head of UNPROFOR in former Yugoslavia would never authorize bombing of Bosnian Serb sniper nests. He was finally replaced after the Srebrenica genocide. In Rwanda, there were 2500 UNAMIR troops on the ground when the genocide began. Rather than reinforce them as General Dallaire requested, the US, UK, and France led the UN Security Council to order withdrawal of all but 400 UNAMIR troops. Even the 400 Ghanaian troops who voted to stay saved hundreds of lives. Meanwhile, two thousand French and Belgian troops were able to airlift all French and Belgians out of Rwanda with their pets. Not a single Rwandan was allowed to board the planes. The US embassy drove out to Burundi protected by Marine guards. Secretly, the US had ships filled with thousands of US Marines right off the coast of East Africa when the genocide began. But President Clinton never authorized their deployment to Rwanda. Political will is not a mystery. It is not mystical mumbo-jumbo that is impossible to analyze and understand. Anyone who witnessed the triumph of the political campaigns of President Barack Obama should see that. political will can be built from the ground up. It is time that we hold our leaders to account. We must no longer accept their excuses. President Clinton’s “we did not know” speech in Kigali after the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda was a lie. Of course, President Clinton knew! I had top secret codeword clearance in the State Department in 1994 and read the same cables that were used to brief Pres. Clinton. A cable to the State Department and National Security Council from the Department of Defense on the first day of the genocide on April 7, 1994, called the mass killings genocide. Our Deputy Chief of Mission in Kigali, Joyce Leader, has told me she called the massacres genocide in her daily phone calls to the State Department from the first day, April 7 onward. But the US Ambassador to Rwanda, David Rawson, who had grown up a missionary’s son in Burundi, didn’t know what genocide is. Neither did the State Department Office of the Legal Advisor They thought the killings were part of a civil war, rather than a genocide. They didn’t understand that most genocides occur during civil or international wars. Wars and genocides are not mutually exclusive. They usually go together. 7. Leaders of genocides must be arrested or killed. I have always been perplexed by the unwillingness of the world’s leaders to send in heavily armed commandos to arrest the leaders of genocides and take them for trial to the Hague. The ICC should require preliminary hearings and an arrest warrant. But currently there are no international police to arrest the Omar al Bashir’s and General Hemedti’s who are leading genocides that murder thousands of people. Indeed, why is it out of the question to send in commandos to kill such genocidal leaders if they resist and can’t be arrested. Why hasn’t Vladimir Putin been killed by a missile strike that precisely targets him in Russia? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was part of the plot to kill Hitler. Despite his dedication to non-violent resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded that Bonhoeffer was morally right. 8. It is time to build an international anti-genocide movement on the scale of the anti-slavery movement. We must build the political will for international intervention when genocide is imminent. When I founded Genocide Watch in 1999, there was not a single organization in the world entirely devoted to the prevention of genocide. At the same time, we founded the Alliance Against Genocide to create the coalition necessary to mobilize a mass movement. Now there are hundreds of anti-genocide organizations. The Alliance Against Genocide has over 120 member organizations in 31 countries with thousands of employees. There are many other anti-genocide organizations that are not yet members of the Alliance. We share the same vision. It is especially vital to build anti-genocide organizations in countries at risk of genocide. Empathy Empathy is the ability to place oneself in the shoes of another. It is the measure of a person’s moral capacity.  Empathy is the expression of Satyagraha, that great truth force that Gandhi rediscovered, and that was also taught by the Buddha, Amos, Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Satyagraha is expressed in both justice and love.  It has revolutionary power because justice and love flow from the same Force. The more I have worked against genocide, the more I have become convinced that genocide must be defeated locally.  It can be prevented only by teaching people the empathy for their neighbors that will make them "upstanders" who will oppose the dehumanization necessary for genocide. Justice By Gregory Stanton Can justice come in courts? Can a widow's tears be dried by trials? Can a raped girl's shame be healed by ceremonies? Can a fatherless child be consoled? What is justice to a woman whose children were slaughtered just before she was raped? What is justice to a bride whose husband's last caress was the last she will ever know? What is justice to a woman who will never trust a man again? What is justice to an orphan in a refugee camp? What is justice to lawyers who still won’t call it Genocide? Justice is the spirit of the law. Without justice law is dead, like an empty skull. Without justice there can be no reconciliation. Without justice love cannot re-weave the social fabric. Without justice hope dies. Without justice death conquers life. Justice reestablishes the truth. Justice restores dignity to the victims. Justice recognizes a widow’s grief. Justice is digging up bones and giving them proper burial. Justice is telling stories of suffering to someone who really listens. Justice is confession that your country was responsible. Justice is always having to say you’re sorry. Justice struggles to understand why people do such evil. Justice affirms that the rule of law is stronger than rule by force. Justice says murderers cannot get away with Genocide. Justice is the antidote to abandonment. Justice is reconnection with the human race. Justice restores the social order. Justice rebalances the moral universe. Justice is God’s force socially expressed. Love is God’s force personally expressed. With justice and love, hope returns. Hope is the assurance that life will triumph over death. Poem Copyright 2024 Gregory H Stanton