Genocide Watch staff have published the twelfthTimestream in a series of critical genocides in the world. This Timestream highlights eight major genocides and conflicts that have occurred between the Sudanese government and rebel parties since 1983: Abyei (1983, 2011), Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan (1991, 2011), Bahr Al-Ghazal (1994), Darfur (2003, 2011), and Blue Nile (2011). Civilian casualties will continue to increase as neither the government nor rebel groups have come to an agreement on ceasing the violence. See the full Timestream here and view our other Timestreams here.

Aung San Suu Kyi, seen here at a coronavirus vaccination clinic in January, is Myanmar's de facto leader. (Photo: Reuters) Myanmar's military has seized power after detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders. Troops are patrolling streets in major cities and communications are limited. The top army commander is now in charge and a one-year state of emergency has been declared, army TV announced. The move follows a landslide win by Ms Suu Kyi's party in an election the army claims was marred by fraud. She urged her supporters to "not accept this" and "protest against the coup". In a letter written in preparation for her impending detention, she said the military's actions would put the country back under a dictatorship. The military has already announced replacements for a number of ministers. On the streets of the main city, Yangon, people said they felt their hard-fought battle for democracy had been lost. One 25-year-old resident, who asked not to be named, told the BBC: "Waking up to learn your world has been completely turned upside down overnight was not a new feeling, but a feeling that I thought that we had moved on from, and one that I never thought we'd be forced to feel again." Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by the armed forces until 2011, when democratic reforms led by Aung San Suu Kyi ended military rule. Police vehicles line up in Sule Pagoda Road, Yangon while TV channels went off air. (Photo: EPA) She spent nearly 15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010. She was internationally hailed as a beacon of democracy and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. But her international reputation suffered severely following an army crackdown on the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. Former supporters accused her of refusing to condemn the military or acknowledge accounts of atrocities. How did the coup unfold? In the early hours of Monday, the army's TV station said power had been handed over to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing. Ms Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested in a series of raids. It is not clear where they are being held. No major violence has been reported. Soldiers blocked roads in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and the main city, Yangon. International and domestic TV channels, including the state broadcaster, went off air. Internet and phone services have been disrupted. Banks said they had been forced to close. Later, the military announced that 24 ministers and deputies had been removed, and 11 replacements had been named, including in finance, health, the interior and foreign affairs. Queues formed at ATM machines in Yangon and other cities. (Photo: EPA) The military takeover follows weeks of tensions between the armed forces and the government following parliamentary elections lost by the army-backed opposition. The military's allegations of fraud were not backed by the electoral commission. So why has the army acted now? So it is official. The armed forces in Myanmar have confirmed that they have carried out a coup d'etat, their first against a civilian government since 1962, and in apparent violation of the constitution which the military promised to honour as recently as last Saturday. The grievances which have been driving tension between the military and the government are well enough known. The military-backed party, the USDP, performed poorly in last November's general election, whereas the NLD did even better than in 2015. The timing of this coup is also easily explained. This week the first session of parliament since the election was due to start, which would have enshrined the election result by approving the next government. That will no longer happen. But the military's longer game plan is hard to fathom. What do they plan to do in the year they have given themselves to run the country? There will be public anger over a coup so soon after an election in which 70% of voters defied the Covid-19 pandemic to vote so overwhelmingly for Aung San Suu Kyi. Famously stubborn, she is unlikely to co-operate with a gun held to her head. Her ally, President Win Myint, is the only person authorised under the constitution to enact a state of emergency. He has been detained with her. Military chief Min Aung Hlaing is now in power. (Photo: Reuters) Who is Aung San Suu Kyi? Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, Gen Aung San who was assassinated just before the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948. She remained popular with the public despite spending years under house arrest. She was released in 2010, and in November 2015 she led the NLD to a landslide victory in Myanmar's first openly contested election for 25 years. The constitution forbids her from becoming president because she has children who are foreign nationals but the 75-year old was seen as de facto leader. In recent years, her leadership has been defined by the treatment of the country's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. In 2017 hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh due to an army crackdown sparked by deadly attacks on police stations in Rakhine state. Ms Suu Kyi's defence of the military over the widely condemned crackdown lost her much of her international support. Last year the EU said she could no longer attend any of its human rights prize events. Some sanctions, particularly on military equipment, still remain over the treatment of the Rohingya, including those imposed by the EU and UK. But there have already been calls, including from Human Rights Watch, for economic sanctions that have previously been relaxed to be heavily re-imposed. © 2021 BBC.

Kagame is increasingly being criticized abroad. (The Conversation/UN Photos/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND) Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Watch for Rwanda, where there are signs of continued discrimination, polarization and denial between the main ethnic groups, the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority. Ethnic distrust continues despite significant progress in Rwanda's post-genocide peacebuilding. After independence in 1962, Rwanda was under Hutu majority rule, reversing the Belgian colonial system that privileged the Tutsi minority. In 1990, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded from Uganda, starting the 1990-94 civil war. Peace negotiations resulted in the Arusha Accords of 1993, which prescribed inter-ethnic power-sharing. A UN Observer Mission (UNOMUR) was sent to oversee implementation of the peace agreement. It was converted into the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), with 2500 troops under Canadian General Roméo Dallaire. A Hutu Power movement organized to prevent enforcement of the Arusha Accords. On April 6, 1994, Hutu President Habyarimana's plane was shot down as he returned from a Tanzania conference about implementation of the Accords. A well-planned genocide followed, resulting in the murder of 800,000 Tutsi and some moderate Hutus who opposed the genocide. France and Belgium quickly airlifted their citizens out with protection from over 1000 heavily armed commandos. The US had thousands of US Marines on ships just off the coast of East Africa, but the US did nothing. General Dallaire asked for reinforcements for UNAMIR. Instead, the UN Security Council voted in April 1994 to evacuate all but several hundred UNAMIR troops. The Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), eventually stopped the genocide in July 1994. The RPF took control of Rwanda. Its leader, Paul Kagame, has led Rwanda since 1994. He was elected president in 2000. He has presided over a successful peacebuilding process and economic recovery. He enjoys a high level of popularity, officially winning 98.63% in the 2017 elections. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that Rwanda’s elections have not freely permitted any opposition candidates to run. In 1994, the UN Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) with Resolutions 955 and 978, drafted by Genocide Watch's Founding President Gregory Stanton. The ICTR indicted 93 persons and convicted 85. The arrest in Paris in May 2020 of Félicien Kabuga, a fugitive Hutu financier of the genocide, brought genocide survivors a sense of relief and justice. However, the Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit estimates that 1,000 suspects are still being pursued. Rwanda set up community courts called gacaca, which held over 100,000 local trials. They ended in 2012 and had an 86% conviction rate. Many sentences were to perform service for victims. A large proportion of convicted perpetrators still show no remorse. There are positive signs of reconciliation on a community level. All Rwandans aged 18-65 participate in community service for three hours a month. Peace clubs have brought together survivors and perpetrators to build new relations. In 2015, Rwanda’s National Unity and Reconciliation commission placed reconciliation at 92.5%, though it is hard to measure the effectiveness of such efforts. Rwanda's National Unity law severely restricts free speech. Allegations of genocide denial, ‘genocide ideology,’ and ‘divisionism’ are used to clamp down on criticism of the Rwandan government. Reference to ethnicity is illegal. People are only allowed to identify as Rwandans. Statements that Hutus were killed when Rwanda invaded the Congo in 1996 - 1997 can be prosecuted as "divisionism." Tensions at universities cause students to fear dissent. Limits on free speech are hiding ethnic tensions that could escalate into renewed violence. Many Hutu citizens believe that the official government narrative has portrayed all Hutu to be perpetrators or bystanders. They point out that there were also many Hutu rescuers. There is a growing movement among Hutus abroad to deny the genocide by claiming it was a "double genocide" by Hutus against Tutsis, but also by Tutsis against Hutus. Such denialism ignores the disproportionate, targeted, intentional murders of 800,000 more Tutsis than Hutus. France also denies its role in the genocide. Genocide Watch calls on the Rwandan government to lift restrictions on free speech, but not hate speech or incitement, so that citizens can more openly reflect on the 1994 genocide. Foreign governments, including France, the U.K., and the United States, should support these efforts while respecting the United Nations' official recognition of the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi.

UN Human Rights Council Should Pursue Accountability (Geneva) – Sri Lanka’s government is aggressively attacking efforts to hold officials to account for past grave abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 93-page report, “Open Wounds and Mounting Dangers: Blocking Accountability for Grave Abuses in Sri Lanka,” examines efforts by the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to thwart justice in seven prominent human rights cases. It describes the current context of government repression of activists, journalists, lawyers, and the families of victims, as well as threats against vulnerable minorities. The United Nations Human Rights Council, at its session beginning February 22, 2021, should adopt a resolution upholding justice for serious international crimes in Sri Lanka and condemning ongoing abuses. “The Sri Lankan government’s assault on justice increases the risk of human rights abuses today and in the future,” said John Fisher, Geneva director. “The UN Human Rights Council should adopt a resolution at its upcoming session that demonstrates to the Rajapaksa administration that the world won’t ignore its abuses and offers hope of justice to victims’ families.” Efforts to provide accountability significantly declined during 2020, Human Rights Watch said. Senior police officers investigating killings and enforced disappearances committed during the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration have fled the country or been charged with apparently fabricated offenses. A commission appointed by the president has sought to interfere in criminal cases involving his allies and supporters. Trials of military and intelligence officials accused of enforced disappearances have been delayed and disrupted. And the Rajapaksa-dominated parliament passed an amendment to the constitution that abolishes key checks on presidential power, undermining the independence of the judiciary and institutions such as the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. Atrocities by government security forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009, have been well documented by the UN, the media, and domestic and international human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch. The UN’s internal Petrie Report exposed the systemic failures of the UN to help protect civilians in the war’s final months. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the defense secretary in the government led by his brother President Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2015, had direct responsibility for the conduct of government forces, which committed numerous war crimes, including indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, and rape. Since being elected president in November 2019 he has appointed people implicated in war crimes and other serious violations to senior administration positions. He disavowed Sri Lanka’s obligations to promote truth, justice, and reparations under the Human Rights Council’s landmark 2015 resolution as an attack on the country’s “war heroes.” And he pardoned one of the very few soldiers ever convicted of abuses. During the government of former President Maithripala Sirisena, from 2015-2019, a number of police investigations into human rights violations made progress, revealing evidence of official responsibility for killings and enforced disappearances. However, important investigations have been derailed under Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, including into the 2009 murder of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge; the 2010 forced disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda; and the enforced disappearance by naval intelligence officers of young men for ransom in 2008-2009. There has been no progress in other important cases in which senior officials have been implicated, including the 2006 Trinco Five massacre in which five ethnic Tamil students were killed, and the massacre of 17 members of a French aid group Action Contre la Faim. Under Rajapaksa, self-censorship has returned to the Sri Lankan media, while security forces have carried out intense surveillance and harassment against victims’ families and activists campaigning to learn what happened to the thousands missing. One activist described the fear the new president has generated: “Any activity he does not want to tolerate, he will arrest people. So very little is going on among activists, and people are in self-censorship mode.” A member of the advocacy group Mothers of the Disappeared, whose son was forcibly disappeared in 2009, said that since the presidential election, police from the Criminal Investigation Department have visited her repeatedly. “They have come and asked who is going to meetings, and who is going to Geneva [to attend the UN Human Rights Council],” she said. “These are children who were taken by white vans from our houses or who surrendered [to the army]. I want to know what happened to my son, whether he is dead or alive, and if he is not alive, what happened to him and who did it – whether he was beaten, whether they broke a limb.” Many families of victims have turned to the Human Rights Council to uphold respect for human rights in the face of government antipathy. In 2020, the government harassed activists engaging with the UN process in Geneva. On January 21, President Rajapaksa announced a new domestic commission of inquiry to review the findings of the numerous earlier commissions of inquiry, which have not led to accountability or revealed the fate of missing people. The government has already indicated the outcome of this process, telling the Human Rights Council in September that allegations against senior military officers are “unacceptable” and without “substantive evidence.” Previous Sri Lankan governments have used commissions of inquiry to deflect international pressure to address rights concerns, and those commissions have never met basic international standards. Human Rights Council members should not be deflected by the Rajapaksa government’s use of this tactic, Human Rights Watch said. The council should build on its own conclusions and the steps it has already taken over many years of Sri Lankan government delay, prevarication, and defiance. Council members should uphold principles of international law for the worst international crimes by mandating a UN mechanism or process to collect, preserve, and analyze evidence, and for the UN high commissioner for human rights to report to the council on avenues to accountability. The high commissioner should also be given a renewed mandate to report on the situation inside Sri Lanka. Foreign governments should impose targeted sanctions on individuals credibly accused of serious abuses. “The Human Rights Council should ensure that a new resolution responds to the situation described in the high commissioner’s report and upholds the council’s responsibilities,” Fisher said. “A meaningful new resolution is crucial to maintain international pressure. Failure would send a terrible message to abusers around the world that the community of nations is willing to overlook even the most terrible crimes.” © Human Rights Watch 2021

Armed forces release statement saying remarks by general about political system were misinterpreted Military chiefs arrive at a news conference ahead of the start of a new parliament term in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw this week. Photograph: Thar Byaw/Reuters Myanmar’s armed forces have said they will protect and abide by the country’s constitution and act according to law, amid concerns in the country that the military might attempt to seize power. In an official statement on Saturday, the military said recent remarks by its top general about abolishing the constitution were misinterpreted by media and some organisations. More than a dozen embassies, including the US and EU delegation, urged Myanmar to “adhere to democratic norms” on Friday, joining the UN in a chorus of international concern about a possible coup. The country is just a decade out of nearly 50 years of military rule, with a nascent democracy governed under a junta-authored constitution which dictates power-sharing between the civilian administration and the country’s generals. For weeks, the powerful military has alleged widespread voter irregularities in November’s election, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide. Its call for voter list verification ramped up this week, with an army spokesman on Tuesday refusing to rule out the possibility of a military takeover to deal with what he called a political crisis. Fears grew after army chief General Min Aung Hlaing – arguably Myanmar’s most powerful individual – appeared to echo the sentiment on Wednesday, when he said the country’s constitution could be “revoked” under certain circumstances. The newly elected MPs are expected to begin sitting in parliament on 1 February. Security in the capital Naypyidaw was tight on Friday with police guarding roads behind barbed wire barricades. Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy Party (NLD) on Saturday said it accepted the statement as a suitable explanation, after the armed forces said it would protect and follow the constitution. Myo Nyunt, spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party, told Reuters the party wanted the military to be an organisation “that accepts people’s desire regarding the election”. Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited

Report Highlights Need for Strong Human Rights Council Resolution (Geneva) – The United Nations Human Rights Council, at its upcoming session, should act on the recommendations of the UN high commissioner for human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The council should adopt a new resolution to enhance scrutiny of Sri Lanka’s deteriorating human rights situation and pursue accountability for past and recent violations. In her report released on January 27, 2021, High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said she was “alarmed” by Sri Lanka’s deteriorating human rights situation and set out steps that the Human Rights Council should take to confront the growing risk of future violations. Since the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has withdrawn its support for the 2015 consensus resolution seeking justice and reconciliation, and shown general disregard for upholding basic human rights, the council should act to protect those most at risk and advance accountability for grave international crimes, Human Rights Watch said. “The UN high commissioner’s report highlights Sri Lanka’s egregious record of complete impunity for appalling crimes, and very disturbing developments under the Rajapaksa administration,” said John Fisher, Geneva director. “The Human Rights Council has given Sri Lanka every opportunity to address these issues over many years, and now greater international involvement is needed to help protect vulnerable groups and hold those responsible for grave international crimes to account.” During the final months of the civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended in May 2009, both sides committed atrocities that killed tens of thousands of civilians. UN investigators found that these atrocities may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Grave abuses included summary executions, torture, rape, and the murder and enforced disappearance of journalists and activists. Many senior figures implicated in those abuses returned to government following the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. The UN high commissioner found that “Sri Lanka remains in a state of denial about the past, with truth-seeking efforts aborted and the highest State officials refusing to make any acknowledgement of past crimes.” The high commissioner described “a deepening and accelerating militarization of civilian government functions.” Since 2020, she wrote, “The President has appointed at least 28 serving or former military and intelligence personnel to key administrative posts,” including senior military officials who have been alleged in UN reports to be implicated in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Among them are the defense secretary, Gen. Kamal Gunaratne, who commanded the 53rd Division at the end of the civil war, and the chief of defense staff, Gen. Shavendra Silva, who is banned from traveling to the United States due to his alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings. In the 2015 Human Rights Council resolution 30/1, the previous Sri Lankan government agreed to adopt measures to ensure truth telling, reparations, security sector reform, and justice through a hybrid mechanism including international investigators, prosecutors, and judges. In February 2020, three months after Rajapaksa won the presidential election, his government renounced those commitments. The high commissioner drew attention in her report to the growing dangers vulnerable minority groups face. Rajapaksa set up an advisory council on governance consisting of senior Buddhist monks, established a task force on the sensitive issue of archaeological heritage management that consisted almost entirely of Sinhalese members, and under the pretext of Covid-19, mandated cremations for all deaths, groundlessly preventing Muslims from practicing their own burial rites. The high commissioner described how counterterrorism laws have been used to “stifle legitimate activities” of civil society organizations. She noted that as of December, over 40 civil society organizations had approached the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with reports of harassment, surveillance, and repeated scrutiny by various security services. Bachelet expressed concern that the 20th amendment to the constitution, adopted in October, “has fundamentally eroded the independence of key commissions and institutions, including the HRCSL [Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka], the Election Commission, the National Police Commission and the judiciary.” On January 21, Sri Lanka announced a new commission of inquiry to examine the findings of previous domestic inquiries, which the government proposes as an alternative to Human Rights Council action. Bachelet noted that “[n]umerous commissions of inquiry appointed by successive governments failed to credibly establish truth and ensure accountability.” She said that the current government “has proactively obstructed or sought to stop ongoing investigations and criminal trials to prevent accountability for past crimes.” A commission appointed in January 2020 “intervened in favour of military intelligence officers in ongoing judicial proceedings … withholding documentary evidence, [and] threatening prosecutors with legal action.” Meanwhile, “not a single emblematic case has been brought to a successful conclusion or conviction.” Bachelet concluded that “trends emerging over the past year … represent clear early warning signs of a deteriorating human rights situation and a significantly heightened risk of future violations, and therefore calls for strong preventive action.” She said that once again the Human Rights Council is at “a critical turning point” in its dealings with Sri Lanka. Twice previously the council supported domestic accountability and reconciliation initiatives. “The Government has now demonstrated its inability and unwillingness to pursue a meaningful path towards accountability for international crimes and serious human rights violations.” Bachelet acknowledged that the current situation in Sri Lanka represents a stark test to the UN: “[T]he trends highlighted in this report represent yet again an important challenge for the United Nations, including the Human Rights Council, in terms of its prevention function.” An independent review of the UN’s actions in Sri Lanka in 2009 concluded there had been a systemic failure of the prevention agenda. “The international community must not repeat those mistakes, nor allow a precedent that would undermine its efforts to prevent and achieve accountability for grave violations in other contexts,” she wrote. She said the Human Rights Council should enhance the high commissioner’s office’s monitoring and reporting on the situation in Sri Lanka, including on accountability, and “support a dedicated capacity to collect and preserve evidence for future accountability processes, to advocate for victims and survivors, and to support relevant judicial proceedings in Member States.” She also urged UN member countries to take action, by pursuing prosecutions of alleged Sri Lankan perpetrators in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and by imposing targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against alleged perpetrators. “This strong and clear report by the high commissioner leaves no room for doubt about the situation in Sri Lanka, or what is at stake when the Human Rights Council considers a new resolution in a few weeks’ time,” Fisher said. “Member states should draft and adopt a strong resolution that protects vulnerable people in Sri Lanka, advances justice for international crimes, and shows that the council is able to respond to challenges posed by the Sri Lankan government.” © Human Rights Watch 2021

Editor's note: This story includes details some readers may find disturbing. At a shelter for Venezuelan migrants in the Colombian border town of Villa del Rosario, Alondra Castillo pulls back her blouse to reveal black-and-blue welts on her arms and shoulders. Castillo, 23, explains that she and about 80 other Venezuelans were crossing into Colombia last month on a clandestine trail controlled by drug smugglers. But it was night, and she and her 2-year-old son became separated from the group. While she and her child stumbled around in the dark, five men surrounded them. Then, Castillo says, they raped her. "They tied me up with my own clothes," she says, calmly recounting the harrowing details of the attack. Human rights activists have reported a sharp increase in sexual assaults and human trafficking involving Venezuelan women and girls trying to reach Colombia ever since the border officially closed because of the coronavirus last March. About 2 million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia since 2014, to escape food shortages, unemployment, hyperinflation and authoritarian rule. They used to enter Colombia at official crossing points with immigration offices and tight security. But with all frontier posts shut down, they must now cross on lawless smuggling trails where gangsters extort migrants, rob them and sometimes rape them. Vanessa Apitz, a Venezuelan lawyer who runs an aid station on the Colombian side of the border that provides migrants with food and legal advice, says before the pandemic, she received reports of one or two rapes per week. Now, the numbers are soaring. Twenty-eight migrant women and girls were raped in a single week last year, she says. "That's when we sounded the alarm and realized that something bad was happening," Apitz says. Since the pandemic began, the rape of migrants has increased by 60%, she estimates. She and other experts say the true number of sexual assaults along the border is difficult to determine because Venezuelan migrants almost never report the crimes to Colombian police. Some victims believe they will be deported; others fear that revenge-seeking gang members will come after them. All Apitz can do under these circumstances is lend a sympathetic ear and try to convince victims to seek medical care. Questioned by NPR about sexual assaults along the border, José Palomino, chief of police of Cúcuta, Colombia's largest border city, says: "We have received information about the problem but not criminal complaints." For decades, smugglers have used the network of clandestine cross-border trails to move everything from contraband liquor and gasoline to weapons and cocaine. But since the border closed 10 months ago, the dirt footpaths have become an obligatory route for migrants — and at times, a terrifying gauntlet. They must navigate several miles of no-man's land where Venezuelan and Colombian gangs often prey on female migrants. The assaults occur on both sides of the border. Sobbing as she tells her story, a 34-year-old Venezuelan woman at the shelter in Villa del Rosario recounts how she tried to take precautions before crossing the border in November. She had been traveling on her own but joined a group of other migrants at the border, thinking there would be safety in numbers. The woman wanted to cross during the day, but the group decided to slip into Colombia at night to avoid detection by Colombian police. Once on the Colombian side, the group dispersed in a wilderness region, leaving the woman on her own. Suddenly, she says, three men hauled her into the bushes and raped her. Then they stole her luggage. "What little I had they took," says the woman, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation by those who raped her. "Given all the things that have happened to me, I should have died of a heart attack." Ana Teresa Castillo, a Colombian who runs the shelter (and is no relation to Alondra Castillo), says she is tending to many more rape victims now than before the pandemic began. She blames the closing of official border posts as well as the fact that gangs often block the smuggling trails during daylight hours, forcing migrants to cross at night, when they are far more vulnerable. "All this has led to more violence," Castillo says. "But the police don't do anything." Sometimes the gangs lure female migrants across the border with false promises of jobs in Colombia, says María Cecilia Ibáñez, a lawyer in Bogotá for the rights group Women's Link Worldwide. "Migrant women and girls are in very vulnerable conditions and they will take anything that they are offered," she says. "And then when they get to Colombia, they find out that they are actually there as victims of human trafficking and they are informed that they are there to engage in prostitution." Some end up working as prostitutes in the Colombian city of Pamplona, a two-hour drive from the border. David Bernal, the city's top human rights official, says Pamplona is full of prostitution rings that force Venezuelan women and girls into the sex trade. On a recent afternoon, Bernal met with a handful of Venezuelan prostitutes to discuss the murder of one of their coworkers. A few days earlier, the naked and strangled body of 28-year-old María Pernia had been found in her apartment. It was unclear whether Pernia, who arrived in the city three years ago from the Venezuelan city of Barinas, had been coerced into the sex trade. But her roommate, a Venezuelan prostitute who did not want to give her name for fear of retaliation from the killer or killers, said Pernia had no other way to feed her 2-year-old son. Despite Bernal's urging, none of the women were willing to speak to Pamplona authorities about Pernia's death because they feared retaliation from whomever was behind the killing. Silence also reigns at the shelter in Villa del Rosario, where neither of the two women most recently alleging rape have filed a criminal report. They have even refused to go to the hospital to treat their wounds. But Alondra Castillo knows she will have to get a checkup sooner or later. "I'm not using birth control," she says, "and just imagine if I'm pregnant." © National Public Radio 2021

Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes. Published by Global Centre for R2P on January 27, 2021. A soldier takes position at daybreak in Bangui (Andreea Campeanu/Reuters) On Thursday, 21 January, the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) declared a state of emergency after an alliance of armed groups seized control of several national highways and blockaded the capital, Bangui. The alliance of anti-balaka militias and ex-Séléka rebels, known as the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), poses a grave threat to civilians, humanitarian workers and UN personnel. Mankeur Ndiaye, head of the UN peacekeeping mission in CAR (MINUSCA), has made an urgent appeal to the UN Security Council (UNSC) for more troops, noting that the “new security situation” is testing MINUSCA’s ability to protect civilians and deliver essential food and medical supplies. Attacks by the CPC have been ongoing since CAR’s 27 December general elections, which saw incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadéra reelected. The UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in CAR has reported on the alleged recruitment and use of children by the CPC and claims that many Central Africans have been victims of violence, torture or death threats simply for exercising their right to vote. Seven MINUSCA peacekeepers have also been killed in recent weeks while trying to prevent the CPC from attacking the capital and overturning the election result. The UN Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect, Alice Wairimu Nderitu and Karen Smith, have expressed their concern over the deteriorating situation in CAR. The Special Advisers said that, “we strongly remind those behind these attacks that their acts constitute atrocity crimes, and those with highest responsibility, including political actors will be held accountable.” The escalating violence has exacerbated what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than 84,000 Central Africans have fled to neighboring countries since December, while 100,000 people remain internally displaced. Most of the country outside Bangui is controlled by the CPC and other armed groups. Armed groups that are part of the CPC have a history of perpetrating atrocities, including killing civilians, rape, sexual slavery and deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure. On 24 January CAR authorities surrendered the first Séléka suspect, Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, to face charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Said is suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed as a Séléka commander in Bangui in 2013. While his transfer to the ICC is an important step towards justice, many perpetrators of past atrocities continue to operate in command positions inside the CPC. Christine Caldera, Research Analyst at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said that, “history shows us that if these predatory armed groups are allowed to enter Bangui, atrocities will almost certainly be committed. The UNSC should take urgent action to reinforce MINUSCA and ensure that it has the military capacity to protect civilians and defend Bangui from further attack.” © 2021 Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. All rights reserved.

Millions of leaked police files detail suffocating surveillance of China's Uyghur minority. A police officer stands guard as Muslims arrive for the Eid al-Fitr morning prayer at the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, a city in western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, on June 26, 2017. Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images The order came through a police automation system in Ürümqi, the largest city in China’s northwest Xinjiang region. The system had distributed a report — an “intelligence information judgment,” as local authorities called it — that the female relative of a purported extremist had been offered free travel to Yunnan, a picturesque province to the south. The woman found the offer on the smartphone messaging app WeChat, in a group known simply as “Travelers.” Authorities homed in on the group because of ethnic and family ties; its members included Muslim minorities like Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, who speak languages beside China’s predominant one, Mandarin. “This group has over 200 ethnic-language people,” the order stated. “Many of them are relatives of incarcerated people. Recently, many intelligence reports revealed that there is a tendency for relatives of [extremist] people to gather. This situation needs major attention. After receiving this information, please investigate immediately. Find out the background of the people who organize ‘free travel,’ their motivation, and the inner details of their activities.” Police in Ürümqi’s Xiheba Precinct, near the historic city center, received the order and summarized their work in a 2018 report. The one person rounded up as a result of the order, a Uyghur, had no previous criminal record, had never heard of the WeChat group, and never even traveled within China as a tourist. He “has good behavior and we do not have any suspicion,” police wrote. Still, his phone was confiscated and sent to a police “internet safety unit,” and the community was to “control and monitor” him, meaning the government would assign a trusted cadre member to regularly visit and watch over his household. A record about him was entered into the police automation system. Based on their notes, police appear to have investigated the man and assigned the cadre members to “control and monitor” him entirely because of religious activities, which took place five months earlier, of his eldest sister. She and her husband invited another Uyghur couple in Ürümqi to join a religious discussion group on the messaging app Tencent QQ, according to police records. The other couple bought a laptop and logged onto the group every day from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.; the husband stopped smoking and drinking, and the wife began wearing longer clothes. They began listening to “religious extremism information” on their laptop, the report said. Between the two couples, police recovered 168 religious audio files deemed illegal, likely because they were connected to an Islamic movement, Tablighi Jamaat, that advocates practicing Islam as it was practiced when the Prophet Muhammad was alive. The fate of the eldest sister and her husband is unknown; the report simply states they were transferred to a different police bureau. The other couple was sent to a re-education camp. Details of the investigations are contained in a massive police database obtained by The Intercept: the product of a reporting tool developed by private defense company Landasoft and used by the Chinese government to facilitate police surveillance of citizens in Xinjiang. The database, centered on Ürümqi, includes policing reports that confirm and provide additional detail about many elements of the persecution and large-scale internment of Muslims in the area. It sheds further light on a campaign of repression that has reportedly seen cameras installed in the homes of private citizens, the creation of mass detention camps, children forcibly separated from their families and placed in preschools with electric fences, the systematic destruction of Uyghur cemeteries, and a systematic campaign to suppress Uyghur births through forced abortion, sterilization, and birth control. The database obtained by The Intercept contains police reports from Ürümqi, the capital and largest city in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Map: Soohee Cho/The Intercept It offers an inside view into police intelligence files and auxiliary community police meetings, as well as the operation of checkpoints that are pervasive in Ürümqi. It also details phone, online, and financial surveillance of marginalized groups, showing how granular surveillance purportedly on the watch for extremism is often simply looking at religious activity. Additionally, the database spells out how Chinese authorities are analyzing and refining the information they collect, including trying to weed out “filler” intelligence tips submitted by police and citizens to inflate their numbers and using automated policing software to help prompt investigations like the one into the WeChat travel group. Among the revelations from the database is information on the extensive use of a tool that plugs into phones to download their contents, the “anti-terrorism sword,” deployed so frequently that Chinese authorities worried it was alienating the populace. It shows authorities tracking how their policies succeeded in driving down mosque attendance. It also offers evidence that the “Physicals for All” biometric collection program, which authorities insisted was solely a health initiative, is intended as part of the policing system. And it quantifies and provides details on the extensive electronic monitoring that goes on in Xinjiang, containing millions of text messages, phone call records, and contact lists alongside banking records, phone hardware and subscriber data, and references to WeChat monitoring as well as e-commerce and banking records. The database also sheds light on the extent of policing and detention in Xinjiang. It details how former residents who went abroad and applied for political asylum were flagged as terrorists. In some cases, it appears as though fixed-term sentences were assigned to people in re-education detention — undercutting the idea, promulgated by the government, that the lengths of such detentions are contingent on rehabilitation or vocational training. Surveillance cameras are mounted to the exterior of a mosque in the main bazaar in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, on Nov. 6, 2018. Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images Taken together, the materials provide a broad overview of how the extensive surveillance systems deployed in Xinjiang fit together to repress minority populations and how extensively they impact day-to-day life in the region. “Overall, this testifies to an incredible police state, one that is quite likely to place suspicions on people who have not really done anything wrong,” said Adrian Zenz, an anthropologist and researcher who focuses on Xinjiang and Tibet. The investigations stemming from the WeChat travelers group offer a concrete example of this intense policing, said Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “You can see the muddled thinking in here, where people are being jailed for nothing, but also the process is so arbitrary.” The revelations underscore how Xinjiang is an early look at the ways recent technology, like smartphones, cheap digital camera systems, and mass online storage of data, can be combined to monitor and repress large groups of people when civil liberties concerns are pushed aside. “The mass surveillance in Xinjiang is a cautionary tale for all of us,” said Wang. “Xinjiang really shows how privacy is a gateway right, where if you have no privacy, that’s where you see that you have no freedoms as a human being at all. You don’t have the right to practice your religion, you don’t have the right to be who you are, you don’t even have the right to think your own thoughts because your thoughts are being parsed out by these incessant visits and incessantly monitored by surveillance systems, whether they’re human or artificial, and evaluated constantly for your level of loyalty to the government.” Landasoft and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment. Read the full report here. © FIRST LOOK MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Eight of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla’s most senior commanders have been formally charged by magistrates of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal for War Crimes relating to kidnapping and Crimes against Humanity that include homicide, forced disappearance, torture and sexual violence. The eight members of the former Secretariat and members of FARC’s recently renamed political party “Commons,” must recognize individual responsibility for the crimes committed or face up to 20 years in prison. The magistrates compiled evidence of FARC’s involvement in kidnapping and hostage-taking from the testimonies of 2,000 victims of the internal conflict. “Depriving people of their freedom, and conditioning their release, as well as their well-being, integrity and life, is a War Crime,” stated magistrate Julieta Lemaitre. Among those charged are FARC’s former top commander Rodrigo Londoño, alias “Timochenko,” who signed the 2016 Peace Agreement with the Colombian Government. Case 001 is the first Act of the Tribunal toward ruling on practices and events involving Colombia’s half-century-long internal conflict. The other members of ex-FARC charged with kidnapping civilians and members of the country’s security forces are Pablo Catatumbo, Pastor Alape, Milton de Jesús Toncel, Juan Ermilo Cabrera, Jaime Alberto Parra, Julián Gallo and Rodrigo Granda. Former FARC justified “retention” as a way of levying a “war tax” to finance the insurgency, pressure the government into prisoner exchanges or control territories by “punishing” the local population, claims the 320-page indictment. The Tribunal also challenged FARC’s alleged “good treatment of prisoners” as justification to “keep the kidnapped alive, leaving considerations on human dignity to the commander or guard on duty.” International criminal law identifies hostage-taking as one of the most serious violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The ex-members of the Secretariat have 30 days to either acknowledge their role in kidnapping or reject the formal charges. Depending on additional evidence or arguments presented by former FARC, JEP will then set the date for the Acknowledgment Hearing, “considering there is recognition and contribution to the truth.” If FARC deny responsibility in these heinous crimes, Case 001 will be referred to the Investigation and Indictment Unit (UIA) of the court. The magistrates gathered evidence from six different databases to confirm that FARC kidnapped 21,396 persons, of which 79% were men and 21% women. Almost all victims were adults (95%), however children (5%) were also deprived of their freedoms, 47% were girls. The most affected departments – per capita – were Guaviare, Vaupés, Caquetá, Meta, Vichada, Arauca and Casanare under control of the Eastern Bloc (Bloque Oriental) and largest within FARC’s extensive military structure that counted with an estimated 12,000 combatants. Antioquia was the department with most cases of kidnapping. FARC’s most prolific hostage-taker, Jorge Briceño, and feared battlefield commander known as “Mono Jojoy,” was killed during a military operation in La Macarena, Meta, in 2010. “Mono Jojoy” appears in an infamous video inspecting a barbed-wire compound filled with kidnapped soldiers. Colombia’s internal conflict claimed the lives of 260,000 civilians. JEP was established as part of the 2016 Final Accord. © The City Paper Bogota 2021

There are hundreds of statues and monuments in the United States and around the world to people who abetted or took part in the murder of Jews and other minorities during the Holocaust. The Forward has, for the first time, documented them in this collection of articles. For a guide to each country’s memorials click here. Vilnius — In many ways, Lithuania pioneered the glorification of Nazi collaborators on a state level. It has perverted museums and tourist sites; celebrated perpetrators as national heroes; persecuted Holocaust survivors who defended themselves with pre-trial investigations for “war crimes;” destroyed a prominent author’s livelihood for the crime of admitting Lithuanians participated in the Holocaust and is debating denialist legislation similar to Poland’s. As part of the whitewashing, Lithuania installed numerous monuments, including these to brutal collaborator Jonas Noreika (1910–1947), aka General Storm. Above left is a plaque to Noreika on the Wroblewskis Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius; above right, his name on the wall of national heroes on Vilnius’ Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. (Many thanks to Defending History founder Dovid Katz for his invaluable guidance on Lithuania and permission to use Defending History’s Lithuania photos. For more on Dovid’s crucial role in the vanguard of identifying and combating Holocaust distortion, see the intro.) Šukioniai — Noreika is also honored with a plaque in Šiauliai, a street in Kaunas (using his nom de guerre General Storm), a school, and this monument in his home village, above right. See The New York Times report, the Baltic News Network story on U.S. State Department and Noreika and Defending History’s Noreika page. For more on Noreika, see Salon and Times of Israel articles by his granddaughter Silvia Foti, who set out to write a book about her grandfather, only to discover he was a Nazi collaborator. Vilnius and Kaunas — Both cities have streets glorifying June 23, 1941. On that date, six centuries of Jewish life flourishing in Lithuania came to an abrupt and horrific end when the Lithuanian Activist Front and other nationalist groups dehumanized, pillaged, and murdered Jews in dozens of locations across Lithuania within hours of the Nazi invasion of the country. See here for eyewitness testimonies. The wave of antisemitic murder that began on June 23 fed into the subsequent genocide in which the Nazis, with the aid of local collaborators, exterminated 95-96% of Lithuania’s Jews, the highest murder rate in the Holocaust. Above right is the June 23 Street in Vilnius. Above left, in the middle of the photo, LAF founder Kazys Škirpa (1895–1979) meets with Hitler. Kaunas and Namajūnai — A street honoring Škirpa in Kaunas, above left. Škirpa also has a plaque on a government military building in Kaunas and a memorial stone in his birth village of Namajūnai erected in 2016. In the early months of 1941, while in Germany, Škirpa suggested eliminating Jews from Lithuania. After the war, he decamped to America, where he worked for the Library of Congress. His obituary in the Washington Post portrays Škirpa — the man who eagerly served as an envoy to Hitler’s Germany — as a victim of the Germans. Above right, a far-right march in Kaunas with Škirpa as Pepe the Frog, a right-wing meme, Feb 1, 2017. Lithuania’s far-right, like that of other nations covered here, often anchors annual gatherings to the glorification of Nazi collaborators. Ukmergė — Memorial to Juozas Krikštaponis (1912–1945), a platoon commander in the 2nd National Labor Security TDA battalion, a paramilitary organized by the Lithuanian provisional government in service of the Nazis. These auxiliary battalions were responsible for systematic mass slaughter in Lithuania and Belarus, killing 26,000 Jews in under six months with such brutality that their overseers complained to SS head Heinrich Himmler of the excesses. See chilling reports by Evaldas Balčiūnas in Defending History, Grant Gochin in the Times of Israel. (Thanks to Grant Gochin for the Krikštaponis image.) Kaunas — Bas-relief and lecture hall at Vytautas Magnus University, dedicated in 2007 in honor of Juozas Ambrazevičius Brazaitis (1903–1974), acting prime minister of the provisional Nazi puppet government. Kaunas also has a street named after him. Brazaitis presided over Lithuania in 1941 when Jews were slaughtered by both Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators. Brazaitis signed orders confirming the creation of Lithuania’s first mass-murder camp; later, he ordered all of Kaunas’ Jews to be imprisoned in a ghetto. After the war, Brazaitis emigrated to the West, living in Germany and the U.S. In 2012, a major scandal broke out over the state’s reburial of Brazaitis with full honors. See JTA report and Defending History’s coverage. Kaunas — A street named after Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas (1915–1948), brigade commander of the 2nd Lithuanian auxiliary police battalion which guarded the Majdanek concentration camp, where over 75,000 prisoners (mostly Jews) were exterminated or died of illness. See Defending History’s coverage. Above right, a Lithuanian auxiliary policeman auctions off property seized from murdered Jews, 1941. Vilnius and six other towns — In front of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense stands an imposing black monument to Jonas Žemaitis aka Žemaitis-Vytautas (1909–1954), who served in the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, a volunteer militia created with the aim of providing military aid to the Nazis. Contemporaneous reports make it likely Žemaitis may have served in a Lithuanian auxiliary police battalion — one of the Nazi-organized units that were engaged in operations of mass murder of Jews. See detailed reporting by Evaldas Balčiūnas for Defending History. Additional honors include a plaque in Šiluva and another in the Kėdainiai Regional Museum (below left); a monument in Raseiniai (below right) and another in Palanga; a bust in the memorial park of Kaunas’ Vytautas the Great War Museum; and schools in Raseiniai and Šimkaičiai. Žemaitis is also the namesake of the state-run Military Academy of Lithuania, which coordinates with other academies in NATO nations such as the Virginia Military Institute. (See here for a bas-relief of Žemaitis on the academy.) Kadrėnai and three other locales — a memorial stone to Povilas Plechavičius (1890–1973), who formed and led the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Front, a collaborationist militia created with the full support of the Third Reich. After the war, Plechavičius resettled in Chicago. Plechavičius also has a bust in the memorial park of Kaunas’ Vytautas the Great War Museum; a memorial plaque and a cadet academy in Kaunas; another memorial plaque in Skuodas; and a square in Panevėžys. Lazdijai and four other towns — a monument to Adolfas Ramanauskas (1918–1957). Ramanauskas commanded one of the many groups in the antisemitic Lithuanian Activist Front. Ramanauskas led his LAF unit in the summer of 1941, when LAF units slaughtered thousands of Jews of their own volition, carrying out lethal pogroms even before the Germans arrived. While there’s no direct paper trail linking Ramanauskas to murders of Jews, the fact remains he was the leader of a unit in a Nazi-allied militia whose murders and atrocities are well-documented, including by two major articles published by Lithuanian ethicist Evaldas Balčiūnas in 2014 and 2017. The connections were worrisome enough for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the World Jewish Congress to condemn the glorification of Ramanauskas. It also led authorities in New Britain, Conn. to reject plans to erect a Ramanauskas memorial (see U.S. section). Other honors include a memorial plaque in Lazdiljai and another in Panevėžys; a street in Kaunas; a combat training center in Nemenčinė (with a bust of Ramanauskas on the grounds); and a school in Alytus (with a bust, a plaque, and a monument on the grounds). Below, a 2016 far-right march in Kaunas. The banner proclaims “We know our heroes!” while featuring (from left to right) Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, Jonas Noreika, Povilas Plechavičius, Kazys Škirpa, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, and Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis. All are either proven or alleged Nazi collaborators and/or Holocaust perpetrators. Half were welcomed by America after the war. Defending History’s coverage. For a monument to Adolfas Ramanauskas outside of Lithuania, see the U.S. section. For more on Lithuania’s widespread Holocaust distortion, see New York Times on Vilnius’ Holocaust museum, with quotes from Defending History’s Dovid Katz, Defending History’s page on other Lithuanian locations honoring Nazi collaborators, and Defending History’s Lithuania page. For a first-hand account of Lithuanian authorities harassing writers and researchers who wrote about collaborators, see essays by Evaldas Balčiūnas in Defending History. For the legal aspects, see coverage of Grant Gochin – a man who lost over 100 family members in the Holocaust in Lithuania and who’s bringing legal action against Vilnius’ whitewashing in the European Court of Human Rights. Reports in the Times of Israel and EU Today. For the fascinating story of Silvia Foti, the granddaughter of Jonas Noreika who was told her grandfather was a hero only to discover he was a Holocaust perpetrator, see Silvia Foti’s blog and articles in Salon and the Chicago Tribune. See the full article here. Forward © 2021

Important Step Needs Follow-Up with Higher Level Suspects Published by HRW on January 25, 2021. Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. (Marina Riera/Human Rights Watch, 2018) The surrender by Central African Republic authorities of the first Seleka-rebel suspect to face charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an important step toward justice for serious crimes committed by the two main warring factions in the country’s civil conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. Mahamat Said Abdel Kani was flown from the Central African Republic to ICC headquarters in The Hague on January 24, 2021. He is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed as a Seleka commander in Bangui, the capital, in 2013. The ICC issued the arrest warrant under seal on January 7, 2019. “Said is the first commander of the Seleka, a group responsible for wide-ranging atrocities against civilians, to be brought before the ICC,” said Elise Keppler, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “Said’s case is an important step, but it should be followed by other cases against Seleka leaders, some of whom are implicated in abuses still being committed today.” In 2012, the predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted the Central African Republic President, François Bozizé, and seized power through a campaign of violence and terror. In March 2013, the Seleka took control of Bangui, attacking civilians and pillaging the city. In late 2013, Christian and animist militias known as anti-balaka began to organize counterattacks against the Seleka. Both the Seleka and anti-balaka have been implicated in widespread atrocities against civilians. An ICC judge found reasonable grounds to believe that from March 2013 to January 2014 the Seleka committed a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, elements of crimes against humanity. Said is accused of responsibility for the crimes against humanity of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts, and the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment. Said, who is 50 and from the town of Bria, is believed to have joined the Seleka in 2012 and was promoted to lieutenant, colonel, and then commander. In April 2013, when Seleka abuse in Bangui was acute, he was given a key role in the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry (Office Central de Repression du Banditisme, OCRB). Said’s surrender occurred a few weeks before the opening of a trial against two anti-balaka leaders, Alfred Yékatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona. Their cases had stood in stark contrast to the absence of proceedings involving crimes by the Seleka, who continue to control vast territory in the country. Human Rights Watch has documented the Seleka’s involvement in abuses since 2013. In 2014, the Seleka splintered into several groups, including the Popular Front for the Renaissance (FPRC), headed by Noureddine Adam and Michel Djotodia. Recently, some factions of the FPRC have aligned themselves with anti-balaka forces. Djotodia is currently residing in Bangui and Adam is openly circulating in the Northeast. Other high-profile Seleka leaders, such as Mahamat Al Khatim, Saleh Zabadi and Ali Darassa continue to lead splinter Seleka groups. Some Seleka leaders were granted government posts in 2019 after a peace agreement. “Said’s arrest is important for ensuring that justice is not – nor seen to be – one-sided,” Keppler said. “Central African Republic authorities played a valuable role by cooperating with the ICC in Said’s surrender.” Said will now have his initial appearance at the ICC. The court will subsequently hold a hearing to determine if the charges against him should be confirmed and a trial go forward. In 2014, the ICC opened an investigation into crimes in the Central African Republic since 2012, following a request from the Central African government. This is the ICC’s second investigation into crimes committed in the Central African Republic. The first investigation there, related to an earlier conflict in 2002 and 2003, has not yet held any individuals to account for crimes committed. The first investigation produced only one case, against Jean-Pierre Bemba, a Congolese former vice president, which ended in an acquittal on appeal in June 2018. ICC investigations in the Central African Republic are complemented by the Special Criminal Court, an important new court set up in Bangui staffed by international and Central African judges and prosecutors, and the country’s ordinary courts. The Special Criminal Court began operations in 2018 but has yet to hold its first trial. There has been a recent upsurge in violence in the Central African Republic surrounding the presidential election held on December 27, 2020. A new rebel coalition has engaged in a number of attacks, leaving several peacekeepers dead and leading to further mass civilian displacement. The coalition consists of both anti-balaka and Seleka factions. The recent violence signals the end of the 2019 peace deal. “The arrest of the first Seleka suspect, and impending trial of anti-balaka leaders, should send a powerful signal to those committing crimes at this very moment,” Keppler said. “The Central African Republic finds itself at a critical juncture, with armed groups at the gate of the capital. Would-be perpetrators should realize they too could find themselves in the dock.” © 2021 Human Rights Watch