The Irob, who mostly live in Ethiopia’s northeastern corner bordering Eritrea, face an existential crisis in addition to humanitarian suffering caused by ongoing conflict, activists say. Teklay Hailay* has been so worried since November 4 that he has had trouble sleeping. That is when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared in a televised speech the start of military operations in Ethiopia’s Tigray state in response to what he described as “traitorous” attacks on military camps. The offensive came on the heels of steadily growing tensions between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which used to rule the northern region of some six million people. Abiy, who in 2019 won the Nobel Peace Prize partly for his efforts to end two decades of frozen conflict with neighbouring Eritrea, rushed to declare victory over the TPLF in late November after government forces entered the regional capital, Mekelle. But fighting has dragged on and reports of mass atrocities keep emerging, leading to fears of a protracted conflict with devastating effects on the local civilian population. What has garnered less attention, however, is the plight of Teklay’s ethnic kin: the Irob, a minority group with their own distinct language who live among the much larger Tigrayan population in the embattled region. Numbering about 60,000, of whom an estimated 35,000 live in semi-arid mountainous areas in Tigray’s northeastern corner bordering Eritrea, the Irob now face an existential crisis in addition to the humanitarian suffering caused by the ongoing conflict, activists say. “The social structure of the Irob community has been turned totally upside down,” Teklay, who lives in the capital Addis Ababa, told Al Jazeera. “Many, perhaps up to 50 percent of the original population … fled to regional cities in Tigray and even to Addis Ababa, leaving mostly elderly and children behind.” Since the early days of the conflict, the Irob district has been under the total control of Eritrean forces who crossed into Ethiopia to support its federal troops in the fight against the TPLF. The Eritrean government of Isaias Afwerki and the TPLF, which for decades used to dominate Ethiopian politics until Abiy took power three years ago, have a longstanding animosity over a complex territorial, economic and political dispute that in 1998 devolved into a brutal two-year war that killed tens of thousands of people. With the Irob district inaccessible and under a communications blackout over the past six months, Teklay has only been able to receive scattered information on the humanitarian situation from people who fled south to other cities in Tigray and Addis Ababa. “I have helped to conduct memorial rites [in Addis Ababa] for 63 Irob natives killed by Eritrean troops, with some of the deceased being my relatives and friends,” he said. “Among the 63 dead is a young man, whose farmer father was abducted by Eritrean soldiers more than two decades ago, never to be seen again.” The 40-year-old said the restrictions in Irob areas have made it “impossible to know the real death toll” – but that is not the only thing that has him worried. There are major fears of starvation, too. “The conflict started just as the crop harvest season was about to start, a major concern for an already food insecure area,” he said. Teklay and other Irob people living across Ethiopia are keeping a low profile, especially after the arrest earlier this year of Dori Asgedom, leader of the pro-Irob Assimba Democratic Party over his opposition to the war, according to activists. This means it has fallen to people in the diaspora such as Fissuh Hailu to try to raise awareness about the plight of the Irob community. Fissuh, deputy manager of Irob Advocacy Global Support Group, said the intermittent restoration of telephone lines late last year in major Tigray cities such as Mekelle and Adigrat has allowed him to collect “very limited, yet very devastating” information from witnesses who fled Irob district. “Ever since the start of the war, Eritrean forces have engaged in indiscriminate killings and shellings of Irob areas,” said Fissuh. “People are terrified and live in constant fear of [a] next round of civilian massacres and abduction by the invading forces. Civilian properties have all but been looted in the area.” Fissuh also said he had received reports that Eritrea had already appointed local administrators, with the “Eritrean military continuing to terrorise, starve the locals as well as forcing the[m] to slaughter their animals to feed them”. The reports could not be independently verified. While the Irob community, like the rest of Tigray, has been enduring the disastrous impact of the conflict that has killed thousands of people and displaced nearly two million, the Irob also fear that if peace comes someday, it could be at their expense. That is because the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Commission (EEBC) that was formed in the aftermath of the 1998-2000 war handed approximately one-third of Irob land to Eritrea, even though the decision has not been enforced. Addis Ababa refused to implement it unconditionally and instead called for dialogue. Eritrea said there was no need for talks and stressed the only way forward was the unconditional demarcation of the border. “If the decision of the EEBC is implemented as it is, this tiny Irob land and people will be divided into two belligerent nations. That, almost certainly, will be the end of the existence of the Irob minority as a viable ethnic group,” argued Fissuh. He said his community had not yet recovered from the effects of the bitter 1998-2000 war when the fresh round of torment struck the Irob six months ago. “During the two-year border war, the Irob community, just like now, was under Eritrean occupation, with Eritrean forces evicting the locals and forcibly disappearing 96 community members,” Fissuh said. Martin Plaut, a longtime observer of politics in the Horn of Africa, said the Irob are potentially looking at a bleak future, with the division of the community, as envisaged by the EEBC, being the most likely scenario. “The Irob district has effectively been annexed by Eritrea, which is treating it as part of its territory,” he told Al Jazeera. “Links with the rest of Ethiopia have apparently been cut and maps of humanitarian aid show that none appears to be reaching the area – leaving people on the edge of starvation,” added Plaut. “It’s almost as if Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy has washed his hands of the Irob.” Al Jazeera reached out to Eritrea’s information ministry and to Eritrea’s mission to the African Union for comment, as well as to the office of the Ethiopian prime minister, but no response was received by the time of publication. This article will be updated upon receipt of a response. *Names changed to protect their identity © Al Jazeera, 2021

US legislators call for action amid reports of gang rapes, ethnic cleansing and war crimes by Ethiopian, Eritrean forces. A top United States official said the Biden administration is preparing to impose additional sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea if attacks against civilians in the Tigray region continue, and is reviewing whether war crimes have been committed. “The violence in Tigray is horrifying. It shocks the conscience,” US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Godec said on Thursday. The US has called on parties to end the conflict, allow humanitarian access and halt human rights abuses. “If we do not see immediate progress on these fronts,” Godec said, “we will be imposing additional sanctions.” Now in its seventh month, the conflict in Tigray has killed thousands of people and put as many as five million at risk of famine amid atrocities committed by armed forces in the region. Godec condemned “the brutal killings, sexual violence including gang rape, forced removals, and the wanton destruction of civilian property” in Tigray. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have unleashed a “campaign of unremitting violence and destruction that amounts to the collective punishment of the people of Tigray,” Godec said. Amhara regional government forces are forcing Tigrayans from their homes in “acts of ethnic cleansing”, Godec told a US Senate hearing. The Biden administration has suspended US economic and security assistance to Ethiopia, previously a US ally in the region, and is looking at imposing new sanctions on individual Ethiopian and Eritrean government and military officials, Godec said. Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress are unified in their alarm and condemnation of what is happening in Tigray. Legislators have called for an international arms embargo on participants in the conflict and target economic sanctions. “Many of us believe in fact these are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate committee, said. “We cannot turn away blindly when such things happen in the world,” said Menendez, who with other US legislators has called on the Biden administration to act more forcefully to pressure the Ethiopian government to end the conflict. The administration has committed $305m in new humanitarian aid for Tigray and Biden has appointed Jeffrey Feltman, special envoy for the Horn of Africa. President Joe Biden on May 26 called for the withdrawal of Eritrean and Amhara forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region and said immediate humanitarian access must be granted to avoid widespread famine in the conflict-torn area. “Belligerents in the Tigray region should declare and adhere to a ceasefire, and Eritrean and Amhara forces should withdraw,” Biden said in a May 26 statement. “All parties, in particular the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, must allow immediate, unimpeded humanitarian access to the region in order to prevent widespread famine,” he said. The United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs warned earlier this week that Ethiopia is at risk of famine because of the conflict. “There is a serious risk of famine if assistance is not scaled up in the next two months,” Mark Lowcock, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told a Security Council briefing, according to the AFP news agency. Five million people in Tigray and across the border in Sudan need humanitarian assistance, Sarah Charles, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development, told the Senate committee. “The scale of need is staggering” and armed groups have inflicted widespread and gender-based “violence so brutal that women are left with organ damage”, Charles said. Conditions in Ethiopia echo a widespread famine in the 1980s that killed more than 1.2 million people and displaced millions more, US officials said. “If Ethiopia continues down the road it is going, there is a risk of a massive humanitarian crisis and a refugee crisis and it poses a risk to the wider region,” Godec said. “We have made very clear that if we do not see immediate progress … Ethiopia and Eritrea can expect further actions,” Godec said © Al Jazeera, 2021

Survivors of 1921 white mob massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and their descendants demand reparations and recognition. By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, Al Jazeera 30 May 2021 More than 1,200 homes as well as Black-owned businesses, churches and other buildings were burned during the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 [File: GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images] Viola Fletcher can still hear the screams. She was seven years old when white mobs stormed the streets of Greenwood, a thriving Black community in the US city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 31, 1921, killing scores of people, burning homes and businesses, and forcing Black families to run for their lives. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street, I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams,” said Fletcher, one of the last three known survivors of what is known as the Tulsa race massacre. “I have lived through the massacre every day,” the 107 year old told a United States congressional subcommittee earlier this month. “Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not, and other survivors do not – and our descendants do not.” As Tulsa marks the 100-year anniversary of the attacks on Monday – and as a reckoning with the US’s long history of anti-Black racism, slavery and state violence continues nationwide – Tulsa massacre survivors and their descendants are still demanding recognition and reparations. “I think about the terror and horror inflicted upon Black people in this country every day,” Fletcher said. “I’m asking that my country acknowledge what has happened to me – the traumas and the pain and the loss.” Viola Fletcher testified before the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee on May 19 [Jim Watson/AFP] The massacre An Oklahoma commission released a report (PDF) in 2001 detailing the deadly violence that engulfed the Greenwood neighbourhood beginning on May 31, 1921 – as well as the racism that led to the hours-long assault on the area, which was also known as “Black Wall Street”. Scores of people were killed in the violence – estimates vary, but some say the death toll was as high as 300 people, most of whom were Black – and more than 1,200 homes were deliberately burned and destroyed. Black businesses, including hotels, newspapers, cafes, grocery stores, churches, and even a hospital, were torched. The attacks began hours after a Black teenager was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old white girl. The 2001 report said it was most likely that Dick Rowland fell getting into the elevator where Sarah Page worked as an operator, and stepped on her foot, prompting her to scream. Someone nearby then alerted police to a supposed assault. The Tulsa Tribune, a local newspaper, ran a story with the headline, “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator”. Hours later, a white mob had formed outside the city courthouse, calling for a lynching. A shot rang out and the riot had begun; gun-toting white people patrolled the city’s streets, killing Black Tulsans and burning shops and homes. Photo shows the aftermath at the east corner of Greenwood Avenue and East Archer Street, in June 1921 [File: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images] Jovan Scott Lewis, an associate professor of geography at UC-Berkeley, told Al Jazeera that during this period across the US, white mob violence in many cases was spurred by what is now an “almost cliched trope … where there is a claim of injury or harm or sexual assault against a white woman by an African-American man”. “In that era, post-WWI, there was certainly a heightened sense of racial tension in the United States. What we saw was also just a heightened sense of just generalised violence, organised violence … It was mob violence, and the Greenwood district suffered greatly for it,” he said. Police did not stop the attacks in Tulsa, and some officers are believed to have joined the white mob. Police also swore in nearly 500 white men and boys as “special deputies”, the 2001 report found. “According to Laurel G Buck, a white bricklayer who was sworn in, the police instructed the new recruits to ‘Get a gun and get a n****r,'” it said. Many Black Tulsans fought back, but they were outnumbered and unable to stop the violence. While some Black residents fled to the countryside, police and National Guard troops rounded up and detained many others, the report found. At about 11:30am on June 1, martial law was declared. Burials were ordered, with bodies dumped in unmarked graves. “The history has been actively silenced” for so many years, Scott Lewis said, which is part of what makes the Tulsa race massacre centenary so important. The massacre “marks a significant example of the scale of the violence meted out against Black communities”, he said, adding that what Greenwood truly represents is “the fact that Black people have been very capable in the US – in spite of racism, in spite of segregation – to, on their own terms, develop healthy communities”. “That’s what Greenwood was: it was a healthy Black community”. Billowing smoke is seen during the race massacre [File: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images] Now is the time’ One hundred years later, longstanding calls for recognition of the massacre and concrete reparations for the victims and survivors, and their descendants, are once again growing louder. Rights advocates have also denounced a commission tasked with organising centennial events in Tulsa, saying the body did not seek the input of survivors or their descendants in its plans. The city and the state have a responsibility “to right the wrong and repair the damage done”, said Laura Pitter, deputy director of the US programme at Human Rights Watch. “They need to take some action, but the action they’re taking is not action that incorporates the views or recommendations or input from the survivors.” The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission says on its website that its mission is to educate people about the massacre and its impact, remember the victims and survivors, and “create an environment conducive to fostering sustainable entrepreneurship and heritage tourism” in Greenwood and North Tulsa through events and other activities to mark the 100-year anniversary. Its efforts, which include the creation of a history centre on the massacre and its aftermath, come amid ongoing excavation work being carried out in Tulsa. In October last year, at least 12 coffins were found in a mass grave in a local cemetery; researchers said they were working to determine whether they were associated with the events of 1921. Workers reinforce the sides of an excavation site during an excavation of a potential unmarked mass grave from the Tulsa race massacre, at Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa in July 2020 [Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo] The city has budgeted to continue the exhumation process, with the next round of searches set to begin in June. “The only way to move forward in our work to bring about reconciliation in Tulsa is by seeking the truth honestly,” Tulsa Mayor G T Bynum says on the city website. But survivors and their descendants have questioned how the Greenwood Rising historical centre will benefit them, and Black Tulsans have also said the revitalisation of the Greenwood district has so far largely benefitted white business owners, not their community. The commission did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the criticism before publication. The last survivors and some descendants also sued the City of Tulsa and other authorities for depriving them of economic opportunities and access to adequate housing and healthcare, among other things, following the massacre. They accused the city of “appropriating the trauma and terror suffered by the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa massacre for their economic benefit”. “The survivors and many descendants that I’ve spoken to are feeling disregarded, ignored and disappointed and frustrated,” HRW’s Pitter told Al Jazeera, adding that reparations can take many forms, from direct payments for survivors to the provision of land and healthcare. “Yes it happened 100 years ago, but the failure to do anything for 100 years has compounded the harm and made things worse. That’s what they need to reckon with, yet … the city or state is still not offering real repair for even the survivors who are still alive,” she said. “After the centennial is over, the money is going to dry up and the light is going to fade, and there’s a real danger that – [or] certainly less likelihood that – something will be done. If there was ever a time for Tulsa, Oklahoma to do something, now is the time to do it.” Many Black Tulsans were detained during the deadly race massacre, while others fled the violence to the countryside [Corbis via Getty Images] © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network Link to The New York Times' interactive timeline on the Tulsa Race Massacre.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said multiple parties to the conflict are possible perpetrators of sexual violence and killings. 4 Mar 2021 The UN rights chief says that her office has corroborated grave violations that could amount to “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, including by Eritrean troops. Michelle Bachelet stressed in a statement on Thursday the urgent need for an independent investigation into the situation in Tigray, which has been rocked by months of fighting. The UN high commissioner for human rights went on to say multiple parties to the conflict had been identified as possible perpetrators, including the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara regional forces and allied militia. “Victims and survivors of these violations must not be denied their rights to the truth and to justice,” Bachelet said in a statement, expressing her fear that violations could continue with impunity. Her office had “managed to corroborate information about some of the incidents that occurred in November last year, indicating indiscriminate shelling in Mekelle, Humera and Adigrat towns in Tigray region”. It had also verified “reports of grave human rights violations and abuses including mass killings in Axum, and in Dengelat in central Tigray by Eritrean armed forces”, it said. A preliminary analysis of the information indicated that “serious violations of international law, possibly amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by multiple actors in the conflict”, the statement warned. Those actors included the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara Regional Forces and affiliated militia, it said. “With multiple actors in the conflict, blanket denials and finger-pointing, there is a clear need for an objective, independent assessment of these reports,” Bachelet said. Last week, a report by Amnesty International also alleged Eritrean soldiers fighting in Tigray had killed hundreds of people in Axum last November, in what the rights group described as a likely crime against humanity. On November 28 and 29, Eritrean troops killed hundreds of civilians in a “coordinated and systematic” manner in order “to terrorize the population into submission”, the report said. After the massacre, Eritrean forces detained hundreds of residents and threatened renewed killing if they encountered resistance, Amnesty said, citing witnesses and survivors. ‘Deeply distressing’ Bachelet urged the Ethiopian government to grant her office and other UN investigators access to Tigray “with a view to establishing the facts and contributing to accountability, regardless of the affiliation of perpetrators”. Pointing out that her office was still receiving information about ongoing fighting in central Tigray in particular, she lamented “deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting”. “Without prompt, impartial and transparent investigations and holding those responsible accountable, I fear violations will continue to be committed with impunity, and the situation will remain volatile for a long time to come,” she said. Bachelet also voiced concern at the detentions last week of journalists and translators working for local and international media. While they had been released, she pointed to worrying remarks by a government official that those responsible for “misleading international media” would be held responsible. There was no immediate response to the UN statement from the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Tigray administration or the TPLF. Tigray has been gripped by fighting since early November 2020, when Abiy announced military operations against the TPLF, accusing them of attacking federal army camps. The fighting has killed thousands of people, forced hundreds of thousands from their homes and hit infrastructure badly. Abiy – who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 – declared victory after pro-government troops took the regional capital Mekelle in late November, although the TPLF vowed to fight on and clashes have persisted in the region. The presence of Eritrean troops in the Tigray conflict has been widely documented but has been denied by both countries. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Another 16 wounded when gunmen raided a compound of the HALO Trust charity in northern Baghlan province. The coffins of the victims in Tuesday's attack are placed on the ground at a hospital in northern Baghlan province, Afghanistan [Mehrab Ibrahimi/AP Photo] Masked gunmen have stormed the compound of a mine-clearing organisation in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 10 workers and wounding 16 others. There were 110 workers at the camp of the HALO Trust charity in Baghlan province at the time of the attack on Tuesday night. James Cowan, chief executive of the UK-based organisation, told Al Jazeera the gunmen “wanted to find specific people of a particular ethnic group”. Later on Wednesday, the SITE intelligence monitoring group said the ISIL (ISIS) armed group had claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier, the government had blamed the Taliban for the attack, but the armed group denied responsibility. HALO Trust said the Taliban’s fighters actually helped end the raid, which happened as dozens of deminers were relaxing at the compound after a day spent looking for ordnance in the area. “The local Taliban actually came to our assistance, and the Taliban itself has denied responsibility – so my suspicion is that it’s a different organisation,” Cowan said. A survivor told AFP news agency that five or six armed men scaled the compound walls and gathered everyone together before asking if there were any Hazara present. “Nobody responded,” said the survivor, who asked not to be identified. He said the gunmen then asked the compound leader to identify himself, before shooting him dead. “Then one of them said ‘kill them all’,” he added. “As they opened fire, we all tried to escape. Some were killed and some, like me, were wounded.” Afghanistan’s Shia Hazara community – a group accounting for up to 15 percent of Afghanistan’s estimated 30 million population – is often targeted by ISIL fighters, who consider them heretics. An official in the area said most of the surviving workers fled to nearby villages after the attack and police were working to help them. Afghanistan ‘biggest program’ Fighting between the Taliban and government forces has surged across Afghanistan – including Baghlan – since May 1, when the United States military began its final troop withdrawal amid a deadlock in peace talks between Kabul and the armed group. On Wednesday, Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh blamed the Taliban for the attack on the HALO base, alleging in a tweet the group’s fighters wanted to “steal money and unexploded devices” from the compound. The Taliban dismissed the government’s accusation. “We condemn attacks on the defenseless & view it as brutality,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter. “We have normal relations with NGOs, our Mujahideen will never carry out such brutal acts.” In several districts where fighting has been intense in recent months, the fighters have planted roadside bombs and mines to target government forces, but the explosives often kill and wound civilians. Afghanistan was already one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, a legacy of decades of conflict. The HALO Trust was founded in 1988 specifically to tackle ordnance left following the near 10-year Soviet occupation. “Afghanistan is our biggest programme, we have nearly 3,000 staff there, they are very proud of the fact that they’re Afghans,” Cowan said. “They come from different communities within Afghanistan and they do amazing work to save lives.” The United Nations Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov condemned what he said was a “heinous attack” on HALO workers. “It is repugnant that an organisation that works to clear landmines and other explosives and better the lives of vulnerable people could be targeted,” he said in a statement. In another incident, an Afghan army helicopter on Wednesday crashed in Wardak province, to the west of the capital, Kabul, killing three crew members on board, the defence ministry said. The Taliban said its fighters had shot the helicopter down but the ministry said the helicopter was trying to make an emergency landing after developing a technical problem when it crashed. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

At least 16 people knifed to death by suspected ADF fighters in Ituri province, say military and local sources. The DRC has placed Ituri and the neighbouring North Kivu province under a state of siege since May [File: Jerome Delay/AP Photo] At least 16 people were killed in an attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) conflict-plagued east, believed to be the work of rebels, military and local sources said. According to local civilian sources, the victims of Monday’s attack, including two women, had been taken hostage weeks earlier by members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). The hostages were knifed to death along a main highway near Idohu, in the restive Ituri province, local official Dieudonne Malangai said on Tuesday. Ituri’s military governor, Johnny Luboya Nkashama, speaking in Komanda, some 40km (25 miles) from the incident, condemned the killings. “We will reinforce our presence in the region,” he told the AFP news agency. The vast central African country’s government has placed Ituri and the neighbouring North Kivu province under a state of siege since May, stepping up the fight against armed groups. The ADF is the deadliest of the armed groups operating in the region. The group has been active in the mineral-rich eastern DRC for 30 years. The DRC’s Catholic Church has said the ADF has killed approximately 6,000 civilians since 2013, while a US-based monitor, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), blamed it for more than 1,200 deaths in the Beni area alone since 2017. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

© 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network New Peruvian President Pedro Castillo is feeling a lot of heat during his first days in office [Presidency of Peru handout photo via EPA-EFE] Lima, Peru – Since winning Peru’s presidential runoff with an explicitly Marxist policy platform, Pedro Castillo has been at pains to assure citizens and investors alike that his government will be moderate and unifying. “We are not Chavistas, we are not communists, we are not extremists,” he said shortly before being sworn in on July 28, as he sought to play down fears that his government would ravage Peru’s democracy and economy. But since offering those assurances, the former rural school teacher and union leader, who refuses to criticise the Cuban and Venezuelan dictatorships, has endured a calamitous first week in office, which has seen the Peruvian Sol crash just as fears about his government’s true intentions skyrocket. There have already been two marches in downtown Lima calling for the impeachment of Castillo, whose razor-thin election victory has been largely attributed to most Peruvians’ dislike of his corruption-tainted hard-right opponent, Keiko Fujimori, rather than any enthusiasm for the new president’s socialism. Cabinet controversy The first flashpoint was Castillo’s decision to name a cabinet largely made up of ideological hardliners from his Free Peru party, some of them with limited qualifications and linked to criminality. Some commentators view the move as a deliberate provocation aimed at pushing the Conservative-controlled Congress to vote down the cabinet. That could prompt a political crisis, giving Free Peru a pretext for an unconstitutional power grab. The most controversial cabinet nomination is the new prime minister, Guido Bellido, who is currently the subject of a criminal investigation for “defending terrorism”. He is alleged to have made public comments and social media posts expressing support for Shining Path, the Maoists who slaughtered thousands, mainly impoverished villagers in the Andes and Amazon, in the 1980s and 90s. As a result of that police probe, Bellido, who is also a member of the new Congress, is barred from sitting on congressional committees, including for defence and counter-narcotics, that have access to sensitive national intelligence. However, as prime minister, he will now be able to review those documents. “Free Peru does not clearly state that its objective is a rupture with the democratic order but it idolises authoritarian leaders. Authoritarianism is in its DNA,” says Norma Correa, an anthropologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “Many people can’t forgive or forget the harm done by Shining Path. There is this extremely painful living memory. I would question this claim that Free Peru actually represents rural Peru.” Bellido, 41, has also generated huge controversy for his flagrant homophobia, which has alienated some on Peru’s progressive left, which had, reluctantly, supported Castillo. In one 2019 tweet, the new prime minister eulogised former Cuban President Fidel Castro for warning that “fags” have no place in the revolution. The backlash against Bellido was so swift and severe that the two most respected cabinet nominees, Pedro Francke, chosen for the economy ministry, and Aníbal Torres, selected as justice minister, baulked at being sworn in, sparking an embarrassing hours-long delay, all captured on live TV, to the other members of the new cabinet taking their oaths of office. Eventually, after lengthy talks with Castillo, both Francke, a former World Bank economist, and Torres, a veteran lawyer with strong anti-corruption credentials, did take their oaths the following day. Francke notably did so pledging “equality of opportunities without distinction based on gender, ethnic identity or sexual orientation”. Yet the pair remain outliers in Castillo’s new cabinet, most of whose members’ extreme politics, lack of qualifications and links with criminal activity have shocked many Peruvians. The new defence minister, Walter Ayala, was once accused of human trafficking, it has emerged. Meanwhile, the transport minister used to run one of the informal bus companies whose fleet of poorly maintained, recklessly-driven vehicles help make Peru’s roads some of the most dangerous in the western hemisphere. To make matters worse, Vladimir Cerron, the former regional governor who founded Free Peru but was barred from himself running for president by a corruption conviction, has been stoking fears that the new government is actually seeking to create a political crisis. At some point in August, Congress will have to approve, or veto, the new cabinet. The vote will be part of a high-stakes chess game between the executive and the legislature. ‘Deepening polarisation’ If the government loses two congressional votes of confidence, the president can dissolve Congress and call new elections. But equally, Congress could swiftly impeach Castillo, as a significant minority of Peruvians are already demanding. In a tweet this week, Cerron, who is widely viewed in Peru as controlling Castillo, declared the coming clash in Congress as being a “collision of two worlds, the European and Andean”, and, adopting Marxist jargon, the “subjective or objective.” Richard Arce, a former congressman and one of the Peruvian left’s more outspoken critics of Free Peru, warned that the choice of the cabinet was a gift to the conservative opposition and risked triggering a premature end to Castillo’s presidency, dashing the hopes it had raised among Peru’s poorest citizens. “It’s a political mistake. It’s deepening the polarisation and weakening our institutional framework, when we have had so many false claims of election fraud,” Arce said. “You’re giving an opportunity to coup-mongers, people who don’t respect democracy. It’s irresponsible.” Since his inauguration, Castillo has largely eschewed public comments. A presidential spokesperson was unable to tell Al Jazeera when he would give his first media interviews or hold his first news conference as president. He has also refused to work out of the presidential palace in downtown Lima, dismissing it as a “colonial” symbol. That prompted a storm of criticism as the new head-of-government worked out of a private office, lent to him in unexplained circumstances by a businessman supporter, with no official record of who he was meeting. Hugo Nopo, a development economist with Lima’s GRADE think-tank, says it is impossible to tell whether the controversial cabinet choices were Castillo’s own idea, or whether he is being directed by Cerron. “Everything is so opaque and secret,” says Nopo of the relationship between the president and his controversial adviser. “It’s impossible to know the real nature of their relationship.” “Peruvian politics right now is like a jungle of monkeys with machine guns. The one good thing is that we are seeing some lawmakers calling for caution. They may have learned from the last Congress and will, hopefully, calculate better their actions.”

Far-right president has led ‘an explicit, systematic’ anti-Indigenous policy since taking office in 2019, group alleges. Indigenous people protested in June against commercial agriculture and mining on protected tribal reservations in Brasilia, Brazil. [File: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters] An Indigenous organisation in Brazil has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro for “genocide” and “ecocide”, accusing him of persecuting native peoples and destroying their homelands. The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) alleged in a case filed with the Hague-based court on Monday that the far-right president has led “an explicit, systematic and intentional anti-Indigenous policy” since taking office in 2019. “We believe there are acts in progress in Brazil that constitute crimes against humanity, genocide and ecocide,” Eloy Terena, the group’s legal coordinator, said in a statement. “Given the inability of the justice system in Brazil to investigate, prosecute and judge these [crimes], we denounce them to the international community,” Terena said. Bolsonaro, 66, has presided over a surge of destruction in the Amazon rainforest, slashed environmental protection programmes and pushed to open Indigenous reservations and other protected lands to agribusiness and mining. Indigenous rights activists further accuse him of exacerbating the devastation that COVID-19 has wrought on their communities with his stance against stay-at-home policies. The estimated 900,000 Indigenous people in Brazil are particularly vulnerable to outside diseases, including COVID-19, which has killed at least 1,166 of them, according to the APIB. It is not the first time Indigenous leaders have accused Bolsonaro of attacking their people and homelands. In January, iconic Indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire filed a separate case to the ICC asking the court to investigate Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity, saying the “destruction of the Amazonian forest has accelerated without measure” under his government. The ICC’s chief prosecutor must now decide whether to pursue the cases. Official figures released on Friday show deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached near-record levels for the year through July, destroying an area nearly the size of Puerto Rico. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

President Felix Tshikedi authorises deployment of US counter-terrorism forces in eastern DRC as attacks continue. The US troops are expected to boost the army's fight against ADF in the national parks of Virunga and Garamba [File: Alexis Huguet/AFP] DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has authorised US special forces to help the Congolese army battle the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group linked to ISIL (ISIS). The ADF, which the United States has deemed a “terrorist” group, is considered the deadliest of dozens of armed militias that roam the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Catholic Church in the country says the ADF has killed about 6,000 civilians since 2013, while a respected US-based monitor, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), blames it for more than 1,200 deaths in the Beni area alone since 2017. “President Felix Tshisekedi authorised the deployment of American anti-terrorism experts in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said a statement from the presidency on Sunday. The US forces will boost the Congolese army’s fight against ADF in the national parks of Virunga and Garamba, it added. The mission will last several weeks and is specifically directed against the ADF. US Ambassador Mike Hammer, who presented the team to President Tshisekedi, said its presence was part of a partnership agreed between the two countries in 2019, according to the presidency’s statement. In March, the US State Department said the ADF is notorious across the region for its “brutal violence against Congolese citizens and regional military forces”. The US has sanctioned alleged leader Seka Musa Baluku and said ISIL has acknowledged the ADF as an affiliate since 2019. Congolese authorities’ crackdown against ADF has included a “state of siege”, in which members of the security forces have replaced top officials in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Al Jazeera 14 August 2021 The arrest of La Prensa editor Juan Hollman Chamorro is the latest in President Daniel Ortega’s crackdown on opposition figures. La Prensa was the only national, independent daily newspaper remaining in circulation in Nicaragua [File: Inti Ocon/AFP] Nicaraguan police have arrested a top editor of a newspaper critical of President Daniel Ortega, who has overseen a months-long crackdown on opposition leaders and potential challengers ahead of an election in November. In a statement on Saturday, the country’s national police said they had arrested Juan Hollman Chamorro of La Prensa, a publication that is fiercely critical of Ortega, for customs fraud, as well as laundering money, property and assets. They said the case was being turned over to authorities “for prosecution and to determine criminal responsibilities”. Police on Friday raided the newspaper’s offices after La Prensa said it was no longer able to put out a print edition because the government was withholding paper from it. On Friday night, Ortega accused the newspaper of “lies, slander, defamation, money laundering and not paying taxes”. The 75-year-old Nicaraguan president is facing mounting international pressure to account for a wave of arrests targeting opposition figures in the Central American nation in the lead-up to the vote on November 7. Dozens of opposition leaders and presidential contenders have been arrested since early June in Nicaragua as the government rounded up individuals it accused of planning a coup against Ortega. Rights groups and international observers have accused the Sandinista leader of increasing authoritarianism, saying the wave of arrests aimed to clear the way for Ortega’s bid to secure a fourth consecutive term as president. The United States and the European Union have slammed the upcoming vote as “lacking any legitimacy”, pointing to the arrests and a recent decision by Nicaragua’s electoral body to disqualify an opposition alliance seeking to challenge Ortega. Both the US and EU have imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on top Nicaraguan officials, including Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also Ortega’s wife. The Nicaraguan “electoral process, including its eventual results, has lost all credibility”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. La Prensa’s vice president is Cristiana Chamorro, an opposition presidential hopeful whose home was raided in early June and whose family owns the paper. She is one of seven would-be challengers to Ortega now being held. La Prensa was the only national, independent daily newspaper remaining in circulation in the country. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its special rapporteur for freedom of expression criticised the raid on the newspaper’s offices on Friday and condemned the “constant official persecution of the press in Nicaragua”. On Twitter, they said: “Direct or indirect pressure aimed at silencing the work of the press affects democratic debate and is incompatible with the right to freedom of expression.” © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Government says 48 hours of national mourning to be observed after 37 people are killed by suspected rebels. Niger has declared 48 hours of national mourning after 37 people were killed in a fresh massacre by suspected rebels. “Flags will be flown at half-mast across the country” with immediate effect, a government statement said on Wednesday. It reaffirmed the government’s determination to “pursue the fight against terrorism until the final victory”, urging greater vigilance among the population. On Monday, gunmen on motorbikes launched an attack on villagers in Darey-Daye as they were tending their fields. Four women and 13 children were among the 37 people killed. The massacre bore the hallmarks of rebel attacks that have battered western Niger since 2015, when an armed campaign spread from Mali. Darey-Daye, which was hit in an attack in March that killed 66 people, lies in the Tillaberi region, which has borne the brunt of the bloodshed. The village is located in the department of Banibangou, in the so-called “tri-border” area where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge. The area is notorious for attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). According to a toll issued last week by Human Rights Watch, more than 420 civilians have been killed in rebel attacks in Tillaberi and the neighbouring region of Tahoua this year, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes. SOURCE: AFP © Al Jazeera 2021

Prior to 1988, Brazil’s Indigenous people were ‘hunted down’, their ‘ears cut off’ by paid killers for big landowners. A Brazilian Xavante Indigenous person paints a face at a protest camp outside the first day of Brazil's Supreme Court trial of a landmark case on Indigenous land rights in Brasilia. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters] Thousands of Brazil Indigenous people adorned in colourful paint, beads and feathers have set up a protest camp outside of the Supreme Court in advance of an expected landmark ruling on whether they can reclaim lost ancestral lands. “This is very crucial” to the Indigenous protesters who are camping out in Brasilia, Al Jazeera correspondent Monica Yanakiew reported on Wednesday. The top court in Brasilia is set to decide whether to recognise Indigenous rights to land occupied prior to 1988 when Brazil’s constitution was ratified, a legal cut-off date sought by Brazilian state governments that are seeking to limit Indigenous claims. Indigenous peoples and rights groups argue applying the 1988 date erases Indigenous claims across Brazil dating back to the 1950s when they were pushed from their lands by tobacco farms, miners and logging operations. “If the Supreme Court accepts the ruling of setting-up a cutoff date, and not allowing, barring any claims made by people, anybody who were not occupying their land before 1988, then this would be a big setback for them,” Yanakiew said. The case arises from a claim by the Xokleng people of southern Brazil against the Santa Catarina state government which the Xokleng say applied an overly narrow interpretation of Indigenous rights by only recognising tribal lands occupied in 1988. Xavante Indigenous woman with painted body wears a card that reads ‘Alive forest’ at Camp Luta pela Vida (Struggle for Life) protesting on the first day of Brazil’s Supreme Court trial of a landmark case on Indigenous land rights. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters] A ruling in favour of the Xokleng could reopen some 800 other claims and lead to the return of lands to Indigenous people. “It’s a law dispute for the Xokleng people to reclaim their territories in the southern state of Santa Catarina and big landowners who say they have no rights because they weren’t occupying those lands in 1988 when the constitution was approved,” said Raphael Modesto, a lawyer for the Xokleng people. “It would set jurisprudence for hundreds of pending cases,” Modesto told Al Jazeera. According to Brazil’s most recent census in 2010, about 900,000 Indigenous people belonging to 305 different groups live in the country. Deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon has surged in recent years under President Jair Bolsonaro’s pro-agriculture policies. “We weren’t living in our lands in 1988 because had we lived there we would have been hunted down by the landowners,” said Woie Patte, a Xokleng chieftain. “They put a price on us. They paid people to kill us and asked them to bring our ears as proof,” Patte told Al Jazeera. Xavante Indigenous people paint their bodies at Camp Luta pela Vida (Struggle for Life). [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters] Bolsonaro is pushing legislation in the Congress, backed by Brazil’s powerful agricultural lobby, that would loosen regulatory requirements for mining and agriculture projects in the Amazon rainforest. Another bill would push back Indigenous land claims by allowing squatters in the Amazon rainforest to claim ownership of their properties. Greenpeace said the bill, if it becomes law, will, in practice, be an amnesty for land invasions, the Reuters news service reported. “The message lawmakers are sending Brazilians is that it pays to invade and deforest public lands,” said Greenpeace’s Mariana Mota. Earlier this month, an Indigenous organisation in Brazil asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Bolsonaro for “genocide” and “ecocide”, accusing him of persecuting native peoples and destroying their homelands. The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil alleged in a case filed with The Hague-based court on August 9 that the far-right president has led “an explicit, systematic and intentional anti-Indigenous policy” since taking office in 2019. “We believe there are acts in progress in Brazil that constitute crimes against humanity, genocide and ecocide,” Eloy Terena, the group’s legal coordinator, said in a statement citing an inability in Brazil’s courts to address the allegations. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network