Genocide Watch staff have published the twenty-fifth Timestream in a series of critical genocides in the world. This Timestream covers the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which was fought between the Nationalists and the Republicans. Nationalists saw Republican liberal ideology as a dangerous idea that needed to be "cleansed," thus justifying massacres and mass extrajudicial killings across Spain which amounted to a campaign of extermination and politicide. Following the Nationalists' victory, General Franco became dictator and continued this campaign of extermination and denial until his death in 1975. This legacy of denial continued until very recently when Spain began the process of uncovering the truth, though barriers to the process of recognition, restoration, identification of remains, and retiring the symbols of the Franco regime remain. See the full Timestream here and view our other Timestreams here.

FILE - Ashjan Muhammad al-Qamis, 30, waits with her father at a hospital where she receives cancer treatment in Sanaa, Yemen, Aug. 16, 2021. UN human rights experts say the international community is abandoning millions of Yemeni civilians to a life of intolerable suffering and desperation as Yemen enters its seventh year of civil war with no end in sight. The statement comes as the three-member UN Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen presents its findings ahead of a report to the UN Human Rights Council next week. The United Nations estimates more than 1,200 civilians have been killed or injured in Yemen this year. This is on top of the more than 20,000 civilians who have been killed or injured since the war began in 2015. Additionally, the UN humanitarian office reports about 233,000 people have died of causes related to hunger, disease, lack of health care, a collapsed economy, and other indirect causes. Eminent expert Ardi Imsels says civilians continue to pay the highest price in this conflict, as they sink deeper into hunger, poverty, suffering and despair. "This year, the group of Eminent Experts continues to have reasonable grounds to believe that all parties to the conflict have committed serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to war crimes," said Imsels. "As we have said before, there are no clean hands in this conflict.” The group accuses the government of Yemen, supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of multiple atrocities. The report documents numerous airstrikes in populated areas by the Saudi-led coalition and indiscriminate shelling attacks by the Houthis. The range of violations committed by all parties include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and other forms of gender-based sexual violence. In view of the enormous suffering of the Yemeni people, Eminent Expert Melissa Parke says the situation in Yemen should be at the top of the international agenda. "We are seeing a generation of children caused irreparable harm, forced to be child soldiers, denied their fundamental rights to food and education, to health care," said Parke. "Yemen was already patriarchal before the war, but the situation for women has only become worse with the conflict, and the associated displacement, extreme poverty and indiscriminate violence.” The group says impunity for these crimes must end. Perpetrators must be held accountable and brought to justice. The Eminent Experts are calling on states to stop all arms transfers to the parties, which they say are driving the conflict. The report contains a so-called non-exhaustive list of countries that are providing weapons to Yemen’s warring parties. They include Canada, France, Iran, Britain, and the United States. © VOA News

Acting president of self-declared government calls on civilian armed groups to target military that seized power in February coup. Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government, makes a statement calling on civilian armed groups to target the military junta and its assets. Photograph: AP Myanmar’s self-declared parallel government, which was set up by pro-democracy politicians, has announced a “defensive war” against the junta, calling for civilian armed groups to target the military and its assets. Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), said Tuesday marked the beginning of a nationwide revolt. He warned people to avoid unnecessary travel and stock up on essentials. Over recent months, grassroots forces have emerged across Myanmar to oppose the military, which seized power in a coup in February and has inflicted deadly violence on anyone who protests against its rule. The groups, which have carried out guerrilla-style attacks on military targets, appear to operate independently at a local level, and vary in their resources and training. In some cases they are supported by ethnic armed organisations, which have fought the army for decades, demanding greater autonomy. Duwa Lashi La called upon such groups to target “the military junta and its assets in your respective areas”, “carefully protect the lives and properties of the people”, and observe codes of conduct. The groups were urged to immediately target the junta’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, and the military council in different ways, and to maintain control of their areas. Duwa Lashi La also said soldiers, police and civil servants should resign from their posts and join the revolt. “From today onward, all the civil servants under the military council, we warn and forbid you from going to the office,” he said. The public, he said, should assist the armed groups and their allies. The statement comes ahead of the opening of the United Nations general assembly next week in New York, where it is expected that a decision will be made on who should represent Myanmar – a member of the junta or a representative of the NUG, which was set up by ousted lawmakers and opponents of military rule. The junta previously said it had dismissed Kyaw Moe Tun from his post as Myanmar’s UN ambassador, after he voiced support for the pro-democracy opposition. However, Kyaw Moe Tun has continued to serve at the UN. Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis have been led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), but there has been little progress. The group’s envoy to Myanmar, Erywan Yusof, told the Kyodo news agency this week that the military had accepted his proposal for a ceasefire until the end of the year to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The military’s opponents, however, were skeptical. Following the NUG’s announcement on Tuesday, local media reported fighting in border areas between the army and its opponents. Clashes broke out in Sagaing, in the north-west, between junta forces and the Kachin Independence Army, which has fought for greater autonomy for the Kachin people for decades, and has backed anti-coup protesters. In the southern Tanintharyi region, fighting occurred between the junta forces and Karen National Union, one of the country’s oldest ethnic armed organisations. In the Magway region, an armed force said it had attacked five military targets. In Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, the streets reportedly remained calm, though there was an increased military presence. Many residents rushed to shops to stock up on supplies. Duwa Lashi La said he believed the international community would understand the reasons for his statement. “I believe that our neighbouring countries, Asean countries, the United Nations, and all other countries around the world understand that we do it [declare a revolt] out of necessity based on the country’s current situation,” he said. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, which has tracked arrests and deaths following the coup, 1046 civilians have been killed and 6,230 are currently detained. Medics, journalists, activists and elected politicians are among those who have been arrested since February. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

By CARA ANNA NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A least 150 people starved to death last month in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities, the Tigray forces say, while close to half a million people face famine conditions. A young Tigrayan girl sits on sacks of wheat after the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed food to around 13,000 people in the rural village of Zelazle in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. (Claire Nevill/WFP via AP) The starvation deaths occurred in six communities as well as in camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the town of Shire, according to a briefing late Monday by the Tigray External Affairs Office. It is the largest public assessment yet of starvation deaths, though The Associated Press reported at least 125 deaths in a single district earlier this year. Food aid ran out last month in Tigray, a region of 6 million people, as the United Nations has described intense searches and delays of humanitarian cargo by Ethiopian authorities who fear aid will reach the Tigray forces who have been fighting Ethiopian and allied forces for the past 10 months after a political falling-out. “The complete depletion of food stocks has meant that IDP camps are receiving no aid and host communities, now running out of food themselves, are no longer able to support them,” the Tigray statement says. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has asserted that aid is reaching Tigray and has blamed Tigray forces and insecurity for any problems. The International Organization for Migration, which says more than 2 million people are displaced in Tigray, did not immediately respond to a question about starvation deaths, but the agency last month noted that “hosting capacity appears to have reached its limit” by the local population who support the majority of them. The first aid convoy in over two weeks arrived in the Tigray regional capital, Mekele, on Monday, but the World Food Program has said such a convoy of some 100 trucks is needed to arrive every day to meet the urgent needs of more than 5 million people. Telecommunications, electricity and banking services have again been cut off to Tigray since the Tigray forces retook much of the region in June. While witnesses have told the AP that access inside the region is safer and easier, they say dwindling supplies of food, fuel and cash make it increasingly impossible to help the hungry. The war has since spread into Ethiopia’s neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Health facilities supported by the International Committee for the Red Cross in those regions “have been receiving an increasing number of wounded people in the past few weeks,” the ICRC said Tuesday. “Unless the fighting dies down, we can only see the situation deteriorating extensively in the next weeks or months,” WFP spokesman Gordon Weiss told the AP. “We knew that there were around 400,000 people on the edge of famine-like conditions (in Tigray) in June. We have not really managed to assess the situation since then, it has been too difficult to do so, but we can expect that that population has grown and that their conditions have deteriorated.” The U.N., the United States and others urge the warring sides to stop the fighting and find a way to negotiate for peace, but Ethiopia’s government this year declared the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which once dominated the national government, a terrorist group. Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael in a letter dated Sept. 3, seen by the AP, and sent to more than 50 heads of state and government and multilateral organizations calls for pressure on Ethiopia for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of the siege on Tigray” and “an internationally sponsored and all-inclusive negotiation” for a cease-fire. © copyright 2021 The Associated Press.

DEBARK, Ethiopia (AP) — As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuses their people suffered back home. Displaced Amharas from different villages now controlled by Tigrayan forces in the North Gondar zone, shelter under an awning in the rain at a kindergarten school housing the internally-displaced, in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. (AP Photo) In interviews with The Associated Press, more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of Tigray forces striking communities and a religious site with artillery, killing civilians, looting health centers and schools and sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in the past two months. In the town of Nefas Mewucha in the Amhara region, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicines and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die. “It is a lie that they are not targeting civilians and infrastructures,” hospital manager Birhanu Mulu told the AP. He said his team had to transfer some 400 patients elsewhere for care. “Everyone can come and witness the destruction that they caused.” The war that began last November was confined at first to Ethiopia’s sealed-off northern Tigray region. Accounts of atrocities often emerged long after they occurred: Tigrayans described gang-rapes, massacres and forced starvation by federal forces and their allies from Amhara and neighboring Eritrea. Thousands of people died, though the opaque nature of the war -- most communications and transport links have been severed -- means no one knows the real toll. The Tigray forces retook much of their home region in a stunning turn in June, and now the fighting has spilled into Amhara. Angered by the attacks on their communities and families, the fighters are being accused of targeting civilians from the other side. The United States, which for months has been outspoken about the abuses against Tigrayans, this week turned sharp criticism on the Tigray forces. “In Amhara now, we now know that the (Tigray forces have) ... looted the warehouses, they’ve looted trucks and they have caused a great deal of destruction in all the villages they have visited,” the head of the U.S. Agency for Economic Development, Sean Jones, told the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation. He called the Tigray fighters “very aggressive.” USAID, which feeds millions throughout Ethiopia, has seen Tigray forces looting and emptying some of its warehouses, he said. While the U.S., United Nations and others urge all sides to stop the fighting and sit down to talks, those on the ground believe there’s no peace to come. Many Ethiopians outside Tigray support the federal government’s war effort, and as Tigray forces advance, families heed recruiting drives and send loved ones for military training. Ethiopia’s government says “millions” have answered the call. “Our children are living in terror. We are here to stop this,” said Mekdess Muluneh Asayehegn, a new Amhara militia recruit. Propping a gun on a full plastic sack, she lay on the ground and practiced sighting. But the consequences of the call to war are already coming home. Tigray forces accused of abuses as Ethiopia’s war spreads “As we came here, there were lots of dead bodies (of defense forces and civilians) along the way,” said Khadija Firdu, who fled the advancing Tigray forces to a muddy camp for displaced people in Debark. “Even as we entered Debark, we stepped on a dead body. We thought it was the trunk of a tree. It was dark. We came here crying.” © copyright 2021 The Associated Press. It is not clear how many people in Amhara have been killed; claims by the warring sides cannot be verified immediately. Each has accused the other of lying or carrying out atrocities against supporters. Shaken, the survivors are left to count bodies. In the town of Debre Tabor, Getasew Anteneh said he watched as Tigray forces shelled and destroyed a home, killing six people. Getasew helped carry away the dead. “I believe it was a deliberate revenge attack, and civilians are suffering.” In recent interviews with the AP, the spokesman for the Tigray forces Getachew Reda said they are avoiding civilian casualties. “They shouldn’t be scared,” he said last month. “Wherever we go in Amhara, people are extending a very warm welcome.” Displaced Ethiopians from different towns in the Amhara region wait for aid distributions at a center for the internally-displaced in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) He did not respond to the AP about the new witness accounts, but tweeted in response to USAID that “we cannot vouch for every unacceptable behavior of off-grid fighters in such matters.” The Tigray forces say their offensive is an attempt to break the months-long blockade of their region of some 6 million people, as an estimated 400,000 face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. The situation “is set to worsen dramatically,” the U.N. said Thursday. The fighters also say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to stop the war and the ethnic targeting that has seen thousands of Tigrayans detained, evicted or harassed while the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has used words like “cancer” and “weeds” to describe the Tigray fighters. Ethnic Amhara, more than half a million now displaced, say innocent people have been killed as Tigray forces move in. “I’ve witnessed with my own eyes when the (Tigray forces) killed one person during our journey,” said Mesfin Tadesse, who fled his home in Kobo town in July. “His sister was pleading with them when they killed him for no reason.” Zewditu Tikuye, who also fled Kobo, said her 57-year-old husband was killed by Tigray fighters when he tried to stay behind to protect their home and cows. “He wasn’t armed,” she said. Now she shelters with her six children in a small house with 10 other people. Others seek shelter in schools, sleeping in classrooms as newcomers drenched from the rainy season arrive. They squat in muddy clearings, waiting for plastic plates of the spongy flatbread injera to be handed out for the latest meal. And as earlier in Tigray, people in Amhara now watch in horror as the war damages religious sites in one of the world’s most ancient Christian civilizations. On Monday, the fourth-century Checheho monastery was hit by artillery fire and partially collapsed. “This is very brutal,” said Mergeta Abraraw Meles, who works there as a cashier. He believes it was intentionally targeted by the Tigray forces. They had come peacefully, he said, but then lashed out after facing battlefield losses. In the rubble of the monastery was a young boy, dead. New volunteers receive basic training to become potential reinforcements for pro-government militias or military forces, in a school courtyard in Gondar, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (AP Photo) © copyright 2021 The Associated Press.

By Ivan Watson and CNN staff (Arslan Khakiyev and James Griffiths contributed to this report.) Updated 6:32 AM ET, Sunday, September 5, 2021 As China woos the Taliban, Uyghurs in Afghanistan fear for their lives. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's political chief, in Tianjin, northern China on July 28. CNN. Tuhan's family crossed the border from China's western Xinjiang region to Afghanistan 45 years ago to escape persecution. Now, as the Taliban exerts control over the country, she fears she and other ethnic Uyghurs could be sent back to China by members of the militant group keen to curry favor with Beijing, which has been accused of carrying out a genocide on the Muslim minority. Tuhan, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity from the Taliban, is caught between a homeland where Uyghurs are facing increasing repression, and an adopted country where they are considered outsiders. What worries them most is that they could be deported to China. Over the past few years, the Chinese government has escalated its security and religious crackdown in Xinjiang. Up to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have passed through a sprawling network of detention centers across the region, according to the US State Department. Former detainees allege they were subjected to intense political indoctrination, forced labor, torture, and even sexual abuse. China vehemently denies allegations of human rights abuses, insisting the camps are voluntary "vocational training centers" designed to stamp out religious extremism and terrorism. Tuhan said she fears what will happen to her and her family if they're forced to return. "All these past years, life was difficult ... But what is happening now is the worst," she said, referring to the Taliban takeover. "It is just a matter of time before (the Taliban) find out that we are Uyghurs. Our lives are in danger." "China refugee" Tuhan was just 7 years old when she and her parents fled Yarkand, an oasis on the ancient Silk Road near the Chinese border with Afghanistan. At the time, Kabul was known as the "Paris of the East," and for ethnic Uyghurs, it was a sanctuary from China's Cultural Revolution, a decade of political and social turmoil from 1966 to 1976, during which Islam -- like all other religions -- was harshly cracked down upon. Tuhan is one of up to 3,000 Uyghurs in Afghanistan, according to Sean Roberts, a professor at George Washington University and author of "The War on the Uyghurs," making them a tiny minority in the country of more than 37 million. Many of them fled China after the Communist Party took control of Xinjiang in 1949. Some -- like Tuhan -- migrated in the mid-1970s, during the chaos of the last years of the Cultural Revolution, crossing mountain passes in the south of Xinjiang to seek refuge, Roberts said. Many of the Uyghurs now hold Afghan citizenship, but their identification cards still identify them as Chinese refugees -- including second generation immigrants, according to an ID photo shared with CNN and accounts of two Uyghurs. Abdul Aziz Naseri, whose parents fled Xinjiang in 1976, said his ID still identifies him as a "China refugee," even though he was born in Kabul. Naseri, who now lives in Turkey, said he has collected the names of more than 100 Uyghur families who want to flee Afghanistan. "They're afraid from China, because the Taliban was dealing with China behind the door. And they are afraid to (be) sent back to China," he said. A "good friend" There's reason for Uyghurs in Afghanistan to be worried, say experts. In July, a Taliban delegation paid a high-profile visit to Tianjin, where they met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Wang called the Taliban "an important military and political force in Afghanistan" and declared that they would play "an important role in the country's peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process." In return, the Taliban called China a "good friend" and pledged to "never allow any forces to use the Afghan territory to engage in acts detrimental to China," according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on the meeting. And last week, a Taliban spokesperson called for closer relations with Beijing in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN. "China is a very important and strong country in our neighborhood, and we have had very positive and good relations with China in the past," Zabihullah Mujahid said. "We want to make these relations even stronger and want to improve the mutual trust level." Roberts said Uyghurs' fears the Taliban could deport them to China to gain more favor with Beijing were legitimate. "(The Taliban) have a lot of reasons to try to ingratiate Beijing in terms of gaining international recognition, in terms of getting financial assistance at the time when most of the international community is not giving them financial assistance," he said. Tuhan's concern over potentially being forced to return to China is deepened by Beijing's increasingly aggressive efforts in recent years to bring overseas Uyghurs back to Xinjiang, including from Muslim countries. CNN has collected more than a dozen accounts detailing the alleged detention and deportation of Uyghurs at China's request in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. In a report published in June, the Uyghur Human Rights Project said there were least 395 cases of Uyghurs being deported, extradited, or rendered back to China from countries across the world since 1997. In a statement to CNN, China's Foreign Ministry called the Uyghur Human Rights Project an "outright anti-China separatist organization." "The so-called data and reports released by them have no impartiality and credibility, and are not worth refuting at all," it said. Cracking down on militants The Chinese government has a long history of engaging with the Taliban, dating back to the late 1990s, when the militant group last controlled Afghanistan. Beijing has repeatedly urged the Taliban to crack down on Uyghur militants in Afghanistan, primarily the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which it has blamed for almost every terror attack or violent incident in Xinjiang and other parts of the country. During his July meeting with Taliban officials in Tianjin, Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, said ETIM "poses a direct threat to China's state security and territory integrity." A video released by state broadcaster CGTN in 2019 compared the ETIM to al Qaeda and ISIS, saying it "has attempted to recruit people on a massive scale, spreading a radical ideology that continues to cause chaos in many countries around the world." But experts say there is little independent evidence to confirm China's claims of ETIM's size, capabilities and influence -- and there are doubts that it still exists today. ETIM started as a small group of Uyghurs who came to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 1998 with the intent to establish an insurgency against Chinese rule, according to Roberts. The Taliban initially allowed the group to settle in Afghanistan, but in an attempt to seek Chinese support amid international isolation, the Taliban assured Beijing that it would not allow any group to use its territory to conduct attacks against China. In the 1990s and 2000s, Xinjiang saw a rise in violent attacks, which Roberts said were often spontaneous outbursts of grievances toward the Chinese government's repressive policies. But after the 9/11 attacks, Beijing tried to reframe all those incidents as being related to Islamic terrorism directed by external groups such as ETIM, he said. Few people had heard of ETIM until it was designated by the US government as a terrorist organization in 2002, during a period of increased anti-terrorism cooperation with China in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. That decision, however, has been questioned by experts and officials, who see it as a quid pro quo by Washington to gain Beijing's support for the invasion of Iraq. Last year, amid worsening US-China relations, the Trump administration delisted ETIM as a terrorist group, drawing the ire of Beijing. The US State Department said the removal was because "for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist." ETIM's founder Hasan Mahsum was killed in 2003 by troops in Pakistan, where he and his followers fled following the US bombing of Afghanistan. The group appears to have died with him, said Roberts. But by 2008, a successor group to ETIM, called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), had emerged and threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics. The group is known to be affiliated with al Qaeda and later became a key player in the Syrian civil war. "They've been very prolific in terms of producing videos threatening Beijing, but there's no evidence of them being able to carry out any attacks inside China," Roberts said. But the Chinese government has continued to use the existence of the TIP -- which Beijing still refers to by the name ETIM -- to highlight the threat of terrorism and justify its ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang, said experts and Uyghur activists. "Why send a friend?" Now in her early 50s, Tuhan lives in northern Afghanistan, making a living by tailoring people's clothes, while her children do odd jobs, like painting neighbors' houses, for whatever money they can get. But even regular people like her could find themselves swept up in Beijing's campaign against terror groups. Roberts said it is unclear that TIP has a significant presence in Afghanistan, although a small number of its members are believed to be living in the country. If the Taliban were to deport anyone to China, it would most likely be ordinary Uyghurs rather than the TIP members they have had long-term relations with, he said. "If they want to show Beijing they were being receptive to its demands (for repatriation), why send a friend they know when they could just send any random Uyghurs in Afghanistan and suggest they are a threat to Beijing?" Roberts said. Despite having lived for decades in Afghanistan, the Uyghurs are considered outsiders, and unlike thousands of people airlifted to safety by the US and its allies, they have no country to help negotiate their exit. "They don't really have anybody to advocate on their behalf, to help them get out of the country," Roberts said. Tuhan said she and her family don't even have passports, so they have limited options to leave Afghanistan, even if another country was willing to take them. "They don't give passport for free, and we can't afford it. But now they have stopped issuing the passports anyway," she said. "It has been 45 years since we fled here. We have grown old without seeing a good day," she said. "Hopefully our kids could have a better life. That's all we want. We just want to be saved from this oppression." © 2021 Cable News Network.

Daina Beth Solomon and Alvaro Murillo | Reuters September 2, 2021,10:29 AM EDT Nicaraguans, who left their country due to the political situation with the government of President Daniel Ortega, gather at the Jesus El Buen Pastor migrant shelter in Tapachula, Mexico July 25, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Torres MEXICO CITY/SAN JOSE, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan activist Jesus Adolfo Tefel has already been detained once, in 2019, when he tried to bring water to mothers on a hunger strike against President Daniel Ortega. The government accused him of planning terrorist acts and, he said, locked him up for 46 days. That time, he stayed in Nicaragua after the government released him without pressing charges. But when the Ortega government began arresting presidential contenders, journalists and activists in June ahead of November elections, Tefel fled across the border to Costa Rica with his family. "I don't have the slightest doubt I would have been arrested" again if I stayed, said Tefel, 35, citing his work with opposition leaders aiming to oust the longest-standing president in the Americas, who is seeking a fourth straight term in the elections. Tefel's family joined tens of thousands of people who have slipped into exile this year amid the crackdown. The Nicaraguan government did not immediately respond to questions about Tefel, whose earlier arrest was documented by human rights groups and international media including Reuters. Data from the United States, Costa Rica and Mexico reveal an exodus shaping up to be among the biggest from Nicaragua since a 1980s civil war. It threatens to overwhelm Costa Rica's asylum system and has swollen already record Central American migration numbers to the United States. The jump in Nicaraguans going into exile is on track to be higher than in either 2018 or 2019, when repression of opposition protests against Ortega left at least 300 people dead. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection in July logged more than 13,000 Nicaraguans either illegally crossing or seeking asylum at the nation's borders, almost double the month before. That pushed Nicaragua to overtake El Salvador, traditionally one of the main drivers of Latino migration to the United States. Some 33,000 Nicaraguans have been apprehended at U.S. borders so far this year, over twice as many as in all of 2019, the year with the most apprehensions of Nicaraguans in at least a decade. This could be "the year with the most applications since records began," said Costa Rican official Allan Rodriguez, who oversees the country's asylum unit. Ortega's office did not respond to a request for comment about the rising migration or accusations of political persecution. Ortega has said his opponents seek to topple him and conspire against national interests. Costa Rica is struggling to process 11,000 Nicaraguan refugee applications received in July and August, more than in the peak months of the last wave of repression. Asylum officers have a backlog of 52,000 cases to review. CRACKDOWNS Ortega first took power after the 1979 overthrow of U.S.-backed right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza by Sandinista rebels, and returned to office in 2007. Working with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, he has tightened his grip in the second-poorest country in the Americas. He has abolished presidential term limits, expanded his family's business empire and piled pressure on independent media, while at the same time using budget and tax laws to take control of at least a dozen media and news outlets. Over the past three months, Ortega has arrested 35 opposition leaders, suspended a rival party and withheld newsprint, among other tactics that U.N. officials, the United States and Europe have called an abuse of power to stifle free speech and free elections. "What we are seeing in Nicaragua is an escalating climate of repression, fear, and hopelessness," a U.S. State Department spokesman said. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment. Under President Joe Biden, the United States has identified bad governance and weak rule of law as a root cause of migration from Central America. It is seeking to cajole the "Northern Triangle" countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to tackle these issues to stem flows. Nicaragua, traditionally a lesser source of immigration to the United States, has been not included in that effort. However, the State Department said the administration is using "diplomatic and economic tools" to pressure a government it calls undemocratic and authoritarian. Washington has sanctioned several people close to Ortega, including Vice President Murillo. In Mexico, Nicaraguans are spending weeks or months in southern border towns as they await visas to stay legally or pass through safely to the U.S. border. Lester Altamirano, 40, lived in the Mexican city of Tapachula for eight months before making it to California with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. He crossed into the United States in late May, a DHS document seen by Reuters showed, and he plans to apply for asylum. The family first requested asylum in the United States in 2020 but was deported. Back in Nicaragua, Altamirano and his wife were jailed for 11 days for opposing the government, Altamirano said. Altamirano's anti-government Facebook posts then drew the attention of officials in his small town in northern Nicaragua. "It was going to be worse if we stayed. We had to risk it," he said, echoing others Reuters spoke to for this story, including journalist Carlos Padilla, 26, who said he had been scared to protest on the street at home for fear of arrest. Tefel, who once ran a tourism company in Nicaragua, said he does not know when he could return home without risking jail. "I lived it in my own skin," he said. "I know what it means to be locked up, and unjustly." © 2021 Reuters.

by Genocide Watch, Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi Delphin, and Thomas Shacklock Minembwe (Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi Delphin) Hate speech is one of the early stages of persecution and genocide. Genocide Watch uses the model of the Ten Stages of Genocide to predict whether groups of people risk facing Extermination, which is Stage 9 of Genocide Watch's model. Hate speech usually occurs at Stage 4: Dehumanization, following the first three stages of Classification, Symbolization, and Discrimination. While this model should not be seen as linear, it outlines a logical process throughout which efforts to destroy a group can incrementally occur. Within this process, hate speech has the potential to turn populations against groups they begin to see as subhuman. It facilitates the perpetration of human rights abuses against them, including genocide. Hate speech has led to ongoing persecution and genocide of the Banyamulenge, an ethnic minority in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This article presents recent examples of anti-Banyamulenge hate speech as an early warning of genocide against the Banyamulenge community. Situated in the southern part of South Kivu Province, the Rural Municipality of Minembwe is nearly inaccessible by road. This remote region of the Eastern DRC (approximately 300 km from the Rwandan and Burundian borders) is where the DRC's Banyamulenge community lives. The Banyamulenge are related to the Tutsi of the African Great Lakes region. Even though the Banyamulenge are the majority group in Minembwe, the municipality is also inhabited by other ethnic communities, namely the Babembe, Bafuliro, Banyindu, and Bashi. Minembwe is situated in South Kivu Province near the Rwandan and Burundian borders. (Google Maps) A history of discriminatory politics coupled with the legacy of colonialism has led the other ethnic groups in the DRC to style themselves as “autochthonous” (indigenous), while the Banyamulenge are characterized as "invaders" or “immigrants”. This classification is inherited from the fictitious, imperialist “Hamitic Hypothesis”, first proposed by Speke and other racist theoreticians. The hypothesis theorized that black African "Bantu" groups were colonized by lighter skinned, more intelligent "Nilotic" groups who came from Ethiopia and the Blue Nile. The Hamitic Hypothesis claims that Ethiopians are descended from a lost tribe of Israel, the descendants of Ham. The racist theory claims that all “civilization” in Africa was the result of Caucasian invaders from North-East Africa. In this origin myth, the Banyamulenge are viewed not simply as “immigrants” but also as “invaders.” Other groups who consider themselves the original indigenous inhabitants of the region use this myth to justify their exclusionary ideology. They contend that the Banyamulenge should be forced to leave the DRC by all means necessary, including genocide. This same Hamitic Hypothesis was actively taught in German and Belgian schools under colonialism. It was the theoretical underpinning for the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi. The Banyamulenge sided with the Rwandan Army at the start of the Congo Wars of 1996-97 and 1998-2003. The wars broke out when Rwanda, under the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front supporting Laurent-Désiré Kabila, invaded Zaire to overthrow President Mobutu Sese Seko. In Eastern DRC they remained to protect Tutsi civilians from systematic persecution and massacres by the "Interahamwe" and ex-Forces Armées Rwandaises (ex-FAR), the Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Banyamulenge have since distanced themselves from the Rwandan Army. But they remain distrusted by the other groups in the eastern DRC. A rural majority Banyamulenge municipality, Minembwe, was created from 2013 - 2018, along with hundreds of other municipalities as part of a wider process of decentralization of the DRC's governance. It has reignited tensions and mobilized armed groups who have vowed to finish off the Banyamulenge in the region. The creation of the Minembwe municipality has been contested as though other groups in the local population will not benefit from the decentralization process. In September and October 2020, a Congolese ‘Commission of Inquiry’ investigated conflict in the rural municipality (commune in French) of Minembwe. On September 28, 2020, a delegation led by the Minister of Defense visited Minembwe to assess ongoing violence. He also visited other parts of the Eastern DRC. The Minister of Defense’s delegation included the Minister of Decentralization, Azarias Ruberwa, who is himself a member of the Banyamulenge community. The Provincial Governor of South Kivu and his Minister of Internal Affairs joined the Minister of Defense’s delegation. The Governor decided to “officially install” the Minembwe municipality’s mayor, a minor decision usually made by the Provincial Minister of Internal Affairs. Following the official installation of the mayor, many voices, including those of religious and political leaders, voiced their opposition to this installation process that had been applied previously in many other decentralized entities. This opposition has come in the form of written articles, political declarations, and speeches, including speeches addressed directly to the Minister of Decentralization when he was summoned by Parliament. Many of these declarations made claims of irregularities during the process of creating these decentralized entities, specifically in Minembwe. However, a closer examination of these speeches reveals the anti-Banyamulenge hatred that is actually driving the opposition to the creation of a Banyamulenge majority municipality in Minembwe. Influential figures are using scapegoating language to accuse the Banyamulenge of being the source of divisions in the DRC. In a sub-textual appeal to fears of Rwandan Tutsis, members of Parliament have repeatedly claimed that the rural municipality is being created for “foreigners” who will exploit the local population. The municipality has been described as a “cancer cell” aiming to destroy the DRC, a “neo-colonial occupation” of land, and a step towards the so-called “Balkanization” (fragmentation) of the DRC. While the municipality is approximately 10km2 in size, a propaganda campaign has portrayed it to be the size of Rwanda. References to Rwanda further lead the public to view the Banyamulenge not as Congolese, but as ‘Rwandans’ who seek to create a foreign country inside the DRC. Publications in traditional media and on social media in the DRC have reinforced this dehumanization of the Banyamulenge. Hate speech has mobilized youth against the Banyamulenge minority. Such hate speech was a strong early warning of the Rwandan genocide. It is now an early warning of the danger of genocide against the Banyamulenge. The discussion below includes excerpts of the original French versions of these declarations and their translations into English. Additionally, this article calls upon organizations working in the field of genocide and mass atrocity prevention to invest in monitoring hate speech against the Banyamulenge. Moreover, this is an appeal to these organizations and to Congolese and international leaders to openly denounce this ongoing hate speech campaign as a precursor of plans to exterminate the Banyamulenge. The discussion highlights some of this hate speech in bold to emphasize the mortal danger it poses to the Banyamulenge of the DRC. 1. Contesting the Banyamulenge’s Nationality Eve Bazaiba In a recent speech, well-known Member of Parliament Eve Bazaiba attacked Azarias Ruberwa for the country’s decentralization process as though it has been designed to only benefit the Banyamulenge. Although Minembwe is inhabited by several different ethnic groups, Eve Bazaiba claims that the creation of a municipality is an unnecessary, extra demand from the Banyamulenge and poses a threat to the people of the DRC. She further implies that granting any rights to the Banyamulenge – from nationality to land rights – also poses such a threat and could allow the Banyamulenge to transform Minembwe into a Lesotho (which is an enclave nation situated within South Africa) or a Vatican (within Italy) within the DRC: « ….Nous craignons les revendications ascendantes. Après la nationalité, il y a la terre ; et ensuite, l’autonomie, l’indépendance, et le droit du peuple… (applaudissement). Parce que là, nous risquons d’avoir un Lesotho… en République Démocratique du Congo, nous risquons d’avoir un Vatican en République Démocratique du Congo… Comment est-ce qu’il [le Ministre] pense apaiser nos inquiétudes en ce qui concerne cette série de revendications ascendante : la nationalité, la terre, et après ? … Mais la campagne autour de la question de Minembwe… vous avez suivi la campagne, le spot, les clips, mais nous ne sommes pas dupes… » "We are afraid of these increasing demands. After claims to nationality come claims to land; and then, demands for autonomy, independence, and the right of the people [to self-determination] … (applause from Parliament). From there, we risk having a Lesotho… in the DRC, we risk having a Vatican in the DRC. How does he [Azarias Ruberwa] plan to allay our worries concerning this series of increasing demands? Nationality, land, and then what? ... And of course, the campaign around the Minembwe question… you have all followed the campaign, the adverts, the videos, but we are not fooled...” Eve Bazaiba then argues that a municipality in Minembwe would set a precedent for other groups to make similar claims, including armed groups that have terrorized civilians in the Eastern DRC. She uses the examples of ADF-NALU, a Jihadist rebel group from Uganda, and the FDLR, a group of Rwandan former Interahamwe members, the Hutu extremists that perpetrated the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi. By equating the Banyamulenge with these groups, Bazaiba adds to the vilification of the Banyamulenge, a vulnerable minority group. She additionally vilifies the Mbororo, a nomadic group that is persecuted and displaced across Central Africa, to make her argument against the Banyamulenge: « Honorable Président, je voudrais aussi dire … loin de moi toute pensée de haine, de discrimination ou de xénophobie… nous devons parler clairement, sincèrement pour que nous résolvions une fois pour toute cela si non, nous allons avoir les mêmes problèmes avec les Mbororo, nous allons avoir les mêmes problèmes avec les ADF-NALU, nous allons avoir les mêmes problèmes avec les Interahamwe transformés a FDLR aujourd’hui. Nous allons avoir beaucoup de problèmes. » “ Honorable President, I would also like to say… I do not mean to be hateful, discriminatory or xenophobic… we must be clear and sincere so that we can resolve this issue once and for all. Otherwise, we are going to have the same problem with the Mbororo, we’re going to have the same problem with the ADF-NALU, we’re going to have the same problem with the Interahamwe, now the FDLR. We are going to have a lot of problems.” Martin Fayulu Martin Fayulu, a leading opposition figure in DRC politics and candidate for the 2018 presidential elections, has made the issue of Minembwe a key aspect of his populist platform. In the following speech, as in many others, he denies the Banyamulenge’s existence as an ethnicity from the DRC and significantly exaggerates the potential outcome of the establishment of a municipality in Minembwe. Claiming that Congolese communities are being displaced from such territories as Butembo, Beni, Rutshuru, and Tanganyika by people from elsewhere, he states: « Le problème, c’est cette Balkanisation physique qu’on est en train de matérialiser… les gens vont être ici, nombreux… des populations qui vont, demain, dire que nous ne parlons pas les langues du pays (la RDC), nous parlons des langues similaires aux langues du Rwanda… Ce n’est pas une affaire de 5 ans… 25 ans… 50 ans, c’est une affaire de longue durée… Je n’ai de problème avec aucune tribu du Congo, mais… les Banyamulenge n’existait pas [comme tribu congolaise] ». “The problem is the physical Balkanization that is currently being implemented… There will many people here… populations who, tomorrow, will say that we do not speak the languages of this country [the DRC], we speak languages similar to the languages of Rwanda. This is not an issue lasting 5 years… 25 years… 50 years; this is a long-term issue… I have no problem with any tribe from the DRC, but… the Banyamulenge have never existed [as a Congolese tribe]”. Minembwe (Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi Delphin) 2. A Hegemonic Group Occupying the Land Adolphe Muzito Adolphe Muzito is a prominent Congolese politician who served as the Prime Minister between 2008 and 2012. He has recently likened the Municipality of Minembwe to the occupation of the DRC by King Leopold II of Belgium during the colonial era: « L’érection de Minembwe en commune rurale sans avis conforme des représentants locaux est l’expression de la culture politique néocoloniale des héritiers du Roi Léopold II, un Monarque étranger, qui en 1885, s’est accaparé de nos terres, en les déclarant vacantes. Nous sommes les nouveaux occupants de la RDC. Nous confisquons les terres des communautés locales ou les cédons à qui nous voulons. » “The erection of Minembwe as a rural municipality without the consent of the local representatives is the expression of the neocolonial political culture of the heirs of King Leopold II, a foreign monarch, who, in 1885, seized our lands, declaring them to be vacant. We are the new occupants of the DRC. We shall confiscate the lands of local communities or give them to whomever we want." Pr. Voto In a recent column, Pr. Voto (unidentified author) argues that a plan to occupy the DRC is already in place and the Municipality of Minembwe fulfils three features of an occupied territory moving towards autonomy. These features are a homogenous population, a determined territory, and the supplementation of authority with a strategy of waging wars in order to obtain international recognition. Moreover, the author argues that, while appointing a mayor represents very little in any other part of the DRC, it is a significant step in Minembwe because of the Banyamulenge’s loyalty to Rwanda and the legal and administrative power they could gain. His column denies the fact that there is nothing unusual about the establishment of a municipality in Minembwe, exactly like the establishment of the DRC’s other decentralized municipalities. This technique of distinguishing the Banyamulenge from the rest of the DRC population depicts the Banyamulenge as masterminds of a plan to create a Central African “Tutsiland”: « Le projet de la création d’un Tutsiland dans les Grands Lacs qui n’est plus un secret rempli[t] valablement cette condition. Les Banyamulenge, hier Banyarwanda, constituent une communauté identifiable et se considèrent comme des Congolais entièrement à part et non des congolais à part entière. Aussi se revendiquent-ils d’une minorité au sein de la population congolaise, alors que toutes les ethnies et tribus congolaises sont minoritaires. » “The plan to create a Tutsiland in the Great Lakes region, which is no longer a secret, legitimately fulfils this condition. The Banyamulenge, previously known as the Banyarwanda, constitute an identifiable community and consider themselves to be completely distinct and not fully Congolese. They also claim to be a minority within the Congolese population, when all Congolese ethnic groups and tribes are in the minority.” Martin Fayulu Martin Fayulu was also untruthful about the size of the proposed municipality by pointing to a number of different territories he claims it would take up. In doing so, he further implied the municipality would pose a threat to nearby towns and territories in South Kivu: « Quand vous regardez la carte de cette commune rurale… elle prend une partie de Shabunda… une partie de Mwenga… Il y a d’autres villages qui sont de Shabunda… de Mwenga… Ça veut dire quoi exactement? » “Look at the map of this rural municipality… It takes part of Shabunda… part of Mwenga. There are other villages that are from Shabunda… from Mwenga. What does this mean exactly?” The Roman Catholic Church and the Lay Coordination Committee (CLC) The CLC (Comité Laïc de Coordination/Lay Coordination Committee) is a non-governmental organization affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church in the DRC. The Roman Catholic Church is the most powerful and respected religious institution in the DRC. It has approximately 35 million members and is well embedded across the DRC, even in remote areas. It is perhaps the sole institution filling the gap in the provision of public services created by the absence of the state. Due to the fragility of the state, the Roman Catholic Church and, in particular, the CLC have usually taken the side of the oppressed, ordinary Congolese population. Its voice therefore counts more than those of the DRC’s hundreds of political figures. This influence applies even when it makes ungrounded statements. CLC/Kinshasa (Catholic Church) The following speech by the CLC contains a common assertion that the Banyamulenge are the source of the violence from which they have disproportionately suffered for decades. While Genocide Watch does not condone any form of violence, it is important to understand that Banyamulenge armed groups (as opposed to Banyamulenge civilians) have often engaged in violence out of self-defense against the systematic persecution of their people. Such armed groups do not represent most Banyamulenge civilians. The CLC also refer to “the limits of existing chiefdoms and territories” to make their argument, an idea that has never applied to the hundreds of other decentralized entities, of which Minembwe is only one: « Cette politique du défi et du fait accompli, appliquée à Minembwe, au mépris des limites des chefferies et territoires existants, loin de consolider les efforts de paix entrepris dans la région, est de nature à plonger la population dans un cycle de violences incontrôlables par la généralisation du climat d’insécurité et d’hostilité réciproque. » “This policy of defiance and faits accomplis, used in Minembwe, with no regard for the limits of existing chiefdoms and territories, far from consolidating the peace efforts undertaken in the region, is likely to plunge the population into a cycle of uncontrollable violence through the spread of the climate of insecurity and mutual hostility.” Monseigneur Muyengo (Catholic Bishop of Uvira) Bishop Muyengo, who leads the church in Uvira-Fizi territories, has been praised by many leaders of the Congolese population. In the following speech, he refers to the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a political party and former armed group that was partly composed of Banyamulenge fighters and supported by Rwanda during the Second Congo War (1998-2003). Although the RCD had a diverse membership of many different ethnic groups, it is seen as having been dominated by Banyamulenge. Additionally, though the Banyamulenge have since distanced themselves from Rwanda and the RCD, their former alliance has contributed to the lasting perception of them as Rwandan “invaders”. « Pour nos populations, la commune de Minembwe est le dernier coup de maître après l'échec du pouvoir du Rassemblement pour la démocratie (RCD), d'obédience rwandaise à l'époque, de créer tout un territoire dans la province pour nos frères Banyamulenge, identifiés comme des Congolais d'origine rwandaise et d'ethnie tutsi. Hier, c'était la question de la nationalité, aujourd'hui, c'est celle de la terre. Mais si on peut attribuer la nationalité à qui la demande et la mérite, on ne distribue pas la terre sous n'importe quelle condition. » “For our populations, the municipality of Minembwe is the latest masterstroke after the failure of the power of the Rally for Democracy (RCD), affiliated with Rwanda at the time, to create an entire territory in the province for our Banyamulenge brothers, identified as Congolese of Rwandan origin and of Tutsi ethnicity. Yesterday it was a question of nationality, today it is that of land. But though we can attribute nationality to whomever asks for it and deserves it, we do not distribute land under any condition.” Bulambo Kilosho A native of South-Kivu, influential political figure, and Member of Parliament, Bulambo Kilosho has also exaggerated the municipality’s size and the potential outcome of its creation. He linked the Rural Municipality of Minembwe to what is commonly discussed as a “Congo Genocide”. By linking a rural municipality to the tens of millions of Congolese who have died in recent decades and to Rwanda, Bulambo depicts Minembwe as yet another Rwandan “invasion”. He has even threatened to take legal action against its creation: « Nous avons perdu plus de 10 millions des Congolais à cause des conflits et les plaies sont encore fraîches. Nous voici encore une fois dans d’autres chose comme ce qu’on a connu hier. Tel que nous l’avons appris, la commune de Minembwe prendrait un espace plus grand que le fameux Rwanda. Commune rurale, ça étonne tout le monde. Mon village à moi, Bilalo-Mbili à 170 kilomètres de Minembwe est compris dans cette commune…c’est une imposture ça. Nous irons aux cours et tribunaux de ce pays.» “We have lost more than 10 million Congolese due to conflict, and the wounds are still fresh. Here we are again facing something else like what we experienced before. As we have learned, the municipality of Minembwe would take up a larger area than the notorious Rwanda. For a rural municipality, this comes as a surprise to everyone. My own village, Bilalo-Mbili, 170 kilometers from Minembwe, is included in this municipality… that is a sham. We will go to the courts and tribunals of this country.” 3. The Plot to Dismember and “Balkanize” the DRC Jean-Baptiste Kasekwa A sitting Member of Parliament elected from Goma city, Jean Baptiste Kasekwa was one of the organizers of a demonstration in Kinshasa against the creation of the Rural Municipality of Minembwe. Kasekwa asserted in his declaration that Rwanda has attempted to annex Minembwe as its territory. He accuses President Tshisekedi and the Governor of Kinshasa, Gentiny Ngobila, of a conspiracy to stop his demonstrations against the creation of the Minembwe municipality. « Quel est le deal qui est caché derrière ça [la Commune Rurale de Minembwe] ? Sachant que c’est le Rwanda qui avait déjà tenté de faire de Minembwe son territoire. Nous sommes là pour dire non à la cession de Minembwe, curieusement Félix [Tshisekedi] envoie la police pour empêcher notre marche… Il dévoile au monde dans quel camp il se trouve, il se situe du côté de ceux qui veulent la cession de Minembwe [c.-à-d. Ngobila] … » “What's the hidden deal behind this [rural municipality]? Knowing that it’s Rwanda that had already tried to make Minembwe its territory, we are here to say no to the abandonment of Minembwe. Surprisingly, Félix [Tshisekedi] sends the police to prevent our march… He is revealing to the world which camp he sits in; he has placed himself next to those who want to give up Minembwe [i.e. Ngobila] …” Modeste Mutinga Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi is a senator, the founder of Le Potentiel media outlet, and the chairperson of the Parti des Démocrates pour la Bonne Gouvernance/Party of Democrats for Good Governance (PDG). He has referred to a theory linking the Rural Municipality of Minembwe to a plot by the West to dismember the DRC. Such a declaration from a well-known political figure and media expert creates the impression that his claim is true. Moreover, it falls within the widespread narrative that the Banyamulenge and Tutsi are Western protégés, a dangerous myth driving the mobilization of the public against the Rural Municipality of Minembwe and the Banyamulenge. « De ce qui précède, le PDG invite le peuple congolais à se mobiliser pour déjouer avec vigueur et détermination le complot ourdi par l’occident contre la RDC tel qu’il transpire de la déclaration faite en son temps par l’ancien Président de la République française, Nicolas Sarkozy. » “From the above, the PDG is inviting the Congolese people to come together and foil, with vigor and determination, the plot hatched by the West against the DRC, as it came to light in the declaration made by the former President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, during his time in office.” Eric Ngalula Another Member of Parliament, Eric Ngalula, recently referred to Rwanda’s intervention in the Congo Wars of 1996-97 and 1998-2003 to argue against the creation of the Rural Municipality of Minembwe. He touched upon the dangerous myth that the Banyamulenge have been proxy fighters for Rwanda since the Congo Wars and that they continue to be enemies of the DRC: « Hier, avec les guerres de 1996 et 1998, les ingrédients étaient réunis pour la balkanisation de notre pays la République Démocratique du Congo. Mais les ennemis de notre nation n’ont pas réussi grâce à notre unité et vigilance. Ce n’est pas aujourd’hui ni demain que ça va marcher. La RDC, c'est 2,345 millions km2 » “Yesterday, with the wars of 1996 and 1998, the ingredients were gathered together for the balkanization of our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the enemies of our nation have not succeeded thanks to our unity and vigilance. It is not going to work today or tomorrow. The DRC is 2.345 million km2.” 4. Containing the Banyamulenge Is Like Freezing or Burning a “Cancer Cell” Valentin Mubake A native of South Kivu province, Valentin Mubake is a well-known political figure who has worked closely with Etienne Tshisekedi, the former Prime Minister (1991, 1992–1993, and 1997) and father of current president Félix Tshisekedi. In calling for the cancellation of the municipality’s creation in one speech, he made reference to the AFDL (Alliance de Forces Démocratiques du Congo/ Zaïre), the 1996 rebel group that the Banyamulenge joined to oust former dictator President Mobutu and bring Laurent-Désiré Kabila to power. A particularly striking aspect of his speech is the dehumanizing comparison of the rural municipality to the incubation of cancer in the human body. Calling a targeted group a "cancer" has been a favorite term used by planners of many genocides, including in Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. Mubake is asserting that the Banyamulenge must be surgically cut out of the body politic before it is too late, and they infect all of the DRC. « Certains Congolais semblent subitement surpris de constater la naissance de la « commune rurale » de MINEMBWE qui n’est autre chose qu’une apparition dans l’organisme d’une cellule cancérigène, datant de l’époque de l’AFDL, qui va infecter très rapidement la RDC toute entière. » “Some Congolese people have suddenly been surprised by the creation of the ‘rural municipality’ of MINEMBWE, which is nothing more than an incubation of a cancer cell in the body, traced back to the time of AFDL, and which will very quickly infect the entire DRC.” Conclusion Hate speech has long been a preparatory stage of genocide. Understanding its development helps policy makers plan preventive measures to protect people threatened by genocide. This paper has analyzed a selection of speeches and declarations. There are many other examples that are evidence of the current mortal threat to the Banyamulenge. The advancement of social media technology, as well as the influential positions of the authors of this hate speech, have broadcast the hate speech against the Banyamulenge to millions of people in the DRC. When influential leaders from many provinces of the DRC have shared similar hatred against one single rural municipality among hundreds of decentralized entities, decision-makers should be called upon to be vigilant. The Banyamulenge have been victims of such hate speech since the colonial era. In the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were murdered in genocidal massacres in Rwanda and Burundi, and also against Banyamulenge in the DRC. This paper is a plea for Congolese leaders, international statesmen, and anti-genocide organizations to denounce such hate speech. Preventive programs should be instituted in the DRC, especially around Minembwe, to counter such hate speech. Genocide against the Banyamulenge must be prevented. Minembwe hills and grazing lands. (Credit: Google Maps) Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi Delphin is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS)/Erasmus University Rotterdam. He focuses on the microeconomic analysis of violence in the Eastern DRC. He is the author of Behind the Scenes of the ‘Banyamulenge Military’: Momentum, Myth, and Extinction (2019) and the working paper Genocide Warning: The Vulnerability of Banyamulenge ‘Invaders’ (2019). Thomas Shacklock is a research analyst for the DRC and Central & Western Africa at Genocide Watch. Download PDF version:

Published in The Brussels Times, 24 August 2021 French translation published in Le Monde, 30 August 2021 Hazara girls mourn after terrorist bombing in Afghanistan killed 85 schoolgirls ... credit AP Zainab, a 27-year-old Hazara woman from Bamiyan, Afghanistan gave birth to her first baby in a Kabul maternity clinic run by Doctors Without Borders. She joyfully named her baby Omid, "Hope" in Dari. Her mother-in-law, Muhammadi, explained, "We gave him the name Omid. Hope for a better future, hope for a better Afghanistan, and hope for a mother who has been struggling to have a child for years." Four hours after Omid's birth, three gunmen disguised as police opened fire in the maternity ward, murdering sixteen mothers, two newborns, and a Doctors Without Borders midwife. Omid lay dead on the floor covered in blood. Muhammadi wept, "I brought my daughter-in-law to Kabul so she would not lose her baby. Today we'll take his dead body to Bamiyan." This May in the same Hazara neighborhood, Dasht-e-Barchi, 85 schoolgirls were murdered in a triple bombing as they left the Syed Al-Shahada school. Most of them were Hazaras. Since 2015, Islamist terrorist attacks have killed at least 1,200 Hazaras. The attacks deliberately target their hospitals and children. These are war crimes and crimes against humanity. Because they are intended to destroy a substantial part of the Hazara ethnic and religious group, they are also acts of genocide. The Taliban have “kill lists” with names of Afghans who oppose them. The "kill lists" are posted online. One ethnic and religious group has been on the Taliban's "kill list" since the 1990's: the Hazaras. The Hazaras live in central Afghanistan around Bamiyan, the place where the Taliban notoriously blew up two huge Buddhas carved into the face of a cliff. The Hazaras were victims of genocide under the Iron Emir, Abdur Rahman Khan, in 1888-1893, when they resisted his consolidation of Afghanistan. Over half of the Hazara population died. The Hazaras are again in grave peril of genocide. The Taliban targeted the Hazara minority when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. They will do so again. This time, the Islamic State - Khorasan Province (IS-KP) will join in the genocide. The Taliban and IS-KP are Sunni Muslims and the Hazaras are Shia Muslims. The Taliban and IS-KP condemn Hazaras as heretics. The punishment for heresy is death. The Hazaras are ethnically distinct from other Afghans. They speak their own dialect of Dari. The coming Hazara genocide in Afghanistan is preventable. The U.S. and NATO must warn the Taliban that if the Taliban or IS-KP commit any more massacres against the Hazara or any other ethnic group, U.S. and NATO forces will return to protect them. Press reports from Afghanistan portray the Afghan conflict as a "forever civil war." The "conventional wisdom" is that America should stay out of civil wars. This isolationist "wisdom" ignores the fact that most genocides occur during civil wars. It assumes that civil wars cannot be won with support for local forces opposed to tyranny. If we ignore the clear warnings of the coming Hazara genocide with apathy, we will abandon our moral duty to people who have loyally supported Americans for twenty years. America will again become a Bystander to genocide. If we abandon Afghanistan, we will forget the horror of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, a nation we also abandoned. I was one of the first Americans to live in Cambodia in 1980 after Vietnam defeated the Khmer Rouge. One of the first to walk through the mass graves. Among the first to listen to the survivors. I will never forget a woman named Gai Maryam, who asked me, "Why did you abandon us?" I didn't have a good answer.

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 30 (Reuters) - A Guatemalan judge on Monday ordered two high-ranking ex-generals to stand trial on genocide charges from four decades ago, as the Central American country grapples with past massacres of mostly indigenous people during a brutal civil war. Guatemalan survivors and relatives of victims of civil war-era crimes against humanity gather on February 25 to commemorate the dead and to demand justice [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] In his ruling, Judge Miguel Angel Galvez authorized the trial on accusations the two former generals - Manuel Benedicto Lucas and Manuel Antonio Callejas - committed genocide, crimes against humanity and forced kidnapping from 1978 to 1982 in a case where more than 1,700 people were killed over 31 separate massacres. The killings took place in the country's northern Quiche region, home to many indigenous Maya. Lucas was the third-ranking army officer at the time of the alleged crimes, as well as brother of then-President Romeo Lucas, while Callejas was in charge of national intelligence. Neither man could immediately be reached for comment on the judge's order. Lucas and Callejas, both 85, have been held since 2016 in so-called preventative detention in a military medical facility in the Guatemalan capital. In June, Judge Galvez separately charged six other ex-military members for their alleged participation in the death and forced disappearance of at least 183 civilians during the 36-year civil war. read more The war, which ended with peace agreements in 1996, is believed to have cost more than 200,000 lives and another 45,000 disappeared persons. Relatively few people have been tried for crimes committed during the war, and a United Nations-backed commission has said the army committed the majority of the war's atrocities. Reporting by Enrique Garcia; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Richard Pullin © 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved

To watch the dialogue, click on https://fb.watch/7MMCPmGwZu/. Gregory Stanton on the Mainstreaming of Slobodan Milošević ‘s Euphemism “Ethnic Cleansing” in Cases of Genocide In Stanton’s expert opinion, no prosecutor can charge anyone for committing “ethnic cleansing” as it is not a crime under international law. The term is a license for impunity. FORSEA Tuesday 31 August 2021; 12 noon US Eastern; 5:00 pm London; 11:30 pm Yangon FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Asia Renowned genocide scholar Gregory Stanton speaks on the mainstreaming of Slobodan Milošević ‘s euphemism “ethnic cleansing” in cases of genocide. Rohingya lawyers, activists, and refugees have been campaigning for both the end to Myanmar’s persecution of their ethnic-national community and international recognition of Myanmar’s policies as genocidal since Myanmar’s first wave of a genocidal purge of a substantial number of Rohingyas – over 200,000 – under the invented pretext of “illegal immigration operations” in the spring of 1978. There has been a sense of shock and repulsion among Rohingyas and their supporters when the United States and the United Kingdom officially issued commemorative statements and tweets, misnaming and misframing Myanmar’s crime of genocide as “ethnic cleansing”. In his forthcoming essay entitled “Ethnic Cleansing” is a Euphemism Used for Genocide Denial”, Dr. Gregory Stanton, the founding President of the Genocide Watch, Yale Law-trained legal scholar and former US State Department official, called attention to the failure of the so-called international community to call a spade a spade, a genocide a genocide. The renowned genocide scholar writes, “(t)he UN, press, human rights groups, and many governments still call the Myanmar Army’s aggression, genocidal massacres, and forced deportation against the Rohingya “ethnic cleansing.” “Ethnic cleansing” is a term invented by Slobodan Milošević and Serbian propagandists as a euphemism for forced deportation and genocide.” (See https://en.prothomalo.com/opinion/myanmars-genocide-bleached-as-ethnic-cleansing) In Stanton’s expert opinion, no prosecutor can charge anyone for committing “ethnic cleansing” as it is not a crime under international law. The term is a license for impunity. Tune in to the interview with Professor Gregory Stanton on this crucial topic on the Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC) Facebook LIVE on the FORSEA Dialogue Series on Democratic Struggles in Asia, in collaboration with the FRC. Host Dr. Maung Zarni, Co-founder FORSEA and Free Rohingya Coalition, Fellow, Documentation Center – Cambodia Guest Dr. Gregory Stanton, Former US State Department Official, Renowned Genocide Scholar & Founding President of the Genocide Watch Tuesday 31 August 2021; 12 noon US Eastern; 5:00 pm London; 11:30 pm Yangon Watch on Facebook | FRC | www.facebook.com/FreeRohingyaCoalition WATCH LIVE HERE Click the link below to listen to Greg read his poem "What is justice?" at the FRC Genocide Memorial Event on 25 Aug. Gregory Stanton on the Mainstreaming of Slobodan Milošević ‘s Euphemism “Ethnic Cleansing” in Cases of Genocide | FORSEA

Two human rights groups have accused both sides in the Yemen conflict of using starvation as a weapon of war. In this Aug. 25, 2019 file photo, workers carry food supplies provided by the World Food Programme for distribution, in Sanaa, Yemen. On Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021, Yemeni and global rights groups accused both sides in the country’s civil war of using starvation as a tactic of war. They urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the opposing participants to the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged crimes in its years-long conflict. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File) Two human rights groups Wednesday accused both sides in Yemen's conflict of using starvation as a tactic of war. They urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the opposing participants to the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged crimes. In a sweeping 275-page report, the Yemen-based Mwatana Organization for Human Rights and another group, Global Rights Compliance, said they documented airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition that hit farms, water facilities and small fishing boats during fighting with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The report also documented the Houthis' restrictions on humanitarian activities, which deprived civilians in areas under their control of “indispensable aid, including food.” It also documented the rebels’ widespread and indiscriminate use of land mines, which have killed and maimed shepherds and their livestock and prevented farmers from accessing agricultural land, according to the report. The civil war in Yemen erupted in 2014, when the Houthis swept across much of the north and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile. The following year, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states formed a coalition and entered the war on the side of Hadi’s government. All warring sides are accused of atrocities in the conflict, which has killed more than 130,000 people and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Spokespersons for the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis did not answer calls seeking comment. The report focused on the impact on access to food and water caused by attacks and other conduct by the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis in the provinces of Hajjah, Saada, Hodeida and Taiz between 2015 and 2021. It said the warring sides have “severely impeded civilians’ access to food and water, and they acted in spite of widespread knowledge of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, where people, including children, were dying from starvation.” Mwatana said it documented some 580 airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition between March 2015 and Aug. 2021 that killed and injured thousands of civilians, and damaged and destroyed civilian property in 19 of Yemen’s 22 provinces. Ninety of these airstrikes hit farms, livestock, agricultural land, tools and equipment, food stores and vehicles in the past six years, it said. The report accused the Houthis of “arresting and intimidating humanitarian workers, blocking aid convoys and illegally seizing the property of humanitarian organizations and workers.” Those actions forced the U.N. food agency in 2019 and 2020 to suspend its operations in Houthi-held areas, impacting some 850,000 people. Mwatana said it documented at least 216 incidents of humanitarian obstruction by the Houthis across the country between March 2015 and March 2021, including 118 in the rebels’ stronghold, the Saada province on the borders with Saudi Arabia. The two rights groups said further investigation is needed to identify the individuals who could be held accountable for the alleged use of starvation as a tactic in the conflict. They urged the U.N. Security Council to refer Yemen to the ICC to investigate possible war crimes in the country. © The Associated Press