The internment of over a million Uighur people has caused an international outcry [Thomas Peter/Reuters] China is running boarding schools not concentration camps in the far western region of Xinjiang, its governor said on Tuesday, as the United States called conditions there "completely unacceptable". At a news conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China's ceremonial legislature, Xinjiang Governor Shohrat Zakir described extensive reports on conditions in the camps as "pure fabrications". On Tuesday, regional authorities said heavily guarded internment camps for Muslims which China calls vocational training centres will gradually disappear if there comes a time that "society does not need" them. China has faced growing international opprobrium for the mass internment camps in Xinjiang, a vast region bordering central Asia that is home to millions of Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. Activists say there is a network of mass detention camps there holding more than a million people, part of a crackdown that Beijing says is needed to stem the threat of religious "extremism". Former inmates have described harsh conditions in which Muslim minorities are subject to political indoctrination and psychological torture.Zakir, the Xinjiang governor, said the camps do not target any particular faith, though religious activities are banned in the camps.Former detainees say the overwhelming majority of those in the camps are Muslim."We fully ensure freedom of religion," including accommodating Muslim "trainees'" desire for halal food, Zakir said, adding that they can request time off and go home on weekends, "like many boarding schools."Like his immediate predecessors as Xinjiang governor, Zakir is from the region's native Uighur ethnic group, providing a public face for the government and its claims that Xinjiang is an autonomous region.However, the real decision-making power resides with the region's ruling Communist Party chief, who is most often part of the country's Han Chinese ethnic majority.Current Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo is known for hardline policies which he previously enacted while serving in the same capacity in the Buddhist region of Tibet.Observers say Chen has now brought an even greater degree of heavy security and surveillance to Xinjiang, where police checkpoints and facial recognition-equipped CCTV cameras have become ubiquitous in recent years.Sam Brownback, US envoy on religion, commented on the "horrific situation" in Xinjiang during a telephone news conference on Tuesday.He said China has provided "completely unsatisfactory answers" for why the camps exist and held open the possibility of punitive measures such as sanctions "if corrective actions aren't taken".Several Xinjiang officials at the briefing on Tuesday said they welcome visits by journalists to the region to understand realities on the ground.Yet foreign journalists who have tried to independently report in Xinjiang in recent years have been followed by police, arrested and ordered to delete their footage.China maintains that the region's security measures are necessary for combating latent "religious extremism".Over the past decade, violence blamed on Uighurs - including riots and a mass stabbing at a train station - have killed hundreds.Zakir repeated China's claim that there have been no violent incidents in Xinjiang for more than two years.He added, however, that there remains a "long fight" ahead for efforts to defeat "extremism"."We cannot relax one bit," Zakir said. © 2019 Al Jazeera Media Network

Jean Pierre Gasasira was just 17 years old when he saw soldiers and militiamen drag a Tutsi doctor outside a hospital in Rwanda. “He was begging for mercy,” Gasasira testified in US District Court in Boston Wednesday. “He was saying ‘I just work as a doctor. I help those in need.’ ” The attackers showed no mercy, Gasasira said. One of the men raised a small ax over the doctor and killed him. That man is here in the courtroom, Gasasira told jurors.“I see him,” he said, then stood up and stared at Jean Leonard Teganya, who in 1994 was a junior medical student at the Rwandan hospital.The riveting scene came on the third day of the trial against Teganya, who federal prosecutors say lied to US authorities about his role in the 1994 genocide to receive asylum. He is on trial for perjury, not for crimes he allegedly committed in Rwanda.Teganya, a Hutu, allegedly incited soldiers and other Hutu extremists to rape and kill Tutsi patients and medical staff in the hospital in Butare, a city in the southern part of the country, which at the time was engulfed in a civil war between the Hutus, the ethnic majority, and the Tutsis, the country’s ethnic minority.Teganya, 47, left Rwanda in 1994 at the end of the 100-day campaign against the Tutsis. His lawyers say he is a quiet, studious man who had no part in the genocide. He is seeking asylum because his father was a leader in the party responsible for the genocide, and it would be dangerous for him to return.Teganya’s lawyers have suggested that witness accounts of Teganya’s actions are unreliable and potentially influenced by Rwandan government officials. They plan to call witnesses they say will contradict their testimony.Gasasira was the third prosecution witness to describe atrocities at the teaching hospital in Butare in April 1994. On Tuesday, a physician who worked for Doctors without Borders at the time recalled how soldiers dragged away a Hutu nurse who was seven months pregnant. The father of the child was Tutsi and, in Rwanda, ethnicity runs through the paternal line.The doctor, Rony Zachariah, who now works for the World Health Organization, fought back tears as he recalled his efforts to stop the soldiers.“There is a mistake,” Zachariah said he told the military captain. “She’s not Tutsi and she’s been taking care of your soldiers.”The captain looked coldly at him.Zachariah said the captain replied: “You’re right [she] is Hutu, but this child that she’s going to have is going to be Tutsi.”Zachariah said he never saw the nurse again.A Rwandan woman described the brutal attacks by Hutus against two young Tutsi children and their mother, who had been dragged outside the hospital where they had sought refuge from the conflict.“The mom was asking ‘Please, at least leave me with one child,’ ” said Isabelle Mukankusi, who was 14 and a patient at the hospital at the time.All three were killed, she said.Mukankusi, a Tutsi, said she arrived at the hospital with serious head injuries after Hutu extremists struck her repeatedly with machetes after killing her grandparents. She said she was in a coma for 2½ months.In his cross examination, Teganya’s lawyer, Scott Lauer, pointed out that Mukankusi, now a nurse at that same hospital, initially told investigators she was in a coma for one month. He also questioned Mukankusi about the seriousness of her injuries.“Is your hearing at all affected by the injuries you sustained to your ears?” Lauer asked.“No,” Mukankusi said.During his testimony, Gasasira said Teganya was friendly with the Hutu soldiers at the hospital, and often spoke disparagingly of Tutsis, calling them “very bad people.”Gasasira was a Tutsi who said he pretended to be a Hutu to avoid persecution from the Hutu soldiers at the hospital. He said he was terrified of Teganya.After the doctor, a Tutsi, was killed, Gasasira said he heard Teganya say, “ ‘We still have Tutsis in the hospital. If I ever find one, we will have to kill him.”Teganya’s wife, whom he met in Montreal after he emigrated from India, was in the courtroom Wednesday.The couple has two sons, who are about 9 and 11 years old, according to Teganya’s uncle, Greg Meyer, who lives in Washington, D.C., and has been speaking by phone to his nephew, who is being held at the Plymouth County jail.“He believes that the lies are going to be found” out, Meyer said. “This is a guy who can’t even slap his children or anybody who would push him. He’s a very peaceful guy.”Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @globemcramer. © 2019 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

American jurors on Monday started probing the case involving Jean-Leonard Teganya, a Rwandan embroiled in an immigration fraud trial, after he concealed his role in the Genocide back in Rwanda as he processed asylum to stay in the US. In Rwanda, Teganya is an indicted and wanted Genocide suspect over his role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is in Ngoma District, the former Butare Prefecture in the current Southern Province.Teganya who reports say illegally entered the United States in 2014, was a medical student during the Genocide that took place 25 years ago.Despite being under oath, US media reports, Teganya covered up for his role in the Genocide during the process to acquire asylum that granted him stay in the US.Prosecutors in the country say they are ready to line up over a dozen witnesses to attest to the man’s role in the Genocide.There is an outstanding arrest warrant over his role in the Genocide, particularly in the former Butare prefecture, now in Southern Province.According to a US-based newspaper, opening statements in the federal trial of Teganya were heard on Monday at Moakley Federal Courthouse.Among the witnesses to be lined up to pin the man include a woman who was one of four Tutsi students at the university hospital in Butare, that militia herded to a mass grave outside the hospital’s maternity ward to be killed.Teganya was first pinned on immigration fraud in 2017.Expeditious trialWhen contacted, Prosecutor General Jean-Bosco Mutangana told The New Times that “Teganya is an indicted and wanted Genocide suspect” and that the rest is about a trial in the US, for an offence committed in the U.S., and the U.S courts are taking care of it.“An expeditious trial in this U.S domestic case would further permit NPPA to continue addressing substantive investigations with our US counterparts with view of holding him to account on further charges related to Genocide committed against the Tutsi in 1994,” Mutangana said.Mutangana agreed that definitely, victims, survivors and Rwandans in general would like to see justice done in this matter.He said: “A number of many other genocide suspects still move freely, and it’s our commitment to ensure that we leave no stone unturned to ensure they find their day in court.”“We continue to do this by engaging our partners in different countries and Prosecutors in Rwanda have continued to build specialised units and capacities to be able to deal with dynamics related to investigations of this nature.”Several Rwandans suspected of committing the Genocide have in the past been deported from the US after being convicted for immigration fraud. © Copyright The New Times Rwanda 2007 - 2019

John Shiklam in Kaduna No fewer than 85 people have been killed in attacks on three communities in Kaduna State by gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen. The deadly attacks were said to have taken place on Sunday and Monday. The communities affected are Anguwan Barde and Gamu villages in Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA) and Gerti, Kaninkon Chiefdom in Jama’a LGA. THISDAY gathered that the attacks in Anguwan Barde took place on Sunday morning when suspected Fulani herdsmen invaded the community and killed 35 people. But the spokesman of the Kaduna State Police Command, Yakubu Sabo, who confirmed the attack on Anguwan Barde in a statement on Monday said 16 people were killed. However, Danladi Yarima, a lawyer and former President of the Adara Development Association (ADA), said 35 people were killed in the Sunday’s attack on Anguwan Barde. He said in the attack on Anguwan Gamu village on Monday, 46 people were killed with about 100 houses set ablaze by rampaging herdsmen. Yarima said two of the corpses, including the wife of the pastor of an ECWA church in the village were recovered in a river. “We recovered 35 bodies in Anguwan Barde and 46 in Anguwan Gamu. Some people are still missing because they ran into the bushes for their dear lives when the Fulani herdsmen invaded the communities. We don’t know whether they are still alive or not. “We recovered two corpses in a river, including the body of the wife of the pastor of the ECWA church in the village,” Yarima said. According to him, the policemen deployed to Anguwan Gamu had since gone back and the villagers are living in palpable fear. He said there was massive exodus of women and children from the community to places considered as safe zones. “There was massive exodus of women and children from the village as the men evacuated their families to safe zones because the police that were deployed to the community left yesterday (Monday). “We are calling on the Kaduna State Government to do something about the situation to stop the destruction of lives and property,” Yarima said. In Gerti village, Jama’a LGA, four persons were reported to have been killed in an attack by armed Fulani herdsmen. National President of the Kaninkon Development Association, Kolbe Jonathan, said the incident happened on Sunday. He said one person was killed on Sunday while three others were killed on Monday in an attack during a condolence visit to the family of the person killed the previous day. “Since Sunday, my community has been under attack by Fulani herdsmen. One person was killed on Sunday, as a result of that, some people were going for condolence visit, they were attacked and three people were killed,” Jonathan said in a telephone interview. Spokesman of the state police command, Yakubu Sabo, could not immediately confirm the incidents in Anguwan Gamu and Gerti villages when THISDAY called as he said he was at a meeting. “Sorry, in a meeting right now please, I will call you back,” Sabo said in response to a text message earlier sent to him on the issue. He was yet to call back at the time of filing this report. © Copyright 2016 THISDAY NEWSPAPERS LTD.

Bangladesh says moving refugees to Bhasan Char - whose name means "floating island" - will ease chronic overcrowding in its camps at Cox's Bazar, which hold some 730,000 Rohingya GENEVA, March 11 (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights investigator on Myanmar voiced deep concern on Monday over Bangladesh's plan to relocate 23,000 Rohingya refugees in April to a remote island, saying it may not be habitable and could create a potential "new crisis". Bangladesh says moving refugees to Bhasan Char - whose name means "floating island" - will ease chronic overcrowding in its camps at Cox's Bazar, which hold some 730,000 Rohingya. The U.N. says the Muslim minority fled mass killings and rapes committed during an army crackdown in Rakhine state since August 2017. Some humanitarian groups have criticised the relocation plan, saying the island in the Bay of Bengal is vulnerable to frequent cyclones. "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," said Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar, who visited the island in January. "Ill-planned relocation, and relocations without the consent of the refugees concerned, have the potential to create a new crisis," she told the U.N. Human Rights Council. Shah Kamal, secretary of Bangladesh's Disaster Management Ministry, said the government was in talks with U.N. agencies on the issue. "(The agencies) have agreed. Now we're finalising with them how to move them (the refugees) and all other factors. Everything is ready... Housing, power, healthcare, communication, storm surge embankment, cyclone shelter centres and all other facilities," he told Reuters in Dhaka. "There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about floods because we have built an embankment. And no one will be moved there against their will." "SYSTEMATIC GENOCIDE" Lee, who is banned by Myanmar's government from visiting, told the Geneva forum that up to 10,000 civilians were reported to have fled their homes in Myanmar's Rakhine state since November due to violence and a lack of humanitarian aid. "For decades we faced a systematic genocide in Myanmar. They took our citizenship, our land, they destroyed our mosques," Mohib Bullah, a Rohingya refugee from the camps who is documenting name-by-name those killed in Myanmar, told the Council. "Over 120,000 Rohingya still live in concentration camps in Myanmar, others outside live in fear of violence," he said. "We want to go home to Myanmar, with our rights, our citizenship, and international security on the ground." A U.N. fact-finding mission last year said Mynamar's 2017 military campaign that pushed out the Rohingya was orchestrated with "genocidal intent". Myanmar denies allegations of mass killings and rape and says its offensive was a legitimate response to an insurgent threat. Lee urged the U.N. Security Council to refer alleged atrocities in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and encouraged Yangon to accept its jurisdiction. But Myanmar's ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun said the Hague-based court had "no jurisdiction over Myanmar whatsoever". "Myanmar is fully committed to ensuring accountability where there is credible evidence of human rights violations committed in Rakhine State," he said. The most pressing task is to focus on a speedy start to repatriating the refugees, he said, without using the word 'Rohingya' - who are mostly stateless in Myanmar. (Additional reporting by Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Editing by Gareth Jones) Copyright © 2019 Thomson Reuters Foundation. Thomson Reuters Foundation is a charity registered in England and Wales (registration number: 1082139)

Thursday 7 March 2019 6:17AM Bangladesh has confirmed it will begin relocating Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited island off its southern coast within weeks. The Bhashan Char islet in the Bay of Bengal has been earmarked by Dhaka for about 100,000 Rohingyas. The relocation plan is aimed at easing overcrowding at the Cox's Bazaar camp where a million Rohingya refugees are living after fleeing persecution in Myanmar. But international groups and rights activists warn the move is dangerous and risky. Listen to the 8-minutes program here: https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgbVwEPjMG?play=true

FILE PHOTO: Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza claps after signing the new constitution at the Presidential Palace in Gitega Province, Burundi June 7, 2018. REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana/File Photo GENEVA (Reuters) - Burundi has forced the United Nations to shut its local human rights office after 23 years, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday.Hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces and half a million have fled abroad since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in 2015 he would run for a third term in what many saw as a breach of the constitution.He won re-election and in 2016 Burundi suspended all cooperation with the U.N. human rights office in Burundi after a U.N.-commissioned report accused the Bujumbura government and its supporters of being responsible for crimes against humanity.On Tuesday Bachelet said the Burundian government had declared it had made sufficient progress in human rights so the U.N. rights office in Bujumbura was no longer justified.“It is with deep regret that we have had to close our office in Burundi after a 23-year presence in the country,” Bachelet, a former Chilean president, said in a statement.She said advancements in human rights in Burundi had been jeopardized since 2015 when Nkurunziza announced his re-election bid, which sparked major protests and a security crackdown.Burundi rejected the 2016 U.N. report as “lies” and when the U.N. Human Rights Council considered renewing the investigation in 2017, Burundi offered to accept U.N. rights experts instead.But the rights council voted both to renew the investigation and to send the experts, infuriating the Bujumbura government.Burundi subsequently threatened to prosecute the rights council’s team of investigators and accused its chairman of “selling” Africans like in the era of slavery, a comment that outraged Bachelet.The government also threw out the three visiting U.N. human rights experts it had promised to cooperate with, accusing them of arriving unannounced and acting like spies.U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said senior Burundian officials who met Bachelet last week told her they were prepared to accept technical assistance such as human rights training and advice on legislation.But Burundi had also shown “a serious lack of cooperation” with other U.N. human rights bodies in Geneva, and Burundian officials had left halfway through a review into use of torture in the country, Shamdasani said.She said there were still credible reports of serious human rights violations in Burundi, including arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, ill-treatment, arrests and detention, and curbs on freedom of association, expression and movement. © 2019 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.

Amnesty International | 6 March 2019, 00:01 UTC An investigation by Amnesty International has revealed that dozens of Egyptian human rights defenders have been targeted by phishing attacks since the beginning of this year, putting them in grave danger amid Abdelfattah al-Sisi’s government’s intensifying crackdown on dissent. Since January 2019 Amnesty Tech has analyzed dozens of suspicious emails sent to Egyptian human rights defenders, journalists and NGOs. The organization found that the emails used a technique known as OAuth Phishing to gain access to private accounts, and that attacks spiked during key political moments such as the anniversary of Egypt’s uprising on 25 January. “These digital attacks appear to be part of a sustained campaign to intimidate and silence critics of the Egyptian government. Over the past year Egyptian human rights defenders have faced an unprecedented assault from the authorities, risking arrest and imprisonment whenever they speak out, and these chilling attempts to target them online pose yet another threat to their vital work,” said Ramy Raoof, Tactical Technologist at Amnesty Tech. “President al-Sisi’s government’s crackdown on freedom of expression is growing worse by the day, and it is more important than ever that human rights defenders can communicate online without fear of reprisal. There are strong indications that the Egyptian authorities are behind these attacks. We are calling on them to stop their relentless attack on human rights defenders and respect the rights to privacy, freedom of expression and association.” The digital attacks documented by Amnesty International occurred between 18 January and 13 February 2019. OAuth Phishing is a technique which abuses a legitimate feature of many online service providers that allows third-party applications to gain access to an account. For example, an external calendar application might request access to a user's email account to add upcoming events or flight times. With OAuth Phishing, attackers craft malicious third-party applications that trick targets into giving them access to their accounts. Amnesty International has released a detailed analysis of these attacks as well as information on how to protect against this kind of phishing. The attacks documented by Amnesty International coincided with a number of important events that took place in Egypt at the start of this year. In the run-up to the eighth anniversary of Egypt’s 25 January uprising, Amnesty International recorded 11 phishing attacks against NGOs and media outlets. There was another burst of attacks during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Cairo to meet with President al-Sisi on 28 and 29 January. The attacks peaked on 29 January, the day that President Macron met with human rights defenders from four prominent Egyptian NGOs. Later, in the first week of February, several media organizations were targeted, many of whom were reporting on the process of amending the Egyptian Constitution that had just started. In recent years the Egyptian authorities have ramped up harassment of civil society through a repressive law imposing harsh restrictions on NGOs, and have launched criminal investigations against dozens of human rights defenders and NGO staff for “receiving foreign funding”. Investigative judges have also ordered a travel ban against at least 31 NGO staff, and asset freezes of 10 individuals and seven organizations. Dozens of human rights defenders are being held in lengthy pre-trial detention on absurd charges. The selective targeting of human rights defenders and the timing in relation to specific political events suggests this wave of attacks is politically, rather than financially, motivated. The list of individuals and organizations targeted in this campaign of phishing attacks has significant overlaps with those targeted in an older phishing attack wave, known as Nile Phish, disclosed in 2017 by Citizen Lab and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Almost all the targets of Nile Phish were being investigated by the Egyptian authorities in relation to “foreign funding”. “We are urging Egyptian human rights defenders to be vigilant and to contact Amnesty Tech if they receive any suspicious emails,” said Ramy Raoof. “Until the Egyptian government ends its appalling assault on civil society, activists and human rights defenders must ensure they are keeping themselves safe while they carry out their important work.” Amnesty International © March 2019

Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images October 1, 2018 With little fanfare, the State Department recently posted on its website the results of an empirical study of the acute violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims. The harrowing report is the result of an extensive investigation commissioned by the United States that surveyed over 1,000 randomly selected refugees in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh in April. The State Department has confirmed that its conclusions are consistent with those of a United Nations-dispatched Fact Finding Mission (FFM), which recently released its own final report calling for criminal investigations into crimes against humanity and genocide. Leaked documents suggest that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly weighing whether to announce that this violence constitutes genocide as that crime is defined under international law. Indeed, press reporting suggests the release of the State Department’s study was delayed due to intense internal deliberations about whether and how to characterize the violence. Not surprisingly, headlines noted that the report “stopped short” of calling the violence genocide (or crimes against humanity for that matter), although Pompeo has already described the situation as one of “abhorrent ethnic cleansing.” State Department officials have insisted that the objective of the investigation was to document the facts in order to guide U.S. policy aimed at holding the perpetrators accountable, although it appears that a genocide determination may still emerge. The Myanmar investigation mirrors an earlier effort in Darfur, Sudan, that resulted in the U.S. government declaring that conflict to have resulted in genocide against Darfuri minorities. I’ve conducted my own analysis (available here) of the violence in Myanmar based upon open-source reporting and interviews with individuals who have worked directly with this group of victims. I’ve concluded that a genocide determination is appropriate under the circumstances. In reaching this conclusion, I surveyed the major documentation efforts by human rights groups and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, academic literature, relevant jurisprudence emanating from the international criminal tribunals, statements of United Nations entities and other states, party and amicus curiae briefs filed before the International Criminal Court, and journalistic accounts of events in Myanmar, Bangladesh and elsewhere in the region, with an eye towards understanding the dynamics of violence against the Rohingya—deemed by many to be the most persecuted minority in the world. In undertaking this analysis, I have operated primarily within an international criminal law framework, using as my guide the three core elements of genocide as interpreted and elaborated upon by international jurisprudence. Following this methodology offers perhaps the safest course for a non-judicial entity to make a genocide determination, because it is premised upon an elevated standard that could support a criminal indictment or the conviction of an identifiable individual. That said, this methodology is generally geared towards ascribing individual criminal responsibility on the part of discrete perpetrators, rather than undertaking a more collective or sociological determination that a genocide, writ large, is underway. Establishing whether an entire campaign of persecution is impelled by an intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part, might justify a different approach than that which would be taken by a penal tribunal. The disciplines of sociology and political science offer alternative frameworks for identifying the commission of genocide that might prove helpful in this regard and so are discussed briefly as well. For the reasons outlined in greater detail in the longer paper, evidence suggests that a genocide is in fact underway in Myanmar through acts of genocide committed by discrete sets of actors (including various state organs, the Tatmadaw-Army, regional and local officials, and Rakhine civilians) acting with genocidal intent, and also by way of a genocide writ large against the Rohingya within Rakhine State, involving the central authorities working in collusion with, and through, regional actors. This opinion hinges upon four overarching observations. First, the events since August 2017 must be placed in the wider context of a long history of oppression against this most vulnerable population. The Rohingya have been subjected to decades of discrimination and abuse. This protracted persecution—taking the form of legalized discrimination, physical segregation, infringements on births and marriages, and physical violence—has ratcheted up palpably over the years. Indeed, it is important to view events since August 2017 as part of a sustained progression whereby violence against the Rohingya has become normalized and measures short of mass extermination have significantly weakened the group—through the erosion of its social, economic, and civic foundations—but not yet led to its complete physical destruction within Myanmar. The most recent brutality marks the culmination of prior efforts to remove this population entirely from Rakhine State. Earlier attempts at ethnic cleansing have “failed,” in that members of the community have returned to Myanmar (sometimes forcibly so) after being purged, only to face heightened abuse. In crude terms, today’s acute violence reflects a desire by many influential actors to “finish the job” started decades earlier. Second, the crime of genocide can be committed even without full-scale mass killings, although evidence of acts of extermination within Rakhine State exists. The Genocide Convention embodies the idea that a regime can “destroy” a group—a concept that encompasses both qualitative and quantitative components—by acts short of mass murder. Such a course of conduct has the cynical advantage of requiring fewer resource expenditures while facilitating international deniability. The Rohingya have thus been subjected to physical and mental harm and conditions of life calculated to either kill them outright or eventually lead to their demise—two enumerated forms of genocide. In addition, measures have been put in place to limit their ability to reproduce. The cumulative damage to this group easily surpasses any gravity threshold inherent to the crime of genocide: thousands of individuals have been outright killed, over 900,000 people are displaced, and countless more have died at sea, while trying to escape the country, and in the abject conditions in which they now find themselves. To be sure, in 2012 and thereafter, thousands of Rohingya took flight without being forcibly deported per se. But, these people have seen massacres before and so when violence restarted in 2017, they fled for their lives en masse. Under such threats of violence, the wholescale exodus of 2017 cannot be considered “voluntary” by any measure. And now their villages and homes have been destroyed so there is nowhere for them to return, except to internment camps being contemplated by the government. There is no question that this is a community that has been effectively destroyed and is at risk of being entirely eliminated from the mosaic of humankind. Third, whether or not a genocide is underway will turn on whether genocidal intent exists—either at the level of the state or within a sufficient number of individuals directing and committing the violence. Although the open source record reveals overt expressions of genocidal intent by individual actors and entities, the law is clear that this intent—the crucial element distinguishing genocide from other international crimes—can be inferred from the relevant factual matrix. It is difficult to imagine a set of facts that would better support such an inference of genocidal intent. Indeed, all the factors that have been identified by authoritative commentators and tribunals to date to infer genocidal intent are present in Myanmar. These include: The gravity of the harm caused; The use of gratuitous violence that would be excessive to accomplish other objectives; The targeting of all members of the group without distinction (to age, gender, involvement in opposition activities, or ability to harm or threaten the perpetrators); The targeting of the group’s leadership in order to weaken the group but also remove individuals who could raise the alarm or engage with the international community; The detrimental effect and long-term impact of the violence in terms of the future survival of the group; The methodical and systemic nature of the attacks; the implication of multiple levels of a chain of command in the attacks; Attempts to cover up the crime and grant impunity to perpetrators; attempts to bar humanitarian assistance to the victim group; The fact that members of other disfavored groups are spared or subjected to less destructive forms of violence; The utterance of derogatory language, or the issuance of propaganda, targeted to members of the group; Potential motives of the perpetrators in terms of competition for resources or territory; The existence of a political doctrine consistent with genocidal intent; and Attacks on cultural or religious property or symbols associated with the group. As the U.N. Fact Finding Mission recently noted: The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts. In addition to the sheer scale and exceptionality of the physical harm perpetrated upon the Rohingya (including to children and to people already fleeing), this protected group has also been subjected to historical and cultural erasure as part of a national project dating back to the dawn of the military government, now unseated at least formally. This campaign includes virulent hate speech emanating from senior military and civilian officials (as well as private citizens), institutionalized racism and deep-seated structural discrimination in the form of the 1982 Citizenship Law etc., the elimination of cultural symbols and artifacts of the group, and restrictions on family life and reproduction. These manifestations of harm are all indicative of the existence of a pervasive and entrenched genocidal intent as well as a form of mental harm perpetrated on the group. The most compelling counterargument that might cause one to pause before labeling the situation “genocide” is that the actors responsible for the multifaceted harm to the Rohingya are “only” committing an extreme campaign of ethnic cleansing in an effort to expel the Rohingya population from the country. In this way, ethnic cleansing has perversely “become a defense to genocide.” To be sure, not every interaction between members of the Rohingya community and their persecutors results in their death; sometimes victims are subjected to lesser forms of harm or are allowed to flee. This alternative hypothesis is perhaps conceivable, but it has become less and less plausible as signs of genocidal intent accumulate over the years, particularly when this evidence is aggregated. Indeed, there is jurisprudence to the effect that examples of “forewent opportunities” to kill members of the targeted protected group do not necessarily negate a finding of genocidal intent. Thus, if there are other indices of the intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, the fact that not every potential victim is killed should not be a bar to a finding of genocide. Finally, my longer analysis maps the different formulations in which a genocide determination may be made and surveys how other authoritative observers are characterizing the plight of this community. The conclusions that a genocide is underway in Myanmar is consistent with other authoritative accounts and conclusions, including the U.N. FFM, non-governmental organizations working in the region, and academic commentators—although these sources all employ different formulations of their ultimate determination. Most importantly, the FFM’s recently released report calls for several named individuals to be investigated for the commission of genocide and also confirms the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Given the state of the international law jurisprudence, a genocide determination by the U.S. government would be defensible. It would then be for a court of law to make a final adjudication. This could be by a tribunal charged with adjudicating either individual criminal responsibility or state responsibility. That said, it cannot be denied that the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) genocide jurisprudence is rather conservative when it comes to determining affirmative state responsibility for genocide. Even under this heightened standard, however, the events in Myanmar would easily satisfy the ICJ’s standard for failing to prevent and punish genocide. All told, and in the words of Professor Azeem Ibrahim in his magisterial text The Rohingya: Inside Myanmar’s Genocide: The charge of genocide is a serious one to make: the current situation in Myanmar fully justifies the use of this word. Before concluding, and as I have argued elsewhere with respect to the dithering over Darfur, I should emphasize that the question of whether or not the violence in Myanmar constitutes genocide should not alter the international community’s response to the acute harm being suffered by the Rohingya. At the point in time at which state responsibility is at issue and economic, political, and military solutions to mass violence are being contemplated, debating legal semantics about whether violence rises to the level of genocide simply has no place. Indeed, the methodology necessary to determine the commission of genocide is inapt—and the surrounding discourse discordant—when people are being systematically killed and expelled from their homes through violence on a mass scale. What matters is that the level of violence and the risk to humanity has reached a certain threshold. If international law creates a right—or even a duty—to respond to massive rights violations, such a right—or duty—has long since been triggered in Myanmar. About the Author: Beth Van Schaack Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor of Human Rights, Stanford Law School; Former Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the U.S. State Department. All views are her own. Follow her on Twitter (@BethVanSchaack). © 2018 Just Security

March 04, 2019 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in a major diplomatic breakthrough, unanimously adopted a resolution to move at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for establishing the legal rights of the Rohingyas and addressing the question of accountability and justice. The resolution to pursue a legal recourse through the ICJ came after a long series of negotiations to seek accountability for crimes committed against humanity and gross violation of human rights in the case of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, said a Foreign Ministry press release today. The Gambia led the process with a 10-member high-powered ministerial committee, the press release said. The Committee’s first meeting was co-chaired by the Gambia in Banjul on the 10th of February. It recommended taking legal steps for establishing legal rights on the principles of international law – specifically the Genocide Convention and other Human Rights and Humanitarian Law principles. This unanimous measure sets a precedent for the OIC in pursuing the legal path to justice to address crimes committed against humanity and for establishing the legal rights of the Rohingya population to their rightful homeland in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. The Committee’s decision was endorsed in a full-fledged resolution and adopted in the final session of the 46th Council of Foreign Ministers in Abu Dhabi on the last day of the Council meeting. Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen led a high-powered delegation to the council and to the negotiations in the Special Committee in this regard. © 2019 / thedailystar.net

Genocide suspect Wenceslas Twagirayezu in the hands of Rwanda National Police officers upon arrival at Kigali International Airport after he was extradited from Denmark in December last year . File. Since the establishment of the Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit (GFTU) at the National Public Prosecution Authority in November 2007, a lot has been done in the quest to arrest Genocide fugitives even as the journey has not been smooth. This is according to Prosecutor-General, Jean Bosco Mutangana, told The New Times. Mutangana, who was the Head of the GFTU at that time of its creation, explained that investigations started from scratch with limited information on the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and their whereabouts. “It was also not easy for witnesses to come direct on board to adduce evidence which would amount into a prima-facie case,” he said. “Host countries to alleged suspects of genocide also reacted very slowly on our call to apprehend Genocide fugitives. So, as time went on, countries especially from Europe and some from North America contributed to our call for justice either through trial in their domestic jurisdiction or extradited fugitives to have them tried in Rwanda.” Since 2007, some 1,012 indictments and warrants have been issued in 32 countries in Africa, Europe, North America and Australia. Kigali acknowledges there are challenges, including the fact that fugitives constantly change their address and nationality, lack of bilateral treaties with many countries hosting fugitives and a lack of political will in some countries. Some fugitives also often disguise their genocide cases as political persecution, while those who have obtained nationalities of the host country are hard extradite, Rwanda government officials say. Optimism Mutangana said: “Yes, there is hope. Our justification for hope is based on the reaction of some countries on their efforts to hold accountable Genocide fugitives by either trying them in their jurisdiction or sending them to Rwanda for trial.” About 22 Genocide fugitives, including eight in Belgium, two in Canada, and three in Sweden, have been tried in those respective countries. According to the NPPA, the remaining 21 cases have been completed, with 20 cases leading into convictions with sentences ranging from life imprisonment as the highest to six years imprisonment as the lowest, and one acquittal. In addition, government says, about 19 Genocide fugitives have been returned – extradited, transferred or deported to Rwanda. While the now defunct International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) made three transfers, the Netherlands has extradited two and deported one. The USA has deported four, Denmarkextradited two and Norway one. Malawi transferred one while neighbouring Uganda has deported three, and Canada two, among others. Set a good example Mutangana said: “These trials abroad and extradition to Rwanda set a good example for other countries which have not reacted to follow suit, this is what gives us hope that there will be no impunity no matter how long it may take.” Moreover, not everyone involved in this campaign is that cheerful in the face of obstacles such as lack of political will, and time. Regarding why the pursuit for justice has taken long in his native France, Alain Gauthier, president of Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda (CPCR), which has for two decades worked to bring dozens of Genocide suspects living there to book, observed that they will not give up despite the impediments. It is only belatedly, he noted, that a semblance of effective measures to go after Genocide fugitives were taken by Paris. France alone is home to, among others, Agathe Kanziga, widow of former President Juvenale Habyarimana, Manasse Bigwenzare, a former judge, Sosthene Munyemana, nicknamed “the butcher of Tumba” for atrocities he was involved in southern Rwanda, and Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Catholic priest accused of having a direct hand in killings in parts of Kigali. In January 2012 of a team of investigating judges of the “pôle crimes contre l’humanité” was established in the Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI) of Paris to investigate cases of Rwandans implicated in the Genocide. Moreover, Gauthier added, the role of the French government of 1994 has never really been recognized by the country’s politicians. “All this only delays the judgment of fugitives. It should also be noted that the prosecution of those suspected of having participated in the genocide and residing in France is based solely on the work of associations such as the CPCR, which has filed the last 25 complaints,” Gauthier said. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office recently decided to prosecute two people. But it is a recent decision. Another fact: France refuses to extradite persons targeted by an international arrest warrant sent by Rwanda. To date, 42 such refusals are known to us.” Finally, he noted, it must be recognized that, since crimes were committed far from France, investigations by French judges and gendarmes require a lot of time. Where is the hope? Gauthier hopes that French justice can continue the work undertaken in recent years. “We hang onto life long enough to continue our own work,” he said. Time is running out, the 70-year-old noted, since it is working in favour of the mass murderers. The retired high school principal and his Rwandan wife, Dafroza Gauthier – a Genocide survivor – started CPCR in 2001to ensure that Genocide suspects living in France and across Europe are brought to book. “It is more and more difficult to collect testimonies: the memory fails, survivors do not want to talk anymore. Do not forget that some survivors still live in fear. And families of killers do not hesitate to give them money to make them shut up!” Despite all challenges, Gauthier said, one has to remain confident. “We will try to do the maximum we can, although we are aware that we will not be able to prosecute all those who have taken refuge in France.” An inquiry by Washington, DC, law firm Cunningham Levy Muse LLP, in 2017 detailed afresh the involvement of France in the planning and execution of the 1994 Genocide. Genocide researcher Tom Ndahiro acknowledges, and thanks, countries that have cooperated in Rwanda’s pursuit for justice. But he too remains bothered by the fact that such fugitives still boast strong friends in the international community. Ndahiro said: “Thanks to some countries that managed to extradite or try some of the genocidaires. But, we still have many more countries that don’t care at all about justice and allow impunity to prevail.” “The U.K, Vatican, Netherlands, France, several African nations, and others do not seem to care at all. It is as if Genocide [to these countries] is not a crime but a misdemeanour. I am not very optimistic because history shows little to give me hope to see positive change.”