Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2018 Genocide Watch Statement on Forced Family Separation, Detention and Deportation October 4, 2018 ​ Genocide Watch expresses alarm over the practice of family separation that followed the “zero tolerance” border policy announced by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions on 6 April 2018. The cruelty of taking children, including infants under five, from their parents at the border cannot be justified by any constitutionally valid laws. It is a violation of international human rights law and US constitutional protections of people within US borders.  It is morally unacceptable.  It constitutes torture, a crime under US and international law with universal jurisdiction and no immunity for the government officials who practice it. ​ Of particular concern is the false criminalization of undocumented immigrants who cross the southern border, including refugees from violence in Central America who are seeking asylum in the United States.  Seeking asylum is not a crime. Indeed it is protected by the international refugee treaties to which the US is a party. Genocide Watch also expresses concern about the policy of detaining families together in what are de facto prisons,  some with cells or even cages. Forced family separations, the caging of human beings, and the detention of persons who have committed no crimes are among the warning indicators of the early stages of the genocidal process that Genocide Watch tracks in abusive countries around the world. Criminalization of people is a form of dehumanization.  Dehumanization always facilitates abuse by police, border agents, and other legal authorities.  The criminalization of border crossing is being used to justify family separation, even in the face of evidence of persecution in countries of origin by police and criminal gangs. Dehumanizing language has been used in public statements by our highest officials, including allegations that Latin American immigrants are “rapists,” “animals,” and “not human.” In a tweet on June 19, 2018, the President referred to undocumented immigrants as people who “pour into and infest our country.” The language of dehumanization polarizes society.  It numbs people to human rights abuses committed by our governing officials. ​ The criminalization of US immigration policy On April 2018 the New York Times reported that the United States had already removed an estimated 700 children from their families at the southern border over the previous six months. In April 2018 US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” border policy that set a new goal of a 100 percent criminal prosecution rate for people crossing the border without proper documentation. According to US administration statistics, 2,342 children were separated from their families as a result of criminal prosecution between May 5 and June 9, 2018, bringing the total number of children forcibly separated from their families to over 3000.  These children were scattered across the United States in a confusing mixture of detention facilities and foster homes. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not keep accurate track of family relationships in order to reunite families. DHS had no planned family reunification process.  Thousands of children are still separated from their parents.  Some may never see their parents again because the US has lost track or deported their parents. According to some reliable reports, border control agents have used deception to implement the separations. Many parents crossing the border were not told that their children would be taken from them. They were told that they would be reunited soon or that their children were being taken for a “bath.” Other reliable reports suggest that border patrol agents have used maximal cruelty in enforcing the separations, not even allowing parents to have a few minutes with their children beforehand and, in some cases, telling the parents that they will never see their children again. At some detention centers, staff are under the impression that they are not allowed to hug or even touch traumatized children. In one documented case, a staff member was told that he must not allow three siblings to comfort each other with hugs. The long-term trauma caused by forced family separation and physical isolation has been well documented for both children and adults. The current administration’s policy of separating children builds upon almost a decade of increasingly coercive border policies towards refugees and migrants that developed under the Obama administration. An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report from 2018 documented a startling increase in and apparent tolerance for the abuse of children at the border, including “a pattern of intimidation, harassment, physical abuse, refusal of medical services, improper deportation between 2009 and 2014.” The report also documented instances of sexual and verbal abuse, including rape and death threats. The majority of these children arrived in the United States alone. Under previous administrations, coercive family separation was used sparingly. Most families arriving together were charged with misdemeanors and released. The policy of “zero tolerance” departs from the established American legal procedure of arresting adults and their families without visas at the border, giving them hearings in federal court, and then either deporting or releasing them. Many asylum seekers are now being criminally charged, in contravention of US and international law. These measures are a departure from legal US immigration policies. They follow imposition of blanket travel bans directed at people from predominantly Muslim countries. ​ Violation of US and international law As expressed by the United Nations in several statements in June, forcibly separating children from their parents is a grave violation of the rights of the child and of the rights of refugees. Although the United States has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the family separation policy violates US legal obligations under the UN Conventions on Refugees. A preliminary injunction was granted to the American Civil Liberties Union by federal Judge Dana M. Sabraw, who ordered on June 26, 2018 that the US government must reunite all separated migrant children with their parents within 30 days and that parents must be allowed to speak with their children by phone within 10 days.  The US government has failed to obey this injunction. Following widespread outrage over separation of children from their parents, the President finally issued an executive order on June 20, 2018, that temporarily ended the policy.  But thousands of children still remain without their parents.  They are now being moved from foster homes to a tent city in Texas.  The moves are carried out without warning at night "to keep children from running away."  Who wouldn't run away from being forcibly deported to a sweltering detention camp? Genocide and US history ​ Genocide Watch reminds the US government and the American people that family separation is one of the most common genocidal patterns, occurring in almost all historical cases of genocide. Family separation can also be an indicator of the development of genocidal ideologies and policies. It is an early warning sign of future crimes against humanity. Genocide Watch reminds the US government and the American people of the country’s own history of forced family separation among black American slaves and among Native Americans, whose children were sent to Indian Residential Schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. Such genocidal patterns continue to harm these communities in the present day and are reflected in discriminatory incarceration and child removal. Forced family separation policies are written very deeply into our nation’s past and must always be challenged when they reemerge in the present, even if in apparently different form. Genocide Watch further reminds the US government and the American people of past US support for dictatorships in Latin America, especially the government of General Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala, who oversaw the genocide of over 200,000 Mayans during the 1980s, and in El Salvador and Honduras, the countries of origin of many immigrants from Central America.  Political, military, and economic support for such regimes has led to the long-term destabilization of the region. Many Central Americans have been forced to flee the violent economic and political consequences of instability, widespread militarization, and gross human rights abuses. Finally, Genocide Watch reminds the US government and the American people that the criminalization of entire groups of people, especially those who exist outside ruling national, ethnic, or racial groups, is another common genocidal pattern. Jews in Germany, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Tutsis in Rwanda, New People in Cambodia, Kulaks in Soviet-occupied Ukraine, Maya in Guatemala -- these were all groups accused of being criminals or outsiders. Countries wishing to avoid the often slow and unexpected descent into genocidal thinking and practices should seek to support the rights and the dignity of all peoples under their protection, especially vulnerable groups such as immigrant children and families fleeing poverty and violence. History has shown that training members of security forces, such as the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, in cruel policies such as family separation, and normalizing such policies among the citizenry, create acceptance of crimes against humanity and even genocide.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, left, in Geneva on Monday. “The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” he said.CreditMagali Girardin/EPA, via Shutterstock 6/18/2018 — The United Nations’ top human rights official on Monday entered the mounting furor over the Trump administration’s policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents, calling for an immediate halt to a practice he condemned as abuse. United States immigration authorities have detained almost 2,000 children in the past six weeks, which may cause them irreparable harm with lifelong consequences, said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. He cited an observation by the president of the American Association of Pediatrics that locking the children up separately from their parents constituted “government-sanctioned child abuse.” “The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” Mr. al-Hussein said. His intervention added to an escalating chorus of condemnation from people across the political spectrum in the United States, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who called the separations “cruel” and “immoral.” But Mr. al-Hussein risked retaliation by the Trump administration, widely believed to be pondering pulling out from the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. President Trump turned to Twitter early Monday to blame Democrats for the current situation: “Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws?” he wrote. “We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!” he said in a separate tweet. The high commissioner’s office had already condemned the practice of separating children from their parents this month, calling it a serious violation of children’s rights and international law. That drew an angry rebuke from Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, who accused the agency of ignorance and hypocrisy. Her response illustrated the administration’s deepening impatience with United Nations human rights mechanisms that Ms. Haley has accused of “chronic bias” against Israel and of overlooking the abuses major human rights violators — even allowing them to become Human Rights Council members. A protest against thhe recent immigration policy of separating children from their families when they enter the United States as undocumented immigrants, in front of a Homeland Security facility in Elizabeth, N.J., on Sunday.CreditStephanie Keith/Reuters Diplomats from the United States mission in Geneva attended the start of a new council session on Monday, but rights advocates and envoys of other countries continued to ask how long the Americans would remain there. Mr. Trump has shown his disdain for the multilateral organizations and agreements that have long been central to world affairs, withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord, trade pacts and the Iran nuclear deal, imposing tariffs on trade, and undermining other international agreements. Those tensions did not deter Mr. al-Hussein, an outspoken advocate for human rights, from raising the issue of families being pulled apart as they enter the United States, many of them illegally and others requesting asylum. Opening the last session of the Human Rights Council before he steps down in August, he voiced deepening concern about a threat to global stability posed by the nationalist agendas of “self-serving, callous leaders.” Mr. al-Hussein warned that “the more pronounced their sense of self-importance, the more they glory in nationalism, the more unvarnished is the assault on the overall common good — on universal rights, on universal law and universal institutions, such as this one.” The escalating attack on the multilateral system and its rules, he said, would only increase the risk “of further mischief on a grander scale.” The high commissioner’s final overview of human rights around the world after four years in office earned a standing ovation from a packed council chamber. (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/world/europe/trump-migrant-children-un.html

Kolyma Stories is a collection of short stories inspired by the fifteen years that Varlam Shalamov (1907–1982) spent as a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. Shalamov did six years of slave labor in the gold mines of Kolyma before gaining a more tolerable position as a paramedic in the prison camps. He began writing his account of life in Kolyma after Stalin’s death in 1953. —The Editors TRAMPLING THE SNOW How do you trample a road through virgin snow? One man walks ahead, sweating and cursing, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, getting stuck every minute in the deep, porous snow. This man goes a long way ahead, leaving a trail of uneven black holes. He gets tired, lies down in the snow, lights a cigarette, and the tobacco smoke forms a blue cloud over the brilliant white snow. Even when he has moved on, the smoke cloud still hovers over his resting place. The air is almost motionless. Roads are always made on calm days, so that human labor is not swept away by wind. A man makes his own landmarks in this unbounded snowy waste: a rock, a tall tree. He steers his body through the snow like a helmsman steering a boat along a river, from one bend to the next. The narrow, uncertain footprints he leaves are followed by five or six men walking shoulder to shoulder. They step around the footprints, not in them. When they reach a point agreed on in advance, they turn around and walk back so as to trample down this virgin snow where no human foot has trodden. And so a trail is blazed. People, convoys of sleds, tractors can use it. If they had walked in single file, there would have been a barely passable narrow trail, a path, not a road: a series of holes that would be harder to walk over than virgin snow. The first man has the hardest job, and when he is completely exhausted, another man from this pioneer group of five steps forward. Of all the men following the trailblazer, even the smallest, the weakest must not just follow someone else’s footprints but must walk a stretch of virgin snow himself. As for riding tractors or horses, that is the privilege of the bosses, not the underlings. 1956 CONDENSED MILK Hunger made our envy as dull and feeble as all our other feelings. We had no strength left for feelings, to search for easier work, to walk, to ask, to beg. We envied only those we knew, with whom we had come into this world, if they had managed to get work in the office, the hospital, or the stables, where there were no long hours of heavy physical work, which was glorified on the arches over all the gates as a matter for valor and heroism. In a word, we envied only Shestakov. Only something external was capable of taking us out of our indifference, of distracting us from the death that was slowly getting nearer. An external, not an internal force. Internally, everything was burned out, devastated; we didn’t care, and we made plans only as far as the next day. Now, for instance, I wanted to get away to the barracks, lie down on the bunks, but I was still standing by the doors of the food shop. The only people allowed to buy things in the shop were those convicted of nonpolitical crimes, including recidivist thieves who were classified as “friends of the people.” There was no point in our being there, but we couldn’t take our eyes off the chocolate-colored loaves of bread; the heavy, sweet smell of fresh bread teased our nostrils and even made our heads spin. So I stood there looking at the bread, not knowing when I would find the strength to go back to the barracks. That was when Shestakov called me over. I had gotten to know Shestakov on the mainland, in Moscow’s Butyrki prison. We were in the same cell. We were acquaintances then, not friends. When we were in the camps, Shestakov did not work at the mine pit face. He was a geological engineer, so he was taken on to work as a prospecting geologist, presumably in the office. The lucky man barely acknowledged his Moscow acquaintances. We didn’t take offense—God knows what orders he might have had on that account. Charity begins at home, etc. “Have a smoke,” Shestakov said as he offered me a piece of newspaper, tipped some tobacco into it, and lit a match, a real match. I lit up. “I need to have a word with you,” said Shestakov. “With me?” “Yes.” We moved behind the barracks and sat on the edge of an old pit face. My legs immediately felt heavy, while Shestakov cheerfully swung his nice new government boots—they had a faint whiff of cod-liver oil. His trousers were rolled up, showing chessboard-patterned socks. I surveyed Shestakov’s legs with genuine delight and even a certain amount of pride. At least one man from our cell was not wearing foot bindings instead of socks. The ground beneath us was shaking from muffled explosions as the earth was being prepared for the night shift. Small pebbles were falling with a rustling sound by our feet; they were as gray and inconspicuous as birds. “Let’s move a bit farther,” said Shestakov. “It won’t kill you, no need to be afraid. Your socks won’t be damaged.” “I’m not thinking about my socks,” said Shestakov, pointing his index finger along the line of the horizon. “What’s your view about all this?” “We’ll probably die,” I said. That was the last thing I wanted to think about. “No, I’m not willing to die.” “Well?” “I have a map,” Shestakov said in a wan voice. “I’m going to take some workmen—I’ll take you—and we’ll go to Black Springs, fifteen kilometers from here. I’ll have a pass. And we can get to the sea. Are you willing?” He explained this plan in a hurry, showing no emotion. “And when we reach the sea? Are we sailing somewhere?” “That doesn’t matter. The important thing is to make a start. I can’t go on living like this. ‘Better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees,’” Shestakov pronounced solemnly. “Who said that?” Very true. The phrase was familiar. But I couldn’t find the strength to recall who said it and when. I’d forgotten everything in books. I didn’t believe in bookish things. I rolled up my trousers and showed him my red sores from scurvy. “Well, being in the forest will cure that,” said Shestakov, “what with the berries and the vitamins. I’ll get you out, I know the way. I have a map.” I shut my eyes and thought. There were three ways of getting from here to the sea, and they all involved a journey of five hundred kilometers, at least. I wouldn’t make it, nor would Shestakov. He wasn’t taking me as food for the journey, was he? Of course not. But why was he lying? He knew that just as well as I did. Suddenly I was frightened of Shestakov, the only one of us who’d managed to get a job that matched his qualifications. Who fixed him up here, and what had it cost? Anything like that had to be paid for. With someone else’s blood, someone else’s life. “I’m willing,” I said, opening my eyes. “Only I’ve got to feed myself up first.” “That’s fine, fine. I’ll see you get more food. I’ll bring you some . . . tinned food. We’ve got lots. . . .” There are lots of different tinned foods—meat, fish, fruit, vegetables—but the best of all is milk, condensed milk. Condensed milk doesn’t have to be mixed with boiling water. You eat it with a spoon, or spread it on bread, or swallow it drop by drop from the tin, eating it slowly, watching the bright liquid mass turn yellow with starry little drops of sugar forming on the can. . . . “Tomorrow,” I said, gasping with joy, “tinned milk.” “Fine, fine. Milk.” And Shestakov went off. I returned to the barracks, lay down, and shut my eyes. It was hard to think. Thinking was a physical process. For the first time I saw the full extent of the material nature of our psyche, and I felt its palpability. Thinking hurt. But thinking had to be done. He was going to get us to make a run for it and then hand us in: that much was completely obvious. He would pay for his office job with our blood, my blood. We’d either be killed at Black Springs, or we’d be brought back alive and given a new sentence: another fifteen years or so. He must be aware that getting out of here was impossible. But milk, condensed milk. . . . I fell asleep and in my spasmodic hungry sleep I dreamed of Shestakov’s can of condensed milk: a monstrous tin can with a sky-blue label.Enormous, blue as the night sky, the can had thousands of holes in it and milk was oozing out and flowing in a broad stream like the Milky Way. And I had no trouble reaching up to the sky to eat the thick, sweet, starry milk. I don’t remember what I did that day or how I worked. I was waiting and waiting for the sun to sink in the west, for the horses to start neighing, for they were better than people at sensing that the working day was ending. The siren rang out hoarsely; I went to the barracks where Shestakov lived. He was waiting for me on the porch. The pockets of his quilted jacket were bulging. We sat at a big, scrubbed table in the barracks, and Shestakov pulled two cans of condensed milk out of a pocket. I used the corner of an ax to pierce a hole in one can. A thick white stream flowed onto the lid and onto my hand. “You should have made two holes. To let the air in,” said Shestakov. “Doesn’t matter,” I said, licking my sweet dirty fingers. “Give us a spoon,” Shestakov asked, turning to the workmen who were standing around us. Ten shiny, well-licked spoons were stretched over the table. They were all standing to watch me eat. That wasn’t for lack of tact or out of any hidden desire to help themselves. None of them even hoped that I would share this milk with them. That would have been unprecedented; any interest in what someone else was eating was selfless. I also knew that it was impossible not to look at food disappearing into someone else’s mouth. I made myself as comfortable as I could and consumed the milk without bread, just washing it down occasionally with cold water. I finished the two cans. The spectators moved away; the show was over. Shestakov looked at me with sympathy. “You know what,” I said, carefully licking the spoon. “I’ve changed my mind. You can leave without me.” Shestakov understood me and walked out without saying a thing. This was, of course, a petty revenge, as weak as my feelings. But what else could I have done? I couldn’t warn the others: I didn’t know them. But I should have warned them: Shestakov had managed to persuade five others. A week later they ran off; two were killed not far from Black Springs, three were tried a month later. Shestakov’s own case was set aside in the process, and he was soon moved away somewhere. I met him at another mine six months later. He didn’t get an additional sentence for escaping. The authorities had used him but had kept to the rules. Things might have been different. He was working as a geological prospector, he was clean-shaven and well-fed, and his chess-pattern socks were still intact. He didn’t greet me when he saw me, which was a pity. Two tins of condensed milk was not really worth making a fuss about, after all. 1956 —translated by Donald Rayfield © 2018 | New York Review Books https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/20/tales-from-the-gulag/

The United States announced Tuesday it was leaving the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, with Ambassador Nikki Haley calling it “an organization that is not worthy of its name.” It was the latest withdrawal by the Trump administration from an international institution. Haley, Trump’s envoy to the U.N., said the U.S. had given the human rights body “opportunity after opportunity” to make changes. She lambasted the council for “its chronic bias against Israel” and lamented the fact that its membership includes accused human rights abusers such as China, Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights,” Haley said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appearing alongside Haley at the State Department, said there was no doubt that the council once had a “noble vision.” But today we need to be honest,” Pompeo said. “The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights.” The announcement came just a day after the U.N. human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, denounced the Trump administration for separating migrant children from their parents. But Haley, cited longstanding U.S. complaints that the 47-member council is biased against Israel. She had been threatening the pull-out since last year unless the council made changes advocated by the U.S. “Regrettably, it is now clear that our call for reform was not heeded,” Haley said. Still, she suggested the decision need not be permanent, adding that if the council did adopt reforms, “we would be happy to rejoin it.” She said the withdrawal notwithstanding, the U.S. would continue to defend human rights at the United Nations. The move extends a broader Trump administration pattern of stepping back from international agreements and forums under the president’s “America First” policy. Although numerous officials have said repeatedly that “America First does not mean America Alone,” the administration has retreated from multiple multilateral accords and consensuses since it took office. Since January 2017, it has announced its withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, left the U.N. educational and cultural organization and pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. Other contentious moves have included slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum against key trading partners, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Opposition to the decision from human rights advocates was swift. A group of 12 organizations including Save the Children, Freedom House and the United Nations Association – USA said there were “legitimate concerns” about the council’s shortcomings but that none of them warranted a U.S. exit. “This decision is counterproductive to American national security and foreign policy interests and will make it more difficult to advance human rights priorities and aid victims of abuse around the world,” the organizations said in a joint statement. Added Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch: “All Trump seems to care about is defending Israel.” But the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank close to the Trump administration, defended the move, calling the council “notably incurious about the human rights situations in some of the world’s most oppressive countries.” Brett Schaefer, a senior fellow, pointed out that Trump could have withdrawn immediately after taking office but instead gave the council 18 months to make changes. Haley has been the driving force behind withdrawing from the human rights body, unprecedented in the 12-year history of the council. No country has ever dropped out voluntarily. Libya was kicked out seven years ago. The move could reinforce the perception that the Trump administration is seeking to advance Israel’s agenda on the world stage, just as it prepares to unveil its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan despite Palestinian outrage over the embassy relocation. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, is visiting the Middle East this week as the White House works to lay the groundwork for unveiling the plan. Israel is the only country in the world whose rights record comes up for discussion at every council session, under “Item 7” on the agenda. Item 7 on “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories” has been part of the council’s regular business almost as long as it has existed. The United States’ current term on the council ends next year. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. would remain a non-voting observer on the council. A full pullout by the U.S. would leave the council with out one of its traditional defenders of human rights. In recent months, the United States has participated in attempts to pinpoint rights violations in places like South Sudan, Congo and Cambodia. Either way, the U.S. pullout was bound to have ripple effects for at least two countries at the council: China and Israel. The U.S., as at other U.N. organizations, is Israel’s biggest defender. At the rights council, the United States has recently been the most unabashed critic of rights abuses in China — whose growing economic and diplomatic clout has chastened some other would-be critics, rights advocates say. There are 47 countries in the Human Rights Council, elected by the U.N.’s General Assembly with a specific number of seats allocated for each region of the globe. Members serve for three-year terms and can serve only two terms in a row. The United States has opted to stay out of the Human Rights Council before: The George W. Bush administration opted against seeking membership when the council was created in 2006. The U.S. joined the body only in 2009 under President Barack Obama. © 2018 | Time Magazine

Mr. President, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Colleagues and Friends, As this is my last global update to the Human Rights Council in a regular session – and before I turn, once again, to the important matter of access and cooperation – I wish to draw on some final reflections. I heard recently a UN official telling others there is really no such thing as universal human rights, musing that they were picked from a Western imagination. I remember thinking to myself that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the most translated document in the world – was negotiated by the same political leaders who poured universal values into the Charter, creating the United Nations. Is the UN also then somehow not universal? Were its values sourced only from a Western tradition – unrepresentative of the rest of the world? No. A clear rejection of this comes from a look at the negotiating record itself. The San Francisco Conference, which established the UN, was a circus of sound shaped from many tongues; its result was not a solo tune from a Western instrument. Had that been the case – had the countries that joined the organization believed they were being pinned to alien, Western values – why then did they not stream toward the exits? Why did they not withdraw from the UN? But then why is the Universal Declaration, and the whole body of human rights law that followed it, the object of so much attack now –- not only from the violent extremists, like the Takfiris, but also from authoritarian leaders, populists, demagogues, cultural relativists, some Western academics, and even some UN officials? I have spent most of my career at, and in, the UN. What I have learned is this: the UN is symptomatic of the wider global picture. It is only as great or as pathetic as the prevailing state of the international scene at the time. I also have come to understand how weak human memory is. That to many people history matters only in so far as it can be unsheathed and flung into political battle: they do not view it as a service to deeper human understanding. There is a dangerous remove and superficiality to so many of our discussions, so much so that the deepest, core issue seems to have been lost on many. Is it not the case, for example, that historically, the most destructive force to imperil the world has been chauvinistic nationalism – when raised to feral extremes by self-serving, callous leaders, and amplified by mass ideologies which themselves repress freedom. The UN was conceived in order to prevent its rebirth. Chauvinistic nationalism is the polar opposite of the UN, its very antonym and enemy. So why are we so submissive to its return? Why are we in the UN so silent? The UN’s raison d’être is the protection of peace, rights, justice and social progress. Its operating principle is therefore equally clear: only by pursuing the opposite to nationalism – only when States all work for each other, for everyone, for all people, for the human rights of all people – can peace be attainable. Why are we not doing this? Those of us in the UN Secretariat, originating from all the 193 Member States, work collaboratively and we do not answer to any State. In contrast, too many governments represented at the UN will often pull in the opposing direction: feigning a commitment to the common effort, yet fighting for nothing more than their thinly-thought interests, taking out as much as they can from the UN, politically, while not investing in making it a true success. The more pronounced their sense of self-importance – the more they glory in nationalism – the more unvarnished is the assault by these governments on the overall common good: on universal rights, on universal law and universal institutions, such as this one. And as the attack on the multilateral system and its rules, including most especially international human rights law, intensifies, so too will the risk increase of further mischief on a grander scale. The UN’s collective voice must therefore be principled and strong; not weak and whining, obsessed with endless wrangling over process, the small things, as it is the case today. If my Office, of which I am very proud, and I, have gotten one thing right over the last few years, it is our understanding that only fearlessness is adequate to our task at this point in time. Not ducking for cover, or using excuses or resorting to euphemisms, but a fearlessness approaching that shown by human rights defenders around the world – for only by speaking out can we begin to combat the growing menace of chauvinistic nationalism that stalks our future. I appeal to you to do more, to speak louder and work harder for the common purpose and for universal human rights law, to better our chances for a global peace. This Council session will consider numerous essential issues. Among them, you have before you the report of my Office on Kashmir, and the coming report on Venezuela; you will also be informed of the findings of the Team of Experts on the Kasai regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And as I transition out of my position, the Office will continue its work on the database of business enterprises engaged in specific activities related to Israeli settlements, as called for by the Council, with an update possibly before September. At the September session, the Fact-Finding Mission report on Myanmar will be presented to the Council, alongside the report of the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar; and you will also receive the report on Yemen prepared by the eminent international experts. In that context, I emphasize my grave worry regarding the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition's on-going attacks in Hodeida – which could result in enormous civilian casualties, and have a disastrous impact on life-saving humanitarian aid to millions of people which comes through the port. Mr President, Twice in the course of my mandate, I have reported on the troubling failure by a number of countries to grant access, and I will do so again today. These refusals of access constitute a serious affront to our work, and where there is sustained denial of access, and serious reasons to believe violations are occurring, we will consider the option of remote monitoring. The Office’s mandate to conduct such monitoring is unassailable, and if the Government concerned fears there may be inaccuracies it should permit us in to see the situation on the ground. Mr President, In Syria, the leadership’s contempt and disregard for human rights was what laid the ground for this conflict, and fuelled it for the first year at least. The horrific violations and abuses committed since then – principally by the government and its allies, but including also the violent extremists and their supporters – have destroyed much of the country along with many of its people. Both my Office and the Council's Commission of Inquiry have been refused access to all regions. The Government’s recent, selective acceptance of one Rapporteur’s visit, when so many other requests have been outstanding for an extended period, is in no way an adequate stand-in for compliance with this Council's resolutions S18-1 and 19/22, which call for full cooperation with my Office and the establishment of a field presence. Our extensive remote monitoring of human rights violations in Syria will continue. In Myanmar, as the Council is aware, there are clear indications of well-organised, widespread and systematic attacks continuing to target the Rohingyas in Rakhine State as an ethnic group, amounting possibly to acts of genocide if so established by a court of law. In Kachin and northern Shan States, conflict has again escalated since October last year, and longstanding and widely reported human rights violations in the country include allegations of extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearances; torture and inhuman treatment; rape and other forms of sexual violence; forced labour; recruitment of children into armed forces; and indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks arising from conflicts between security forces and armed groups. Although Myanmar has stated that it will investigate allegations and prosecute alleged perpetrators, its actions to date have not met minimal standards of credibility or impartiality. Due to continuing refusals to permit access, OHCHR, the country Special Rapporteur and the Fact-Finding Mission have conducted remote monitoring. In the context of the MOU that the Government of Myanmar has established with UNDP and UNHCR for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, I reiterate that no repatriation should occur in the absence of sustained human rights monitoring on the ground, in the areas concerned. Given the gravity and scope of the human rights violations in Venezuela, and continuing denial of access to the Office, we will continue remote monitoring and reporting; our second report will be published in the coming days – and we firmly believe the Council needs to establish a Commission of Inquiry. Since last June the Government has issued three invitations to the Special Procedures, the first since 1996. However, the authorities have ignored a long list of requests by others whose mandates are particularly relevant to the current human rights crisis in the country. Despite Burundi's agreement to cooperate with the Team of Experts mandated by the Council last year, the Team was expelled from the country last month and has not been able to return. Access is also denied to the International Commission of Inquiry set up in 2016, and the authorities have refused to finalize discussions on the renewal of the MOU with my Office. Meanwhile, the human rights situation continues to deteriorate throughout the country. The Government’s continuing restrictions on civic space, and its decision to revise the Constitution through a referendum last month, have generated a host of human rights concerns – including at least 44 alleged cases of arbitrary arrest and detention – and may further deepen grievances. I strongly encourage the Government to re-establish engagement with all international human rights bodies. I have sought to engage substantively with both India and Pakistan over the past two years regarding the situation in Kashmir, on both sides of the Line of Control. Refusals by both India and Pakistan to enable unconditional access have led us to conduct remote monitoring, with a first report issued last week. I encourage the Council to consider establishing a Commission of Inquiry for a more comprehensive investigation of the human rights situation in Kashmir, and reiterate my calls for access. I am tremendously saddened by the assassination last week of Shujaat Bukhari, a courageous human rights defender actively working for peace, including through his participation in the Track Two diplomacy seeking to help both India and Pakistan put an end to the violence. In Nicaragua, anti-government protests over the past two months have led to the killing of at least 178 people, almost entirely at the hand of the police forces and by armed pro-government groups, including allegedly the use of snipers, with at least 1,500 wounded. This is in addition to reported abductions and disappearances. I deplore the violence, including the horrific arson attack two days ago. The gravity of these developments may well merit an international commission of inquiry. I expect the commitments made at the resumption of the National Dialogue on 15 June to be upheld, including the cessation of all forms of violence and threats thereof, and the commitment to extend an urgent invitation to OHCHR to visit the country, as we have repeatedly requested. This invitation should be sent without delay. In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, remote monitoring by my Office has found little change in the country’s longstanding, grave and systematic violations of human rights. The people of the DPRK risk their lives and their dignity for the exercise of their fundamental human rights, including seeking to leave the country and communicating with individuals abroad. While I regret the persistent lack of cooperation with the country mandate-holder, the DPRK's recent engagement with the human rights mechanisms, through one Special Rapporteur visit and treaty body reviews, is encouraging. I call on the authorities to step up that engagement significantly, and without selectivity, including cooperation with the country mandate. The experience of my Office has repeatedly demonstrated that making human rights part of peace talks contributes to meaningful and sustainable peace in the long-term. Our door remains open for greater engagement and cooperation. Israel continues to deny access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory by the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. This has been the case for three successive holders of the mandate. Access has also been denied to all of the Council's previous Commissions of Inquiry, including on Gaza in 2014. I believe the Council's advocacy of impartial monitoring and expert recommendations is entirely justified by the gravity of the situation, and I urge Israel to provide access to all human rights mechanisms – including the investigative body mandated last month – to enable impartial monitoring and advance accountability and justice. In China, despite efforts by my Office to establish conditions conducive to an effective dialogue, my staff have not been given unfettered access to the country, including to the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the human rights situation is reportedly fast deteriorating. Moreover, although two mandate-holders have visited the country in the past five years, China has in that period accumulated more than 15 pending requests for visits. I am, furthermore, dismayed by China’s continuing efforts to prevent independent members of civil society from engaging with human rights mechanisms, including Treaty Body reviews, this Council's UPR, and many mandate-holders. I encourage the authorities to enable all actors to contribute to all the international human rights mechanisms, and to cooperate with them in a spirit of open and mutual partnership, in order to improve respect for the rights and freedoms of China’s people. Regarding the situation in Turkey, an invitation for the High Commissioner to visit Ankara is not a substitute for access for the Office to directly and objectively assess the situation in the South-East, where the authorities have consistently failed to conduct credible criminal investigations into the civilian deaths which occurred during security operations in 2015 and 2016. In the absence of adequate access, the Office will continue remote monitoring of the situation. I note that Turkey received visits relating to torture, freedom of expression and enforced disappearances in 2016, and encourage the government to allow further visits in the near future. Unconditional access to Bahrain continues to be refused to my Office and the Special Procedures, amid continued crackdowns on civil society and additional legislation which further restricts the people's fundamental rights. I encourage the Kingdom to reverse these profoundly damaging trends and to facilitate effective engagement with the international human rights mechanisms. My Office stands ready to provide technical and legal expertise. I deeply regret that there has been no progress regarding access for the Office to all protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus, to enable us to assess people's human rights needs and assist in addressing protection gaps. In addition, to date, access has not been granted by the authorities in control under the framework of this Council's resolutions 34/37 and 37/40 on cooperation with Georgia. In South Sudan, I acknowledge and welcome the Government's cooperation with this Council's Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. However, in violation of the Status of Forces Agreement, human rights officers working with UNMISS have been regularly denied access to locations where serious human rights violations and abuses are allegedly committed, impeding UNMISS's mandated task of monitoring the human rights situation. These include facilities run by the National Security Service, where hundreds of people are believed to be arbitrarily detained in conditions that could amount to torture. I am deeply concerned about the intensification of indiscriminate attacks against civilians, particularly a pattern of rapes and killings perpetrated by Government forces and their proxies in Unity State since April 2018. Human rights officers have documented the rape of children as young as four years old, and numerous cases of women, elderly people and others being hanged or burned alive in what appears to be a deliberate scorched-earth policy. I welcome Security Council resolution 2414 (2018) on Western Sahara, which strongly encourages enhancing cooperation with OHCHR. I reiterate the readiness of my Office to undertake as soon as possible a follow-up technical mission to Western Sahara. I am concerned by the suspension of a visit to Rwanda by the Sub-Committee on the Prevention of Torture late last year, due to serious obstruction regarding access to some places of detention; the confidentiality of interviews; and concerns about potential reprisals. The SPT decided to resume the visit in 2018, but there has been no positive engagement with the authorities. I call on them to provide full cooperation so that the Sub-Committee can fulfil its important mandate. In Indonesia, I am concerned that despite positive engagement by the authorities in many respects, the Government’s invitation to my Office to visit Papua – which was made during my visit in February – has still not been honoured. Bangladesh has granted extensive and commendable access to the Office and all relevant human rights mechanisms with respect to the Rohingya refugee crisis. However, it has more than 10 outstanding requests for visits by mandate holders to assess the human rights situation in Bangladesh itself. I encourage greater engagement, particularly with respect to concerns about the shrinking space for civil society, and allegations of extrajudicial actions by the security forces. In Mexico, despite a positive record of openness which we deeply appreciate, I regret the lack of access for the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, despite repeated requests under article 33 of the Convention. Since 2012, the Committee has registered over 310 urgent actions on cases of enforced disappearances in the country, which represent more than 60 per cent of all urgent actions registered to date. In Cameroon, I trust that recent promising discussions with the authorities will swiftly lead to approval for a mission by the Office to all parts of the country. To date this access has been refused, despite the growing crisis in the Anglophone regions, with fighting between up to a dozen armed groups and the security forces. We have received reports of abuses and violations by all sides, including burning of schools and private property; mass arrests and arbitrary detentions; and the use of torture and excessive force by security personnel, leading to the displacement of 150,000 people within the country and over 20,000 to neighbouring Nigeria. On Crimea, we have repeatedly asked the Russian Federation for access, in line with the General Assembly's requests. Special Procedures mandate-holders have also sought to visit Crimea, most recently the Special Rapporteur on Torture. The Russian Federation's replies, while incompatible with GA resolutions 68/262, 71/205 and 72/190, nonetheless recognize that international human rights mechanisms must extend their reach to Crimea. I hope these encouraging responses can pave the way for additional steps to enable our access, in the interests of the human rights protection of the people of the region. Mr President, Almost 40 States have received no visit by a Special Rapporteur over the past five years, despite requests. Among them, 15 States have more than five pending visits: Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Yemen and Zimbabwe. There is also no exception to the requirement of cooperation for States in disagreement with the majority of Council members: indeed such an approach would eviscerate the meaning of the Council's decisions. I deplore the openly voiced refusal of a number of States to cooperate with this Council's Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. Notably, the Russian Federation has formally refused to respond to any communications from the mandate-holder, including joint submissions with other experts mandated by the Council, despite serious allegations of violence, discrimination and exclusion of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, especially in Chechnya. In many States, LGBTI people face severe and often official discrimination; and almost everywhere, they are inadequately protected from violence and bigotry. Protecting all human beings, including the LGBTI community, is not "outside" the international legal framework; ending discrimination and violence for everyone, everywhere, is absolutely central to our principles and work. Mr. President, At the same time, I am pleased to note a number of positive developments with respect to access for the Special Procedures. These include an increased response rate to communications, now at 68 per cent (an increase of 13 per cent over 2016); and Afghanistan’s issuance of a standing invitation to all mandate-holders, taking the number of States having done so to 118 UN Member States and one non-member Observer State. I note and commend the following States which have hosted at least five visits by thematic mandates in the last five years: Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Chile, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ukraine, the UK and the US. Regarding engagement with the Treaty Bodies, I welcome long-outstanding reports to the Committees by Bangladesh, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tonga and Zambia. Allow me also to applaud Qatar’s accession to the Covenants and Afghanistan’s accession to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, alongside many other ratifications. My Office stands ready to support them in efforts to implement these commitments to ensure respect for their people's rights, and I urge other countries which have not ratified these and other human rights treaties to do so. Mr President, In a number of areas, I am heartened by significant progress regarding access. During my second mission to Ethiopia, in April, I was impressed and encouraged by the Prime Minister’s commitment to undertake reforms that could well advance the rule of law, and respect for fundamental human rights and principles, including a broad space for expression, peaceful assembly and civil society participation. Following a long period of reluctance to engage with international human rights bodies, the recent conclusion of a much-awaited MOU will facilitate an extensive role for the Office in the country, and I encourage the authorities to also accept visits by and guidance from Special Procedures experts in the context of the ongoing reforms. I applaud the lifting of the state of emergency earlier this month, as well as the release of a number of political detainees. While recognising challenges, I look forward to assisting the authorities in furthering respect for the human rights of all in Ethiopia. I welcome Armenia’s recent decision to enable the Office to contribute more effectively to upholding the rights of Armenia's people, including its invitation to provide technical assistance through presence of our staff on the ground. I again commend Tunisia for its extensive cooperation with the Office and Special Procedures, and its establishment of a national monitoring and reporting framework to strengthen engagement with the Treaty Bodies. OHCHR has unconditional access to all areas of the country, including to prisons, and the official visit of 12 mandate-holders has been fully facilitated by the Government since it extended a standing invitation to the Special Procedures in 2011. In Moldova, my Office and mandate-holders have recently been given access to the Transnistria region. I am hopeful that we will see deeper engagement with the Office and the UN, and I encourage other States in a similar context, in Europe and worldwide, to review and build on these good practises. Breaking with 15 years of refusals of visits by the Special Procedures, Uzbekistan received the mandate-holder on freedom of religion or belief in October 2017, and in May, Parliament adopted a roadmap on implementing his recommendations. The UN Country Team has also received the government's approval for a project by UNDP supporting follow-up to UPR recommendations, and I understand that the authorities have rolled back a number of restrictions on civil society activity. Libya, following my visit to Tripoli in October, accepted its first ever mission from a mandate holder, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, and other mandate-holder visits are planned, should the security situation allow. Libya has also co-sponsored this Council’s Resolution 37/45, which encourages monitoring and reporting by UNSMIL on human rights violations and abuses in the country and calls for cooperation with human rights mechanisms. The recent decision to redeploy UN staff to Tripoli should also open the door for greater access across the country. The Council may also wish to note the deployment of Human Rights Advisors to Belarus and Zimbabwe, two countries where there have been access issues in the past. Mr President, People do not lose their human rights by virtue of crossing a border without a visa. I deplore the adoption by many countries of policies intended to make themselves as inhospitable as possible by increasing the suffering of many already vulnerable people. In recent weeks, I have become increasingly alarmed by two issues regarding access for civil society organisations to migrants. In Hungary, I am deeply concerned about a bill presented to Parliament last month which, if adopted, would effectively criminalize human rights monitoring at borders and within border zones, as well as criminalizing the provision to migrants of information, legal aid and assistance. The bill would also eliminate or impede judicial review in many cases. It is essential that independent monitoring bodies – including not only all international human rights bodies, but also national human rights institutions and civil society – be able to monitor the human rights situation of migrants without fear or obstruction. These prohibitions, and related measures adopted by the Government of Hungary in recent months, stigmatize and harm migrants in vulnerable situations and those who seek asylum, as well as punishing the admirable work of human rights defenders who seek to help them. In the United States, I am deeply concerned by recently adopted policies which punish children for their parents’ actions. In the past six weeks, nearly two thousand children have been forcibly separated from their parents. The American Association of Pediatrics has called this cruel practice "government-sanctioned child abuse" which may cause "irreparable harm," with "lifelong consequences". The thought that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable. I call on the United States to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children, and I encourage the Government to at last ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in order to ensure that the fundamental rights of all children, whatever their administrative status, will be at the centre of all domestic laws and policies. Mr President, We request access so we can better work to help bring States’ laws and practices in line with the commitments which they themselves have made. Every decision to engage more productively with the human rights system is a decision to create openings towards a more harmonious society – one where there is greater justice, more sustainable peace and better development. I am heartened by the new areas where access has been achieved over the past year. It is not easy to highlight conflicts which have been averted, violations which have been warded off, and spiralling violence that has been interrupted and diminished. But every step towards greater implementation of the human rights agenda is an act of prevention, which gathers and strengthens the bonds between communities and reinforces inclusive development and peace. I am convinced that the human rights ideal has been the most constructive movement of ideas in our era – and among the most successful. Over the past 70 years, a sustained peace has been achieved in and between many societies. Conflicts have been resolved, with respect and through law; a vastly increased number of people have been able to meaningfully express their views, and access education, healthcare and opportunities for development, without discrimination. Some may take these achievements for granted. But they are the enactment of policies – policies and laws that uphold the universal principles of human dignity and equality. And they are not the norm. Every society's history is bloody with conflict and deprivation: we need only look back a little way to grasp the dangers, which our work averts. When leaders undermine human rights, and human rights law, this is in no way an act of patriotism. They are eroding the structures which can ensure the safety of their people ­– pitching their societies backwards into violence, destruction, exploitation and disaster. They are recreating the rule of brute force and exploitation – within countries and between them. True patriotism consists in viewing every State, and humanity as a whole, as a community of mutual responsibility, with shared needs and goals. True patriotism consists of the work of creating tolerant communities, which can live in peace. I depart an Office which is strong, absolutely committed to its gargantuan task, and which, in the face of heavy headwinds, has made progress. These new areas of access are a testament to the credibility of our operations and the justice of our cause. I remain convinced that the monitoring and reporting we have achieved; our capacity-building for civil society and States; and our clear, steady and impartial advocacy have been significant contributors to governance that is more inclusive and respectful of the rights of the people; societies which are more peaceful; and development that is broader, deeper and of more benefit to all. Finally, Mr. President, I wish to end my last statement in this formal setting with a series of acknowledgments. This is the hardest, most challenging, most fulfilling responsibility I have held. It has been hard on my family and it has affected my relationship with the Government of the country of my birth – the country I had the honour of representing diplomatically for so many years, and it makes me sad this is so. However, this price is small in comparison to that paid by so many human rights defenders, and civil society more broadly, who sacrifice so much more, again and again, and who to me are the real heroes, genuine heroes of the human rights movement. Similarly, I hold in high regard those members of my Office, both international and national staff, who work in some of the most dangerous and difficult parts of the world. This Council needs to recognize what they do. We owe them a very special gratitude. It has also been an honour for me to work with my brilliant deputy, Kate Gilmore; an exceptional and courageous leader in her own right, and from whom I have learned a great deal. I have also benefitted greatly from the advice and support of Assistant Secretary General Andrew Gilmour, drawn from his extensive knowledge of the UN, and thank him for his leadership. To all the directors led by Adam Abdelmoula, Georgette Gagnon, and Peggy Hicks, and all the senior officials of whom there are too many to name – I admire all of you and thank you too, as well as all the professional and national staff here in Geneva, those in our New York office, in the regional offices and country presences. I owe you all my gratitude. To my spokesperson Rupert Colville and his hardworking team, I feel a special indebtedness for your extraordinary work. And then there is Ruth Marshall, who has been my amazing speechwriter, and from whom it would be difficult to separate – we have been operating in each other’s heads for the last four years! I thank also those in the front office led by the incomparable Maarit Kohonen Sheriff, supported by Cecile Aptel, both of whom I conferred with almost every day in the last four years, as I did with my old friend Anton Nikiforov, as well as with Cecilia Canessa, Carole Ray, and Katayoun Vessali – all of you have been close family to me! To my security officers, I am especially grateful for your warmth, dedication and professionalism. And to many other staff, too numerous to name, whose commitment and dedication to their work for human rights drives them to work day and night to further the cause – I salute you. And finally to my brother Mohammad Al-Nsour, who accompanied me from New York, via Amman, and has been with me every step of the way, and will always remain a very special friend – thank you. I also want to acknowledge all the Ambassadors and their staffs here. The personal friendship and support of so many diplomats who, notwithstanding their official positions, understand what it is we are trying to do, has been deeply meaningful to me. As I close out my last two and half months, I am very keen to reunite with my wife Sarah and our three children: without their love for this strange man, it is impossible for me to see how I could have managed the stresses of this position. I hope I have made them proud. For soon – to borrow from the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson – this hunter shall be “home from the hill”. (c) 2018 OHCHR

"Foreigners giving up on Bosnia: country close to collapse." That's a recent headline from Sputnik, the Russian state media arm in Serbia since 2015. The accompanying photo -- a sepia-toned panoramic shot of Muslim gravestones overlooking the city of Sarajevo, overlaid by a spectrally transparent image of a Bosnian flag -- appears likewise meant to convey imminent doom. It might not be a surprise, given Sputnik's (and Russian media in general's) vocal support for Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska who routinely predicts Bosnia-Herzegovina's demise. The irony, of course, is that critics accuse Dodik of doing more than anyone else to impede Bosnia's central institutions and thus make his prophecy a self-fulfilling one. His latest gambit is his declared intention to run for the Bosnian presidency in the October elections -- thereby becoming a member of a tripartite executive branch of a country he does not support, and from which he wishes to secede. But even impartial observers recognize that Bosnia is in trouble and might need urgent help from abroad. Writing in The Washington Post, Frida Ghitis voiced the fear that Bosnia may be heading back to "the dark old days of the 1990s" and that Europe and the United States, "currently distracted with other problems, must act soon to keep Bosnia from going off the rails." Moreover, Dodik's Russian-endorsed secessionism is not the only threat to Bosnia's stability. In the other Bosnian entity, known as the Muslim-Croat Federation, two radically opposed models of government are currently pitted against each other. One would seemingly guarantee the survival of a more-or-less democratic, if still imperfect, system; the other would appear to turn Bosnia into little more than an ethnocracy. The latter option is being championed by Bosnian Croat political leaders, who insist on the principle that only ethnic Croats should be allowed to elect their political representatives in state institutions. They are demanding a change to the constitution that would limit voting for designated Croatian candidates to the Bosnian presidency or parliamentary committees to ethnic Croats. Since the system already guarantees ethnic Croat representation in all government bodies, this demand appears to be based on the belief that only Croats chosen exclusively by other Croats would truly defend the interests of their ethnic fellows. It is a view that seemingly regards the idea of civic society and ethnic belonging as fundamentally opposed and unable to coexist. Foundation Of Fear The current dispute is only the latest manifestation of a deeply rooted problem in postwar Bosnia, where the only kind of politics is that of identity -- and fear: Each ethnic group feels, or is made to feel, that its customs, religion, and culture are not respected enough and will somehow be obliterated by the others. Yet the Bosnian Croats, with their present demands -- like Dodik, for his part -- are merely playing by the Dayton playbook. Ethnicity is the foundation of the Dayton peace agreement; and while that was perhaps an acceptable price to pay for peace in 1995, it may no longer serve even that basic purpose. The Bosnian Croats' demands are only the latest reminder that the limits of Dayton might have been reached. The architect of the peace accord, U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, is no longer alive. He was a pragmatist whose goal was to end a war -- one that had taken at least 100,000 lives -- and could not or did not wish to imagine that more than two decades later, nationalist leaders would invoke Dayton to wage the same war by other means. Holbrooke is no longer around to fix the flaws in Bosnia's governing charter, of course. Meanwhile, his political master and patron at the time of Dayton, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, has just published a novel, co-written with James Patterson. It features a female Bosnian assassin code-named Bach -- a classical-music-loving, vegetarian, pregnant, cold-blooded killer who wields a semiautomatic rifle that she calls Anna Magdalena. Several reviewers have pointed out that the novel's fictional president, Jonathan Duncan, resembles Clinton's own alter ego, while elements of the plot appear to deliberately echo Clinton's time in office. If that is so, one might wonder if the specter of Bosnia still haunts Clinton's thoughts -- a sense of guilt over a war interrupted too late and a peace that is looking increasingly like a prelude to another conflict (or far from a lasting solution) -- personified in an assassin on the loose. Glimmer Of Hope? Beyond the Russian spin, nationalist demagoguery, and presidential fiction, what does the future hold for Bosnia? In a recently published book titled Hunger And Fury: The Crisis Of Democracy, Bosnian academic Jasmin Mujanovic sees hope amid the gloom. Taking aim at both local and foreign prophets of Bosnia's doom, he criticizes an "immobilizing chorus that asks when there will be another war in the Balkans. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is an act of psychological terror to hang this rhetorical sword constantly over the heads of the peoples of the Western Balkans." Such rhetoric is a tool of the local nationalist elites who use it "to terrorize and thus pacify the impoverished and traumatized masses over which they rule," Mujanovic argues. Since the signing of the Dayton accords, the West has facilitated the entrenchment of these "ethnic entrepreneurs" in power in exchange for vague and grudgingly repeated promises not to start another war, he says. According to Mujanovic, the growing desperation and feeling of impotence might lead to the unleashed fury of the hungry masses -- with unpredictable consequences. Mujanovic also expresses hope for what's on the horizon, based on his study of grassroots movements throughout the region committed to social justice and civic democracy. But the case of Security Minister Dragan Mektic, an ethnic Serb seemingly committed to serving all of Bosnia's citizens and tackling corruption, suggests there are also advocates of change among serving politicians in Bosnia. © 2018 | RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty https://www.rferl.org/a/bosnia-in-crosshairs-of-ethnic-nationalists-and-their-allies/29292996.html

ICC Reverses Rape Conviction Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) overturned a war crimes conviction against former Congolese Vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, ruling that he could not be held responsible for actions committed by his troops in the Central African Republic. The Bemba conviction was the ICC’s first and only conviction for sexual violence as a weapon of war in its twenty year history. ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called the reversal “regrettable and troubling,” but emphasized that the court still recognizes the suffering caused by Bemba’s soldiers. Impunity for rape as a weapon of conflict remains a serious challenge, and prior to its reversal, the Bemba case had been a landmark judgment for gender justice in international criminal law. U.S. Rejects Domestic Violence Asylum Claims On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Sessions reversed decades of established law by declaring that domestic violence and gang violence are not grounds for asylum. In vetoing an immigration appeals ruling that granted asylum to a Salvadoran woman who was abused by her husband, Sessions eliminated a path to freedom for women fleeing increased persecution in Central America. According to federal law, asylum seekers must prove that they face persecution in their homeland based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or "membership in a particular social group." Since the 1990s, the U.S. government rendered women fleeing domestic violence eligible to apply to asylum, as have the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Sessions’ ruling is the latest in a string of immigration crackdowns that disproportionately affect women and children. Mozambique Launches National Action Plan for Women, Peace & Security This week, Mozambique launched a National Action Plan for Women, Peace & Security, becoming the 75th country to create a NAP following the UN's landmark Resolution 1325 on including women in peace and security efforts. Under the plan, Mozambique will take measures to strengthen the participation of women in peace mechanisms and address priority actions such as assistance for refugee women and the prevention of sexual abuse. The NAP was drafted in partnership with UN Women and the governments of Norway and Iceland. Research shows that women's involvement in peace processes make resulting agreements 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. © 2018 Council On Foreign Relations https://www.cfr.org/blog/women-week-impunity-icc

YEREVAN (Tert.am) — Turkey’s repeated statements, offering apologies to the Armenians for the 1915 Genocide, are not absolutely enough to reinstate historical justice, leading Turkish-German historian and genocide scholar Taner Akçam said in Yerevan. At a public lecture delivered at the American University of Armenia (AUA), Akçam stressed the urgent need of serious efforts towards providing material redress. ”For me, as a scholar, apologies by Turkey are really enough,” he said, referring to his extensive scholarly research devoted to the topic. “But what I propose for my government, i.e. – the government of the Republic of Turkey, is to follow Germany’s example. After World War II, Germany not only acknowledged the [Jewish] Holocaust but also initiated a process with representatives of Israel and the Jewish community. And they eventually concluded the 1952 Luxemburg Accord, which proposed tremendous compensation,” he noted. Akçam, whom the New York Times described as the “Sherlock Holmes of Armenian Genocide” in an April 2017 review, also called for a consistently serious attention to the future fight for justice. “Justice must be reinstated. This process, involving Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora, must be finally initiated. And it must be an open debate; agreements or disagreements are really possible … but apologies alone are not enough for re-establishing justice. What matters is material redress,” the historian added. He also admitted the impossibility of measuring the losses suffered. “It isn’t just about a certain amount of money. We can never ‘transport’ the big civilization which the Armenians created in their historical homeland. Material [values] are not something to satisfy the Armenians,” he added. © 2018 | MassisPost https://massispost.com/2018/06/taner-akcam-turkeys-apologies-for-genocide-not-enough-to-reinstate-historical-justice/

There are disturbing signs round the world that age-old prejudices against Jews are reviving once more. We need to be clear in recognising them, and resolute in dealing with them. A precondition for fighting antisemitism effectively is clarity about what it is, and what it is not. Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice or hostility against us because we are Jews. It is a form of racism. It may be manifested in violence, denial of rights, discriminatory acts, prejudice-based behaviour, verbal or written statements, negative stereotypes or scapegoating. Holocaust denial, the blood libel, conspiracy theories about supposed Jewish power or the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide – all are expressions of antisemitism. Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic unless motivated by anti-Jewish prejudice. Examples of this can include: holding all Jews accountable for the actions of the state of Israel; engaging in conspiracy theories about the state of Israel that draw on antisemitic stereotypes about supposed Jewish power; accusing all Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than to the interests of their own nations. Criticism of Israel, of its displacement of Palestinians and of its denial of their rights, is not antisemitic. Criticising laws and policies of the state of Israel as racist and as falling under the definition of apartheid is not antisemitic. Calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to oppose those policies is not antisemitic. We call upon all public bodies and other organisations to apply these principles in addressing antisemitism within their own organisations and when challenging it within wider society. Geoffrey Bindman Ben Birnberg DBA Epstein Stephan Feuchtwang Harvey Goldstein Brian Klug Peter Kosminsky Mike Leigh Malcolm Levitt Moshe Machover Miriam Margolyes David Mond Susie Orbach Laurance Pearl Jacqueline Rose Steven Rose Michael Rosen Douglas Ross Donald Sassoon Alexei Sayle Justin Schlosberg Lynne Segal Avi Shlaim Gillian Slovo Annabelle Sreberny John S Yudkin Nira Yuval-Davis © 2018 | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/15/we-must-define-antisemitism-to-fight-it-effectively

THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic By Benjamin Carter Hett Illustrated. 280 pp. Henry Holt & Company. $30. We ask about the rise of the Nazis from what we think is a great distance. We take for granted that the Germans of the 1930s were quite different from ourselves, and that our consideration of their errors will only confirm our superiority. The opposite is the case. Although Benjamin Carter Hettmakes no comparisons between Germany then and the United States now in “The Death of Democracy,” his extremely fine study of the end of constitutional rule in Germany, he dissolves those comforting assumptions. He is not discussing a war in which Germans were enemies or describing atrocities that we are sure we could never commit. He presents Hitler’s rise as an element of the collapse of a republic confronting dilemmas of globalization with imperfect instruments and flawed leaders. With careful prose and fine scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, he brings these events close to us. The Nazis, in Hett’s account, were above all “a nationalist protest movement against globalization.” Even before the Great Depression brought huge unemployment to Germany, the caprice of the global economy offered an opportunity to politicians who had simple answers. In their 1920 program, the Nazis proclaimed that “members of foreign nations (noncitizens) are to be expelled from Germany.” Next would come autarky: Germans would conquer the territory they needed to be self-sufficient, and then create their own economy in isolation from that of the rest of the world. As Goebbels put it, “We want to build a wall, a protective wall.” Hitler maintained that the vicissitudes of globalization were not the result of economic forces but of a Jewish international conspiracy. Hett, a professor of history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, sensitively describes a moral crisis that preceded a moral catastrophe. If Jews were held responsible for what happened in Germany, then Germans were victims and their actions always defensive. Political irresponsibility flowed from the unfortunate example of President Paul von Hindenburg. He was famous as the victor in a battle on the Eastern Front of World War I, even though the credit was not fully deserved. Hindenburg could not face the reality of defeat on the Western Front in 1918, and so spread the lie that the German Army had been “stabbed in the back” by Jews and Socialists. This moral weakness of one man radiated outward. Once Hindenburg won the presidential elections of 1925, Germany was trapped by his oversensitivity about a reputation that would not withstand scrutiny. He believed that only he could save Germany, but would not put himself forward to do so, for fear of damaging his image. Without Hindenburg’s founding fiction and odd posturing, it is unlikely that Hitler would have come to power. As Hett capably shows, the Nazis were the great artists of victimhood fiction. Hitler, who had served with German Jews in the war, spread the idea that Jews had been the enemy within, proposing that the German Army would have won had some of them been gassed to death. Goebbels had Nazi storm troopers attack leftists precisely so that he could claim that the Nazis were victims of Communist violence. Hitler believed in telling lies so big that their very scale left some residue of credibility. The Nazi program foresaw that newspapers would serve the “general good” rather than reporting, and promised “legal warfare” against opponents who spread information they did not like. They opposed what they called “the system” by rejecting its basis in the factual world. Germans were not rational individuals with interests, the reasoning went, but members of a tribe that wanted to follow a leader (Führer). Much of this was familiar from Italian Fascism, but Hitler’s attempt to imitate Mussolini’s March on Rome failed. When Hitler tried a coup d’état in 1923, he and the Nazis were easily defeated and he was sentenced to prison, where he wrote “Mein Kampf.” In Hett’s account, the electoral rise of the Nazis in the late 1920s and early 1930s had less to do with his particular ideas and more to do with an opening on the political spectrum. The Nazis filled a void between the Catholic electorate of the Center Party and a working class that voted Socialist or Communist. Their core constituents, Hett indicates, were Protestants from the countryside or small towns who felt themselves to be the victims of globalization. Did the Nazis come to power through democratic elections? In Germany in the 1930s, as elsewhere, elections continued even as their meaning changed. The fact that the Nazis used violence to intimidate others meant that elections were not free in the normal sense. And the system was rigged in their favor by men in power who had no use for democracy or for democrats. The Nazis were by no means the handmaidens of German industry or the German military but, as Hett argues, both businessmen and officers formed lobbies in the late 1920s that aimed to break the republic and its bastion, the Social Democrats. They tended to confuse their particular interests in lower wages and higher military spending with those of the German nation as a whole. This made it easy to see the Social Democrats as foreign and hostile. © 2018 | The New York Times https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/books/review/benjamin-carter-hett-death-of-democracy.html

Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide First International Conference of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights StudiesUniversity of North Carolina Charlotte, April 13-14, 2019 Call for Papers Deadline for Abstract Submission: November 1, 2018 Location: Charlotte, North Carolina, United States Subject Fields: Holocaust, Genocide Studies, Memory Studies, Human Rights, History, Colonial and Post-Colonial Studies, Law and Legal History, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies, Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, Peace & Conflict Studies, Indigenous Studies, Religious Studies, Memoirs Conference themes and topics Denial is often the “final stage of genocide,” Gregory H. Stanton asserted twenty years ago. The perpetrators “deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims…. The black hole of forgetting is the negative force that results in future genocides.” (Stanton, 1996, 1998) The “assassins of memory,” in Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s memorable turn of phrase, seek to bury their crimes or, more often, legitimize or prettify governments or political movements with which they sympathize. The ways in which portrayals of genocide are constructed can create “zones of denial” (Shavit 2005) that allow space for minimizing the harsh realities of genocide in our collective understanding. For victims and their descendants, denial brings additional injustice and trauma. Holocaust denial gained notoriety in the United States and Europe by the 1980s and has spread to other parts of the world, while Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide has brought further scholarly and public attention to the problem of genocide denial. Yet genocide denial extends far beyond these two well-known cases. Crimes that can be classified as “genocide” – and others that may not fit standard genocide definitions but that represent ghastly crimes against humanity – have routinely been followed by attempts at subterfuge or outright denial. Given the contemporary rhetoric of “fake news” and the increasing avenues for almost anyone to share or promote stories without factual underpinning, the need to confront genocide denial is more urgent than ever. This conference will examine multiple cases of denial and place them in comparative context. We seek to explore strategies of denial and to confront denial and its effects on survivors and upon collective memory. The conference organizers prefer the more inclusive, less legalistic definitions of “genocide” that have been advanced in recent years by Martin Shaw, Barbara Harff, Adam Jones, and many others. Logic and compassion dictate that the conference should include crimes against humanity that fall short of common definitions of genocide but share many of its features. We welcome proposals on, but not limited to, these topics/themes: · Uses of denial by contemporary political movements · Effects of denial upon survivor groups and/or upon perpetrator societies · Reconciliation and transitional justice in post-genocidal societies in relation to education and denial · Feminist perspectives and gendered analyses in relation to denial · Denial or other forms of falsification in relation to indigenous peoples’ experiences · Confronting and resisting denial in effective ways · Post-colonial theories and practices in relation to issues of denial or confronting denial · Minimization or erasure of racist and colonial histories in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere · Appropriation and/or exploitation of the Holocaust and or other genocides · Art, literature, and film confronting (or promoting) denial · Pedagogical issues and approaches to addressing denial in educational settings · How the era of “fake news” erodes genocide education or promotes denial “Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide” welcomes proposals from undergraduate & graduate students, university professors and lecturers of all ranks, and independent scholars, as well as others who are involved in research or activism around these issues. We plan to include at least one panel of undergraduate students and to publish selected papers in an edited collection of essays. The conference’s keynote speaker will be Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, hIstorian of the Modern Middle East at MIT and author of Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey (Stanford University Press, 2016). Abstracts for papers should be a maximum of 500 words and abstracts for panels (up to four participants) should be a maximum of 1500 words. Additionally, please include a short biographical statement (max 150 words) or your CV with your submission. Submit abstracts by November 1, 2018 to hghr.uncc@gmail.com. Please include your last name in the subject line. Notifications will be sent by January 15, 2019. Contact Email: hghr.uncc@gmail.com URL: https://globalstudies.uncc.edu/center-holocaust-genocide-human-rights-studies/2019-conference-genocide-denial

Sign this petition to tell Facebook to stop ultranationalist groups in Burma from spreading anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya hate speech on its platform. This hate speech has fueled the Burmese army's march towards genocide of the Rohingya. Demand that Facebook disclose what it will do to ensure that it never lets its platform to be used again for campaigns of hate speech. Alan Davis, an analyst from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting who led a two-year study of hate speech in Burma (Myanmar), told The Guardian (UK) that, in the months before the Burmese army's offensive against the Rohingya in August 2017, he noticed posts on Facebook becoming “more organised and odious, and more militarised” According to the Guardian, his research team encountered fabricated stories stating that “mosques in Yangon are stockpiling weapons in an attempt to blow up various Buddhist pagodas and Shwedagon pagoda”, the most sacred Buddhist site in Yangon in a smear campaign against Muslims. These pages also featured posts calling Rohingya the derogatory term “kalars” and “Bengali terrorists”. Signs denoting “Muslim-free” areas were shared more than 11,000 times. In a recent report on the Rohingya crisis, Marzuki Darusman, head of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said Facebook “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict” in Burma. “Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that,” Darusman said. “As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media.” In an interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged Facebook’s role in fueling and inciting anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiment. “The Myanmar issues have, I think, gotten a lot of focus inside the company,” Zuckerberg told Vox. “And they’re real issues and we take this really seriously.” Together, we can successfully demand that Facebook never lets its platform to be used again for campaigns of hate speech. Sign HERE. (c) 2018 International Campaign for the Rohingya https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/facebook-end-hate-speech-in-burma?clear_id=true&source=email-facebook-closes-down-hate-groups-in-burma