By Paul Njie & Basillioh Rukanga, BBC News Guinea military leaders have been accused of suppressing dissent (AFP) Courts in Guinea are paralysed after lawyers embarked on a nationwide strike to protest against the military regime carrying out "arbitrary arrests" and "secret detentions", the bar association has said. The strike is the latest sign of growing outrage over the arrest of two prominent activists campaigning for a return to democratic rule. France’s far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose coalition won the most seats in parliamentary elections last week, has also called for their release. Guinea's military toppled President Alpha Condé in 2021, following mass protests against his rule after he won a controversial third term in elections. Many Guineans welcomed the coup, but now accuse the military of cracking down on dissent and reneging on its promise to hand back power to a democratic government. The bar association said lawyers would boycott court sessions for the next two weeks, until 31 July. "The courts are not closed, but their activity is rather paralysed," said its spokesman Gabriel Kamano. Lawyers plan to return to court on 1 August - a day after a verdict is due to be given in the trial of former military ruler Dadis Camara on charges of crimes against humanity. The case has been closely followed in Guinea, as it covers one of the worst massacres in the nation's history - the killing of more than 150 people during a protest against military rule in 2009. Scores of women were also raped. Mr Camara, the country's leader at the time, is accused of many counts of murder, sexual violence, torture, abduction and kidnapping, along with other officials implicated in the massacre. They all denied the allegations against them. Authorities have insisted the trial will proceed, but it is unclear if the verdict will be read on that date because of the strike. The strike follows the arrest on 9 July of Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Bah, the leaders of a citizens' movement that has been critical of the junta-led government. Rights group Amnesty International has called on the government to "immediately" release them. It said the authorities should disclose where they are being detained, and allow them access to lawyers and family visits. Mr Mélenchon has also weighed in on the arrests in the former French colony. “France is heavily engaged with the power in place. It must intervene so that they are immediately released and put out of danger,” he said on X (formerly Twitter). For months now, the Guinean authorities have been cracking down on peaceful dissent, including attempts to mobilise people towards a return to democratic rule. The junta has been criticised for suspending media outlets, restricting internet access and brutally suppressing demonstrations. © Copyright 2024 BBC.

The top court of the United Nations has opted not to implement emergency measures limiting German assistance for Israel. Nicaragua had filed charges that German arms supplies to Israel were enabling acts of "genocide." Demonstrators gathered outside the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday - Reuters The International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its preliminary ruling on Tuesday, saying it would not implement emergency measures to stop or limit Germany from providing weapons and other assistance to Israel for the conflict with militant-Islamist Hamas in Gaza. Nicaragua had brought the charges, claiming that Germany's actions breached the 1948 Genocide Convention by allowing violations of international humanitarian law in the Palestinian territory. The broader case is likely to take far longer, but Tuesday's ruling means the court saw insufficient urgent imperative to try to intervene after a preliminary hearing. The court did not, however, grant a German request to throw the case out altogether, saying it would continue. Germany hails verdict and says it's 'not a party to the conflict' Germany's Foreign Ministry was quick to react online, welcoming the ruling and also saying that "nobody is above the law" and that this notion "guides our actions." "Germany is not a party to the conflict in the Middle East — quite the contrary. We are working day and night towards a two-state solution. We are the biggest donors of humanitarian aid for Palestinians," the Ministry said. "But we do also see: the terrorism of October 7, against which Israel must defend itself, set this new spiral of suffering in motion," the ministry said, before noting how roughly 100 hostages remained in Hamas captivity more than half a year after their abduction. What did Nicaragua allege? Nicaragua's ambassador to the Netherlands, Carlos Jose Arguello Gomez opened his country's case to the ICJ's 16-judge panel earlier this month. "There can be no question that Germany ... was well aware, and is well aware, of at least the serious risk of genocide being committed," he said. "Germany is failing to honor its own obligation to prevent genocide or to ensure respect of international humanitarian law." Nicaragua — a country that has historic ties with the Palestinian people through migration — has requested several provisional measures against Germany. They include that the country "immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment." How did Germany respond? The head of the German legal team, Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, told the panel that Nicaragua's claims "have no basis in fact or law." "Where Germany has provided support to Israel, including in a form of export of arms and other military equipment, the quantity and purposes of these supplies have been grossly distorted by Nicaragua," von Uslar-Gleichen said. "Our history is the reason why Israel's security has been at the core of Germany's foreign policy," she added, referring to Germany's role in the Holocaust. Another of Germany's representatives, Christian Tams, told the court that 98% of arms exports to Israel since October 7 were general equipment like vests, helmets and binoculars. "The moment we look closely, Nicaragua's accusations fall apart," Tams told the court. ICJ judges also noted when delivering their ruling how, "as stated by Germany," the volume of military exports to Israel had fallen markedly since November 2023. The decision on Tuesday is only a preliminary one, and Nicaragua's case will likely drag on for years. ICJ to rule on separate genocide allegation The ICJ, which was set up to rule in disputes between nations, has emerged as an important forum for international arguments about the war between Israel and Hamas militants. A separate case has seen South Africa accuse Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza, charges that Israel has strongly denied. The ICJ made an interim ruling finding it "plausible" that Israel's acts could amount to acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel's offensive has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. Numbers provided by the ministry are generally seen as reliable by UN agencies. The war has displaced about 80% of the population, with hundreds of thousands said to be on the brink of famine. The Gaza war started when Hamas and other Islamist militants staged an attack on southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians in the October 7 attacks. They also took another 250 hostages. Germany, the EU, the US, and others have designated Hamas as a terrorist group. rc/wd (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters) © 2024 Deutsche Welle.

Attacks claimed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria are on track to double last year’s total, the U.S. military said in a report, as the terrorist group’s affiliates become increasingly deadly elsewhere around the world. An Islamic State flag in a bombed-out militant headquarters in 2017 in Mosul, Iraq.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times The New York Times July 17, 2024 By Eve Sampson Attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria this year are on the rise and on track to double last year’s count, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, indicating a resurgence of the terrorist group a decade after it wrought destruction and death across the region. The group, also known as ISIS, took responsibility for 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of this year, according to a report by the military’s Central Command, despite continued operations targeting the organization’s operatives by a U.S.-led coalition and partner forces in both countries. In all of last year, ISIS claimed 121 attacks in Iraq and Syria, a defense official said. The group, a Sunni Muslim organization that traces its roots to Al Qaeda, exploited the power vacuum that emerged after Syria’s civil war broke out to conquer large areas. Notorious for kidnappings, sexual enslavement and public executions, ISIS took its largest prize when it seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, before being beaten back in 2014. Though the last fragment of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate in the Middle Eastern region was liberated with U.S. military support five years ago, the group has morphed into a decentralized collection of cells and affiliates around the world. The U.S. military has since maintained a presence in Syria and Iraq. Mourners in Qamishli, Syria, at a mass funeral in 2022 for Kurdish fighters killed fending off ISIS gunmen during a prison siege.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times ISIS in Iraq and Syria: Attacks on the Rise The U.S.-led coalition has conducted nearly 200 missions against ISIS since January, the military said, coordinating with Kurdish-led forces in Syria and the military in Iraq. In all, the report said, U.S.-led forces have killed 44 ISIS operatives and detained 166 others. “We continue to focus our efforts on specifically targeting those members of ISIS who are seeking to conduct external operations outside of Iraq and Syria and those ISIS members attempting to break out ISIS members in detention in an attempt to reconstitute their forces,” Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. The reasons behind the increase in attacks in Syria and Iraq may be complex, experts say. The group has become stronger and gained more freedom of operation, but a combination of other factors has also most likely contributed, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on counterterrorism. “The increase in attacks may be caused by continued disenchantment with the governments of Iraq and Syria and their focus on other issues,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “It could also be due to the diversion of U.S. assets toward Iranian-backed groups.” Although Mr. Byman said the increase in attacks did not mean there was an immediate cause for global alarm, the group’s reconstitution could have serious and dangerous consequences for people in the region, many of whom have been suffering the effects of war for decades. Though he said “this is not a ‘Baghdad is about to fall’ situation,” Mr. Byman highlighted the threat the attacks posed for Iraqis and Syrians. “The ISIS resurgence is bad news for these communities,” he said. A roadside memorial in front of the burned-out Crocus City Hall in Russia after a deadly attack by what U.S. officials say was ISIS-K.Credit...Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters ISIS Around the World: Raising Cells’ Profiles In the past six months, ISIS and its affiliates have launched high-profile and deadly attacks, highlighting the group’s resilience and its ability to diversify via a network of cells around the world. In some cases, attacks have targeted civilians and locations without obvious military connections. On Tuesday, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in Oman, where gunmen killed six people and wounded more than 30 others. In a video of the attack, which took place on an important Shiite holiday, the attackers described the worshipers in disparaging terms. An ISIS affiliate active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran — the Islamic State Khoransan, or ISIS-K — has become increasingly emboldened and deadly. U.S. officials say the group was responsible for the bloody attack in March on a concert hall outside Moscow, which killed over 130 people and injured scores more. In January, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Iran that killed 84 people during a memorial procession for a top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who was slain four years earlier in a U.S. drone attack. Iran is a theocracy ruled by Shiite clerics and General Suleimani previously led the country’s efforts to unite Shiite groups across the region. U.S. officials are also monitoring the group’s expansion across the Sahel region in Africa amid political instability and a number of coups. In March, the Islamic State claimed an attack on Niger’s army that reportedly killed 30 soldiers. © 2024 The New York Times Company

Ankara has carried out repeated ground operations against Kurdish fighters, launching its most recent in 2022. Turkish soldiers conduct military exercises near the Habur crossing gate between Turkey and Iraq in 2017 [File: Ilyas Akengin/AFP] Turkey will soon end its latest ground military operation in northern Iraq, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. Speaking to military academy graduates on Saturday, Erdogan hailed Operation Claw-Lock, which Ankara launched in April 2022, as a success. He said Kurdish fighters were now “incapable of acting inside our borders”. “We will close the lock very soon in the Claw Operation Zone in northern Iraq,” Erdogan said, according to the Reuters news agency. The Turkish leader did not give a timeline for the end of the operation and it was not immediately clear what it would mean for the situation on the ground in northern Iraq and Syria, where Ankara has increased air raids in recent months. Turkish forces have been sporadically fighting the northern-Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for decades.  The PKK, which Ankara, the US and EU consider a “terrorist” group, first took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. Turkey began launching large-scale ground operations in northern Iraq against the PKK in the mid-1990s. It began incursions into Syria in 2015. Those operations targeted both Kurdish fighters and the ISIL (ISIS) armed group. More than 40,000 people have been killed during the decades of fighting, with Turkish shelling in July of 2022 killing eight tourists, including a child, at a resort in the Kurdish Zakho district in northern Iraq. In Syria, Turkish forces have targeted the Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG), which it regards as a wing of the PKK, as well as the Kurdish-led, US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces. ‘Fully determined’ to build buffer zone In recent years, Ankara has repeatedly sought to build a buffer or “secure” area along its border with its southern neighbours, launching an operation in 2019 to take control of border areas of northern Syria following the abrupt withdrawal of US troops there. Speaking to Politico earlier this month, Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler said that Ankara is “fully determined to create a 30-40 km [19 – 25-mile] deep security corridor along our Iraqi and Syrian borders and to completely clear the region of terrorists”. “We will continue operations until the last terrorist is neutralised,” he said at the time. Speaking on Saturday, Erdogan promised that Turkish forces will “complete the missing points of the security belt along our southern border with Syria”, the AFP news agency reported. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

The human rights organization Cristosal says at least 261 people have died in prisons in El Salvador during President Nayib Bukele’s 2 1/2-year-old crackdown on street gangs By Associated Press July 10, 2024 at 5:27 p.m. EDT FILE - A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023. On Wednesday, July 10, 2024, Cristobal, an NGO, reported it had documented the deaths of 261 people, four of them children, who were in Salvadoran state custody, after being detained during the state of exception in force since March 2022. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File) SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The human rights organization Cristosal said Wednesday that at least 261 people have died in prisons in El Salvador during President Nayib Bukele’s 2 1/2-year-old crackdown on street gangs. Under a state of emergency originally declared in 2022 and still in effect, Bukele’s government has rounded up 81,110 suspected gang members in sweeps that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a person’s appearance or where they live. The government has had to release about 7,000 people because of a lack of evidence. The group said in a report that, as of April 15, 88 of the 261 deaths “may have been the result of a criminal act,” though it did not specify what those acts may have been. The report said 87 of the deaths were due to illnesses, 14 were apparently “acts of violence” and no cause could be immediately identified for the other 72. “People have died in El Salvador’s prisons and jails because of torture, a lack of food, unhealthy conditions, an inhuman lack of attention and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” said lawyer Zaira Navas, who authored the report. “There is a deliberate policy of not protecting the rights of incarcerated people.” There was no immediate reaction from the government to the report. While the government is accused of committing mass human rights abuses in the crackdown, Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador because homicide rates sharply dipped following the detentions. The Central American nation went from being one of the most dangerous countries in the world to having the lowest homicide rate in the region. Bukele rode that popularity into reelection in February, despite the country’s constitution prohibiting second terms for presidents. In April, a report by the rights organization Humanitarian Legal Relief estimated that at least 241 people had died in Salvadoran prisons since the start of the crackdown. © 1996-2024 The Washington Post

The U.N.’s chief human rights official accuses Libya’s political leaders of crushing political dissent to cling to power, leaving the country divided and its people mired in crisis, poverty, and misery. In a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council Tuesday, Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, presented a stinging rebuke of the methods employed by Libya’s governing elite to eviscerate its political opponents and remain in charge. "A stalled political process, hijacked by actors whose interests align in preserving the status quo, is decimating the hope of Libyans for a more stable, open and thriving society. Hopes they have had to carry for far too long, with little in return,” he said. The high commissioner’s report covers the human rights situation in Libya in the 12 months since April 2023. The report outlines “some disturbing developments,” among them an escalation in arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances and detention-related violations. “Targeting of political opponents and dissenting voices across the country has accelerated,” he said. While the figure of those arrested is likely to be higher, he noted that his office has verified at least 60 cases of arbitrary detention of people who were “peacefully exercising their right to express political views.” “In some cases, detention was followed by extrajudicial killing,” he said. “All of this is corrosive to the prospects for healing Libya’s fractured social and political environment, especially as grievances around detentions were at the heart of the 2011 uprising,” he said. He warned that lack of accountability for the violations and abuses committed 13 years ago “remains a serious obstacle to reconciliation today and serves as a driver of conflict.” Libyan society is still divided 13 years after the country’s former dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, was overthrown. The country is ruled by two rival administrations: the internationally recognized Tripoli-based Government of National Unity and the Government of National Stability, which holds power in the east. Libya has not had presidential or parliamentary elections since 2014. At the council, the high commissioner denounced the widespread violations and abuses “perpetrated at scale with impunity” against migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by both “state and non-state actors, often working in collusion.” His report documents a litany of horrors to which these vulnerable, desperate people are subjected, including “trafficking, torture, forced labor, extortion, starvation in intolerable conditions of detention,” as well as mass expulsions and the sale of human beings, including children. “And in March this year a mass grave was discovered in southwestern Libya, containing at least 65 bodies presumed to be migrants,” Türk said. Following the discovery of the mass grave in March, the International Organization for Migration said, “The circumstances of their death and nationalities remain unknown, but it is believed that they died in the process of being smuggled through the desert.” The high commissioner said, “As if this were not horrific enough, we are following up on reports of another mass grave recently discovered in the desert area at the Libyan-Tunisian border.” Calling for investigations into these crimes, Türk said that “The responsibility for investigating these crimes falls squarely with the Libyan authorities. Reparations must be made, justice served and nothing like this must ever happen again.” Halima Ibrahim Abdel Rahman, Libya’s minister of justice, did not respond to the high commissioner’s mass graves accusations, nor about his allegations regarding the abhorrent treatment of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. The minister said that some of the comments “are not in line with reality,” noting that “Libya gives special importance to the rights of refugees, although many of the refugees present in the territory of our country are there clandestinely.” She also took umbrage at the high commissioner’s charges that human rights violations and abuses against political dissidents are committed with impunity. “What we see in the report does not fully reflect the efforts taken by the judiciary because we have prosecuted a high number of individuals accused of violating human rights while providing all legal guarantees” to people in “all places of detention, which are under the control of the Ministry of Justice,” she said. Human rights chief Türk urged Libya to restore the rule of law, including accountability for human rights violations, and to protect the peoples’ right to freedom of assembly and association. “The stifling of civil society organizations, political activists, journalists and many others is fostering a climate of fear,” he said. “It is also undermining the very foundations necessary for Libya’s democratic transition, emboldening the spoilers, and enabling security actors to perpetrate human rights violations with impunity,” he said. Credit: Voice of America

By Genocide Watch Since October 8, 2023, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in constant conflict. Hezbollah has launched regular rocket attacks into northern Israel. Israel has bombed Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response. Hezbollah claims its rocket attacks on Israeli towns are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The attacks have driven Israelis from several northern towns. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization backed by Iran. It shares Iran’s genocidal intent to destroy the nation of Israel. Hezbollah has taken control of major portions of Lebanon, including border areas with Israel. Israel has sent precision missiles into Lebanon and Syria that have killed several senior Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah has responded with more rocket attacks on Israel. Israeli leaders are now planning an invasion of Lebanon to stop Hezbollah attacks. Israel may try to establish an Israeli-controlled buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Some Israeli settlers even advocate building settlements in southern Lebanon, which they call "northern Galilee," like Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Israel refuses to rule out an invasion of Lebanon until Hezbollah ends its attacks in northern Israel. Hezbollah says it will end its attacks against Israel only when there is a permanent cease fire that ends Israel’s war in Gaza. Israel refuses to end the war in Gaza until it totally defeats Hamas and all Israeli hostages are freed. On June 18, 2024 the IDF approved operational plans for an invasion of Lebanon. This escalation of the conflict would force Israel into a two-front war. It would also violate UNSC Resolution 425 and Resolution 1701, which authorized UNIFIL peacekeepers to monitor the Lebanese border with Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Gallant, Foreign Minister Katz, and Prime Minister Netanyahu have made statements indicating that the planned invasion is imminent. Genocide Watch warns that a war, once begun, will include many civilian deaths. All wars cause war crimes. Israeli missile strikes and shelling have cut agricultural output in southern Lebanon. Syrian refugees and Lebanese Christians and Muslims in southern Lebanon are moving further north and abroad. Israel's phosphorus munitions, banned under international law, have burned and poisoned southern Lebanese farmland and orchards. Israel has concentrated IDF forces on the 2000 UN Blue Line that divides Israel from Lebanon. They are poised to invade Lebanon. Hezbollah has thousands of missiles that could penetrate deep into Israel. If Israel invades Lebanon, a full-scale war would cost thousands of Lebanese and Israeli lives. The Blue Line established in 2000 by the UN to mark Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon source Wikimedia Netanyahu has dissolved his unity war cabinet and split with moderate politicians. There are now large demonstrations calling for new elections. Netanyahu rejects elections because of his almost certain defeat. Loss of his office would result in the loss of his prime ministerial immunity from prosecution for corruption. Israel is internally divided. It is at Stage 6: Polarization. Israel’s planned invasion of Lebanon indicates that Israel is at Stage 7: Preparation for war and the crimes war will inevitably cause. Genocide Watch Recommends: Israel and Hamas must accept the US and UN peace plan and conclude the war in Gaza. The International Criminal Court should charge Hamas leaders for genocide in Israel. The ICC should prosecute Israeli leaders for the war crime of starvation of Palestinians. The US should warn Israel that the US will cut off military aid if the IDF invades Lebanon.

The ICC charged Israeli officials with starving Gaza. What happens now? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are the first individuals to be formally accused by an international court of deliberate starvation. The Washington Post July 7, 202 By Louisa Loveluck A doctor checks on Jana Ayad, a malnourished Palestinian girl, at the International Medical Corps field hospital in the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip last month. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) With war-battered Gaza wracked by hunger, the move by the International Criminal Court to charge Israel’s highest officials with the crime of starvation has become a closely watched test case for international law. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are the first individuals to be formally accused by an international court of deliberate starvation, one of seven charges for which ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May that he would seek arrest warrants. Legal scholars and aid officials say Khan’s move is a testament to the strength of the case, though he will face practical and procedural hurdles as the process unfolds. What to know A three-judge panel, known as the Pre-Trial Chamber, is considering whether to grant arrest warrants on each charge. To address the starvation charge, which legal experts say is probably the strongest, the judges must weigh whether there is enough evidence to conclude that the factors driving Gaza’s hunger crisis amount to official Israeli government policy or a series of independent events. If arrest warrants are issued, the court would rely on its 124 member states, or cooperative nonmember states, to enforce them. It is unclear which countries would be willing to arrest Netanyahu or Gallant, and there can be no trial in absentia. “The problem is that the ICC has been very unclear about the grounds for its jurisdiction over sitting heads of state from non-state parties, despite having had the opportunity to deal with this question before,” said Monique Cormier, a senior lecturer in the Monash University Faculty of Law in Melbourne, Australia. The only sitting country leaders from non-member states to be indicted by the ICC are former Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was never arrested for those crimes, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose case was dropped, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who remains at large. The court has convicted five men of war crimes and crimes against humanity, all African militia leaders. Israel rejects accusations that it is carrying out a policy of starvation, saying its war is against only Hamas militants and not Palestinian civilians. Asked to comment, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office forwarded remarks Netanyahu gave last month to the French newspaper Le Figaro: “The allegation of a deliberate starvation policy is totally baseless,” he said. “We enabled over 25,500 trucks since the beginning of the war to enter Gaza, bringing over half a million tons of food and medicine. … We’ve enabled so much food into Gaza that the price of food plummeted by 80 percent.” A spokesman for Gallant did not respond to a request for comment. Washington has cooperated with the ICC on past cases and applauded its efforts to hold Russian officials accountable for the war in Ukraine but has been highly critical of its approach to the war in Gaza. “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” President Biden said in a statement on May 20, when Khan announced he was also pursuing arrest warrants for war crimes committed by Palestinian militant leaders. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.” But U.S. officials have also repeatedly criticized Israel for failing to facilitate aid deliveries and protect humanitarian workers: “This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed,” Biden said in early April after a deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy. “This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult.” Palestinian children gather to receive food in Khan Younis on June 26. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) Establishing intent In legal terms, “the fact base of the case is quite tight,” said Yousuf Syed Khan of the Atlantic Council, who led the drafting of the first report by a U.N.-mandated panel on starvation as a method of warfare. What makes this case stand out, Khan said, is not just the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground in Gaza, but also “official statements by the two individuals being charged.” Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Credit: ICC The ICC’s founding statute lists “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” as a potential war crime, meaning that a prosecutor must establish that food and other staples are being deliberately withheld from the civilian population. Statements from senior Israeli officials articulating a plan to seal off Gaza from the outside world, despite the dependence of its 2.2 million people on international aid, date back to the earliest weeks of the war. The conflict began on Oct. 7 after Hamas-led militants burst into southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians. Two days later, Gallant declared on video that he had ordered a “full siege” of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel,” he said. “We are fighting animals, and we will act accordingly.” On Oct. 18, Netanyahu said Israel would not allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza until Hamas released the more than 250 hostages it had taken during their attack. Israel eventually relented under U.S. pressure, but aid deliveries have remained far below prewar levels. “Intent is a mental state and is never really on its own visible,” said Janina Dill, professor of global security at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. But the comments by Netanyahu and Gallant suggest “there is an official policy, a plan, to deprive the people of Gaza of sustenance.” “The strongest link now between intent in these statements and the notion of a policy is the continued impediment of humanitarian aid,” she said. On June 25, the world’s leading experts on hunger said that almost half a million Gazans — about a quarter of the population — were on the brink of starvation. In the worst-hit northern region, 56 percent of families surveyed said they had exchanged items of clothing for food. Half said they had searched the debris for something to eat. In a document published alongside ICC Chief Prosecutor Khan’s May 20 statement, a panel of independent experts who reviewed the case files agreed with his assessment on all charges, including starvation. “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant formed a common plan, together with others, to jointly perpetrate the crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” it said. An Israeli guards stores of humanitarian aid at the Kerem Shalom crossing last month. (Amir Levy/Getty Images) ‘A wall of evidence’ In addition to aid shortfalls, Israeli airstrikes and bulldozers have destroyed farms, greenhouses and orchards, devastating the enclave’s ability to grow its own food. Military operations have also heavily damaged Gaza’s water grid, electricity network and health-care system. Children began dying from complications of malnutrition as early as February, doctors told The Washington Post at the time. There were improvements in the delivery of aid in March and April, as the pace of fighting subsided, but aid officials say Israel’s invasion of Rafah — and the closure of the most vital crossing into the Gaza Strip — has made it effectively impossible to deliver supplies. Humanitarian groups have said Gaza needs about 500 trucks per day to meet its basic needs, a figure that was never reached in 270 days of war, according to U.N. figures. On some days, it has fallen to single digits. COGAT, the arm of Israel’s military in charge of facilitating aid deliveries, referred questions about what it was doing to increase the flow to the National Security Council, which did not comment for this article. Relief workers say Israeli regulations on access to crossings and freedom of movement severely constrain their operations; often they do not have permission to reach supplies that await them at the border, they say. When aid convoys are ready, the Israeli military frequently denies them permission to move through the enclave. And looting has become a growing problem as civil order collapses. The war itself remains the greatest barrier to humanitarian relief. Gaza is now the deadliest place in the world for aid workers, the United Nations said this month; at least 250 have been killed since the conflict began. “We are running out of languages in which to convey to the government of Israel the needs that we have,” George Petropoulos, head of the U.N. humanitarian affairs agency’s Gaza office, said last month. “I have no fuel. I’m running out of warehouses. You’re killing my staff.” “The challenge in evaluating any individual attack is assessing what was targeted, what information was known and what consequences were expected,” said Tom Dannenbaum, an associate professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Rather than focusing on individual incidents, Khan will try to build a “wall of evidence” to make his case. Public statements will form bricks in that wall, Dannenbaum said, but Khan will need to connect those with a pattern of conduct. “The question is whether those involved deprived civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, either with the purpose of denying sustenance or in the knowledge that civilians would starve as a result,” he said. Miriam Berger in Jerusalem and Hajar Harb in London contributed to this report Copyright 2024 The Washington Post Israel-Gaza war The Israel-Gaza war has gone on for months, and tensions have spilled into the surrounding Middle East region. The war: On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival. (See photos and videos of how the deadly assault unfolded). Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948. A former Israeli hostage recalls the brutality of Hamas captivity Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions.” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave. Israel’s latest offensives unleash ‘hell’ in Gaza, aid groups say U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians, including President Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons, funds aid packages, and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ cease-fire resolutions. Gaza conditions worse than ever, USAID chief says History: The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Read more on the history of the Gaza Strip.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan tells Al Jazeera many countries remain silent over alleged RSF crimes in Sudan’s civil war AL JAZEERA Sudan's General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan salutes as he listens to the national anthem after landing in the military airport of Port Sudan, August 27, 2023 [Ibrahim Mohammed Ishak/Reuters] Sudan army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has said “many countries remain silent and turn a blind eye” to crimes allegedly committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the country’s more-than-year-long civil war. Sudan has been gripped by war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between forces loyal to al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Since the war broke out, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions more have been displaced as a humanitarian crisis has deepened. Both sides have been accused of possibly committing war crimes by UN officials and rights groups. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, left, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Daglo [Ashraf Shazly/AFP] In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera in Port Sudan, al-Burhan said, “Many countries remain silent and turn a blind eye to the crimes being committed every day.” “Every day, the enemies are killing the Sudanese people, plundering their land and raping their wives and daughters … Everyone who remains silent and those who support what the other side is doing daily is definitely an enemy,” al-Burhan said, without naming any country. “Perhaps some countries have used their influence to stop aid provided to the Sudanese state. Some countries may have used their international and regional mechanisms to stop supporting the armed forces,” he added. In March UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said his team had documented dozens of cases of sexual violence. “Sexual violence as a weapon of war, including rape, has been a defining – and despicable – characteristic of this crisis since the beginning,” he said. His team has documented 60 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, involving at least 120 victims across the country, the vast majority women and girls, he said but added that “these figures are sadly a vast underrepresentation of the reality”. “Men in RSF uniform and armed men affiliated with the RSF, were reported to be responsible for 81 percent of the documented incidents,” Turk said. Paramilitary gains The RSF has, in recent months, made several breakthroughs and when questioned about the RSF’s military gains, al-Burhan said: “Losses in battle or retreating in a certain situation does not mean losing the battle itself, and doesn’t mean defeat.” “The Sudanese people and the Sudanese armed forces will never be defeated,” he added. In late June, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said that the war has left some 755,000 Sudanese facing “catastrophe”, the most severe level of extreme hunger, while 8.5 million people grapple with food shortages that could result in acute malnutrition and death. The United Nations hunger monitoring system recently warned of a realistic chance of famine in several areas of Sudan including parts of Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan and Gezira states. People fleeing the town of Singa, the capital of Sudan’s southeastern Sennar state, arrive in Gadarif in the east of the war-torn country on July 1, 2024 [Photo by AFP] When asked about the humanitarian situation, al-Burhan told Al Jazeera, “When we’re talking about famine, we must talk about its causes and about those responsible for it.” “Sudan has vast areas of arable land, and Sudan has huge numbers of farmers who know how to work these lands; most of the arable land has been cultivated except for the lands where the Janjaweed terrorist groups threatened citizens and prevented them from cultivating,” he said. The RSF was born out of the Popular Defence Forces militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilised by Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir against non-Arab tribes in Darfur. “In Sudan, we have shortages in some areas that are under the control of these rebels, but in the rest of the country, there are no shortages, except for areas where people have been displaced,” he said. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

Warning from rights group comes as fighting between Myanmar’s military and Arakan Army traps Rohingya in the western state. People can be seen on the Myanmar side of the border, during the continuing conflict in Rakhine State, in the Teknaf area of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on June 24, 2024 [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/ Reuters] A United Kingdom-based rights group has called for global action over what it called an “intensifying genocide” against Myanmar’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority as fighting between the Southeast Asian country’s military and a powerful ethnic armed group escalated in the western Rakhine State. The warning from the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) on Tuesday came as the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) condemned the looting and burning of its food stores and warehouse in Maungdaw, a coastal town on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh that is mainly home to the Rohingya and is the focus of the current hostilities between the military and the Arakan Army (AA). The AA represents Rakhine’s Buddhist majority and is fighting for autonomy for the region. It issued evacuation orders for Maungdaw late on June 17 ahead of a planned offensive, leaving tens of thousands of Rohingya residents of the town with “nowhere to flee”, according to the UN’s human rights chief. The Rohingya, considered outsiders by the military as well as many of Rakhine’s Buddhist residents, have long suffered persecution in Myanmar, including a brutal military offensive that drove some 750,000 members of the community into Bangladesh in 2017. The crackdown is now the subject of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). BROUK, in its new report, said the 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine are facing increased persecution after fighting between the military and the AA resumed last October. The military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup, is subjecting Rohingya in areas under their control to a “slow death” by depriving them of resources indispensable for survival – including food, water, shelter, sanitation and medical care – and also forcibly recruiting members of the community, including children, and sending them to the front lines to fight against the AA, it said. Both the military and the AA have committed war crimes against the Rohingya, BROUK said, including “murder, torture, cruel treatment, extrajudicial executions, sexual violence, rape, taking hostages, conscripting and using children, pillaging, and deliberately attacking civilians”. “Rohingya remaining in Rakhine State face either a fast death being killed by the Myanmar military or Arakan Army, or a slow death as a result of being systematically deprived of the basic necessities of life,” said Tun Khin, president of BROUK. “We are witnessing another significant increase in violence against the Rohingya and once again the UN Security Council looks on and does nothing.” The international community’s failure to protect the Rohingya has resulted in “hundreds, if not several thousands” of deaths in the past six months alone, BROUK said. Global Inaction Additionally, some 200,000 Rohingya who are internally displaced are now in dire need of humanitarian aid to prevent further loss of life, the rights group said, while an additional 11,000 members of the community – about half of them children – are trapped near Rakhine’s capital, Sittwe, surrounded by landmines and unable to flee as the fighting edges closer to the city. BROUK warned that the international community could not afford to fail the Rohingya again, saying that authorities in Myanmar had failed to act on the ICJ’s order in 2020 to avoid acts against the minority population that could constitute genocide. The group called for an open meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the military’s “repeated breaches” of the ICJ’s orders as well as action to end what it called a “cycle of impunity” in the country, including by a referral to the International Criminal Court or the creation of an ad hoc international tribunal. “For the past 12 years, by repeatedly failing to take action to prevent violations of international law against the Rohingya, the UN Security Council has been sending a message to authoritarian regimes worldwide that they can get away with attempting to wipe out minorities they don’t like,” Tun Khin said. “The Rohingya genocide was not inevitable, it was allowed to happen and is still being allowed to happen,” he added. The renewed fighting between the military and the AA has forced some 45,000 Rohingya in Maungdaw and neighbouring Buthidaung township to flee to the Bangladesh border, the UN rights office said in May. The displacement came amid reports of widespread arson of Rohingya villages in Buthidaung, with survivors accusing the AA of carrying out the attacks in retaliation for alleged Rohingya support for the military. The UN rights office said it had also documented at least four cases of beheadings by the AA. The WFP on Tuesday said the fighting had cut off its access to its warehouse in Maungdaw since late May. And on Saturday, the food supplies there were looted and the building burned down, it said. The warehouse was holding 1,175 tonnes of food and supplies – enough emergency food to sustain 64,000 people for one month. The UN food agency did not name the perpetrators but said it was continuing to gather details of the circumstances surrounding the incident. It added, “The WFP calls on all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations under International Humanitarian Law to ensure that humanitarian facilities and assets are respected and protected, and safe and secure access is provided for the delivery of vital assistance to those in urgent need.” © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

Their aim was to promote the Sinicization of the Muslim group, observers say. Men dance in front of the Id kah Mosque after Eid al-Fitr morning prayers in Kashgar, northwestern China's Xinjiang region, June 5, 2019. On an important Muslim holiday last month, police and security officials in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang set up camps to keep an eye on Uyghurs, took Uyghurs to see communist-themed films, and visited Uyghur homes to make sure they weren’t practicing Muslim religious activities. The moves around the Qurban Eid, also known as Eid al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which fell on June 17 this year in Xinjiang — one of two official Muslim holidays in China — appeared to be attempts to undermine the observation of the Muslim holy day, outside experts said. Chinese authorities are trying to weaken Uyghurs’ ethnic and religious identity and forge their loyalty to the Chinese state and the Communist Party, while maintaining security, the experts said. “It looks like they are trying to Sinicize Eid,” said Erkin Ekrem, a professor at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, and vice president of the World Uyghur Congress. “The Chinese government is trying to change the Eid customs, prayers and traditions [by] making Uyghurs consume food along with Chinese people [and] adding Chinese elements to the Eid festivals, thereby removing the Muslim Eid elements,” he added. Before 2017, when the Chinese government started cracking down on religious activities in the predominantly Muslim region, men would observe the holiday by visiting mosques for special prayers, cooking meals, spending time with relatives and welcoming guests to their homes. Since then, authorities have also forbidden Islamic dress for women, beards for men, and Muslim names for children. They have also prevented Uyghurs from fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and encouraged the consumption of pork and alcohol, which Islam forbids. Chinese national consciousness On the eve of Eid, Ma Xingrui, Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, visited communities in Urumqi, the region’s capital, and asked residents to strengthen Chinese national consciousness and insist on the Sinicization of Islam. Public security officers celebrated the holiday with Uyghurs and other ethnicities in Xinjiang and promoted “the common consciousness of the Chinese nation,” the Xinjiang Daily reported on June 19. The Keriye County Public Security Bureau in Hotan invited teachers at area primary schools, students and parents on June 16 to participate in social activities at a police camp to “build strong Chinese national consciousness and celebrate Eid,” the report said. On the same day, police in Qitai county in the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture invited Uyghur “relatives” with whom they had been paired up under a previous monitoring program to visit a museum to watch communist-themed films. On June 17, members of the Public Security Bureau in the prefecture’s Manas county visited Uyghur homes and danced with residents, who had no choice but to join in, the news report said. “The police showed their concern for the public by their actions and also planted the seeds of national unity deep in everyone’s hearts,” it said. Assimilation policies Henryk Szadziewski, director of research at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, said public security agents interfere in Muslim holidays like Eid al-Adha to push assimilationist policies in Xinjiang. Uyghur identification with Turkic culture along with a belief in Islam and related social and political values are considered a threat because they are outside the control of the Chinese state, he told Radio Free Asia. “China’s policies are intended to weaken those kinds of affinities outside which are beyond the borders of China and to ensure Uyghurs allegiances are pinned to the Chinese state and, of course, the Chinese Communist Party,” Szadziewski said. But the Chinese government separates Islam in China from Islam in the rest of the world, Erkin Ekrem of the World Uyghur Congress said. “In China, the Sinicization of Islam is being carried out vigorously,” he told RFA. “They are trying to create a nation away from Islamic beliefs and customs.” “Deemphasizing the religion adding in this secular Chinese national consciousness [is] meant to delink Eid al-Adha from its religious origin,” he said. “That is one of the aims here.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. © 2024 Radio Free Asia

Former army chief Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia is being tried for genocide and crimes against humanity in Guatemala. By Sandra Cuffe, 5 Apr 2024 Relatives of victims who suffered atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year armed conflict march through Guatemala City on February 25 [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] Warning: This article contains details of violence that may be upsetting. Guatemala City, Guatemala – Jesus Tecu remembers wrapping his little brother in his arms in an attempt to protect the two-year-old from the horrors unfolding around them. It was March 13, 1982, and their village of Rio Negro — a Maya Achi community situated along a river in central Guatemala — was under attack. Guatemala was in the midst of a grisly civil war, and army and paramilitary forces had been stalking the countryside, razing Indigenous villages to the ground. Already, Tecu’s parents had been among the dozens of Rio Negro residents slaughtered just one month prior in another village. But now soldiers and paramilitary patrolmen were in the town, and 10-year-old Tecu hoped to shield his brother from the killings and rapes they were witnessing. A patrolman decided to take Tecu to be his household servant, but he did not want to bring home a toddler too. Ignoring Tecu’s desperate pleas, the patrolman grabbed the two-year-old from his arms, smashed him against rocks and threw his body into a ravine. An estimated 107 children and 70 women died in Rio Negro that day. Tecu and 16 other children survived only because they were chosen to be servants. Now, Tecu hopes a criminal case in Guatemala can offer a shred of accountability for atrocities thousands of Indigenous people experienced during that period. “We have never stopped seeking justice,” said Tecu, who has spent the last 30 years as a human rights activist and advocate for community rebuilding. On Friday, Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the former head of Guatemala’s army, is slated to stand trial for genocide. It is the latest chapter in the country’s fitful, stop-and-start efforts to achieve justice for the systematic killing of Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples. An estimated 200,000 people were killed during the war, which stretched from 1960 to 1996. More than 80 percent were Indigenous Maya. A United Nations-backed truth commission found that the military committed acts of genocide against five of the country’s 22 different Maya peoples between 1981 and 1983. That period overlaps with Lucas Garcia’s tenure as the chief of the general staff of the army. For seven months between 1981 and 1982, Lucas Garcia helmed Guatemala’s forces, as part of the administration of President Romeo Lucas Garcia, his brother. He now stands accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, forced disappearances and sexual violence. But Tecu points out that time is running out for survivors to find justice. Decades have passed since the war’s end. Alleged perpetrators like Lucas Garcia, 91, are growing old — and in many cases, dying. “The importance of this case is that there is an intellectual author alive,” Tecu told Al Jazeera. “He needs to be held accountable for what happened with the deaths of so many children, women and men.” Benedicto Lucas Garcia, second from right, walks with a fellow military leader, Manuel Callejas, on their way to court in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on November 25, 2019 [Moises Castillo/AP Photo] Delay tactics Lucas Garcia, however, has denied wrongdoing. Rather, in a live video feed on March 25, he told Guatemala’s High Risk Court A, “I am a national hero”, though he later clarified he meant it in reference to accomplishments unrelated to the armed conflict. The March 25 hearing came after a year of postponements. Expecting the trial to start, genocide survivors had gathered outside the courthouse in Guatemala City to hold a ceremony in support of the proceedings. But one of Lucas Garcia’s two lawyers had announced her resignation just days ahead of the hearing, and then the other quit too — something critics believe was a tactic to further delay the trial. Ultimately, Lucas Garcia accepted to use a public defender and was permitted to continue to attend hearings by video conference while recovering from surgery. The trial’s start date was rescheduled for April 5, to give the new lawyer time to prepare. “We know these are all manoeuvres and strategies that Benedicto Lucas Garcia is using,” said Diego Ceto, a Maya Ixil leader providing support for witnesses and survivors during the trial. Speaking to Al Jazeera on the courthouse steps right after the postponement, Ceto explained that other defendants have likewise used stalling techniques to evade justice. After all, one of Lucas Garcia’s co-defendants — a former head of military operations — died in 2020. And in January, another — a former head of military intelligence — was found mentally unfit to stand trial and will face separate proceedings. “They look for any justification to avoid the start of the trial,” Ceto said. “Nevertheless, as Ixils we will continue to insist on the pursuit of the truth.” Maya Ixil women take part in a ceremony outside the Guatemala City court complex on March 25, before the genocide trial of Benedicto Lucas Garcia was postponed to April 5 [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] From the Ixil region and beyond The area Ceto is from is at the heart of the ongoing case. Prosecutors are focusing on crimes allegedly committed in the Maya Ixil region, 225km (140 miles) northwest of the capital. More than 30 massacres were carried out under Lucas Garcia’s command and at least 23 Ixil villages were completely destroyed, the plaintiffs’ lawyers have said. The prosecution plans to present more than 80 experts and 150 witnesses as part of the trial. Evidence also includes forensic reports from exhumations and military documents lawyers say will help establish the genocidal intent behind the crimes. Atrocities in the Maya Ixil region also formed the centrepiece of another historic trial: that of the late military ruler Efrain Rios Montt, who took power from Romeo Lucas Garcia in a military coup. In 2013, Guatemala made history when a court convicted Rios Montt of genocide. But the verdict was overturned soon after in a widely-questioned ruling, illustrating the difficulties of prosecuting such a case. Rios Montt died before a partial retrial could end in 2018. On September 27 of that year, a tribunal ruled the military did commit genocide, but no one was convicted. Advocates, however, emphasise that the atrocities perpetuated by Rios Montt and others extended beyond the Mayan Ixil people, also targeting other Indigenous peoples, unions, clergy, student movements and other groups. For example, in a separate case from 2018, Lucas Garcia was convicted of rape, forced disappearance, and crimes against humanity for actions taken against an activist and her family. He was sentenced to 58 years in prison. In June 2023, however, an appeals court ordered Lucas Garcia’s release, along with that of his co-defendants. However, he remained in custody due to a pretrial detention order in the genocide case. In another case that has yet to go to trial, Lucas Garcia is one of several former officials accused of crimes in connection with more than 550 human remains exhumed from mass graves on a military base. “Right now we are on the Ixil case, but the destruction was not just in the Ixil area,” said Eleodoro Osorio, a representative of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), an organisation of survivors and relatives from five of the hardest-hit Indigenous regions. More than 200,000 people, most of them Indigenous Maya civilians, were killed during the armed conflict in Guatemala between 1960 and 1996 [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] Power of grassroots movements Osorio’s group formed in 2000. That same year, it filed a formal legal complaint against Romeo Lucas Garcia for genocide, followed by one against Rios Montt the following year. Those legal actions eventually led to the prosecutions of Rios Montt and Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the army leader currently facing charges. AJR has joint plaintiff status in Lucas Garcia’s trial, allowing its own legal team to intervene on behalf of victims alongside the prosecution. The group’s participation improves the outlook for a successful conviction, according to Naomi Roht-Arriaza, a law professor at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco. She pointed out that grassroots movements can help exert pressure on Guatemala’s legal system, which has seen the erosion of judicial and prosecutorial independence in recent years. “In the trials that we’ve seen in Latin America, that has been the case. It’s been the lawyers for the victims that have basically carried the lion’s share of the actual work,” said Roht-Arriaza, who was a legal adviser in a similar case brought against Rios Montt in Spain. She sees the pursuit of justice in Guatemala as part of a broader regional phenomenon. “I think Latin America has been the leader in holding national trials around massive violations of human rights. So it’s not just Guatemala. It’s also Argentina and Chile, Colombia, [and] to some extent Peru,” she told Al Jazeera. The bulk of genocide prosecutions have been in international courts, not domestic ones, according to Mark Berlin, a political science professor at Marquette University in Wisconsin whose research focuses on accountability for human rights violations and war crimes. He explained that “atrocity crimes” — including genocide and crimes against humanity — are usually committed by state actors, and states are unlikely to prosecute themselves. So when a country does prosecute genocide within its own borders, it is often the result of shifting power dynamics in the government itself. “It’s usually when a group that was previously targeted is able to come to power and use that power to then target for prosecution those who were previously in power,” Berlin told Al Jazeera, pointing to the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide as an example of that dynamic. The situation in Guatemala was different, though, he said. “Given that those conditions do not exist in Guatemala, the odds were stacked against the possibility for Guatemala to be able to carry out genocide prosecutions.” Still, Berlin said other factors, including foreign assistance and forensic work, helped enable the genocide prosecutions to move forward. “Guatemala did have kind of a perfect storm of other kinds of factors that did make it able to carry out these prosecutions,” he said. “One was — or continues to be — the existence of a very active and well-organised social movement, a very tenacious and persistent social movement that has been calling for accountability for decades.” Grassroots movements are credited with driving legal campaigns to prosecute the civilian deaths and forced disappearances during the decades-long Guatemalan civil war [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] Half the battle But now that Lucas Garcia is about to be brought to trial, efforts to secure a conviction present new hurdles. Prosecuting genocide is considered more complex than it is for other human rights violations and crimes against humanity, due to legal elements set out in the 1948 Genocide Convention and incorporated into Guatemala’s criminal code in 1973. “You have to demonstrate that the actor or the accused had the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group of people,” said Geoff Dancy, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. “That is very difficult to demonstrate and has only been successfully demonstrated in a few cases, really.” There have been about 105 trials involving genocide charges in 15 countries around the world, according to Dancy, who is a principal investigator in a research project compiling and analysing global data on transitional justice mechanisms, including human rights prosecutions. But even if prosecutors are not successful in convicting figures like Lucas Garcia of genocide, Dancy said the trials can still be useful tools for justice. He pointed out that even though leaders like Guatemala’s Rios Montt, Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet died while prosecution efforts were still under way, the cases were still incredibly important, helping to unearth injustices and put them into the public record. Ultimately, Dancy said, it is “really important to get these things on the map and have the evidence produced and considered by a court”. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network