It’s been nearly two years since the bloody peak of a social media-fueled genocide in Southeast Asia, but Facebook is still not doing enough to prevent the ongoing promotion of violence and hate in Myanmar on its social network, according to a member of the United Nations team that found the Silicon Valley company for years failed to stop its platform from being used to incite genocide in the Asian nation. “I think there has been meaningful and significant change from Facebook, but it’s not nearly sufficient,” Christopher Sidoti, the UN investigator, said by phone last week. Facebook’s early failures in Myanmar are well documented. In the face of a years-long build-up of racist and hateful propaganda on the social network, as of 2015, just two people on the company’s content review team spoke Burmese, even as it made billions in annual profits. Ultimately, the build-up of hate on Facebook fueled a military-led genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya people. “At the height of the situation in 2017, Facebook was largely passive,” Sidoti said. “Facebook’s actions can only be described as minimal. It was as though the approach was apologize after the fact rather than try to prevent it in the first place.” The United Nations fact-finding mission in Myanmar released the milestone 2018 report covering the entire breadth of the ongoing crisis in Myanmar. One key dimension was the use of social media—Facebook in particular—by powerful figures in Myanmar to incite hate and violence across the country. “The role of social media is significant [in the genocide of the Rohingya people]. ... Although improved in recent months, the response of Facebook has been slow and ineffective,” the UN report states. “The extent to which Facebook posts and messages have led to real-world discrimination and violence must be independently and thoroughly examined.” “It was as though the approach was apologize after the fact rather than try to prevent it in the first place.” Since 2018, Facebook has repeatedly said it is now taking a more active role in Myanmar. The company has admitted its poor initial response both internally and externally, including in its own report on the subject released shortly after the UN study. The company now employs around 100 people who speak Myanmar’s language now, Sidoti said, and has banned key figures in the Rohingya genocide. But as the United Nations continues to investigate ongoing violence and political repression in Myanmar, Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, said the company “still has a very long way to go.” “There is still the denigration the Rohingya specifically and minorities in general,” Sidoti said. “There is still the glorification of the military, the general promotion of the military’s role in Myanmar society, the military that led the violence. In particular, the denigration of the Rohingya is continuing. I’m not seeing in the last month material that strongly incites violence like we did see in 2017, but general racist postings are still present.” Facebook did not provide comment when contacted by Gizmodo. The genocide, persecution, and extended violence against ethnic minorities in Myanmar hit a peak in 2017. As of late last year, at least 10,000 members of the Rohingya minority have been killed, largely by Buddhist nationalists, while violence impacts the entirety of the country, according to a “conservative” estimate in the UN report. Over 700,000 Rohingya have reportedly fled the country. “But even the report commissioned by Facebook itself indicated that only around half of the posts removed by Facebook were identified by Facebook,” Sidoti said. “They’re still reliant on being informed by outsiders, and they’re not yet anywhere near satisfactory in their performance in removing material—and certainly nowhere near satisfactory in preventing posting of this material in the first place.” SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - November 14: Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi attends the ASEAN-Russia summit on the sidelines of the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on November 14, 2018 in Singapore. Leaders from around the world gathered this week in Singapore during the 33rd ASEAN Summit as well as related summits, including Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who joined the meetings amidst ongoing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. Photo: Ore Huiying (Getty) Facebook is not just another social network in Myanmar. Instead, it often serves as residents’ entry portal to the internet in general. “Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where, for most users, Facebook is the Internet,” the September 2018 UN report reads. The country only really came online in a big way around 2010, and most phones came with Facebook as the portal to the web, Sidoti explained. As such, Facebook is a major means of both one-to-one communication and mass communication in Myanmar. Facebook has been used by ultra-nationalist groups promoting violence, Buddhist extremist organizations, units and individuals within the military, Bamar nationalist extremist groups, and different aspects of the Myanmar political system, Sidoti said. Although the current level of violence is considerably lower than it was in 2017, violence and persecution continues. Rhoyinga are being confined, and they have great difficulty gaining access to food either locally or from international agencies that are only given sporadic access by the resistant national Myanmar government, according to Sidoti. The Rakhine State is the site of much of today’s physical violence as clashes continue there. The United Nations Human Rights Council received the first substantial report on Myanmar last September and supported the investigators’ recommendations. One recommendation was to prepare for prosecutions, a mechanism that takes considerable time in the UN system. Another recommendation was extending the fact-finding mission for one more year until mid-September 2019. The UN will release a new series of reports between the summer and fall of 2019 based on the investigators’ future findings. After that, Myanmar is ramping up for an election in 2020. Given the ongoing misinformation fight and the Myanmar government’s actions over the last two years, Sidoti is not optimistic about what comes next. “We’re not seeing any increase in democratic space,” Sidoti said. “That means no freedom of media, the media is still under severe clampdown. That means no freedom of assembly. The number of political prisoners may well have grown over the last 12 months. The outlook is not positive.” “They’re still reliant on being informed by outsiders, and they’re not yet anywhere near satisfactory in their performance in removing material.” The UN mission in Myanmar has a broad mandate, but social media is one of the key points commanding continued investigation from the United Nations. In the next five months, the UN fact-finding mission will re-engage with Facebook about what the company is doing and what more it can do. That will require cooperation and action from the Silicon Valley company—cooperation that Sidoti would like to see escalated. “When we have asked questions [of Facebook], we have received answers,” Sidoti said. “But the concern is we have to ask questions rather than information being provided at the initiative of Facebook itself. There is a need [for] much more transparency and self-reporting than what we’ve had today.” As the 2018 UN report states, “The mission regrets that Facebook is unable to provide country-specific data about the spread of hate speech on its platform, which is imperative to assess the adequacy of its response.” Facebook’s transparency report, while it does have a section devoted to hate speech, still does not appear to contain country-specific data. We’ve reached out to the company for clarification and will update if we receive a response. Finally, from the starting point of a uniquely 21st-century genocide, the UN investigators will be looking at the broader questions of regulation of social media platforms. Sidoti believes “the penny has dropped”— that even Silicon Valley executives are now calling for regulation on their industry. In Australia, Sidoti’s home country, Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently put forth legislation boasting significant fines and even prison sentences for social media executives who fail to remove violent content from their platform. The push comes after the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. Morrison is planning on raising the issue with world powers in G20 meetings in June. “The question is how we move from a recognition that the current regulatory framework is inadequate to developing and implementing one as quickly as possible,” Sidoti said. “This is not something that can be allowed to take another five or 10 years.” © 2019 Gizmodo Media Group

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Nicholas Koumjian of the United States as Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Mr. Koumjian will be the first Head of the Myanmar Mechanism, which was established by the Human Rights Council on 27 September 2018, and welcomed by the General Assembly on 22 December 2018. Mr. Koumjian brings to this position over 35 years of experience as Prosecutor, including almost 20 years of experience in the field of international criminal justice. Since November 2013, he has been serving as the International Co-Prosecutor for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Mr. Koumjian previously served as Trial Attorney at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as Deputy General Prosecutor for serious crimes in Timor‑Leste, as International Prosecutor in the War Crimes Section of the Prosecutor’s Office for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as Principal Trial Attorney and Senior Appeals Counsel in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In addition, he also worked as a Prosecutor in the United States and has professional experience in the fields of international human rights law and transitional justice. Mr. Koumjian holds a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of North Carolina and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles. United Nations © 2014, New York, NY 10017

In response to the Burundian government’s decision to ban the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from operating in the country and to continue the suspension of the Voice of America (VOA) until further notice, Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Great Lakes and the Horn, said: “The withdrawal of the BBC’s operating license and continued suspension of the VOA are further brazen efforts by the Burundian authorities to silence the media. “The government has also forbidden any journalists in the country from sharing information with the BBC and VOA that could be broadcast. This decision is nothing more than a further ploy to stifle freedom of expression, which has been under siege since the start of the political crisis in April 2015. “Burundian authorities must stop treating the media with contempt and immediately reinstate the BBC and VOA’s crucial radio broadcasting services, which are crucial to ensuring an independent and diverse media in the country and fulfilling people’s right to information.” Background Burundi’s media regulator, the National Council of Communication (CNC), announced today that the BBC’s operating licence was being withdrawn and that VOA remained suspended from broadcasting in the country ‘until further notice’. Their broadcasts had initially been suspended in the run-up to last year’s referendum in May 2018 amid accusations of not respecting media laws. The CNC initially took issue with an interview the BBC broadcast in April 2018. Today the CNC accused the BBC of producing a ‘slanderous, deceitful and scathing’ documentary. The VOA was accused of employing a Burundian journalist that the authorities accuse of involvement in the failed coup d’état of 13 May 2015 and who they have issued an arrest warrant against. Journalists in the country, local or foreign, are forbidden from providing information that could be broadcast by the BBC or VOA. These measures take place in a context of severe restrictions on independent media houses and civil society ongoing since 2015. Copyright 2019 Amnesty International

WASHINGTON — The fight to expel the Islamic State from its last shard of territory in Syria may be over. But the United States and its partners still face significant battles against the terrorist group, its affiliates and other networks that are less formally aligned with it elsewhere, in Afghanistan, West Africa and the Philippines. Even before an American-backed Kurdish and Arab militia ousted the last extremist fighters from the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz on Saturday, the Islamic State had shifted gears. The organization that once staked out a self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria has now metastasized into a more traditional terrorist group — an atomized, clandestine network of cells engaged in guerrilla attacks, bombings and targeted assassinations. Thousands of American troops are helping the Afghan Army and security forces combat the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Armed American drones are hunting Islamic State cells in Libya. And American forces are advising and providing intelligence to local troops fighting the Islamic State in Burkina Faso and in the Philippines. Thousands of Islamic State fighters are also still at large in Iraq and Syria, biding their time to rearm and regroup to strike the same regions again. Many of them slipped out or surrendered when the final wave of civilians fled Baghuz, American commanders and intelligence analysts said. “What we are seeing now is not the surrender of ISIS as an organization — but in fact a calculated decision to preserve the safety of their families and preservation of their capabilities,” Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the military’s Central Command, told lawmakers this month about the exodus from Baghuz. “The ISIS population being evacuated from the remaining vestiges of the caliphate largely remains unrepentant, unbroken and radicalized,” he said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during a trip to the Middle East, told reporters that the battle against extremists would continue even after the territorial defeat of the Islamic State. “Our mission there hasn’t changed,” he said in Lebanon on Saturday. “We still have work to do to make sure radical Islamic terrorism doesn’t continue to grow.” The Islamic State can still tap a large war chest to finance its global operations. It has $50 million to $300 million in cash either hidden in Iraq and Syria, or smuggled into neighboring countries for safekeeping, according to a February report by the United Nations. The terrorist group also is believed to have invested in businesses, including fish farming, car dealing and cannabis growing, according to Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a research organization. President Trump and his top advisers have vowed to continue the fight against the Islamic State and its offshoots, but American commanders will likely have far fewer troops on the ground to wage that battle. Instead, military and spy agencies are tracking Islamic State fighters who have escaped and returned to North Africa, Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East. Analysts said roughly 1,200 of the extremists have returned to Europe alone. A classified American military program in Jordan, called Operation Gallant Phoenix, is scooping up data collected in commando raids in Syria and Iraq and funneling it to law enforcement agencies in Europe and Southeast Asia to help stop future attacks. Still, officials believe the loss of the Islamic State’s physical territory will not prevent it from striking again. “The group’s leadership and foot soldiers see this as a setback, not a defeat,” Nathan Sales, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said in a speech this month about the Islamic State’s territorial defeat. “They’re actively working to continue the fight from ISIS’s worldwide branches and networks.” Here is a look at what the United States military is doing to stop the Islamic State from resurging. Afghanistan The Islamic State’s offshoot in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State in Khorasan, is estimated to have more than 2,500 fighters spread between Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan and Laghman Provinces in the country’s east, according to a recent United Nations report. Speaking to lawmakers this month, General Votel provided a carefully worded answer when asked if the group is an international terrorist organization and not just a regional actor. “I think ISIS Khorasan does have ideations focused on external operations toward our homeland,” he said. But one United States official said some American military units had shifted away from attacking the Islamic State as the terrorist group ramped up attacks against the Taliban. American officials believe these increased strikes helped push the Taliban into negotiating a peace deal with the United States. A final agreement could require all 14,000 American forces currently in Afghanistan to leave within three years — and half of them in coming months. The Taliban have violently rejected the Islamic State affiliate and, in some parts of Afghanistan, have worked in parallel with the government in Kabul to combat the group. Last July, Taliban fighters killed more than 200 Khorasan members; most of those who surrendered were turned over to the Afghan government. Some Pentagon officials have voiced concerns about Taliban fighters joining the Islamic State if a peace settlement is reached. Another American official said some had already done so, albeit in small numbers. “ISIS could scoop up any potential fighters alienated by the peace process,” Jennifer Cafarella, the research director at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, said in an interview. Until the final United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, thousands of American forces are expected to continue strikes against the Islamic State and vestiges of Al Qaeda that are still in the country, including on partnered raids with Afghan commandos. Africa The United States military has a relatively light footprint across Africa. The Pentagon provides air power when needed, but generally relies on European and African partners to carry out most missions against the Islamic State, including in the areas between West Africa and Somalia. About 6,000 United States troops and 1,000 Defense Department civilians or contractors work on a variety of missions throughout Africa, mainly training and conducting exercises with local armies. American Green Berets from the Third Special Forces Group advise local troops in several West African countries such as Niger and Burkina Faso, but rarely join them on missions. In West Africa, the American military is scaling back its commandos by about 25 percent as part of a larger Pentagon strategy to confront threats by Russia, China and other state powers. The shift comes as insurgents are attacking northern Burkina Faso and pushing south along the border with Niger toward areas previously untouched by extremist violence, including the Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo and Ghana, where the Pentagon has a logistics hub. With its large areas of ungoverned territory — and limited visibility by the United States — Libya also continues to be a haven for the Islamic State. Over the last two years, the United States has launched 13 drone strikes against Islamic State and Qaeda militants in Libya, according to the military’s Africa Command. “Our efforts in strikes,” Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of the Africa Command, told Congress this month, “will keep ISIS at bay.” The Philippines About 300 Marines, Army troops and other Special Operations Forces are deployed to the Philippines as part of a mission known as Operation Pacific Eagle. While American forces have for years helped train and advise Filipino troops, they were part of an offensive against the Islamic State’s affiliate in the southern city of Marawi in 2017. United States reconnaissance aircraft also were involved in that five-month operation, which killed at least 900 extremists, including Isnilon Hapilon, who was considered the leader of the Islamic State in Southeast Asia. Mr. Hapilon had been on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists, with a $5 million bounty offered for his capture. Militants who have pledged loyalty to the Islamic State have since spread across the southern Philippines, an area that is monitored by American surveillance drones. Syria and Iraq The Islamic State no longer controls terrain in Syria or Iraq, has largely lost much of the command and wealth it once had and has suffered tens of thousands of casualties in both countries. But it is far from a spent force. Iraqi counterterrorism and intelligence officials have estimated that about 5,000 to 6,000 Islamic State fighters are spread between Iraq and Syria. That number, however, does not account for sleeper cells and their supporters, who are believed to be involved in reconnaissance and are otherwise helping the Islamic State carry out attacks. Separate estimates, including one by the United Nations in February, put the group’s strength even higher. James F. Jeffrey, the American special envoy for Syria, said this month that there are 15,000 to 20,000 armed Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, “although many are in sleeper cells.” American officials said that the Pentagon was concerned about Islamic State fighters returning from the front lines to stoke violence in their hometowns across Iraq and Syria. The United States will continue its bombing campaign against the extremist group and to assist local forces in both countries who are the first line of defense against Islamic State fighters. “ISIS’s post-caliphate insurgency in Iraq is accelerating faster than efforts to prevent it by the U.S.,” concluded an analysis this month by the Institute for the Study of War. The United States now has 5,200 troops in Iraq, mostly spread between two main bases, including Al Asad in western Anbar Province, which Mr. Trump visited in December. In Syria, Mr. Trump has ordered all but a residual American force of 400 troops to withdraw. Armed drones and warplanes will continue to provide air support. Legislation pending in Iraq’s Parliament could limit United States military operations in the country by reducing the number of American troops there, restricting their movements or even demanding a full withdrawal by a certain, if yet unspecified, date. Mr. Jeffrey made clear that the liberation of the declared caliphate — an area that nearly five years ago stretched to the size of Britain — did not eradicate the Islamic State’s potency. “There is a great concern,” he said. Eric Schmitt, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad. Edward Wong contributed reporting from Jerusalem. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic enters the courtroom of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, Netherlands, on Wednesday. Appeals judges of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have upheld Radovan Karadzic's conviction for genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that claimed the lives of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys. They also ruled that the 40-year sentence of Karadzic handed down in the first trial, in 2016, was too light given the gravity of the crimes. Along with the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian army general Ratko Mladic, Karadzic was a key figure in the Bosnian war. International tribunals have held that the Serbs systematically killed and expelled the Muslim and Croat populations from Bosnia with the aim of ethnic cleansing. Wednesday's ruling will resonate in Bosnia – where the war claimed at least 100,000 lives, where ethnic groups are still divided, old animosities are still strong and Karadzic is still seen as a hero by many Bosnian Serbs. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008, 10 years after he had gone underground. He disappeared after he had been indicted for war crimes by the U.N. court in The Hague. When he reappeared, he had a new identity. He had been passing himself off as a new-age health guru, practicing alternative medicine, writing articles and even lecturing under an alias. For years, there were rumors that Karadzic was in Bosnia or in Montenegro, hiding in monasteries or even caves. There were also reports that NATO peacekeepers based in Bosnia knew exactly where he was but declined to arrest him. As it turned out, he spent most of his time on the run hiding in a Belgrade neighborhood of anonymous-looking high-rise buildings, where it was easy to blend into the scenery and lose one's identity, especially if in disguise. When arrested, Karadzic looked completely different: shoulder-length white hair, white beard — more like a character out of a Tolkien novel than the very showy, pompous wartime leader remembered by reporters who covered the Balkans. Originally trained as a psychiatrist, Karadzic as a fugitive passed himself off as an expert in what he called "human quantum energy." He used the name D.D. David, or Dragon Dabic, and gave lectures all over Serbia on alternative medicine. He even had a website and was a regular contributor to the Serbian alternative medicine magazine, Healthy Life, signing off his articles as a spiritual researcher. His editor was reportedly shocked to learn his true identity. The Bosnian Serb leader remained a fugitive for so long thanks in large part to a strong support network of hard-line nationalists and help from the Serbian Orthodox Church and protection from high Serbian authorities. His arrest came just after a new government was installed that was keen to end Serbia's international isolation – and that depended on handing over remaining war crimes suspects to the International War Crimes Tribunal. In The Hague, Karadzic faced many serious charges: genocide, extermination, murder and ethnic cleansing. As well as the Srebrenica massacre, he was accused of ordering the 43-month-long siege of Sarajevo during which Bosnian Serb troops starved, sniped and bombarded the city center and in which thousands of civilians lost their lives. The tribunal described Karadzic as the suspected mastermind of scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history. The first trial began in October 2009 and Karadzic acted as his own lawyer – a fact that haunted the tribunal. By defending himself in court, Milosevic had succeeded in delaying the proceedings, and he died of a heart attack four years into his trial. Karadzic followed Milosevic's example of using the courtroom for political grandstanding. He insisted the tribunal had no right to try him because he claimed he had struck a secret deal with then-U.S. envoy to the Balkans Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke denied the existence of such a deal. Karadzic, 73, was raised by a Serb nationalist family. As a psychiatrist, he specialized in depression. He was also an amateur poet. In 1992, he led his Bosnian Serb splinter state to war. He was also an inveterate gambler who loved poker, and in the early months of war, reporters would often track him down in gambling casinos. But today in The Hague, Karadzic lost his final hand against international justice. © 2019 npr

Surviving Herero after the escape through the arid desert of Omaheke in modern day Namibia, 1904. (Photograph via Wikipedia) MANHATTAN (CN) – How — and where — should victims collect reparations for a genocide? In New York, an effort to hold present-day Germany responsible for what is grimly called the first genocide of the 20th century is against the ropes. The case was brought by indigenous Ovaherero and Nama and descendants of the estimated 100,000 people who were systematically killed by colonizing Germans between 1904 and 1908 in what is now Namibia. Ruben Carranza, senior expert on reparations for the International Center for Transitional Justice, noted that U.S. courts have become a resource for survivors of dictatorships, war criminals and genocides. “Victims can of course file cases in their own countries’ courts – but those courts cannot reach assets in the U.S. or elsewhere and will not have the kind of political impact that a judgment in a country in which judges have a relative degree of independence and enforcement power can exercise,” Carranza said in an email. In the United States, however, such cases face a high bar. After U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain threw out Ovaherero and Nama’s suit earlier this month for lack of jurisdiction, attorney Ken McCallion appealed immediately, confident that the Second Circuit will give his clients a reversal. Lead plaintiff Veraa Katuuo said that he and fellow litigants always knew they were in for a long haul. “This is a unique and historical case, and through this process we succeeded to educate the world about the Ovaherero and Nama genocide at the hands of German soldiers, and in the process put brakes on the so-called government-to-government genocide and reparation negotiations,” said Katuuo, who founded the Association of the Ovaherero Genocide in the USA. “We are going to take advantage of every avenue available to us within the United States judicial system, and hold ‘mighty’ Germany accountable for the crimes they have committed against the Nama and Ovaherero peoples,” Katuuo added in an email. Several experts contacted about the case called it important for German society and government to do right by the Ovaherero and Nama, particularly given how the West has grappled for decades with fallout from the Holocaust. The latest version of Katuuo’s complaint calls Germany’s annihilation efforts in southwest Africa a “precursor” to the events of World War II less than four decades later. Carranza suggested a multipronged effort for reparations. “There is no ‘best way,’” Carranza said. “Rather, there is the possibility of enlisting domestic (in this case, German) support from political leaders and German citizens in order to put pressure on a more justice-oriented German government to legislate reparations.” William Darity Jr., an economist and professor of public policy at Duke University, also said German citizens should pressure their government to pass legislation for Ovaherero and Nama reparations. “Trying to do this through the U.S. court system evades the question of who has direct responsibility and obligation for the compensation,” Darity said in an interview, wryly noting this same court system has a history of shooting down cases for domestic slavery reparations. As alleged in Katuuo’s amended complaint, filed in February 2018, German settlers started moving to southwest Africa toward the end of the 19th century under the expansionist, white-supremacist concept of Lebensraum, or “living space.” The presence of the well-established Ovaherero and Nama people, already sovereign nations on the territory, meant the German settlers had to rent land and sign treaties. Quickly breaking those treaties, German colonists seized 50,000 square miles of indigenous land plus livestock without compensation, according to the amended complaint. They raped indigenous women and girls, and enslaved others for manual labor. ngered by this violent encroachment, the Ovaherero and Nama attacked in 1904 and 1905; a January strike by the Ovaherero killed 123 people. The Germans struck back, with devastating military support from the mainland. They called in Lt. Gen. Lothar von Trotha, who issued what is widely understood as a vernichtungsbefehl, or extermination order. “Every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot,” von Trotha wrote on Oct. 2, 1904. “I will no longer accept women and children. … These are my words to the Herero people.” The Germans killed 80 percent of the Ovaherero people and half of the Nama, according to the complaint. Those who survived initial slaughter were sent to concentration camps. Some of their bodies were used for experimentation by German doctors. Representatives for Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History have not returned a request for comment, but Katuuo’s complaint says it bought the human remains of the Ovaherero from Germany. Last year, the New Yorker reported that the museum has not denied that the Namibian remains in its collection might have come in part from the German massacre. Katuuo argues this constitutes a “direct effect” in the United States from the genocide. The Ovaherero are “a people that are very closely related with their ancestors and their dead,” Katharina von Hammerstein, a German studies professor at the University of Connecticut, said in an interview. The murders were “terrible not only because so many people died, but also on top of that because they could not bury the dead, not give them the honor of being buried,” she said. Von Hammerstein emphasized that the remains of ancestors should be returned to the Ovaherero and Nama people regardless of what happens with financial reparations. “They are due an apology, recognition, they are due a seat at the table,” von Hammerstein said. “And in terms of direct reparations I do very much hope that the negotiations between the two governments will include the Ovaherero.” Darity agreed that the remains should be returned if the community calls for it, but that process should be separate from the reparations payouts, since it would not be the same as compensation for the harm caused. Still, he said, the return of remains “is some measure of saying, ‘We acknowledge that something unjust and tragic has occurred.’” In the suit in New York, Germany is represented by Jeff Harris of Rubin Winston Diercks, Harris & Cooke. Harris made clear in an interview that the case was not about litigating a genocide. “We never litigated on the facts or what happened in Namibia in those years,” he said. “Our point of view was that this is not the place. This court doesn’t have the jurisdiction to hear this case.”As to whether Germany should pay reparations or handle the negotiations differently, Harris said these are questions for the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. No representative for the embassy responded to a request for comment.Duke University’s Darity said compensation should come in the form of cash, rather than foreign aid or other means, and should be measured by computing the inequalities the damaged groups face compared with nondamaged groups.“Maybe a starting point would be the present value of the land that was seized,” Darity said, “but there needs to be compensation.”The International Center for Transitional Justice’s Carranza said reparations should not be limited to money payments.“The most important character of reparations in whatever form is that it recognizes a responsibility on the part of the state or group making reparation,” Carranza said.“While Germany is avoiding legal responsibility in a U.S. court, it certainly cannot avoid legal responsibility in general – given that it was the occupying colonial power.”As noted by their lawyer McCallion, the plaintiffs have also filed petitions with the United Nations, “focused on the rights of indigenous people … to participate in decisions relating to their own fate and certainly their own compensation.”Crucially, the plaintiffs allege Germany has not included them or indigenous leaders or representatives in present-day negotiations with Namibia, which they say is a violation of international law. These negotiations have taken place between the two governments, in which indigenous groups are traditionally underrepresented. Darity, Carranza and von Hammerstein all said representation in talks is key to getting justice.“At the very least Germany must accept moral responsibility to the Herero and Nama people – and negotiate in good faith with their representatives and the state of Namibia,” Carranza said.Germany today gives Namibia foreign aid on a large scale, but Carranza said this is no substitute for reparations — “not only because it does not then represent justice, but because it denies a responsibility and effectively becomes a matter of assistance and charity.”“There is no formula that easily capture compensation for human rights violations, let alone genocide,” he added.UConn’s Von Hammerstein said events like the Ovaherero and Nama genocide, or U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, should always be in history books.“Every nation has their dirt under the fingernails, and it’s important that some of us point that out,” she said. Copyright © 2019 courthousenews.com

When she received news last November that her mother has been sent to a detention camp, Uyghur refugee Zulhumar Isaac was at a loss for words. Shortly after, her father disappeared too. First came disbelief, then anger – that even a family like hers, which had taken pains to assimilate into the Han Chinese culture, was not spared by the authorities’ Xinjiang campaign. “All our lives we have lived as ‘model Chinese citizens.’ We studied Mandarin, my mother was a civil servant for decades, and I’d fallen in love with and got married to a Han Chinese man,” lamented Isaac, who is now living in exile in Sweden. “And yet it has happened to us. Why?” Some 1 million Muslims have been detained in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, in what the authorities call “preventive counterterrorism and de-extremism work.” Detainees are made to study Mandarin, recite Chinese propaganda, and reflect on past “political mistakes,” among other things. In a matter of months, Beijing’s rhetoric has shifted sharply, from outright denial that the detention centers exist, to normalizing them as camps that provide free vocational training. In a visit hosted for foreign diplomats last month, Chinese officials said its efforts in Xinjiang should be applauded. Over 45 percent of people residing in Xinjiang – which was declared an autonomous region in 1955 – are Uyghurs. The crackdown on Xinjiang has gathered pace in the last three years, leading also to a spike in security spending, the destruction of mosques, and a ban on the Uyghur language at schools. Accounts like Zulhumar Isaac’s, however, complicates the Chinese government’s “re-education” narrative. “Although ethnically Uyghur, we have never quite identified as typical Uyghurs, nor followed the cultural practices,” said Isaac, 31. “But because of that, we grew up like misfits both ways,” she added, recalling how an elementary school classmate was advised by her mother to refrain from talking to Uyghurs. Halmurat Mari Uyghur’s parents faced a similar predicament – “detained even though they should be the most trustworthy guys,” in the words of the 33-year-old. Uyghur’s mother was a journalist for a newspaper supported by the Chinese Communist Party, while his father worked for the local government. “I don’t know what the state is really trying to do, but I believe they feel threatened from within China, and ethnic minorities are one of these threats,” said Uyghur, who lives in Finland with his wife and two children. “It doesn’t matter if you are Uyghur and American, Uyghur and a public servant, or a Uyghur [who] speaks Mandarin as your first language. As long as you a Uyghur, you will be targeted.” Uyghur’s mother and father were released in December, after being detained for 11 and 18 months, respectively. Uyghur currently spends the bulk of his time advocating for the community via Uyghur Aid, a non-government organization he founded in July 2018. Alfred Uyghur, whose parents were strong proponents of a Mandarin-medium education, also wound up as targets in the crackdown. Alfred lost contact with them three years ago, shortly after he started college education in the United States. He recently found out that his mother had been detained in a camp in 2017, while his father was sentenced to 11 years in jail for unexplained reasons. “Both my parents were college graduates. My father, especially, saw the importance of learning Mandarin and hired a Mandarin tutor for us,” said the 21-year-old. Dr. Timothy Grose, who researches Uyghur ethno-national identity, said participation in the “Xinjiang Class” – a program that funds middle school-aged students from Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, to attend school in predominantly Han populated cities – does not guarantee that the student or his family will be spared “re-education.” “In fact, a few of my informants and friends have been detained. But yes, this situation raises serious concerns about the program as well as doubts about the Chinese Communist Party’s explanation, or justification, for the camps,” said Grose, an assistant professor of China Studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. “In other words, otherwise upstanding citizens who have been successful in ‘Chinese’ society are being detained simply because of their ethno-religious identities,” he said. The Xinjiang Class program, present throughout eastern China, currently enrolls almost 10,000 students each year, most of whom are Uyghurs. These students spend four years learning and perfecting the Mandarin language and taking classes on political ideology. Another Uyghur, who participated in the Xinjiang Class, recalled how challenging it was – ironically, he said – for Uyghurs to enroll into a Mandarin-medium school. In 2017, authorities banned the use of the Uyghur language at all education levels, warning that those who violate the order will be severely punished. Try as the Uyghurs may to assimilate into the mainstream, however, their presence was not often embraced by the Han Chinese. “Whoever our teachers named as a success story to inspire us was always someone good at math and fluent in Chinese. So being fluent in Chinese was almost all my classmates’ aspiration,” said the Uyghur man, who wanted to remain anonymous. He is currently living in exile in the Netherlands. “When I was selected for Xinjiang Class, my parents were so proud and I was psyched as well. But even though I mastered Mandarin, integrating into the mainstream has been difficult due to various forms of discrimination,” he added. A 27-year-old Uyghur who wanted only to be known as Nigar recalls being singled out by professors during her college years in Shanghai’s Fudan University – several years after the July 2009 riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital city – because she looked different from the typical Han student. “I remember a finance professor discussing how to deal with Xinjiang, referring it to a place with undeveloped people, and suggesting that it be turned into a casino center,” said Nigar, who is now working in Washington D.C. “Often when instructors make inappropriate or discriminatory remarks, students can report these to the school’s administration. But when I make these reports, nobody seemed to care.” Nigar, who pursued graduate studies in political science in the United States, now maintains minimal contact with her mother and brother back in Xinjiang for fear of getting them into trouble. “One of my best friends in college went home and we lost touch. I think my presence here in the U.S. might be affecting her work,” she said. Anthropologist Darren Byler, whose research focuses on Uyghur dispossession, said the current crackdown might have forged a sense of unity between the Mandarin-speaking Uyghurs – who often considered themselves “upper class” – and the working-class Uyghur community. “The Uyghurs who spoke Mandarin often had better business connections and more wealth, and thus considered the other Uyghurs ‘backward.’ Now the resentment is starting to shift because Mandarin-speaking Uyghurs too are being targeted by the campaign,” he said. “But perhaps this has happened too late.” Byler, who lectures at the University of Washington’s anthropology department, sees the crackdown as the Chinese government’s attempt to eradicate all unique aspects of the Uyghur identity. “I am not hopeful that the identity will continue to survive. I think children of the future generations, especially, might lose touch with their Uyghur heritage or just see it as backward, or lacking,” he said. © 2019 The Diplomat. All Rights Reserved.

United Nations forensic teams have begun exhuming bodies from mass graves around the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar - home to the minority Yazidi group. It is estimated that more than 3,000 Yazidis were killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group when they took control of the area five years ago. The UN says their treatment at the hands of ISIL amounts to genocide. Al Jazeera's Victoria Gatenby reports. © 2019 Al Jazeera Media Network

A wave of gruesome mass killings in North Central Nigeria on Sunday, March 10, has prompted more calls for a special envoy to Nigeria and reconsideration of the Trump administration’s policy to West Africa. Approximately 120 Christian residents in villages west of the city of Kafanchan, Nigeria, were shot and hacked to death by machete-wielding terrorists, according to press reports and eye-witness accounts of clergy attending the wounded survivors. ThisDay Live, a Nigerian newspaper, reports that herders of the Fulani ethnic group killed 85 in attacks Sunday and Monday in the Kaduna State in two governing areas. Clergy on the ground near the killings say the death toll is at least 130. “Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) condemns the appalling loss of life in Nigeria on Sunday due to ethnic cleansing of Christian residents in North Central Nigeria. We reiterate the call for the Trump administration to send a special envoy to Nigeria and the Lake Chad region so that greater resources from the West can assist the Nigerian military to remediate a worsening crisis,” said Dede Laugesen, executive director of Save the Persecuted Christians. All of the victims in the villages of Anguwan Barde, Maro, and Dogonoma were Christians, chiefly women and children, according to Rev. Gideon Mutum of Governors Assembly Church in Kafanchan, who spoke by telephone on Tuesday, March 12. “The attackers were as many as 400 and began killing people at 7:30 a.m. Sunday,” Mutum said. He added that 19 people are recovering from wounds at local hospitals. Pastor Sabo Emmanuel of Harvesters for Christ ministry said by telephone that the killings were incited by a false claim by Kaduna State government in the days prior to the planned presidential election on Feb. 16. The governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has claimed that 66 Fulani herders had been murdered on Feb. 11 by their enemies. A story carried by Nigeria’s Premium News on Feb. 22 reported the claim of the Fulani cattle breeders’ association that 131 Fulani herders had been murdered, including the name list of the victims. “That is fake news,” according to Father Matthew Gajere, a Roman Catholic priest in Kaduna State who is visiting victims recovering in the local hospitals. The governor has no evidence for his claim. He cannot refer to any burial sites or graves of the so-called victims, whereas all the graves of Christian victims are well marked, according to Father Gajere. “We believe the governor used that crisis to postpone the elections. The next day the governor was pressed for proof of the killings, but he had none. Instead, he said the number of Fulani dead had risen to 131. Immediately, we started to have attacks in many villages,” Pastor Emmanuel said. “There was no attack on Fulani herders on Feb. 11, nothing like that,” according to Emmanuel. “The survivors told me the herdsmen entered the village of Maro after surrounding it with guards for at least four hours, and during this time there were no police or security personnel seen,” he said by telephone. “I called the security multiple times on Monday, but they wouldn’t answer. I called the chairman of the local government area, too, but he wouldn’t take my call,” Father Gajere said. The local governing area has been criminally negligent in its response to the carnage, according to a press release of the Adara Development Association, which represents the community that suffered the murders. Nigerian expatriates in the United States have echoed this accusation and point out that no local security arrived to defend the local villagers despite frantic calls for hours on Feb. 11. Many of the residents reportedly allege that Nigerian security forces are complicit in the attacks. The most recent incidents, horrific as they are, must be seen in the context of the ongoing ethnic conflict between Nigeria’s chiefly Christian farmers and chiefly Muslim herders that has been ongoing for two decades. The caliphate-seeking terrorist group known as Boko Haram, surfacing in 2009 and affiliated with Islamic State since 2015, has murdered more people in Nigeria than Islamic State has done in the Middle East, yet it is rarely covered in major media, leading Frank Gaffney, president of STPC, to condemn the media’s “conspiracy of silence.” “There have been a series of massacres in Nigeria going back to year 2000 when there were riots between Christians and Muslims over the imposition of Sharia law in Kaduna, and at that time up to 5,000 people were killed,” said Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch and a former State Department official. “There have been repeated Muslim attacks on Christians for years, even in the capital of Abuja. The Fulani ethnic group has been infiltrated by ISIS through Boko Haram,” Stanton said. The killing wave in Nigeria reminds some of the mass killings in Rwanda in 1994. “There were trial massacres done by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in 1993. The Hutu movement murdered a small number of Tutsis in defined areas to see if the foreign ambassadors and international community would push back, but there was none. In 1994 the massive genocide was launched,” Stanton said. The Trump administration has made clear that it is not the world’s policeman and has been hard-pressed to safely extricate the US military from its 16-year engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. In December National Security Advisor John Bolton rolled out the White House’s new “Africa Strategy” at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, and this strategy emphasized three pillars, as reported by Col. Chris Wyatt, director of African Studies at the US Army War College. These pillars are the following: advance US trade and commercial ties; counter the threat from radical Islamic terrorism; and finally, ensure US taxpayer dollars are used effectively and efficiently. The importance of US trade with Nigeria is obvious: it is the wealthiest and most populated nation in Africa, and it is a major oil producer, ranking as the thirteenth largest in the world. The threat to that commercial relationship is the unraveling of economic stability due to rising violence of the terrorist insurgency and the deepening crisis of the Fulani Muslim herdsmen on Christian farmers. Longstanding US policy is to subsidize nations that defend the religious freedom of all religious minorities, including Christians. American policymakers since the founding in 1787 determined that religious freedom is the basis for all freedoms. Failed states such as Cuba, Iran, and Sudan are among the worst oppressors of Christians. Nigerian expats have expressed concern that Nigeria’s emerging democracy is sliding ineluctably toward failed state status in the next decade. “If Nigeria falls under Islamic dictatorship, its problem won’t stay in Africa; it will come to the United States,” says Dr. Oluwasayo Ajiboye, who was raised in Nigeria and now teaches at a Christian seminary in Texas. Ajiboye returned from Nigeria on Feb. 10 after nine days in the country’s seven northern states, where he interviewed hundreds of victims in 10 cities. Having heard the stories of hundreds of widows in internally displaced person (IDP) camps, he remarked, “I now know what Post-Traumatic Syndrome is. For three days, I wept almost constantly.” Nigerian emigrants have a strong presence in the United States, currently constituting six percent of all foreign-born residents. The Nigeria-based Redeemed Christian Church of God alone has 800 congregations, including a cluster of 40 churches in the Washington, DC, suburbs. A growing movement of churches and human rights groups are joining STPC’s call for a special envoy to West Africa who can bring a strong team of military and intelligence advisors with him or her. State Department officials have told advocates with STPC it already has dispatched a “special coordinator” with those powers, Ambassador Dan Mozena. In 2014, the Obama State Department recalled Mozena from retirement and tasked him with coordinating the US diplomatic effort against the militants. Activists and observers say they see no results of his efforts. Requests for comment from the Department of State for this article went unreturned. “Ambassador Mozena has done nothing to remediate the threat of Boko Haram,” according to Stephen Enada, head of the International Committee on Nigeria. “Mozena served in Nigeria from 2015 to 2016 and maybe is still there, yet his reports have been a disaster. If he is doing something behind the scenes to stop the terrorists, why are we seeing so much killing going on?” Enada says the appointment of a special envoy from the United States is crucial to winning the fight against terror. For the hapless farmers in northern states of Nigeria, help can’t come soon enough. Douglas Burton is a former State Department official who served in Iraq and writes on terrorism and national security issues in Africa and the Middle East. Photo Credit: Men march along a truck carrying coffins of people killed by the Fulani herdsmen, in Makurdi, Nigeria, January 11, 2018. By Reuters, Afolabi Sotunde Copyright © 2019 Providence Journal

On 25 January 2019, Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona appeared before Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "Court"), at the seat of the ICC in The Hague (The Netherlands). Pre-Trial Chamber II is composed of Judge Antoine Kesia‐Mbe Mindua, Presiding, Judge Tomoko Akane and Judge Rosario Salvatore Aitala. The hearing was held in the presence of the Prosecutor and the Defence. Mr Ngaïssona was represented by his Counsel Mr Eric Plouvier. The Chamber verified the identity of the suspect, and ensured that he was clearly informed of the crimes he is alleged to have committed and of his rights under the Rome Statute of the ICC in a language he fully understands and speaks. The opening of the confirmation of charges hearing was scheduled for 18 June 2019. The purpose of the confirmation of charges hearing is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that the person committed each of the crimes charged. If the charges are confirmed, totally or partly, the case will be transferred to a Trial Chamber, which will conduct the subsequent phase of the proceedings: the trial. Background: On 23 January 2019, Mr Ngaïssona was transferred to the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, by the authorities of the French Republic pursuant to an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic. This transfer followed the completion of necessary national proceedings in France, where he was arrested on 12 December 2018. On 7 December 2018, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II issued an arrest warrant for Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in various locations in the CAR between at least 5 December 2013 and at least December 2014: crimes against humanity: murder and attempted murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts; and war crimes: murder and attempted murder, torture, cruel treatment, mutilation, intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, intentionally directing an attack against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance, intentionally directing an attack against buildings dedicated to religion, pillaging , enlistment of children under the age of 15 years and their use to participate actively in hostilities , displacement of the civilian population and destroying or seizing the property of an adversary. Further information on this case is available here. Relevant documents: Warrant of Arrest Questions and Answers Case information sheet Factsheet on the ICC Detention Centre Photographs Audio-visual materials: Fi Copyright 2019 Office of the Prosecutor, The International Criminal Court

"Rohingya" 2019, CNN Bangladesh authorities say they will soon start relocating over 100,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. Officials said this is necessary to reduce pressure on the world’s largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar, where nearly 1.2 million Rohingya have fled to escape military atrocities in Myanmar. Bhasan Char is a spit of land made of accumulated silt. Officials say the island has been secured with embankments, and the homes and cyclone shelters are better than anything available to millions of Bangladeshis. But they have yet to provide convincing assurances that the refugees will be safe there, and their freedom of movement and right to livelihood protected. The government brought some diplomats and other foreign officials to see the infrastructure on the island. But Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar, who visited in January, noted, “There are a number of things that remain unknown to me even following my visit, chief among them being whether the island is truly habitable.” Residents from nearby Hatiya Island say it is not. “Part of the island is eroded by the monsoon every year,” one man told Human Rights Watch. “In that time, we never dare go to that island, so how will thousands of Rohingya live there?” Humanitarian aid groups are concerned about refugee health and safety in the Cox’s Bazar settlement, but isolating them on Bhasan Char, with likely limited access to education and health services, could be even more problematic. Although Bangladeshi authorities say there will be no forced relocations, there is little evidence that any of the refugees would be willing to move there. “Bhashan Char will be like a prison,” one local journalist said. But when Lee warned that an ill-planned relocation would have the “potential to create a new crisis,” the government said resettling the Rohingya is an internal matter. Minister AKM Mozammel Haq actually blamed nongovernmental organizations for highlighting safety and sustainability concerns. Dumping a battered and traumatized people on Bhasan Char to face yet another threat to their survival is not a solution. Bangladesh should terminate the relocation plans unless or until independent experts determine that the island is suitable, and until the government ensures that refugees who consent to relocate there will be allowed freedom of movement on and off the island. © 2019 Human Rights Watc