On January 20, the Turkish military began an invasion of the Kurdish-controlled Afrin region in northern Syria. Turkey’s government has declaredthat its operation aims “to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity,” remove “terrorist elements,” and protect civilians. The Independent, however, published the first Western media report from Afrin, and Robert Fisk reports that the list of dead includes infants. “One-year old Wael al-Hussein, a refugee…was killed on 21 January, six-year old Moussab al-Hussein from Idlib (clearly from another refugee family) on the same day,” he writes. Many journalists in Turkey, in the meanwhile, are rubbing their hands. Necati Doğru, a columnist with one of the most read Turkish newspapers, Sözcü, for example, proudly declares that Afrin “should be Turkey’s second Cyprus.” He writes: “You can’t say ‘I will enter Syria, strike them, cleanse the area and return. You should stay there permanently. We are having our second Cyprus.” The Turkish invasion of Cyprus is considered a “victory” in Turkey and is celebrated every year. For the Republic of Cyprus, however, it was and still is a horrific crime that has completely changed the country ever since. In 1974, Turkey claimed it was bringing “peace” to Cyprus, which it invaded with a brutal military assault that it calls the “Cyprus peace operation.” The Turkish military code-named the invasion “Operation Attila,” named after Attila the Hun (reigned 434-453 CE). A Turkic military leader from Central Asia, he is known for his ruthless and destructive campaigns and invasions, including those targeting Western and Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empires, and at one time he invaded Italy, devastating its northern provinces. Following the invasion of the Republic of Cyprus in 1974, Turkey deployed around 40,000 of its soldiers in the northern part of the island, which has turned Cyprus into the most militarized turf in the world. Since the invasion, some 37 percent of Cypriot territory has been under Turkish occupation. Bülent Ecevit, Turkey’s prime minister at the time of the invasion, is still hailed by many in the country as “the conqueror of Cyprus,” although others have recently claimed that it is Necmettin Erbakan, the then deputy PM, who actually deserves the title. The campaign was accompanied by mass murder, abduction, and rape of Greek Cypriots by Turkish troops. The European Commission on Human Rights has documented the rape of women and children aged 12 to 71. In their article titled “Gender and Genocide: Armenian and Greek Women Finding Positive Meaning in the Horror,” scholars Artemis Pippinelli and Ani Kalayjian detail the sexual assaults by Turkish troops against Greek Cypriot women and children, which they call the “Cyprus gendercide.” They write: Rape victims suffered severe gynecological problems as well as psychological trauma. In some cases, women were forced into prostitution. Many were collected from different villages and held in separate rooms of empty houses where they were repeatedly raped by Turkish soldiers. In other cases, members of the same family were repeatedly raped, some in front of their children. Rapes also occurred in public before spectators. The brutality of these violent sexual attacks was followed by extreme physical trauma, including near suffocation. Children and pregnant or mentally retarded women were not spared. In 1983, Turkey proceeded to issue the unilateral declaration of independence of a new “state” in Cyprus which they call “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC). Only Turkey recognizes the TRNC, which has transformed northern Cyprus into a Turkish province. Turks have applied the same methods used to de-Hellenize and Turkify Asia Minor (today’s Turkey), which had a Greek majority until the 1453 Turkish sack of Constantinople (Istanbul), to Turkify northern Cyprus. For example, the Greek geographical names of the occupied north have been changed to Turkish names. And the violent destruction of the cultural heritage of the area at the hands of its Turkish regime is still ongoing. Hundreds of historic and religious monuments have been destroyed, looted, and vandalized. Many churches have been converted into stables, casinos, nightclubs, warehouses, barracks, and mosques, among other things. And worshippers in those mosques in the occupied area are now reciting the Koranic verse Surah al Fath (verse of conquest) “for the victory of Turkey’s military operation on Afrin” every day until the invasion ends—as instructed by the government-funded Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Turkey also rejects the Greek identity of Cyprus. According to the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Cyprus has never been a Greek island,” and “there has never been in Cyprus a ‘Cypriot nation.’” The Turkish ministry is wrong. Not until the Turkish invasion in 1974 did the northern part of the island have a Turkish majority. The occupation forced around 170,000 indigenous Greek Cypriot inhabitants of northern Cyprus out of their homes and flee to the free, southern part of the island. The Turkish government then replaced Greek Cypriot natives with illegal settlers from Turkey, thus forcibly changing the demographic status-quo of the island. That is how a Turkish majority was created in the northern part of Cyprus, which had always had a Greek majority until 1974. Similarly, Erdogan refuses to recognize Kurdish rule in Afrin, declaring his plan for changing the demographic status-quo there. “Fifty-five percent of the population of Afrin is Arab, 35 percent is Kurds, who were settled there later, and 6 or 7 percent is Turkmen. The entire issue is to give Afrin back to its real owners. Our aim is to immediately send the 3.5 million Syrians in Turkey back to their homeland,” he said in a public speech. In recent years, Turkish expansionism has become alarmingly popular within pro-government groups. Turkey’s new maps, published by the pro-government media, have even reclaimed the Ottoman Empire, including Greece and Iraq. In parallel to that, many Turkish politicians from both the government and opposition have publicly expressed their desire to invade and capture Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Most recently, Yigit Bulut, one of Erdogan’s principal advisers, has threatened Greece over the islet of Imia, which Turks call “Kardak.” He said: Athens will face the wrath of Turkey worse than that in Afrin. We will break the arms and legs of officials, of the Prime Minister [Alexis Tsipras] and any minister who dares to step on the Kardak islet in the Aegean. There is not an armed force in this region that could contend against the Turkish armed forces. So, everyone will know their place. All imperialists will accept that the people in this land are Turks and the nation in this land is Islamic ummah [nation] and they will kiss the hand that they cannot bend. In the meanwhile, the Greek Defense Ministry announced that Turkey violated Greek airspace 138 times in one day alone, on February 1. Since 1974, Turkey has been a proud and unapologetic occupier in Cyprus. Now Turkish authorities are targeting Afrin, knowing from past experience that they will not be held accountable. They can kill and torture civilians and commit campaigns of ethnic cleansing wherever they wish. Yesterday, their target was northern Cyprus; today it is northern Syria. What country will be the next target? Before even greater catastrophes occur in the region, Turkey has to be reminded that the Ottoman Empire is dead and will never be resurrected. https://providencemag.com/2018/02/cyprus-syria-turkey-continued-invasions/ (c) 2018 Providence Magazine

What’s new? The Islamic State (ISIS) is defeated in Iraq, and its genocidal campaign against the Yazidis in Sinjar has ended. But Iran-backed Shiite militias – Popular Mobilisation Units – now control the district. Much of Sinjar’s mostly Yazidi population and its administration remains displaced. Trade is at a trickle and reconstruction has stalled. Why did it happen?  Close to war-torn Syria, Sinjar is vulnerable to external intervention. Since 2003, a succession of outside forces has wrestled to control it – the Iraqi state, ISIS, the two main Kurdish parties of Iraq, Shiite militias, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliates active in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Why does it matter? Sinjar needs political and economic reconstruction if the displaced are to return to their homes. Yet Baghdad’s weakness may compel it to channel reconstruction funds through the Shiite militias and Yazidi proxies. In Sinjar, as in other disputed territories, this move would entrench non-state groups, compromise the Iraqi state, and perhaps hinder reconstruction and return. What should be done? Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government should seek to offset militias’ influence by winning over and empowering other local partners. Iraq’s National Reconciliation Commission should reach out to skilled administrators from Sinjar, regardless of political affiliation, to reconnect the power supply, restore health services, reopen schools and launch reconstruction. Executive Summary Seized by Islamic State (ISIS) militants in August 2014, Sinjar, a majority-Yazidi district on Iraq’s north-western border with Syria, has been the scene of tragedy: a genocidal campaign of killings, rape, abductions and enslavement, and the surviving community’s exodus to safer-ground camps in the adjacent Kurdish region. Incremental efforts to drive ISIS out of Sinjar, starting in November 2015, have brought peace but no political or economic recovery. The district’s occupation by a succession of Iraqi and non-Iraqi sub-state actors has militarised the population, fragmented the elites and prevented the return of the displaced. Only the effective re-entry of the Iraqi state, mediating between factions and reinstating local governance, can fully stabilise Sinjar, lay the ground-work for reconstruction, allow the displaced to return and end foreign interference. The problems in Sinjar have their origin in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and removal of the Saddam Hussein regime. Dysfunctional governance and sectarian strife reduced the role of both the federal government and the administration of Ninewa governorate, in which Sinjar is located, to a symbolic one. Real power was exercised by the party that took advantage of the administrative and security vacuum, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The KDP co-opted local elites to perform the routine tasks of rule. Yet it won little popularity. It treated the Yazidis, a distinct ethno-religious minority group, as Kurds, which many resent, and as second-class Kurds at that – which they resent even more. Moreover, it barely disguised its ambition, opposed by many Yazidis, to annex Sinjar to the Kurdish region. The KDP made itself still more unpopular by withdrawing its forces from Sinjar ahead of the ISIS assault, leaving the population to the jihadists’ mercy. Affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish guerrilla movement in Turkey, stepped into the breach, rescuing ISIS’s surviving Yazidi victims with the help of U.S. airpower and, over time, pushing back ISIS without, however, restoring local government. These groups then ruled parts of Sinjar, with the KDP controlling others, each recruiting local fighters into their rival militias but neglecting to serve the interests of the Sinjar population, most of whom remained displaced. The standoff between the PKK affiliates and the Turkey-backed KDP kept the area contested and unsafe. The escalating U.S.-supported battle against ISIS in 2017 saw the return of Iraqi state security forces to northern Iraq, accompanied by Iran-backed Shiite militias, the Hashd al-Shaabi, known in English as Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs). First, they defeated ISIS in Mosul, and then, in mid-October, following an independence referendum organised by the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) that backfired, the PMUs went further. Supported by the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, encouraged by Iran and given a green light by Turkey, they drove the KDP out of Sinjar and marginalised the PKK affiliates – Turkey’s target. (Turkey, along with the U.S. and the European Union, designates the PKK as a terrorist organisation.) The skeletal, KDP-leaning district council and administrative bodies, mainly composed of Yazidis, fled to the Iraqi Kurdish region, joining their Yazidi constituents. Rather than jumpstarting reconstruction and governance, PMU rule since October 2017 has further dispersed the Yazidi community. As long as the Iraqi government remains weak, Sinjar will be fought over by external forces because of its strategic location close to the borders with Syria and Turkey. ISIS’s military defeat now provides an opportunity for the Abadi government, keen to regain sovereignty over all of Iraq ahead of national elections in May 2018, to set things right. Abadi should incorporate fighters of competing militias into a unified police force and restore governance via administrative institutions that open their doors to skilled local personnel regardless of which outside actor they aligned themselves with in the recent past. Whether Abadi is capable of such an approach is an open question. The problems in Sinjar reflect the broader challenge of demobilising militias and integrating their fighters into state security forces, lest they undermine central authority and prevent the emergence of functioning state institutions. What happens in Sinjar may thus point to the prime minister’s political fate and the country’s general direction. One potent enemy may have been defeated, but the battle for Iraq’s political soul is far from over. Beirut/Brussels, 20 February 2018 I.Introduction: Sinjar’s Disputed Status Located some 50km from Iraq’s border with Syria, directly south of the Kurdish governorate of Dohuk and 120km west of the city of Mosul, the town of Sinjar, which Kurds call Shengal, sits on both a geographic crossroads and a political fault line. The town and the surrounding district of the same name belong to Ninewa governorate, of which Mosul is the capital, and are part of what the 2005 Iraqi constitution refers to as disputed territories: fourteen administrative districts spread over four governorates nominally under central state control but claimed by the Kurdish region. The status of these territories remains unresolved, but from 2003 until mid-2014 the peshmerga and security forces of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties exercised de facto control, including in disputed districts of Ninewa governorate, after the U.S. dismantled the Iraqi army and faced growing insurgency. Sinjar’s disputed status and strategic proximity to the borders with Syria and Turkey turned it into an arena for competing interests, vulnerable to outside meddling and attacks. In August 2014, as fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) advanced into the area, peshmerga forces of the locally dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) withdrew pre-emptively, abandoning the local population. Most people in Sinjar are Yazidis, an ethno-religious community deemed heretics by ISIS followers. The jihadists, many of whom were local Sunni Arabs who had long lived peacefully with their Yazidi neighbours, launched a campaign of killings, kidnappings and forced conversions of the Yazidis, taking women and girls as sex slaves. Survivors fled inside Sinjar mountain, the massive rock formation that rises from the desert floor and both defines and divides the district geographically. From there they escaped westward into Syria through a corridor opened and protected by fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as well as U.S. airpower. They subsequently re-entered Iraq through the KDP-controlled Samalka/Faysh Khabour border crossing, settling in camps for the internally displaced in Dohuk governorate. In late 2015, the KDP and, separately, fighters affiliated with the PKK wrested the area north of Sinjar mountain as well as the town itself from ISIS’s control. But they then turned on each other in a tense standoff that ensured that no Yazidis could return home. Two years later, a combination of Iraqi security forces and Iran-backed Shiite militias, known as Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs, the Hashd al-Shaabi), defeated ISIS remnants and subsequently drove KDP fighters out of the district. Afterward the PMUs used the area to advance their own (and Iran’s) interests, further dividing those Yazidis who remained by co-opting some and shunning others; this situation has served as yet another deterrent to the return of the displaced. A Yazidi civil society activist bemoaned his community’s fate: Alien forces are waging their wars on Yazidi lands. Sinjar mountain no longer belongs to us; it has become a square on a chessboard over which these forces compete. The Yazidis will not be able to return home for another ten years; we can no longer trust anyone to protect us. Losing Sinjar to us is like travelling with a compass that has no north. This report sheds light on this small corner of Iraq, whose population is neglected while its territory is contested with unremitting ardour. It is based on several visits to the area, as well as conversations with representatives of the various parties concerned over the past two years. It forms part of a larger Crisis Group project that seeks to propose pathways toward a negotiated settlement of the vexed question of Iraq’s disputed areas. Sinjar is one of the smallest of these areas but certainly not the simplest of the country’s unresolved problems, nor the least important given its strategic location. II.A Community Thrice Divided A.The KDP Ascendant When U.S. forces ousted the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, old disputes resurfaced to shape the post-regime order/disorder. A major one was the status of Iraq’s Kurds. In 1970, their leaders had negotiated an autonomy arrangement with Saddam. But autonomy was not fully realised until 1991, when the defeat of Iraqi forces in Kuwait provided Kurdish rebel parties, protected by the U.S., with the opportunity to carve out a zone in the north free of Iraqi control. From the parties’ perspective, the Iraqi army’s withdrawal was only partial, as the army held on to territories they considered part of the Kurdish region, a belt of administrative districts stretching from the Syrian to the Iranian border that was home to Kurds as well as Iraqis from other ethnic and religious communities. The town of Kirkuk lay at the centre of these districts; its oil riches were the main stumbling block to the peaceful resolution of the disputed territories’ status. Sinjar was the western-most of the districts and strategic for other reasons. These areas had long been the target of regime Arabisation policies, which focused on the Kurds but also the Yazidis. In the 1977 national census, Yazidis were forced to register as Arabs; in the 1980s, the regime destroyed Yazidi villages in Ninewa governorate and killed Yazidi men who had joined the Kurdish insurgency. In recognition of the Yazidis’ plight, the Kurdistan regional government, elected in 1992 after the U.S. established a safe zone in northern Iraq, created a directorate for Yazidi affairs. In 2003, the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), sent their fighters into the disputed territories to establish de facto control, and supported a constitutional process in Baghdad with the clear intent to resolve these territories’ legal status in the Kurdish region’s favour. While the PUK was dominant in the areas from Kirkuk southward toward Iran, the KDP reigned supreme northward to the Syrian border. Failure to resolve the disputed territories’ status politically resulted in the entrenchment in those areas of Kurdish forces, as Baghdad was weakened by insurgencies, sectarian conflict and government dysfunction. Yet Kurdish control did little to end the dispute. In 2008, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) took it upon itself to lay the groundwork for political negotiations by preparing a (yet unpublished) comprehensive study on the demographics, economics and politics of these areas, but its efforts floundered amid the political fervour of the 2009 local and 2010 parliamentary elections, as well as resistance from Baghdad and Erbil. The KDP ruled Sinjar and other disputed areas by using its leverage in Baghdad and Mosul to place party loyalists in the local administration and establish parallel security institutions. Sinjar became a backwater: it was under the KDP’s military control and administered de facto by the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil, but in practice neglected. The central state’s presence was limited to certain administrative activities, such as paying public employees, and displaying national symbols, such as the Iraqi flag atop district government buildings. The city of Dohuk in the Kurdish region replaced Mosul as the hub for Yazidis wanting to do business or pursue their studies. Such was the scene in June 2014, when jihadist militants entering from Syria routed Iraqi security forces stationed in Mosul and the Ninewa plain. The victors declared an Islamic caliphate. Within days, state security forces across central Iraq disintegrated, leaving the disputed territories under the exclusive control of the KDP and PUK, whose peshmerga faced ISIS fighters along a front the length of the disputed territorial belt. The KDP held on to Sinjar, which ISIS besieged from three sides. Two months later, on 3 August, ISIS fighters moved into Sinjar, causing the KDP peshmerga to withdraw toward the Kurdish region without a fight. Only U.S. airstrikes stopped the jihadists’ further northward advance.On 13 August, local Yazidi cells of the Shengal Resistance Units (Yekîneyên Berxwedana Şengalê, YBŞ) – a new group of PKK fighters consisting of Yazidis from both Iraq and Syria – and the YPG deployed to Sinjar from their bases in Syria and Qandil in northern Iraq. These forces carved out a corridor to evacuate the local population via the mountain range to the north of the city (which ISIS was unable to take), and westward into Syria. In October 2014, the KDP regained control of the towns of Rabia and Zummar to the north and east of Sinjar from ISIS, and a year later, in November 2015, a combination of YBŞ/YPG units and KDP peshmerga supported by U.S.-led coalition air power retook Sinjar town. The YBŞ/YPG – the pro-PKK – units assumed control of the district’s western part, while KDP peshmerga and their local allies dominated its east, leaving areas south of Highway 47, which connects Mosul to Syria, to ISIS. For two and a half years, that front remained static, while inside Sinjar town and on Sinjar mountain the two rival Kurdish forces maintained an uneasy standoff. B.A Growing Intra-Kurdish Struggle Opening the escape route from Sinjar into Syria in August 2014 won the PKK and its Syrian affiliate the YPG the allegiance of disaffected Yazidis in a region where the PKK previously had had no more than a small presence in the form of sympathisers of its leader Abdullah Öcalan, and who then became the YBŞ. Serhad Shengal, a Yazidi PKK-trained cadre from Syria serving as public relations officer with the YBŞ, recounted his arrival in Sinjar from the PKK’s headquarters in Qandil, a vast mountain range in north-eastern Iraq, in August 2014: I came from Qandil and was among those who helped people escape. We did not know the area and we needed guides. There were PKK and YPG fighters, and some 300 Yazidis from Sinjar who had been advisers to the YPG. With their help we opened a corridor that allowed the people of Sinjar to escape through the plain and reach Rojava [the self-administered zone in YPG-held northern Syria]. The YPG and YBŞ also established a local political wing, the Yazidi Freedom and Democracy Party (Hizb al-Hurriya wa al-Dimuqratiya al-Ezidi), and a Sinjar autonomous council. The PKK may have instructed its affiliates to leap to the Yazidis’ aid, but in creating the humanitarian corridor they also established a foothold for what would soon become a critical supply channel from Iraq to YPG fighters in Syria. These fighters had filled a security vacuum in Kurdish areas there after the Damascus regime withdrew its forces in 2012, being preoccupied with fighting for its survival in other parts of the country. In its senior command a non-Iraqi group, the YPG/YBŞ appeared to have no other ambition in northern Iraq than to keep its supply channel open – unlike the KDP, which sought to annex Sinjar district, along with other disputed territories, to the Kurdish region. As the battle to push back ISIS started up in both Syria and Iraq in late 2014, the U.S. threw its military support behind the YPG, despite the latter’s direct association with the PKK, an organisation on Washington’s terrorist list. This intervention turned Sinjar into a strategic prize: for the U.S.-YPG effort to defeat ISIS, and for the KDP-Turkish efforts to dislodge the PKK affiliates from the area, even as the KDP also was assisting the U.S. in fighting ISIS. The main motivation for Sinjar Yazidis to join the YBŞ’s ranks has been strong enmity toward the KDP: frustration over its governance since 2003 and anger over its abandonment of the local population in August 2014. Many of the YBŞ’s recruits were youths orphaned in the ISIS rampage. The vast majority of Sinjar Yazidis had no prior affiliation with the PKK but were independent or associated with other parties that opposed KDP rule, such as the Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress. When the YPG/YBŞ and, separately, the KDP wrested Sinjar town from ISIS in November 2015 with U.S. help, the Baghdad government, seeking to regain control of the disputed territories and sensing an opportunity to at least curb the KDP’s influence in Sinjar, agreed to fund the YBŞ through the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the state agency that had been paying PMU fighters’ salaries. Thus the KDP-PKK rivalry came to intersect with the long-running feud between the federal government in Baghdad and the KDP-dominated Kurdistan regional government (KRG) in Erbil, turning the Sinjar Yazidi community into double hostages. In response to these developments, the KDP shifted from trying to restore its formal authority over Sinjar town, which had been heavily damaged in the November 2015 fighting, to establishing security control only, which it was forced to share with the YPG/YBŞ. The KDP’s administrative weight shifted to Al-Shimal sub-district, directly north of the mountain, with the pro-KDP district director (qa’im maqam), who commuted to the deserted ruins of Sinjar town from his base in Dohuk, stopping off along the way in the town of Sinouni to converse with his fellow KDP loyalists of the Al-Shimal sub-district council. Meanwhile, PKK-trained cadres took charge of administration in areas under YPG/YBŞ control, such as Khanasour on the mountain’s northern flank close to the Syrian border. The KDP controlled access to Sinjar district at the bridge across the Tigris near Faysh Khabour, allowing through only Yazidis deemed loyal to the KDP; it also constricted the flow of goods needed for reconstruction and restarting the economy. It was common to hear local Yazidis grumble about Kurdish control, whatever its provenance, as neither group allowed them to return and rebuild. The KDP recruited, paid and commanded its own Yazidi security force, placing it under the nominal command of a local Yazidi leader, Qasem Shesho, and limited political representation and military activity outside the party’s purview in areas it controlled. For example, Hayder Shesho, a cousin of Qasem with a militant background in the PUK and the Yazidi diaspora, returned to Sinjar after the August 2014 crisis to recruit and train an armed force of his own, which he aimed to keep independent. His attempt collapsed after the KDP detained him for a week in April 2015. Early in 2017, tensions between the KDP and YBŞ came to a head. On 3 March, clashes broke out in Khanasour between the YBŞ and a force of Syrian Kurds raised and trained by the KDP called the Peshmerga Roj and deployed to the YBŞ-held area. There were casualties on both sides. A week later, pro-PKK militants bussed in protesters from Syria via the border crossing it controlled, which triggered new violence. The KDP made no secret of its desire to expel the PKK affiliates from Sinjar, perhaps betting that Turkey, the KDP’s ally and the PKK’s mortal enemy, would do the job. Indeed, on 25 April, the Turkish air force struck pro-PKK fighters in the area. Turkey and the KDP could do little more, as the U.S. needed a corridor to supply the YPG with weaponry. When the KDP cut U.S. non-lethal aid to the YPG across that border in March 2017, Washington briefly suspended all assistance to the Kurdistan regional government until the KDP stood down. Crisis Group's MENA Program Director Joost Hiltermann meeting with YBŞ representative in Sinjar town, on September 2016. CRISISGROUP C.Enter Shiite Militias In late 2016, local dynamics began to change as the campaign to drive ISIS from Mosul got underway. In September and October, the Obama administration mediated security agreements between Erbil and Baghdad, and between Baghdad and Shiite political factions linked to the PMUs,especially those backed by Iran. These deals allowed the Mosul operation to go forward without significant problems between the participants – a precarious non-coalition whose members understood and accepted their individual and separate roles in the counter-ISIS operation but always kept one eye on how that fight would position them against other rivals. As the battle proceeded in 2017 and victory loomed, the participants started to prepare for the aftermath, an expected race for the spoils. On 13 May, Iran-backed PMUs launched an attack from their forward positions near Tel Afar west of Mosul to drive ISIS from Qayrawan, a small town located midway between Mosul and the Syrian border, and surrounding villages. Pushing westward, they reached the border at Umm Jaris, directly west of Sinjar town, on 29 May, then moved south to seize a 30km strip along the border, in addition to the southern half of Sinjar district. By that time, the Yazidi affiliates of both the PKK and KDP had fighters deployed in Sinjar town and the district’s half north of the mountain. As the PMUs, led by the Kataaeb Imam Ali, entered the area, they promoted themselves as Iraqi units operating by Baghdad’s fiat. Because the KDP refused to join the PMU-led offensive against ISIS in southern Sinjar (a mixed Yazidi-Sunni Arab area), local Yazidis keen to regain their lands and exact revenge on ISIS formed new battalions or joined existing ones, such as the Lalish Battalion (Fawj Lalish), which the PMUs had established in the aftermath of the ISIS attack on Mosul and Tel Afar in 2014. Others, exasperated by Kurdish rule and keen to see the back of the KDP in particular, began defecting from their KDP units to join the conquering Shiite militias, deploying along the border and throughout the district. Once they had evicted ISIS, the PMUs delegated internal security duties to the armed groups they had raised. The PMUs gained additional local acceptance by co-opting Yazidi tribal leaders with a history of cooperation with local Sunni Arab leaders who had refused to side with either the KDP or ISIS. Thus, when the Kurdish independence referendum, staged on 25 September 2017 by Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region and leader of the KDP, backfired, the PMUs could build on the advantageous position they had create in Sinjar earlier that year. On 16-17 October, facing advancing Iraqi army divisions and PMUs across the disputed territories, Kurdish forces withdrew precipitously from most of those areas, allowing the army and PMUs to deploy there. In Sinjar, KDP fighters fled northward to the Kurdish region on 17 October. The army’s 15th division took position at the main border crossing to Syria at Rabiya, an Arab town between Sinjar and the Kurdish region, while PMUs and PMU-affiliated groups deployed along the border between Rabiya and Umm Jaris. The army and PMUs did not challenge YPG/YBŞ forces in Khanasour, who therefore continued to control a 15km stretch of the border. D.An Administrative Vacuum The KDP’s departure ended the intra-Kurdish standoff and thereby reduced the likelihood of renewed fighting. Yet the PMUs’ presence and their control of border crossings with Syria in southern Sinjar ushered in a new phase of militia domination that poses a challenge to Baghdad’s authority, given the PMUs’ unclear status within the Iraqi security forces, and has done little to bring the kind of peace that would allow displaced Yazidis to return. The PMUs have pursued the same divide-and-rule, co-optation and security-control approach as their Kurdish predecessors. Since October 2017, they have tolerated the presence of Yazidi militias, but only to integrate them under the PMUs’ chain of command, taking advantage of intra-Yazidi divisions and the community’s lack of cohesive leadership.Murad Sheikh Khalo, a Yazidi PMU commander, said: Now that the KDP has withdrawn, we have opened up recruitment into the Hashd [PMUs] and we now have about 3,000 fighters. We hope to attract into our ranks all those who were previously enrolled in other militias. The Yazidi fighters with the YBŞ can stay with them as long as they agree to integrate either in the Iraqi security forces or in the PMUs and answer to our chain of command. The KDP’s departure left an administrative vacuum in Sinjar that further militates against an expeditious return of the displaced. Yazidi technocrats who fled to the Kurdish region after August 2014 remain there; moreover, in October 2017, the KDP-backed district council and administration moved from Sinouni to Dohuk, carrying out their functions from the small town of Sumeil ever since. Yazidi professionals, such as doctors and teachers, who left Sinjar have yet to return to restart health facilities and schools. A Yazidi NGO official said that, for this reason, even if the PMUs were to appoint a new administration, they would have trouble finding skilled personnel to run it. In this way, and by controlling a large population of displaced Yazidis whose vote it could try to muster in 2018 elections, the KDP still holds the key to Sinjar’s revival. III.Weak State, Strong Militias A.PMU Rule Since mid-October 2017, Iran-backed PMUs have had the military and political upper hand in Sinjar. Formally integrated into the Iraqi security architecture, they operate as a parallel institution to the state security forces, with their own chain of command. PMU commanders determine who deploys on the Iraq-Syria border in southern Sinjar, who controls strategic roads and which army or PMU units the growing number of Yazidi recruits should join. Their military chain of command is reflected in political decision-making. They have co-opted Yazidi tribal leaders, with Sheikh Khalo acting as point man answering to the PMUs’ Shiite commanders and their deputy leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Through Sheikh Khalo and his local network of loyalists, PMU commanders, acting outside the law, appointed a new Sinjar district director and began to appoint directorate heads. A YBŞ commander criticised the new PMU-imposed administration as “a de-facto administration”: No one has been consulted. The PMUs came as a representative of the state, but in reality they are only serving the personal interests of a few Yazidi figures connected to them. These guys have nothing in Sinjar; they are only making business from the Yazidi cause. Sheikh Khalo saw things differently: The new district director and administrators have been selected according to their loyalty to the unity of Iraq. The former [KDP-backed] district council and administration have expired. I am arranging meetings with all the ministries in Baghdad in order to bring services back to Sinjar. This may be true, but by monopolising the appointment of Yazidi administrators and managing the relationship with Baghdad, the PMUs have been imposing their rule. By way of example, a Yazidi NGO representative said: “If I want to register my NGO in Baghdad, I can do so only through the PMUs. But if I agree to this, I’d become part of their patronage network”. Also, to reach PMU leaders, local actors say they have had to go through the PMUs’ Yazidi intermediaries. Undertaking Sinjar’s reconstruction under these conditions would give power and resources to a handful of local Yazidi leaders who represent only part of the local population, including those who remain displaced. If PMU rule continues unchallenged until the parliamentary and local elections, scheduled for 12 May 2018, these leaders may use the PMUs’ military power to secure positions in the district and sub-district councils, thus leaving them in control of a strategic passageway to Syria. In other words, having overseen operations that recaptured Sinjar from ISIS, the Iraqi government has acquiesced to control of much of the area by actors only loosely affiliated with the state. B.A Weakened Baghdad Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has the ambition to restore the federal government’s authority over all of Iraq, but he is saddled with a weak and dysfunctional state apparatus hollowed out by corrupt political parties. To succeed, he would need to engage with the PMUs and their local subsidiaries in areas they helped retake, along with the army, from ISIS and the KDP, while seeking to counterbalance them by winning over and empowering other local leaders who previously sided with the KDP. In Sinjar, competing co-optation policies by non-state actors have profoundly divided local elites. To restart local institutions, and allocate funds for service provision, Abadi would need to enlist Yazidi politicians and technocrats who have gravitated toward either the PMUs or the Kurdish parties. That task is daunting. The PMUs’ strength acts as a disincentive for local politicians to challenge their control. Moreover, few Yazidis have personal, political or business connections with Baghdad-based politicians any longer; to the extent that they do, those perceived as associated with the KDP may be particularly distrusted in Baghdad, especially after the 25 September 2017 Kurdish independence referendum. The logical way for the government to proceed would be to empower local councils, including in Sinjar, with reconstruction funds channelled through the Ninewa governorate administration in Mosul. Yet that course of action would pose its own set of problems: Ninewa’s governor and governorate council are accused of having mismanaged funds, directing the monies to their own preferred localities. Baghdad ministries themselves suffer from a corrupt and parasitic bureaucracy that concentrates decision-making in the hands of specific figures, including officials charged with post-conflict reconstruction, many of whom have developed business and personal relations with PMU leaders. PMU networks thus tend to be more efficient channels for the disbursement of reconstruction funds in areas they control in the disputed territories.The problem is that the PMUs have their own favoured local beneficiaries. A Yazidi NGO official said: The National Reconciliation Commission plans to appoint a representative committee to help the government bring back institutions to Sinjar. If PMU-empowered Yazidi leaders will have the last word on who will be in this committee through their personal connections, the process will fail. So far, the government’s efforts to reach out to Yazidi partners other than those associated with the PMUs have been uncoordinated and timid. The Office of the National Security Adviser continues to communicate with the YBŞ, while the army has attempted to strike a deal with Hayder Shesho to integrate some of his forces. The only way for Baghdad to reassert sovereignty and gradually disempower the PMUs’ pervasive networks may therefore be to reintegrate the PMUs’ Yazidi fighters into the local police force and lure back Yazidi technocrats previously working in KDP-backed institutions, despite their history of association with a party that sought to wrest Sinjar from the federal government’s control. While the Baghdad government may not yet have the strength to proactively reassert its administrative authority in Sinjar, its legal authority gives it some leverage to prevent matters from completely escaping its control. Until now, it has not endorsed the PMU-appointed district director and sub-district administrators. Its approval of these appointments would effectively hand over the district to the PMUs. It is wise for Baghdad to continue to withhold its blessing if it wishes to return Sinjar to state authority. C.Regional Power Plays Baghdad’s failure to restore its sovereignty in Sinjar through means other than the PMUs – which are only nominally government agents – is emblematic of the challenge it faces elsewhere in the disputed territories. In Sinjar, it may help formalise the PMUs’ patronage networks within local councils, further marginalising Yazidi technocrats associated, however loosely, with the Kurdish parties, and discourage the return of effective local governance as well as the displaced population. Sinjar Yazidis who have tied their lives to the Kurdish region may choose to stay there as second-class residents rather than returning to their neglected, militia-dominated home territory that has become a battleground for regional powers pursuing strategic objectives unrelated to the population’s wellbeing. Sinjar sits at a strategic crossroads. Through its allied Shiite militias, Iran benefits from a corridor into Syria through territory wrested from ISIS. Since October 2017, the PMUs have seized additional areas adjacent to the border, either patrolling these lands themselves or delegating the task to affiliated Yazidi fighters. A YBŞ commander noted ruefully: “Yazidis working for the PMUs are handing Sinjar to the Iranians, who will use it for their own interests, whatever these may be”. Turkey wants to see the PKK’s affiliates removed from Sinjar, and had hoped, in October 2017, that the Iraqi army and PMUs would take care of the matter. Ankara did not oppose the Baghdad government’s retaking of the disputed territories after the ill-fated Kurdish independence referendum. Masoud Barzani had staged the plebiscite over its express objections, and Ankara wanted to teach him a lesson. When the Iraqi army attempted to retake the entire border area with Syria, Washington reportedly intervened, thus keeping open two separate corridors into Syria – both the KDP’s and the YPG’s. A Turkish official said Washington, in doing so, had made “a big mistake”. While the army and PMUs did not engage in direct confrontation with the YBŞ/PKK in Khanasour, they appear to be trying to erode the group’s role in Sinjar by encouraging the defection of its Yazidi fighters, pushing PKK-trained cadres to Syria or Qandil, and cutting the ties between the YBŞ and the YPG. Breaking the YBŞ’s bond with the YPG in Syria could represent a convergence of Iranian and Turkish interests: this move would allow both Ankara and the Syrian regime to prevent the Syrian Kurdish region from slipping out of the economic embargo that has threatened to strangle it, and eventually permit the regime to retake it from the YPG. As a result of this pressure, non-Iraqi, PKK-trained YPG/YBŞ cadres have either left Sinjar or assumed a lower profile, sensing their vulnerability to a possible Turkish attack or a clash with the PMUs. D.Breaking Dependency Patterns Sinjar’s Yazidi community, traumatised by genocidal violence and displacement, now has fallen victim to competition among armed groups with foreign patrons, preventing the population’s return to their lands and livelihoods. The ordeal of 2014 and subsequent standoff in Sinjar have left many Yazidis in a state of existential anxiety over their future in Iraq. Over the past three years, the contrast between the proliferation of competing groups, each with its own political symbols hoisted in public spaces, and the meagre trickle of returning residents has been stark. Events in Sinjar over the past few years enabled external actors’ co-optation of Yazidi elites, but they also prompted growing criticism of these patterns of dependency. The younger generation of Yazidis in particular feels a sense of subjugation. The youths’ activism is challenging traditional power structures, as they urge their community to become master of its own destiny. A Yazidi civil society activist said: In the past, religious and tribal leaders were our only point of reference. But because they let themselves be used, they failed. There are respected tribal leaders and younger religious figures who have started showing a different approach, but we desperately need a new type of leadership that refuses to be someone else’s pawns. Yazidis should stop feeling as if they don’t deserve anything. The greatest challenge Sinjar’s Yazidis face will be to restore the ties that linked community members to their lands, to one another and to their cultural heritage, all of which ISIS’s jihadists, many of whom were local Sunni Arabs, were set on violently severing. Today, Yazidi community and culture are threatened by the local power struggles that have been unleashed. An important step toward a better future should come through new leadership not beholden to militias but willing and able to reinvigorate local institutions. It would be best for this revival to occur under Baghdad’s formal authority, but with a great deal of local autonomy, as provided for by the Iraqi constitution and law. IV.Conclusion: Returning Sinjar to Its People Liberated from ISIS fighters intent on annihilating the Yazidi minority and freed of the KDP and PUK bent on annexing Sinjar to the Kurdish region, Sinjar nonetheless remains a disputed district. Yazidis displaced in the Kurdish region may see their temporary exile turn permanent, as most of the district remains off limits to them due to militia control and lack of reconstruction and development. Yazidi elites have been increasingly fragmented and disempowered by a decade-long competition between the Kurdish region and Baghdad, an intra-Kurdish feud between the KDP and PKK/YPG/YBŞ, and, most recently, the military and financial tutelage of the PMUs. Baghdad’s continued absence from Sinjar will have negative repercussions for both the Abadi government and the Yazidis seeking to return to a normal life. The most viable way forward for Baghdad would be to leverage what its rival, the KDP, has built over the last decade: a local administrative elite that will formally remain in power until elections in May 2018. Even though this elite largely comprises personnel who either support the KDP or have proved willing to work with it, they possess the skills needed for the restoration of functioning governance institutions in Sinjar. With the KDP militarily excluded from the area, this elite could proffer its administrative and technocratic know-how without the KDP imposing political restrictions on the allocation of reconstruction funds based on loyalty. Under this logic, and acting through the National Reconciliation Commission, Baghdad could lead the way by restoring local governance through an administrative body composed of Yazidis who have worked with all sides: the KDP-backed council, the PMUs and the YBŞ. This initiative could bring technocratic skills back to Sinjar, diminish Yazidi dependence on external powers, facilitate the provision of international reconstruction aid and improve prospects for the return of the displaced. The task will not be easy, but it is consistent with the government’s ten-year reconstruction plan, published in June 2017, that seeks IDP returns, the rebuilding of damaged infrastructure and steps to effect intra-communal coexistence. A reinvigorated role for Baghdad in Sinjar also may help the federal government in reaching a much-needed compromise with the Kurdistan authorities over the future of the disputed territories generally, including the status of Sinjar. The Kurdish referendum debacle has left Kurdish parties with a dilemma: postpone negotiations with Baghdad and thus allow the PMUs to gain strength in the disputed territories; or support Baghdad’s attempt to restore local institutions, staffed by local elites willing to work with both the federal government and Erbil. Either way, the Kurdish region’s hold and claim on the disputed territories will be diminished. But dealing with Baghdad would enable the creation of a formal framework for negotiations supported by UNAMI and the international community to determine these territories’ status within Iraq, based on the constitution. The tragedy Sinjar and its people suffered in 2014 attracted global attention. The Abadi government should take advantage of whatever international support it can mobilise for Sinjar’s reconstruction, given the sympathy the Yazidi plight has generated, to focus resources on improving the district at long last and reconnecting it to the centre. Doing so would benefit the Yazidis and show that the Iraqi leadership is prepared not only to win the battle against ISIS but also to rebuild Iraq by protecting and reconciling its diverse communities. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/183-winning-post-isis-battle-iraq-sinjar?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=26f0bab30a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-26f0bab30a-359909997 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

Rebuilding Iraq Question: The conference is wrapping up, but while there have been some significant contributions for the Iraq Reconstruction Fund, they are falling quite short of the $100 billion that was sought at the beginning of the conference. So how concerned are you that if Iraq doesn't get an infusion of finances quickly, and a significant amount of money quickly, that some of the gains and stability could be lost if basic services aren't restored, if young people don't have jobs — are you concerned about that? Guterres: Well, first of all, this was not a pledging conference, it was a conference about reconstruction, and so not all of the contributions that have been given to Iraq were to be presented here. And I have to say that I am surprised with the high level of pledges that were made in different forms of assistance that were mentioned. The last figure I had was already at about $30 billion. And even if it was a pledging conference, no pledging conference that I remember — and I have been in many, especially in the humanitarian field — ever reach the target. Because after the pledging conference, things go on and then many other donations come and many other commitments come, but here the most important question is not the money that is made available to Iraq, it is the capacity to create conditions for massive private-sector investment in Iraq. And that is why this conference was also so important, because it was an opportunity for the Iraqi government to present a set of very important reforms in regulations for private investment, in anti-corruption, in rule of law. In all those conditions that are essential for private companies to be willing to invest in Iraq — and it is private investment that is going to change Iraq — it's not through donations that we are going to create the conditions for Iraq to recover, to rebuild the country, and especially to provide all the investments that are necessary to create jobs, to change the society, to make it again a prosperous country, and the country able to play an important role in international relations. So, I am very happy with the way the conference was organized. With the way the Iraqi government participated, the way the U.N. was engaged, the way the World Bank, the European Union were engaged. Of course, the generosity of Kuwait. It's remarkable. The country that was invaded by Iraq just some decades ago, to be able to now assume the leadership in providing support to the neighbor is quite remarkable, quite an act of generosity that should be underlined. But all these, I think, give me hope that the stabilization of Iraq can be a reality in that the whole region will benefit. And if you look at the region, there is so much trouble around that it's good at least things are moving in the right direction. Q: So, if things are moving in the right direction, how do you see the long-term role of the United Nations in Iraq? What do you see the as the future of UNAMI [the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq]? How much longer do you think UNAMI needs to be in Iraq, for instance? Guterres: Well, this is something that is impossible to predict at the present moment. We'll have elections — the prime minister was asking about our support in order to make sure that the elections are handled properly — and this will be a very important step, but there [is] still a lot of humanitarian work to be done. There is all the return of people that [were] displaced, there are still more than 2 million people displaced, so this [is] a huge humanitarian work that is still necessary. On the other hand, there is the reconciliation among communities, there is all the work UNDP [the U.N. Development Program] will be leading now in relation to the resilience, the stability of the country. There is the need to have normal relations between Irbil and Baghdad. So, there are lots of things in which I believe a U.N. mission is still necessary, but it now all depends on the rhythm with which the Iraqis will be able to rebuild the county and re-establish a normal democracy in the country. It depends a lot on the success of the Iraqi programs, the possibility to reduce in a quicker way, the presence of the U.N. mission. Then there are the U.N. agencies that will go on their work as they are in many other countries in the world, but the U.N. mission, in itself, is aiming at the stabilization of Iraq. Once that stabilization is reached, normally the U.N. mission will, of course, no longer be necessary. Syria conflict Q: Secretary-General, staying in the region, if we could talk about Syria. There's been a real military escalation in the past week. You've called for de-escalation, but beyond that, how worried are you that a negotiated political settlement may be slipping further and further away there? Guterres: "Well, I'm, first of all, very worried with the conflict in itself. We were hoping that with all the measures that were taken in Astana with the escalation that, progressively, violence would diminish in Syria and, unfortunately in the recent past, as you have seen, it became again extremely increasing. We have seen it in Eastern Ghouta, in Idlib, we have seen it in Afrin, we have seen it in the conflict between Israel and the different militias more or less directly linked with Iran. It has been, indeed, a series of developments that are very worrying. Obviously, that was a positive thing in the fact that the Sochi Conference — that many suspected could be a new process that would undermine Geneva or could launch a number of disturbing initiatives on the country — Sochi was finished with the decision to have a constitutional commission, but that to be formed in Geneva and under the auspices of my special envoy and in the context of the Geneva political process that, as you know, was launched by a resolution in the Security Council on both governance, elections and the constitution. So theoretically, conditions are created to move forward with the political process, but all this violence and all this contradiction are indeed a threat to the political process in itself. And so, obviously, I'm worried, but we'll do everything we can to make sure that in Geneva we can move positively in the future to try to create conditions to put an end to this horrible conflict. Q: But in the past week, since Israel had struck inside Syria and such, have you been on the phone with anyone in Israel? With Anyone in Turkey? We have Afrin going on. Have you been in touch personally or is this — [U.N. Special Envoy on Syria Staffan] de Mistura?" Guterres: We have been in contact through different, through different — including personal contacts of mine — but through all our mechanisms, we have been trying to do our best in order to reduce this dramatic escalation of conflict. Fortunately, some of the aspects have been reduced, but others are still going on and they are a source of great concern to me. And the suffering of the Syrian people especially — the suffering of the Syrian people — people usually don't talk about it. I mean, we talk about military operations, the parties to the conflict, the political dimension, but those that are there — living, being bombed, not having hospitals, not having schools for their children, in permanent threat for their lives. I mean this level of suffering, that I have been following since I was High Commissioner for Refugees, is absolutely appalling, and I mean there should be, based on their conscience in all the actors that are relevant in this conflict, that its high time to stop it. This is nonsense." Progress in Yemen Q: Well, we can look a little farther east and see more suffering in Yemen, 22 million people in need of assistance. This week, you welcomed a $1 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia and the UAE toward the humanitarian needs there. Since these two countries are leading the coalition that's fighting the Houthis on the ground, have you been able to elicit any personal — have you made any personal progress yourself in terms of getting a commitment from the coalition to stop the fighting? Guterres: I think that there are some important developments. Recently, there was an increase in humanitarian aid. There is the decision to open corridors to facilitate access to the different areas of the country. These are positive steps. We are still lacking a political process, and I'm appointing a new special envoy and I will do everything I can to make sure that a serious political process can be put in place, because without a political process this will be a never-ending conflict. And, as we know in relation to Yemen and in the past, Yemen is a place where it's impossible to win a war, and so only a political process can solve the problem. Q: So what do you think your new envoy, Martin Griffiths, I believe it's going to be? Guterres: This is not yet decided because it needs to go through the Security Council, and that process has not been launched. Q: I think it's been launched, but it hasn't — they have until Thursday, maybe, to come back to you. What do you think? I mean, nothing has changed among the parties in terms of political will, to come to the table. Guterres: Many things have changed since, if you look at, I mean, we had recently divisions on the side of the Houthi-Saleh coalition that was dismantled, and you also had divisions in the south. So, some things have changed and these things [that] have changed prove that a political solution is necessary. And I hope that the Houthis will feel the need to seriously engage in a discussion, and I hope that the coalition and the government will also feel the need to engage in a serious discussion. I mean, what is the solution that is needed, of course, a situation that allows for the Houthis to have a normal participation in the political life of Yemen. But at the same time, to have guarantees from the security point of view in relation to the neighbors of Saudi Arabia and not to allow for the creation inside Yemen of an army that is not the army of the country. That, of course, will have to be discussed, negotiated, both from the point of view an inclusive political system allowing for everybody to participate and from the point of view of the security arrangements that are necessary to make sure that all will feel comfortable with the solution. But it's, it's seen from the point of view of an observer. It looks reachable, but political will is always the difficult part. Q: So do you think we could be close to some sort of breakthrough? Guterres: I hope that soon it will be possible to relaunch a serious political process, but we need to cross our fingers. Watching North Korea Q: OK. You just came back from South Korea. You went for the Olympics and to make an official visit. You met briefly with the ceremonial head of state of North Korea, Kim Yong Nam. Did you any have contact with any other members from the North Korean delegation? Guterres: Yes, there were some brief contacts but there was not a negotiation, obviously in this context. I had very important contacts with the government of South Korea, and I think the central question is the following: These Olympic Games created an improvement in the relations between the North and the South. So, there is an improvement in the inter-Korean relations. But these needs [sic] to be used as a window of opportunity to solve the real problem — and the real problem is the need for a peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. And that requires not only good relations between North and South, but it requires, in my opinion, essentially a serious discussion between North Korea and the United States, together with the other relevant countries — that's the group of six, but I mean between North Korea and the United States. And the North Koreans must understand that they have to accept denuclearization, but the others must understand that denuclearization needs to be accompanied by the security guarantees that allow for it to be acceptable for North Korea. And this is where we are not yet — the need for these direct discussions, serious discussions, aiming at a peaceful denuclearization of North Korea, and are not yet in place. And it's essential to take profit of this window of opportunity, and that the unity of the Security Council — that unity is crucial also for diplomatic engagement to be launched and to be successful. Q: Do you have any plans to send [Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey] Feltman back, or to do anything from your end? Guterres: No. We are in permanent contact with the parties and we will do whatever at the certain moment might be useful. We are not agitating ourselves. We don't intend to have any protagonism or try to have any merits on whatever. We are here to serve. We know who are the key interlocutors. The key interlocutors inside in the front line — North Korea and the United States — but, of course, China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, these are the protagonists. We are in a supporting role. We'll do everything possible to facilitate what is needed, and what is needed is a serious negotiation for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, done in the context of a regional security arrangement and in a peaceful way. Myanmar and the Rohingya Q: Finally, Secretary-General, I wanted to ask you about Myanmar. On Tuesday, your refugee chief Filippo Grandi, he told the Security Council that the conditions are not conducive for the voluntary return of the Rohingya refugees because the causes of their flight have not been properly addressed yet. So are you, have you been in touch, are you disappointed in Aung San Suu Kyi? She's been highly criticized for her handling of this. Have you spoken with her recently, and are you still planning to name a special adviser? Guterres: Yes, the special adviser will be soon appointed. But the central question that Filippos Grandi raised is the following: We considered that it is essential to recognize the right of return, voluntary in safety and dignity, of those that fled and returned to their place of origin not to be put in camps. But for that to be possible, a massive investment is necessary. Not only in the reconstruction of the villages destroyed in the field, but in the reconciliation for people not to be afraid to come back. And the guarantees that the forces that were expelling them will not be retaliating against them again. And this is the investment that the government of Myanmar has not yet made. And before that investment is made, it will be very difficult to have conditions for that massive voluntary repatriation as we all wish to happen. There is still a long way to go, and I think the government of Myanmar needs to understand that they cannot procrastinate things, that they need to engage seriously in creating the conditions for the return to be possible. Unfortunately, that has not yet been done with the determination and the courage, because we know that large part of the population is against the Rohingya's, we know that. But that is why politicians need courage, is to overcome those differences because the situation of the Rohingya population in Myanmar was absolutely unacceptable. Q: But those sorts of reconciliation talks and unity talks and things like that, can — they are such drawn out processes, they can take years. So, what are these Rohingya that are in Bangladesh going to do in the meantime? Guterres: There are many things that can be done much more quickly than years. There's physical reconstruction and there are a number of things that can be done both to support the Rohingyas and the local community. And doing so, people understand that they have also something to gain with this process. So, reconciliation is not just a matter of gestures, it is a matter of investments made for people to understand that living together, they can live better. Q: So, realistically, how long do you think before the Rohingyas can start going back? Guterres: I think that, in small numbers, there are things that can be done relatively quickly. A process of return, a large group of refugees — and we have done several processes of return … in different parts of the world as High Commissioner for Refugees — a process of return can take sometimes two, three years to be properly organized. But it requires planning, it requires investment, it requires a very serious effort in order to make it successful. If not, we risk to have a situation in which return takes place and then people flee again. And unfortunately, that's, for instance, what we see in South Sudan. I helped as UNHCR, together will all my colleagues, and lots of elements of the civil society, we have helped about half a million people return to South Sudan and now there are more than one million refugees that fled South Sudan again. This is what we don't want to happen with the Rohingyas in Bangladesh. https://www.voanews.com/a/voa-interview-un-chief-antonio-guterres/4254897.html (c) 2018 VOA

Myanmar authorities should investigate and immediately account for the whereabouts and well-being of ethnic-Kachin civilians Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San, Fortify Rights said today. The two are feared disappeared after being detained by Myanmar Army soldiers in Mansi Township, Kachin State on January 31. “The authorities have a responsibility to urgently account for the whereabouts and well-being of these two men,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights. “More than two weeks have passed since the military detained them, and the authorities have blocked attempts to locate them, raising grave concerns.” Fortify Rights spoke to two separate eyewitnesses who said they saw Mr. Hpaugan Yaw, 65, and Mr. Nhkum Naw San, 35, near Hkat Pra village in Mansi Township in the custody of Myanmar Army soldiers around midday on January 31. Both eyewitnesses saw the men’s hands bound behind their backs. One eyewitness, “Maria,” said the soldiers had dressed Nhkum Naw San in the uniform of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)—an ethnic armed group operating in northern Myanmar—and she watched soldiers attempt to dress Hpaugan Yaw in a soldier’s uniform. She heard soldiers threaten to kill Nhkum Naw San, and she described Nhkum Naw San’s face as swollen and bruised. The two men were reportedly farming a field near Hkat Pra village when soldiers arrested them. “Myu San” told Fortify Rights that he arrived at the field around 12 p.m. on January 31 and saw several soldiers take Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San from a shelter in the field. The soldiers walked the two men to the edge of the field. “Myu San” said: [Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San] were forced to sit . . . in the middle of around 30 soldiers. The soldiers were wearing green uniforms. Some of them had baskets and guns and wore quarter-length pants, not long pants. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. “Maria” and a friend had just come from gathering wild vegetables in a nearby forest and were walking down the main road from Hkat Pra village around 12:30 p.m. on January 31 when they encountered the group of soldiers holding Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San at the edge of the field. She said: When we looked at [the two men], we realized that they were from our village. We saw [Nhkum] Naw San. He was tied up and the soldiers had put [KIA] soldiers’ clothes on him. . . The clothes seemed quite new, not very old. [Nhkum] Naw San’s face was swollen—on both cheeks and his forehead and also near the corners of his eyes. His whole face was swollen. The color was already red and blue. The soldiers stopped the two women and held them for about an hour with Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San. “Maria” said: The soldiers asked us if we knew the two men. We said, ‘Yes, we know them.’ The soldiers then asked us if they did like this—and he made his fingers into the shape of a gun—so I said, ‘I don’t know.’ They had already put the [KIA uniform] on Naw San’s body so I was afraid. They didn’t question me any more. Maria said some of the soldiers took Nhkum Naw San to the nearby field shelter and returned with two handmade guns often used for hunting. She told Fortify Rights: “When the soldiers brought [Nhkum] Naw San up the hill, some of the other soldiers were chatting, saying, ‘This guy is just a disturbance. We should kill him.’” Around 1:30 p.m., Myanmar Army soldiers released Maria and her friend and told them to return home to Maing Hkawng using an alternate route. She said: Before reaching the end of the field, I turned back to look at the group . . . When I looked back, the soldiers were putting [KIA] soldiers’ clothes on [Hpaugan Yaw] . . . but it looked like the clothes did not fit him, so [the soldier] tried to make them fit . . . We continued walking for five or six minutes, and we heard a man shouting a word that Kachin people use when we are in pain. . . Five or six minutes later, we heard two gun shots, like ‘bang, bang.’ . . . We didn’t hear anything else. No one has seen or heard from Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San since January 31. Both eyewitnesses told Fortify Rights that the Myanmar Army soldiers who detained Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San wore short pants, which is consistent with reports of a mysterious Myanmar Army brigade referred to in Karen State as Baw Bi Doh, or “short pants” brigade. In a November 2014 report, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School suggested that these short-pants brigades “could be a highly trained special force, a mobile hit squad, and/or a special reconnaissance force.” The Harvard clinic said these brigades “were known for their ruthlessness.” The Karen Human Rights Group has also documented the presence of short-pants brigades in armed-conflict zones in Karen State, and Fortify Rights documented evidence of atrocity crimes by Myanmar Army short-pants brigades in Rakhine State since October 16. Both Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw and their families have resided in Maing Hkawng displaced persons camp since being displaced from their homes due to armed conflict in Kachin State. Pa Kahtawng Camp, Mai Ja Yang, 2016 On February 1, Camp Committee leaders from the Maing Hkawng camp met with personnel from the Myanmar Army Light Infantry Battalion 602 stationed in Maing Hkawng to request permission to search for Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San. Battalion personnel refused permission to search for the two men. The military also reportedly blocked the road from Maing Hkawng and Hkat Pra village and imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on Maing Hkawng village following the incident. On February 4, Hpaugan Yaw and Nhkum Naw San’s families filed missing persons reports at the Mansi Township police station. Mansi police officer Myo Thant told the Irrawaddy that the police “informed authorities in other areas about the two missing people” and posted photographs of the two men. Under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when state officials or agents of the state arrest or detain someone and refuse to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or conceal their fate or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. Enforced disappearances violate various rights protected under international law, including prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and extrajudicial execution. The authorities have a legal obligation to investigate alleged enforced disappearances and prosecute those responsible. In January, a military tribunal reportedly sentenced six Myanmar soldiers to ten years in prison for the murder of three people from the Maing Hkawng camp in May 2017. The tribunal convicted the soldiers from Myanmar Army Light Infantry Battalion 319 of killing Nhkum Gam Awng, 31, Maran Brang Seng, 22, and Labya Naw Hkum, 27, while the three were gathering firewood in a nearby forest. “There’s a history of abuse by the Myanmar military in this area. Authorities should be doing everything in their power to locate these men and not obstruct efforts to find them,” said Matthew Smith. “The military is terrorizing civilians in Kachin State. The government needs to ensure that those responsible for enforced disappearances will be held accountable.” Background Since armed conflict resumed in Kachin State between the Myanmar military and the KIA in June 2011 and later spread to northern Shan State, Fortify Rights and other human rights organizations have documented extrajudicial killings, torture, forced labor, rape and other acts of sexual violence, arbitrary detention, attacks on civilians, and other violations by the Myanmar Army. The KIA and Myanmar Army are also responsible for using anti-personnel landmines and child soldiers during the conflict. "Women-Led Kachin Groups Provide Aid to Displaced" - Fortify Rights 2017 For more information, please contact: Matthew Smith, CEO, Fortify Rights, +66.85.028.0044 (in Thailand), Email: Matthew.Smith@FortifyRights.org; Twitter: @matthewfsmith, @FortifyRights David Baulk, Myanmar Human Rights Specialist, Fortify Rights, +95.979.311.1685 (in Myanmar), Email: david.baulk@fortifyrights.org; Twitter: @davidbaulk, @FortifyRights https://mailchi.mp/fortifyrights/fortify-rights-news-release-myanmar-investigate-whereabouts-of-two-kachin-civilians-detained-by-military02?e=e1d66e8b75 (c) 2018 Fortify Rights International

It is crucial to understand the deep connection between the two dispatches below from Radio Dabanga concerning displaced persons in Darfur: they highlight UNAMID’s decision to become complicit in the final phase of the Darfur genocide, as conceived by the Khartoum regime. This is, finally, African Union complicity in genocide in Africa. The pretense that “voluntary” returns by displaced persons in Darfur are indeed consistently voluntary; the ignoring of disastrous results following many previous returns; and the ignoring of pervasive insecurity that makes returns by IDPs extremely dangerous—all make clear what the UN and African Union, and particularly the latter, are willing to do to obscure the abject failure of the Mission in Darfur: • “Militiamen assault displaced people returning to South Darfur” | Radio Dabanga, February 20, 2018 | BIELEL Militiamen assaulted a number of displaced people who had returned to an area in Bielel locality last week, which is considered to be their home area. Five people were seriously wounded. The militiamen beat and stabbed an unknown number of people. In total, 600 displaced people had left Kalma, Dereig and El Salam camps in South Darfur to return to Marla in Bielel locality. One of the injured people told Radio Dabanga that “militant tribal members” attacked them after arriving to the area on Tuesday February 13. “They beat us with rifle butts and robbed us of our possessions. “The militia members told us that our return here is not welcomed,” the victim said. Reports vary whether the majority of the people have returned to the camps or were able to stay in Marla. Returning home The return of displaced people and refugees to their areas of origin in Darfur remains a challenge for both the Sudanese government as the displaced themselves. Insecurity caused by roaming militias and the abundance of weapons, as well as the danger of running into armed new settlers in the home areas has kept at bay many of the displaced people living in camps. Early January, Radio Dabanga received reports from other returning displaced people in South Darfur that a paramilitary force prevented them from leaving again. About 300 displaced people had returned from the Shangil Tobaya camps in Tawila locality to their home villages in El Malam in northern South Darfur. When they discovered that militiamen and other gunmen are still roaming in the area, dozens of them decided to return to the relative safety of the camps. Paramilitary troops, however, prevented them from leaving. [This is ominous in the extreme: it makes clear Khartoum’s policy of making any “returns” permanent, whether there is security or not. People will not be allowed to flee murderous onslaughts or to work farms from which they have been driven by these same armed Arab militiamen—ER] Dismantling camps Voluntary return is one of the options which the Sudanese government gives to the about 2.7 million people in Darfur who have been displaced by the armed conflict that erupted in 2003. Khartoum has been seeking to empty or abolish camps and it also makes plans for the transformation of the camps into residential areas, or to make camps integrate into existing cities and towns. The South Darfur state government, among others, has started planning the transformation of El Sareif camp for displaced people, south of Nyala. The camp would be turned into a permanent town for the displaced to settle permanently. [These will be “towns” without remotely adequate services, without employment opportunities, and which deny people their former farming livelihoods. It is not a solution to the problem of displacement but a grotesque re-naming of this defining feature of the Darfur genocide—ER] • South Darfur, UN, UNAMID to plan voluntary return in the state | Radio Dabanga, February 18, 2018 | NYALA (South darfur) The South Darfur government, the UN-AU peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and UN agencies in Sudan will cooperate to facilitate the voluntary return of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the state. [Let’s not mince words: in the interest of claiming “success” in Darfur, UNAMID is putting itself in service of Khartoum’s plans for the final phase of the Darfur genocide. This is African Union complicity with genocide in Africa. There are no words of shame or opprobrium adequate to this hideously cruel decision—ER] During a joint meeting in Nyala on Friday, the South Darfur government and representatives of the UN-AU peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and UN agencies in Sudan agreed to establish a joint committee. This committee will develop a plan for voluntary returns and guarantee a secure and stable situation and social peace in the state, the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) reported on Saturday. [All evidence available makes clear that there will be no “secure and stable situation”; the accompanying story from Radio Dabanga makes clear what the fate will be for those forced to return “voluntarily.” This is an appalling decision, driven by expediency and cynicism and cruelty—ER] [South Darfur] Governor Adam El Faki said that UNAMID translated the Strategy Matrix for the Development and Stability of South Darfur from Arabic to English, and delivered it to all UN agencies and organisations operating in the state, so that they can work according to the document. [This will work to compel international humanitarian relief organizations to become complicit in the program of forcible returns, disguised as “voluntary”—ER] Social peace As for the joint plan for voluntary return, the governor said the issues that need to be worked out are security and stability, and social peace. The rule of law needs to be restored by boosting the capacity of the police in the state, as well as the capacity of the judiciary and the competences of the popular courts. [There is absolutely no evidence that the Khartoum regime will commit the necessary resources for any of these goals, particularly in light of the economic collapse that has engulfed all of Sudan—ER] Another important issue concerns social peace in the region, which requires projects that will ease the tension between farmers and herders. The voluntary return process will contain three kinds of projects. The displaced may return to their villages, the camps may be transformed into residential areas, or the displaced will be resettled in new town districts. [There is no evidence that “voluntary” returns will be such, or that people will be able to return to their camps if insecurity proves intolerable—ER] http://sudanreeves.org/2018/02/20/african-union-complicity-in-the-darfur-genocide/ (c) 2018 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

In Poland, the president signs a law criminalizing anyone who dares suggest that the country’s citizens helped perpetrate crimes of the Holocaust. In Italy, a Mussolini-admiring neo-fascist goes on a shooting rampage targeting people with dark skin. And from Hungary to Britain, leading government figures and their allies promote dark theories about a Jewish financier plotting to subvert the national will. After President Trump in August blamed “both sides” for violence in Charlottesville during ­dueling protests by white supremacists and their opponents, critics pointed to American historical amnesia as a contributing factor. Europe, with its emphasis on remembrance in the service of “never again,” was held up as a superior model for reckoning with the horrors of the past. But six months later, events across the continent have served as a potent reminder that Europe’s grip on its history is far from assured. In particular, the 20th century’s dark detours into Nazism, fascism and state-sponsored anti-Semitism are again being subjected to revision. “You’re getting the rewriting of history in the extreme,” said Deborah Lipstadt, an Emory University professor who has written extensively on Holocaust remembrance and denial. Far-right groups protest on Poland’s independence day Thousands gathered in central Warsaw on Nov. 11 for a march organized by radical far-right groups. The march coincided with Poland’s independence day. (Młodzież Wszechpolska) The reasons, too, are varied: A revival of nationalism. A surge in prejudiced thinking about and behavior toward minorities. A social media culture that spreads information and disinformation alike with startling speed. And then there’s the American president himself. “I don’t blame it all on Trump,” Lipstadt said. “But what Trump has done is given a green light, a dog whistle to those who would rewrite history, who would use that history as a tool.” That is certainly what Poland’s critics saw that nation doing when its lawmakers chose to push ahead — on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less — with a bill that would make it illegal to say the Polish government or its citizens abetted Nazi crimes. Poland’s nationalist leaders saw the legislation as a chance to correct what they regard as a historical slur: the use of the term “Polish death camps,” as well as other suggestions of Polish culpability. Unlike other European countries, Poland had no collaborationist government. About 6 million of its citizens died during World War II, half of them Jews, reinforcing Poland’s view of itself as a victim, not a perpetrator. [Poland reckons with unintended consequences as Holocaust bill kicks up a storm] The legislation, said Franziska Exeler, a historian at Berlin’s Free University, reflects the desire of the Polish leadership to make “the official narratives of World War II less complex than historical reality. Less messy and more heroic.” In Poland in particular, as in much of Eastern Europe, historical revisionism is far from a new phenomenon. During decades of postwar communist rule, history was distorted freely for any number of political ends. For some, the new “Holocaust law” harks back to those times, when ideology often dictated history. But the facts are the facts. Historians have documented anti-Semitic atrocities carried out by Polish citizens. The law, which theoretically could criminalize researchers or survivors who point to Polish complicity, was condemned by Israeli leaders as amounting to Holocaust denial. The Trump administration, which had previously praised Poland’s nationalist agenda, added its own sharply worded rebuke. But there was also a reaction in the other direction — an outpouring of prejudice toward Jews. “The idea of the bill was not anti-Semitic in and of itself. They wanted to show their electorate that Poland has risen from its knees, and won’t be humiliated,” said Adam Michnik, a Polish journalist and historian who is editor in chief of Gazeta Wyzborca, Poland’s largest newspaper. “But the anti-Semitic hatred that this has dredged up, on the Internet and on social media, I don’t remember anything like it since 1968.” That year, an anti-Jewish campaign by the communist government prompted the eventual departure of at least 13,000 Jewish Poles and Poles with Jewish roots — a reminder that old hatreds survived the war and have surfaced regularly in Europe in the decades since. But the degree to which politicians are now stoking racial and religious prejudices — and legitimizing views long considered verboten — is exceptional in recent years, experts say. An anti-immigrant party in Austria whose leaders have neo-Nazi roots recently joined the government. About the same time, a far-right party entered the German Parliament for the first time in more than half a century. In Italy, meanwhile, far-right parties stand a chance of capturing the government in March elections alongside a more mainstream right-wing party. All advocate deporting hundreds of thousands of migrants. The political atmosphere, said Noemi Di Segni, head of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, is rife with “very intensive signs of return to neo-fascism.” With the heated rhetoric has come a spike in violence. A onetime local candidate for Italy’s far-right Northern League — one of the parties in line to govern — went on a shooting rampage this month in the central Italian hilltop city of Macerata. He wounded six African immigrants, one of whom sat in his hospital bed two days after a bullet passed through his lung and said he had never heard of Benito Mussolini or the Italian dictator’s fascist creed. But the shooter, who has boasted in court of his crimes, was well aware. He sported a facial tattoo associated with the extreme right, owned a copy of Hitler’s anti-Semitic manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” and delivered a fascist salute from the city’s Mussolini-era war memorial just before his arrest. The shooting was condemned by mainstream politicians, and by thousands who marched in Macerata last week against racially motivated violence. But the shooter, 28-year-old Luca Traini, was also cheered, receiving a level of support that disturbed even his lawyer. “Politically, there’s a problem. In Macerata, people stop me to give messages of solidarity with Luca,” the lawyer, Giancarlo Giulianelli, told reporters. “It’s alarming, but it gives us a sense of what is happening.” So, too, does the campaign against the 87-year-old Hungarian American billionaire George Soros. Long a favorite boogeyman of the far right in Europe and the United States, Soros has been invoked even more than usual lately in attacks that critics see as an anti-Semitic trope. In the Czech Republic’s presidential election late last month, pro-Western candidate Jiri Drahos was alleged in online propaganda to be part of a Soros-led cabal seeking to open the country to unchecked immigration. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has gone further, launching legislation aimed at cracking down on civil society groups and dubbing it the “Stop Soros” bill. With elections due in April, Orban has campaigned more aggressively against the financier than he has against his political opposition. In Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May’s former chief of staff, Nick Timothy, recently raised eyebrows with a front-page story in the Daily Telegraph alleging a secret Soros plot to stop Brexit. Soros has never hidden his opposition to Britain’s departure from the European Union. The trend toward what critics see as a dangerous acceptance of bias also has infiltrated the cultural sphere. In France — where Marine Le Pen, the daughter and political heir of a convicted Holocaust denier, placed second in last year’s presidential vote — the recent revelation that the Culture Ministry had included the anti- Semitic writer Charles Maurras in a series of annual books commemorating key figures and anniversaries in French history set off a backlash. [France backs down on honoring an infamous anti-Semite. Many ask why he was being honored to begin with.] Historians on the committee that drew up this year’s list insisted that commemorating Maurras was not the same as celebrating him. But the text of his entry conspicuously omitted the words “racist” and “anti-Semite.” Neighboring Germany, as the country with the most to atone for historically, has long been hyper-aware of the potential damage from such an oversight. Instruction about the Holocaust is at the core of the nation’s education system, and the capital, Berlin, is full of reminders of Nazi-perpetrated horrors — from the small brass “stumbling stones” that commemorate individual victims to the chilling Topography of Terror museum, which traces the rise of the Nazis on ground once occupied by the Gestapo and SS. Yet even in Germany, the anti-Muslim far right is growing. Protests against Israel in December, meanwhile, stoked fears that the country has an anti-Semitism problem among its Muslim immigrants. The irony, said Andreas Nachama, director of Topography of Terror, is that Jews, Muslims and other minority groups “all sit in the same boat, even though they don’t see it that way.” He added: “We should not get accustomed to violence against minorities, whoever the minority is.” The story his museum tells is one of individual groups being singled out for discrimination, and ultimately persecuted by a state that uses prejudice as an excuse to abandon the rule of law. It’s a lesson of history, he said, that has to be learned to understand the value of liberal democracy. “You don’t just have freedom. You have to win it and fight for it every day,” said Nachama, a historian and a rabbi. “You have to speak problems out loud, and don’t take anything for granted.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-laws-rhetoric-and-acts-of-violence-europe-is-rewriting-dark-chapters-of-its-past/2018/02/19/4ab36f7a-0ddf-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19_story.html?utm_term=.fefed7ecdb84 (c) 2018 The Washington Post

As well as often threatening Afghanistan’s news media, the Taliban have in recent months been forcing media outlets in several provinces to pay arbitrary taxes that are tantamount to a ransom to be allowed to continue operating. The targets have included Ghaznavian, a privately-owned TV station based in the southeastern province of Ghazni. Ghaznavian CEO Ahmad Farid Omari said on 19 December: “The Taliban contacted us by telephone at the start of the spring and demanded 400,000 afghanis (25,000 euros), saying it was the tax they are now imposing on media throughout the country. After several reminders and threats, we paid.” Mohammad Aref Noori, the head of the Ghazni Union of Journalists and Media, said: “For the past three months, the Taliban have been asking media outlets for their turnover figures in order to assess the new taxes they must pay, and then send them threatening letters and warnings to make them pay up.” The victims of these Taliban ransom demands have included two radio stations, Radio Killid and Radio Sama, both of which were asked to provide their turnover figures so that their tax could be calculated. The representatives of these radio stations said they immediately alerted the local and national authorities but the authorities claim that the media outlets refused to provide all the evidence of these threats that they needed in order to locate and prosecute those responsible. At the same time, the authorities nonetheless claim that they have the situation under control and that they can guarantee the safety of these media outlets. “In the light of this situation, protecting media and journalists must be a priority for the Afghan authorities,” said Reza Moini, the head of the Iran/Afghanistan desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “The Taliban are the media’s enemies and their goal is to create news and information black holes. The media and the authorities must together find a solution to prevent the Taliban from taking the media hostage and demanding ransoms.” The security situation is worsening by the day. The authorities have proposed reinforcing protection for media premises. This may be effective but it has the drawback of cutting off media from their community. Experience also shows that this kind of protection is not effective in small towns. It is not just the media outlet itself that is targeted, but also its journalists and other employees. Omari, who is very critical of the lack of action by the authorities, says he paid the ransom in order to protect his own life and the lives of his 18 employees and because he did not think the security forces could guarantee their safety. After speaking out, Omari is now under threat not only from the Taliban but also from the authorities, who accuse him of “collaborating with the enemy.” After nine months of these threats, Radio Killid had to slash the number of its employees and Radio Sama is financial difficulty. “We decided not to pay these ransoms and we told the authorities about these threats against the radio station and our employees on site, but they have done nothing,” Killid media group CEO Najiba Ayubi told RSF. “We are now broadcasting by satellite but with only two technicians. Sixteen employees have been laid off. And we cannot cover local news.” According to the information obtained by RSF, other media outlets have paid ransoms. Taliban spokesman Zabiollah Mojaeh has also confirmed that the Taliban have received these taxes. In reality, the government does not have complete control over provincial towns and villages. Afghanistan is ranked 120th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/taliban-impose-taxes-independent-afghan-media (c) 2018 Reporters without Borders

The Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) has welcomed British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s visit to Bangladesh and Burma on 11 February to press for international action on the Rohingya crisis. The visit was a stark reminder for the international community of the violence and atrocities taking place against the Rohingya people of Burma. Commenting on the visit, Kyaw Win, Executive Director of BHRN said: “This was an important visit by the UK’s Foreign Secretary. I welcomed Boris Johnson’s robust comments against the Burma military and civilian government during his visit. Johnson’s visit is timely as the UK and other Member States of the European Union deliberate their collective policy response to the crisis. Top of the agenda must be the need for smart and targeted sanctions by the EU against the military and its economic interests. It is only this form of assertive action that will force the Burmese authorities to halt its brutal policy against the Rohingya and other religious and ethnic minorities across Burma.” According to recent reports by Reuters and AP, Burmese security forces have carried out preplanned attacks and exercised scorch earth policy to ensure Rohingya people could never return and inhabit the same place again. In this regard Kyaw Win said “what we are seeing in the Rakhine state against the Rohingya is genocide. It is inconceivable for the Rohingya to return to death and destruction, and any international efforts that would welcome the recent repatriation deal struck between Bangladesh and the Burma without the consultation of refugees would represent a flawed approach. Until there are assurances of a safe and secure environment under the auspices of UNHCR, backed by international guarantees, Rohingya refugees must not be forcibly repatriated. We look to the UK to ensure it secures a robust collective EU position in support of Rohingya refugees.” “In parallel many Rohingya and Burmese civil society organisations continue to call for free and unfettered access for the UN Fact-Finding Mission to assess the full horrors of what is happening in the Rakhine. This access must be extended to the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Ms Yanghee Lee.” Kyaw Win concluded by drawing attention to the EU Foreign Affairs Council discussion on 26 February, which he said “was a critical opportunity for our European partners to illustrate leadership with the crisis, and set out a comprehensive approach that addresses the underlying issues around rights, access to education, citizenship and economic opportunity. The root cause of the Rohingya crisis runs deep in Burma. The anti-Muslim persecution policy of the state must be abolished, and basic human rights for all minorities in Burma must be restored.” Background for Editors: Burmese military unleashed a devastating campaign against the ethnic Rohingya civilian population in Rakhine State. This campaign has been described by witnesses, victims and investigating bodies as hallmarked by gang rapes, mass murder of civilians, widespread destruction of property and displacement and forced exile. Nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled Burma and settled in and around refugee camps as many still fleeing due to shortages of food and continued persecution by authorities and vigilante mobs. Burma has severely restricted access to the area, including to a UN mandated Fact Finding MIssion assigned to investigation allegations of human rights violations. At the same time, Bangladesh and Burma have been discussing the repatriation of the Rohingya, yet all plans to do so have appeared to involve force or coercion to return a population that is deeply traumatized and rightfully afraid to return without any plan or assurances for their safety or fundamental human rights. Background on the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) is based in London, operates across Burma/Myanmar and works for human rights, minority rights and religious freedom in Burma. BHRN has played a crucial role in advocating for human rights and religious freedom with politicians and world leaders. Media Enquiries Please contact: Kyaw Win Executive Director of the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) E: kyawwin78@gmail.com T: +44 (0) 740 345 2378 http://files.constantcontact.com/4c323c61701/aa059d65-8bbe-493b-87aa-3ac601bbe927.pdf (c) 2018 Burma Human Rights Network

Overview • Projections for the coming leans season suggest food stocks from the ongoing harvest will last through April in South Kordofan and through March in Blue Nile. This leaves a substantial gap as the next harvest would begin, at earliest, in August. • There remains little to no access to basic pediatric care or medical supplies in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile, putting the child population at elevated risk of death from treatable diseases. • Schools in Blue Nile were not able to resume in October along their typical calendar. By January only schools in Yabus payam were functioning. Tensions remain high in Blue Nile. While active conflict has greatly subsided, mediation between parties to the conflict is needed to ensure stability and provide access for humanitarians. Food Security and Agriculture South Kordofan January and February typically bring the bulk of the far-farm harvest, resulting in the best period in the calendar year for food security. SKBN CU’s monitoring from November through January has portrayed a relatively improved food security situation in both the Central Region and Western Jebels of South Kordofan. However, this is a critical time to assess the output of the ongoing harvest and the potential “lean season” in the coming months. In 2018 the CU notes disparate results of the harvest across South Kordofan. CU monitors report comparatively better performance of crops in the Western Jebels, and in the central region overall better performance in the northern county of Delami. Of particular concern is the comparatively deficient performance of Heiban county, the most densely populated region. The CU has verified substantial amounts of crop failure in this area due to poor climatic conditions and higher rates of fungal and insect related crop damages, though specific harvest figures are not known at this time. This coincides with an already greater rate of food insecurity in the county [1], likely due to the presence of a substantial number of IDPs from the 2016 conflict. While the output from the 2017/2018 harvest will almost certainly exceed that of the previous year, there is still cause for concern in South Kordofan. This harvest will certainly fall below the 10-year average harvest for this area and likely create a substantial food gap in the coming months. Based on key informant interviews performed by the CU, it is likely the current harvest’s food stocks will not last beyond April. With the following early harvest beginning in Augsust, this will create at least a 3 month food gap. [1] 13% of the population was classified as severely food insecure in the October 2017 FSMU Household Assessment, as reported in the October/November 2017: Household Hunger Scale Brief. Accessed at https://fsmu.org/reports/ Of specific concern are the IDPs in Heiban county who often lack access to any kind of harvest. With the crops in this region performing comparatively poorer, it is likely that the normal community support to these individuals will be insufficient. More analysis is needed on this community and what prospects they face in 2018. Blue Nile Blue Nile faces numerous challenges to food security in 2018. The conflict, which spanned the region and displaced thousands, will certainly lead to poor food security in the coming lean season. The October assessment reported by FSMU displayed a grim situation for the population even as they enter the far farm harvest season, with 21% of the population reported as severely food insecure.[2] This is very concerning, as this data was collected during the one annual harvest season. Rains in May through September exceed averages for these months (measured from 2000 to present) while late season (September to November) rains were below average.[3] For many locations, this resulted in favorable growing conditions. In other areas this was manifested as periods of flooding and periods of prolonged dry spells, creating a varied outlook on 2018’s harvest. This was particularly true for farm land along the main rivers, typically very productive areas, which were completely washed away by abnormally intense flooding. The conflict further exacerbated a difficult season by separating substantial portions of the population from their harvest. The conflict began in May and lasted through August, a very important time in the seasonal calendar for cultivation. Even in areas where planting was possible, subsequent conflict and displacement prevented a proper maintenance of crops during the growing season. Many farmers we unable to properly weed or treat for pests, leading to very poor harvest in much of Blue Nile. The overall food outlook for Blue Nile is grim. Much of the population is likely to run out of food stores in March, potentially triggering a new round of displacements to refugee camps in South Sudan and Ethiopia. Health and Nutrition South Kordofan There were no major disease outbreaks reported by the local Secretariat of Health in this period. However, access to healthcare remains a serious challenge for the population. Access to trained medical staff is highly limited for most of the population and more medical capacity is sorely needed to address the needs of nearly a million people in the areas. Pediatric care in particular is substantially lacking throughout the region. As reported in August of 2017, access to basic pediatric medicines or nutritional commodity was only 22% for the Central Region and 0% for the Western Jebels. The CU is not aware of any changes to these metrics over the last 6 months and anticipates the child population still faces substantial disadvantages in their access to health care. [2] FSMU October/November 2017: Household Hunger Scale Brief. Accessed at https://fsmu.org/reports/ [3] FSMU November 2017: Harvest Season Brief Accessed at https://fsmu.org/reports/ Blue Nile In 2017 there were a reported 21 functioning health clinics in Blue Nile, the latest report from CU monitors suggests only 11 of these clinics are now functioning. Lack of access to drugs and qualified clinicians are the main reason for clinics reporting not being able to see patients. For more serious cases, tribal tensions along the South Sudan-Sudan border make it difficult to access the only regional hospital, which is in the Maban refugee camps. Animal Health South Kordofan and Blue Nile Reports from CU monitors suggest there are no major breakouts of disease or other new issues in this period. Typically, October through February are the best months for grazing animals and that seems to be the case this year. No quantitative assessment of the impact of the conflict on livestock has been undertaken to date, so it is unknown how much this important livelihood has been affected. This season is also the best time of year to vaccinate animals against common diseases, but access to these supplies is highly limited. This will put herds in elevated risk of disease and death in the coming rainy season. Water South Kordofan The population continues to move towards reliance on shallow hand dug wells as the dry season continues. These sources are often shared by humans and animals and pose a high probability of contamination. No major updates in this period. Due to a lack of infrastructure and supplies, water-borne illness still threatens a community without sufficient access to healthcare. More boreholes or treated water distribution centers are badly needed. Blue Nile A report from the Koma Ganza, an area on the southern bank of the Yabus river, suggests there are no functioning boreholes or improved water sources at all. This geographically isolated region has seen less infrastructure development than the already poorly developed SPLM-N controlled region of Blue Nile, and the people living here face substantial challenges. Water is primarily drawn from rivers or shallow hand- dug wells. With no access to improved water sources and highly limited access to health care, this population is at a high risk of preventable diseases. Education South Kordofan Education is generally progressing in line with expectation from the previous five years, with most schools currently functioning. There remains little support to this important sector and classes often take place without access to trained teachers, sufficient school supplies, or buildings for the students. Blue Nile Education in the Blue Nile continues to be severely compromised due to insecurity, lack of resources and the endurance of the humanitarian crisis. The school year still has not started despite being scheduled to begin in October 2017. The 35 bush primary schools in the area lack basic education material and qualified teachers and only five were opened as of this report date. By January 2018 only schools in Yabus Payam were open. In Chali Alfil and Wadaka Payams the community is still constructing new primary schools and is expected to open middle February 2018. More education opportunities for the children in the area are desperately needed, more so in the current situation where the conflict has the potential to affect boys of potential military stature. Protection and security situation update South Kordofan Relative calm continues in South Kordofan, despite the prolonged period without a mutually agreed cessation of hostilities. The most notable incident was a fire in Umm Dorein County on Sunday 28 Jan 2018 in which 42 houses burnt down in which one women died and two women and one man sustained serious injuries. Substantial property, including critical food supplies, were also lost. In the Western Jebels the security situation is reported as calm with a decrease in security incidents and farmers and cattle herders in all counties have improved access to their farms Blue Nile The internal SPLA-N conflict in Blue Nile has generally ceased by October and relatively free movement of civilians and goods was observed within the area. This fortunately coincides with the improved accessibility of roads in the current dry season. In January 2018 safety and security is perceived as normal and calm with no incidents reported by CU monitors. However, tension remains high as the two SPLA-N factions maintain different camps and have shown few signs of reconciliation. No high-level mediation has yet taken place and there are very few ongoing grassroots initiatives to bring these communities together. Urgent efforts are needed to bring a permanent end to this conflict and to ensure safe access of humanitarian assistance to all areas. The conflict has already left a long-term effect in the area, and the possibility of a resumption of conflict remains a fear for the population of these areas. While both sides to the conflict express their intention not to resume fighting, there are no mutually agreed cessations of hostility. (c) 2018 Eric Reeves

Ethiopia isin political turmoil. The desperate inner conditions of the country have not matched its publicly acclaimed narrative for many years; so, the crisis of today was to be expected. The autocratic rule of the TPLF/EPRDF has come up against the greatest resistance of its 27 years rule, with its end in sight. To the international community, the TPLF/EPRDF cited double-digit economic growth, the unity of the people around its governance model of ethnic federalism, its role as a beacon of peace and stability and a critically important partner in the War on Terror. To most of the people of Ethiopia, the TPLF/EPRDF is an authoritarian regime that is dominated by one of its four ethnic-based party members, the TPLF. The TPLF has shown favoritism towards its own ethnic group over all others; doling out opportunities, privileges and power accordingly, until their representatives dominated every sector of society. Political space has disappeared, opposition leaders and democratic voices have been jailed or forced to flee the country, civil society has been closed down through laws like the Charities and Societies Proclamation, land and resources have been grabbed, and economic advantages have been reserved for the entitled few, contributing to the perception of double-digit economic growth, despite the majority remaining in poverty. The TPLF/EPRDF used deception, exaggeration, lies and salesmanship to convince the international community that no one but the TPLF/EPRDF could be trusted as a partner in the War on Terror in the Horn of Africa. Repression of alternative voices created a handy vacuum to other alternatives to this autocratic regime. THE TPLF/EPRDF IS CRUMBLING BEFORE OUR EYES AS THE DEMAND FOR RIGHTS INCREASES The repressive nature of the regime has been largely ignored by the United States of America and international community. Its core foundation, based on a type of ethnic-apartheid governance, has never been strongly challenged. The TPLF/EPRDF’s claim to be the only ones capable of maintaining the stability of the country and of the Horn of Africa, have convinced the United States of America and international donor community to shore up the weakening foundation of TPLF/ERPDF rule, in spite of all its faults. Ironically, the critical flaws of the TPLF/EPRDF system have been building over the last 27 years and they have now become the source of their own instability. The TPLF/EPRDF is crumbling before our eyes and we are witnesses to that. The demand by the people for their freedom and rights has been intensifying over the last three years and shows no signs of diminishing. The TPLF/EPRDF has used lethal force against unarmed people, including many youth, which has resulted in the death of thousands of people. A state of emergency has been put into effect twice in the past with detrimental effects to the country. Though some want to call a third state of emergency now; this time it is being challenged. Now, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has given his notice of resignation as prime minister and as the chair of the EPRDF. The people are worried about the future, especially because there has been a vacuum of leadership and significant fear that ethnic divisions will explode. On a very positive note, in the last two days, the TPLF/EPRDF has released many political prisoners, including some of the strongest leaders and democratic spokespersons. This is encouraging and this newly taken direction may open up the alternative that did not exist earlier. CALL TO THE PEOPLE FOR CALM We call on the people to remain calm and restrained. Let us rise above the expectation that Ethiopians will commit ethnic-based violence. The TPLF/EPRDF, including the former prime minister, Meles Zenawi, used this threat to sell outsiders on the need to continue to support the TPLF/EPRDF. Let us prove to be different from what the TPLF/EPRDF has threatened and tried to repeatedly incite. This has been a key part of the narrative used to maintain TPLF/EPRDF control; without ever acknowledging their role in stirring up dissension or committing the acts themselves under hidden pretenses. The Ethiopian people have shown an overwhelmingly strong commitment to peaceful demonstrations of protest, despite harsh crackdowns over the last three years, with only a few exceptions. The TPLF/EPRDF have tried to incite violence, but most of the time, the people have not responded as they expected. We, the people of Ethiopia, have lived together for centuries. We are family and neighbors; not only sharing land, but sharing blood. We can restrain ourselves and do the right thing. Emotional outbursts of anger or revenge for injustice will easily backfire; instead, let us be patient for justice until our institutions are restored. We especially want to take a stand on behalf of Tigrayans who fear being targeted. This cannot be tolerated and will never be accepted. All of us should deeply care for the safety and protection of these fellow Ethiopians. WE HAVE EMERGING LEADERS AS WELL AS MORE VOCAL LEADERS WHO SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE We should also take note that Ethiopians are not without leaders. Some of these leaders may have been silenced, censored, or imprisoned in the past, but many more are emerging and taking a stand for justice for all Ethiopians. We also know there are capable Ethiopians from every ethnicity, religious group and walk of life, who love all the people of Ethiopia like they love themselves, who could sit down together tomorrow and come up with a plan for a dialogue, reconciliation and transitional plan for the country. Such a plan could bring greater peace and wellbeing; not only to Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, but to the world. Some of these leaders are those former political prisoners who were just released, as well as other esteemed leaders, elders, religious leaders, our women, and our youth who have given so much as champions of the struggle for democratic change. They could all play a significant role. We also have people in the Diaspora who could contribute, so there is no need to panic. Nor is there reason to listen to short-sighted narratives that attempt to persuade outsiders that the TPLF/EPRDF are the only ones capable of maintaining the peace, stability and the national interests of donor countries. New voices are rising up with new alternatives not readily available before. What we are saying can be proven by the statements we recently heard from some of the newly released democratic leaders in the country, like Bekele Gerba, Eskinder Nega, Merera Gudina, Andualem Andarge, Muslim leaders and many more. They are calling for discipline among the people, to not destroy property and to protect each other as one people. Instead of hate or bitterness, these voices are calling for a unity around shared values and goals, thus enabling a peaceful transitional approach. This is our country at a crossroads and our people are being put to the test. With God’s help, we can do it! WHAT WILL BE OUR LEGACY TO OUR DESCENDANTS? We know the future looks grim and things are unpredictable; yet, our history also tells us of other times Ethiopians have been tested for their survival as a people and a country. At these times, the people unified and responded in a way that led Ethiopia to stand together as one people, all created equally in the image of God. Those Ethiopians of the past give us a sense of who we are today. In the same way, how we Ethiopians react now will be recorded by our descendants. Our response should be nothing less than standing as one family and one people, doing the right thing and protecting every life of all Ethiopians living throughout the country, including those who have done us wrong. We should not take the law into our own hands. CAN WE WORK TOGETHER? THE TPLF/EPRDF COULD HELP CHANGE THE OUTCOME FOR GOOD Right now, the TPLF/EPRDF have made the right decision to release the political prisoners. It is a good step, but not good enough. They have to realize that the Ethiopia for which we are fighting, will include them if we are able to bring justice, freedom and reconciliation to the country. It will also be a gift to their descendants as well as ours. We are not enemies of each other. We are family, like brothers and sisters who disagree. For the sake of our descendants, we can solve this conflict peacefully. We should not be blinded to the humanity of each other. We will be judged by how we handle this crisis. This is especially the challenge to those of you in the TPLF/EPRDF, because you have the bullets and guns. Do not pull the trigger on your people and country. Do not pull the trigger on our shared future and that of our children. Instead, extend out your hand to ours, to shake hands with us on a better future. Nothing can be solved without talking. Let’s start talking to each other, not about each other, seeing our shared, value. Let us embrace each other, not reject each other. Let us humble ourselves before God and each other so that we can avoid the trap of pride, resentment and greed that will lead us to our mutual destruction. We all know what is right to do; let us do it. We call on all the people of Ethiopia, including those in the TPLF/EPRDF, to work together to find a peaceful solution to this crisis. The TPLF/EPRDF can totally change the future for the better by admitting that they have come to the end of their rule and by becoming willing contributors to a transition to genuine democracy. We highly caution the TPLF/EPRDF from establishing military rule in the country as it could backfire. It is a dangerous alternative that could lead to destruction; however, the military could play a positive role in protecting the people instead of protecting and prolonging a dying TPLF/EPRDF. The military is made up of our people. We invite the military to be part of the solution for democratic change in Ethiopia. It is time. A CALL TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS We call on the religious leaders of Ethiopia to encourage our people to pray for a peaceful, inclusive and effective transition to a new Ethiopia where humanity comes before ethnicity or any other differences and where the freedom, justice and wellbeing of all our people are respected for no one is free until all are free. A CALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY We call on the international community to support democratic change in Ethiopia and efforts to implement a peaceful solution to the conflict which will bring robust democratic freedom and more sustainable peace to all Ethiopians. A CALL FOR A COMMON STATEMENT OF INTENT TO LAY OUT STEPS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION OF ETHIOPIA We also call for the development of a statement of intent from leaders leading to a national dialogue, reconciliation and robust democratic reforms. This is not about political party but instead about establishing a democratic foundation for the next steps necessary to begin an effective and sustainable transition to a free, just and reconciled Ethiopia. INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY: THIS IS THE ONLY REAL WAY OUT OF THIS CRISIS May God help us! (c) 2018 Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia

(c) 2018 Human Rights Without Frontiers International

Earlier this month Myanmar had asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to not visit the Rakhine State. On the other hand, Bangladesh on Tuesday called on UNSC to undertake visits to Bangladesh and Myanmar to witness the humanitarian situation that erupted from the latest crisis. We fully endorse it. United Nations is not unaware of what has been happening in Rakhine. In fact, UNHCR termed the ongoing violence in the state as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” However, UN's statements alone would not deliver a successful Rohingya repatriation, under which the refugees will be guaranteed complete safety and have all their basic rights after return. Recently, the British foreign minister visited both the countries and reiterated Britain's position that Rohingyas must be allowed to return to their homes. As preparations for the repatriation process is going on, a visit by UNSC member states to both countries would certainly add momentum to the repatriation process. In fact, such a visit sooner could have prevented worsening of the situation. Therefore, the UNSC must prevail upon Myanmar and hold it responsible for the crimes of its forces. For Bangladesh, the situation in Cox's Bazar is increasingly unbearable. Rohingyas constitute many times the number of local people, risking the creation of a complex socio-economic problem. In this context, the reports that donor agencies are losing interest in providing food assistance to Rohingya refugees are highly disturbing and unacceptable. We urge the UNSC, as we did earlier this month, to visit both countries immediately. Such a visit would certainly exert pressure on Myanmar to create conducive conditions for the repatriation. http://www.thedailystar.net/editorial/unsc-must-visit-myanmar-too-1535302 (c) 2018 The Daily Star