Aung San Suu Kyi avoided discussing reports of Rohingya women and girls being raped by Myanmar troops and police when she met a senior UN official, according to an internal memo seen by the Guardian. Pramila Patten, the special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, travelled to the country for a four-day visit in mid-December to raise the crisis with government officials. But she said Aung San Suu Kyi, a state counsellor in the Myanmar government, refused to engage in “any substantive discussion” of reports that soldiers, border guard police and Rakhine Buddhist militias carried out “widespread and systematic” sexual violence in northern Rakhine state. “The meeting with the state counsellor was a cordial courtesy call of approximately 45 minutes that was, unfortunately, not substantive in nature,” she wrote in a letter sent to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres last week. More than 655,000 Rohingya, members of a persecuted and stateless Muslim minority, have fled to Bangladeshi refugee camps since violence began in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state in August. Médecins Sans Frontières believes at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed during “clearance operations” ostensibly targeting militants, while many survivors say women and girls were gang-raped. Instead of discussing the claims directly, Patten said Aung San Suu Kyi informed her she would enjoy “a number of good meetings” with senior Myanmar officials. During these meetings, she was told by representatives of the military and civilian government that reports of atrocities were “exaggerated and fabricated by the international community”. “Moreover, a belief was expressed that those who fled did so due to an affiliation with terrorist groups, and did so to evade law enforcement,” she wrote. Advertisement Myanmar’s army has cleared itself of any wrongdoing in an internal investigation dubbed a “whitewash” by human rights groups. While in the country, Patten met the man who headed that investigation, Lt-Gen Aye Win, who explained their methodology. “The military investigation, which consisted of armed men in uniform ‘interrogating’ civilians in large group settings, often on camera, and then presenting rations to communities following their testimony and cooperation, clearly occurred under coercive circumstances, where the incentive structure was not to lodge complaints,” Patten wrote. “Accordingly, over 800 interviews yielded zero reports of sexual or other violence against civilians by the armed and security forces,” she said. Patten also expressed concerns about plans to send Rohingya who have fled back to Myanmar, citing the “prevailing climate of impunity” in the country. Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to the “speedy” repatriation of Rohingya, scheduled to start by the end of January. But many Rohingya say they will not return voluntarily until they are given citizenship as well as guarantees that they will be safe and not put into internment camps. Tens of thousands have been living in such camps elsewhere in Rakhine state since violence in 2012. Skye Wheeler, the researcher for Human Rights Watch who investigated the sexual violence allegations, said Myanmar was denying a “terrible truth”. “The lack of acknowledgement or care the Myanmar authorities including Aung San Suu Kyi have shown for Rohingya women and girls who have been brutally raped by Myanmar soldiers as part of their ethnic cleansing campaign is almost as shocking as the horrific crimes themselves,” she told the Guardian. “It’s like a second attack, to endure a vicious gang rape and then to be ignored, as if you don’t matter at all, to have that terrible truth denied.” The Myanmar government was contacted for comment. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/27/aung-san-suu-kyi-avoided-discussion-of-rohingya-during-un-meeting (c) 2017 The Guardian

Two Reuters journalists working on coverage of the Rohingya crisis in northern Myanmar have been remanded in custody for two more weeks. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained on 12 December after meeting police officers offering them information. They are charged with illegally obtaining information, but Reuters has called for their release and says they were simply doing their jobs. The two will now be held at Insein prison in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were previously in custody in a police compound. They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act, introduced under British colonial rule. It allows a maximum 14-year jail term. The government says the two "illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media". They had been invited to dinner with the police officers. Appearing at Mingaladon court, the journalists were allowed to see their families and lawyer for the first time. The conflict has seen some 665,000 Rohingya flee Rakhine state. The military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies targeting civilians. But the United Nations describes the offensive as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". The authorities see the Rohingya, who are Muslims, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and deny them citizenship. Access to Rakhine state is very tightly controlled and journalists are forced to seek information from other sources, says BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head. Despite improvements in media freedom since the military relaxed its grip on Myanmar five years ago, journalists have continued to face criminal prosecution for their reporting, with more than a dozen arrested over the past two years, he adds. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42494218 (c) 2017 BBC News

Following a ruling with immediate effect the German foreign intelligence agency BND is no longer allowed to collect and store the call detail records of Reporters Without Borders Germany (RSF Germany) phone calls in its metadata analysis system "VerAS". The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig delivered a decision last Wednesday (13.12.) upholding a complaint lodged by RSF Germany. With this ruling for the first time in decades restrictions have been imposed on the BND's metadata gathering. “The ruling shows that it is worthwhile for human rights organisations to go to court to defend themselves against the mass storage of data by the BND. Thanks to this ruling other individuals and organisations with the same complaint can now stand up to the BND” said RSF Germany’s executive director Christian Mihr. The ruling is a historic success for Reporters Without Borders because we have succeeded in setting boundaries on the BND’s activities. At the same time it strengthens our own activities because persecuted journalists from authoritarian states like Uzbekistan or China need to be able to rely on their communications with us remaining confidential.” RSF Germany had lodged a complaint against the BND with the Federal Administrative Court, the court of first and last instance for this case, on 30 June 2015. The lawyer Niko Härting represents RSF Germany in the proceedings. The complaint is directed among other things against the VerAS system with which the BND has also been gathering the communications metadata of German citizens since 2002 – without any legal basis. The entire “Foreign-Foreign Signals” communication as well as conversations between persons in Germany and abroad and call detail records that were supplied to the BND by friendly intelligence services are affected by these surveillance measures. The storage operation is so comprehensive that it can also include journalists who are only indirectly connected via several other communication partners with, for instance, a terrorist suspect. In a hearing that took place in December 2016, RSF Germany had already scored a partial victory when the Federal Administrative Court ordered the BND to provide clarification about its metadata gathering. At the hearing, the BND’s representatives were forced to admit that the VerAS system can be used to analyse every node in a contact network – in principle “even to the 14th level”. In another section of the lawsuit RSF Germany accused the intelligence agency of spying on its email traffic with foreign partners, journalists and other persons through its signals intelligence surveillance. In December 2016, the court ruled that this part of the lawsuit was inadmissible. In April 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe refused to admit for examination RSF Germany’s constitutional complaint against this decision on the grounds that RSF had not adequately demonstrated that the organization was directly affected by the BND’s surveillance. For this reason at the beginning of December RSF Germany lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) over the mass surveillance practices of the BND. https://rsf.org/en/news/germany-landmark-ruling-against-bnd (c) 2017 Reporters without Borders

BEIRUT — Syria’s government is allowing the evacuation of nearly 30 critically ill people from a besieged Damascus suburb, where hundreds requiring medical treatment have been prevented from reaching hospitals minutes away. The government recently tightened its siege of eastern Ghouta, home to some 400,000 people, leading to severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine as winter sets in. Ingy Sedky, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, said four patients were allowed to leave Tuesday and 25 others are expected to be let out in the coming hours. It is not clear if all will be evacuated in one batch Wednesday or over several days. The ICRC is partnering with the local Syrian Arab Red Crescent to handle the evacuations. SARC spokeswoman Mona Kurdi said the evacuees arrived in hospitals in government-controlled Damascus, just a few minutes’ drive away. The Army of Islam, a prominent rebel group in eastern Ghouta, said the critically ill will be evacuated as part of a deal that was conditional on it releasing an equivalent number of captives. “There are many more people who need to be evacuated. We hope this will be only the beginning,” Sedky said. The evacuees included three children, as young as one year old, and one adult. The patients, who traveled with family members, needed immediate treatment for cancer, kidney failure and hemophilia. At least five detainees were evacuated from eastern Ghouta late Tuesday. Some patients may not be able to leave eastern Ghouta for government-controlled areas, because they either fear conscription into the army or detention for having lived or worked in opposition areas. For weeks, the U.N. has been calling on the government to allow some 500 critically ill people to leave the suburb for treatment and to expand aid groups’ heavily restricted access to the area. Activists in eastern Ghouta have circulated photos online of severely malnourished children. The U.N. says one in eight children in eastern Ghouta is going hungry, up from one in 50 in May. Earlier this month, the U.N. said 12 people had died waiting for medical evacuation from eastern Ghouta. Their names were on a U.N-drawn list submitted to the government six months ago. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government is working with Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, to try and evacuate some 500 people from eastern Ghouta, including about 170 women and children, who are in urgent need of humanitarian or medical assistance. Turkey is a leading supporter of the Syrian opposition. Rights groups say the government has used siege tactics across Syria to starve local populations and force rebels to surrender, which would amount to a war crime. The government denies the allegations, blaming shortages on rebel groups. Eastern Ghouta was one of the first areas to rise up against Assad when Arab Spring protests spread across the country in 2011. Government forces surrounded the area in 2013, but tunnels and smuggling allowed residents to bring in food and medical supplies. The government tightened the noose earlier this year following victories against insurgents in other parts of the country. Assad’s rule is more secure than at any time since the uprising began, and the opposition is largely confined to the suburbs around Damascus and the northwestern rebel-held Idlib province. “De-escalation” agreements brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey have reduced the violence in most areas, but efforts to reach a political solution to the conflict remain stalled. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Russian-brokered talks slated for next month were crucial for reaching a settlement, and would not interfere with U.N.-backed negotiations, which have made virtually no progress since they began in 2014. Several dozen Syrian opposition groups have refused to take part in the Russian talks, accusing Moscow of failing to rein in Assad. Lavrov, who met with Syrian opposition leader Ahmad Jarba on Wednesday, told Russian news agencies that the Sochi congress would lay the groundwork for U.N.-led talks. Lavrov said Russia’s goal is to bring together the largest number of opposition groups possible to help launch constitutional reforms in the war-torn country. The Syrian government, which supports the Sochi process, has vehemently rejected the opposition’s central demand that Assad play no role in a political transition. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-defends-idea-of-syria-peace-congress-in-sochi/2017/12/27/23b3e55e-eaed-11e7-956e-baea358f9725_story.html?utm_term=.1610f348b2b0 (c) 2017 The Washington Post

Anti-Semitic graffiti and slogans painted onto the city’s synagogue, Holocaust museum and community centre Unidentified individuals painted anti-Semitic graffiti on three Jewish institutions in the city of Odessa in southern Ukraine. The graffiti, including the words “toasting the Holocaust” on the gate of Odessa’s Holocaust museum, were discovered Monday. The city’s Brodsky Synagogue had the words: “Jews out, Ukraine for Ukrainians” written on its exterior fence. An offensive symbol appeared on a gate adjacent to the Beit Grand Jewish Community Centre. It and the other two graffiti featured the symbol of the Azov Battalion, a National Guard of Ukraine regiment that was set up after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Last month, an anti-Semitic slur was painted on the wall of a Jewish charity in western Ukraine. The black graffiti saying “death to the kikes” was discovered on the exterior wall of Uzhgorod’s Hesed Shpira charity, which is funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote on Facebook. The incidents follow several cases of death threats and vandalism against Jewish institutions in western Ukraine, including at cemeteries and synagogues. The incidents have taken place amid a divisive public debate in Ukraine over the conferring of state honours on nationalists who incited hatred against Jews during the 1930s and 1940s, including for some who collaborated with the Nazis. http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/jews-out-and-toasting-the-holocaust-daubed-on-jewish-buildings-in-odessa-ukraine/ (c) 2017 Times of Israel

Myanmar “feels sad” over a U.S. decision to sanction a military general, a government spokesman said, after Washington linked the commander last week to abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority. “This targeted sanction is based on unreliable accusations without evidence, as we have repeatedly said, so we feel sad for that,” Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, told Reuters by phone late on Tuesday. The Trump administration announced on Dec. 21 that it was sanctioning Major General Maung Maung Soe, who was in charge of a crackdown on the Rohingya minority in the western state of Rakhine. The United States, as well as the United Nations, have called the crackdown “ethnic cleansing”. About 655,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state and sought shelter over the border in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. The United States said American officials had “examined credible evidence of Maung Maung Soe’s activities, including allegations against Burmese security forces of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and arbitrary arrest as well as the widespread burning of villages”. The military and the civilian government of Suu Kyi have denied allegations of widespread abuse in Rakhine. The testimonies of Rohingya refugees were only “talking stories”, Zaw Htay said, adding that Myanmar would act if it received “reliable and strong evidence” that its troops committed crimes. “We have told international governments and human rights groups including the U.N. that the current government is committed to protecting and promoting human rights,” said Zaw Htay. The U.S. Treasury said Maung Maung Soe, former chief of the army’s Western Command, would have his U.S. assets frozen and Americans could no longer deal with him. Reuters was unable to determine if Maung Maung Soe had business interests in Myanmar or elsewhere. Maung Maung Soe was transferred from his post in Rakhine and “put in reserve”, an army spokesman told Reuters on Nov. 13. No reason was given, but the military said the same day action would be taken against officials who were “weak in acquiring information” and who allowed the militant Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) to spread through Muslim villages in Rakhine. Reuters was unable to contact Maung Maung Soe. Major General Tun Tun Nyi of the military’s public relations division, the True News Information Unit, said he had no comment on the sanctions and declined to answer questions on Maung Maung Soe. MODERN FORCE As well as dominating the country’s politics for decades, Myanmar’s army - known as the Tatmadaw or “Royal Force” - has gained notoriety for brutal counter-insurgency tactics employed against rebels seeking autonomy in the borderlands since independence from Britain in 1948, according to historians and human rights monitors. But since it began ceding power in 2011 - albeit under a constitution that keeps soldiers in key posts - the army has sought to burnish its image as a modern fighting force. It has defended its actions in Rakhine, with military investigators concluding that troops adhered to rules of engagement and sought to minimize civilian casualties while responding to “terrorist” provocations. But the spiraling Rohingya crisis has dashed hopes of expanding engagement with Western armies, Andrew Selth, an academic who has researched Myanmar’s armed forces, wrote in September. “This is a significant loss for the Tatmadaw, which is keen to learn about foreign military policies and practices,” Selth wrote on the website of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. “Such contacts would have also helped its officers learn about international norms of behavior and the role of armed forces in democracies.” CLEARANCES Myanmar’s military does not provide detailed biographies of senior officers. In February last year, a state media report said Maung Maung Soe was a brigadier general in the far south of the country, near the border with Thailand. He was referred to as a major general in charge of the military’s Western Command in October, 2016, shortly after ARSA attacked three border posts there, killing nine guards. In the weeks after the attacks, Rohingya villagers told Reuters of gang rapes by soldiers and extrajudicial killings. Two military sources told Reuters that Maung Maung Soe oversaw battalions Nos. 352, 551, 564 and 345, which led the so-called “clearance operations”, and he reported directly to a Bureau of Special Operations in the capital Naypyitaw. His forces were again in combat following more widespread ARSA attacks on Aug. 25 this year, although troops from elite units that report straight to Naypyitaw were airlifted into Rakhine ahead of those attacks. New York-based Human Rights Watch said in October that Battalion 564 was identified by villagers as taking part in an alleged massacre of scores of people in the village of Maung Nu, close to the unit’s base in the Buthidaung area. The day Maung Maung Soe’s replacement as the commander in Rakhine was announced, the military released a report saying its own internal investigation had exonerated security forces of all accusations of atrocities, including in Buthidaung. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-general/myanmar-says-u-s-sanctions-against-general-based-on-unreliable-accusations-idUSKBN1EL11X?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29&&rpc=401 (c) 2017 Reuters

Rohingyas are now the world's most persecuted community. World powers and rights advocates however struggle hard in finding an appropriate terminology for the persecution. With the politics of regional influence, investment and arms deals in the background, China, India, Russia and United States are playing with words to downplay a clear case of genocide. International human rights bodies and governments are merely lurking behind the reality under some elusive terminological pretexts.This write up attempts to understand this politics of terminology from a critical perspective and seeks to locate where Bangladesh's position should ideally be. While Norendra Modi's ultra-right BJP government is more concerned with the “extremist violence” in Myanmar,it hopes for “peace, justice, dignity, and democratic values for all.” China sees it as an essentially “internal” problem of Myanmar and “sincerely hopes [Myanmar] to restore stability as soon as possible and the local people [to] live a normal life again.” Russia, on the other hand, sees the problem as an “inter-religious conflict” that must be resolved through inter-religious dialogue. After the initial “voicing of concern” over the issue, the cautious and calculative United States has recently elevated its understanding to an “ethnic cleansing” and “horrendous atrocities” causing “tremendous suffering” to the Rohingya population. At the organisational level, the United Nations Secretary General diplomatically calls it a “human rights nightmare.” Amnesty International, however, has travelled up to the “Crime Against Humanity.” Human Rights Watch on the other hand adopted “Ethnic Cleansing”. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also termed it “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.The UK government approached the problem as a “fastest growing humanitarian catastrophe.” Interestingly, a recent statement of the UK Foreign office suggests that they received "very troubling" evidence which “will be used to assess whether genocide has been committed” against Rohingya Muslims in Burma. While the latest position of the UK government marks a welcome sign of growing international awareness about the issue, a recent seminar in the UK Parliament (Seminar on International Response to Rohingya Crisis organised by Centre for Turkey Studies, 29 November 2017) calls the time a ripe one for terming the atrocity a genocide plain and simple. The keynote speaker of the seminar was Professor Penelope J Green, Founder and Director of International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) based in the Queen Mary University London. In 2015, ISCI conducted an18-month-long study on the Rohingya persecution and published its report titled, “Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar.” Though the 2015 report of ISCI termed the process as a “highly organised and genocidal in intent”, Professor Green is convinced that it is visibly and undoubtedly a genocide now. A shadow students' tribunal staged recently by the Society for Critical Legal Studies in Chittagong has proved that elements of genocide are strongly present in Myanmar. Even before that, a leading jurist of the country Barrister M Amir-Ul Islam framed the case as a “Clinical Illustration of Genocide” in one of his presentations before the SAARC LAW conference in Sri Lanka. ISCI has endorsed the Six Stage of Genocide Model of Professor Daniel Feierstein (Genocide as Social Practice). It is a prism through which ISCI considered how the Rohingya persecution elevated to genocide.The process started with stigmatisation. Starting with the denial of citizenship in 1970s, Rohingya community has been successfully alienated from the Burmese citizenry. With all deliberative official patronisation, the group has been snatched away of their “Rohingya” identity. With an enforced identity “illegal Bengali migrants” tagged over them, they have been made extremely unpopular among the Burmese majority. At the second stage of the process, official and unofficial harassment, deprivation, arbitrary arrests and detention, violence and terror were unleashed for a considerable period of time. Third stage of the process involved political, legal, social and geographical isolation to sever their historically existing relations with the broader Burmese community. Fourth stage of the process involved systematic weakening of the group by enforced malnutrition, epidemics, torture and sporadic violence and psychological destruction by humiliation and persistent abuse. At the fifth stage of the process the state ensures the “physical destruction of the group as such” (the key element of genocide) through mass killing and persecution. Last stage of the genocidal process would involve symbolic enactment by rebuilding a society where the targeted group is clearly “gone”. Professor Green argues that 2017 August-October atrocities of the Myanmar regime undoubtedly mark the final stage of the genocidal process and the world must act NOW. Unfortunately, the world seems reluctant to take note of the concern. Professor Penelope J Green herself unveils the most plausible account of this politics of terminologies.The world super powers are politically reluctant to take theobligations a finding of genocide would cast upon them under the 1948 Genocide Convention. It is the obligation to prosecute the perpetrators - to kick off the International Criminal Court (ICC) process straight. For reasons not understandable, neither the UN Security Council nor the ICC Prosecution department is showing much interest in that line. Question then comes, what our government is doing? While our immediate concern with the “Refugee Aspect” of the problem is understandable, should we shut-down acollateral strategy of creating the highest possible pressure upon Myanmar regime by bringing the “Genocidal Aspect” to light? With our genocide stricken traumatic past, who else is better suited than Bangladesh to make a “Stop Genocide” call to the world? Bangladesh government unfortunately continues to echo the European Union by agreeing to see it as the “fastest-growing refugee crisis creating a refugee emergency”. While our rough neighbour continues to give us a tough time on the refugee repatriation talk, they are enjoying our silence on the “Genocidal Aspect” most, I am sure. http://www.thedailystar.net/law-our-rights/law-watch/rohingya-genocide-the-politics-terminologies-1510276 (2017) The Daily Star

Rohingyas are now the world's most persecuted community. World powers and rights advocates however struggle hard in finding an appropriate terminology for the persecution. With the politics of regional influence, investment and arms deals in the background, China, India, Russia and United States are playing with words to downplay a clear case of genocide. International human rights bodies and governments are merely lurking behind the reality under some elusive terminological pretexts.This write up attempts to understand this politics of terminology from a critical perspective and seeks to locate where Bangladesh's position should ideally be. While Norendra Modi's ultra-right BJP government is more concerned with the “extremist violence” in Myanmar,it hopes for “peace, justice, dignity, and democratic values for all.” China sees it as an essentially “internal” problem of Myanmar and “sincerely hopes [Myanmar] to restore stability as soon as possible and the local people [to] live a normal life again.” Russia, on the other hand, sees the problem as an “inter-religious conflict” that must be resolved through inter-religious dialogue. After the initial “voicing of concern” over the issue, the cautious and calculative United States has recently elevated its understanding to an “ethnic cleansing” and “horrendous atrocities” causing “tremendous suffering” to the Rohingya population. At the organisational level, the United Nations Secretary General diplomatically calls it a “human rights nightmare.” Amnesty International, however, has travelled up to the “Crime Against Humanity.” Human Rights Watch on the other hand adopted “Ethnic Cleansing”. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also termed it “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.The UK government approached the problem as a “fastest growing humanitarian catastrophe.” Interestingly, a recent statement of the UK Foreign office suggests that they received "very troubling" evidence which “will be used to assess whether genocide has been committed” against Rohingya Muslims in Burma. While the latest position of the UK government marks a welcome sign of growing international awareness about the issue, a recent seminar in the UK Parliament (Seminar on International Response to Rohingya Crisis organised by Centre for Turkey Studies, 29 November 2017) calls the time a ripe one for terming the atrocity a genocide plain and simple. The keynote speaker of the seminar was Professor Penelope J Green, Founder and Director ofInternational State Crime Initiative (ISCI) based in the Queen Mary University London. In 2015, ISCI conducted an18-month-long study on the Rohingya persecution and published its report titled, “Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar.” Though the 2015 report of ISCI termed the process as a “highly organised and genocidal in intent”, Professor Green is convinced that it is visibly and undoubtedly a genocide now. A shadow students' tribunal staged recently by the Society for Critical Legal Studies in Chittagong has proved that elements of genocide are strongly present in Myanmar. Even before that, a leading jurist of the country Barrister M Amir-Ul Islam framed the case as a “Clinical Illustration of Genocide” in one of his presentations before the SAARC LAW conference in Sri Lanka. ISCI has endorsedthe Six Stage of Genocide Model of Professor Daniel Feierstein (Genocide as Social Practice). It is a prism through which ISCI considered how the Rohingya persecution elevated to genocide.The process started with stigmatisation. Starting with the denial of citizenship in 1970s, Rohingya community has been successfully alienated from the Burmese citizenry. With all deliberative official patronisation, the group has been snatched away of their “Rohingya” identity. With an enforced identity “illegal Bengali migrants” tagged over them, they have been made extremely unpopular among the Burmese majority. At the second stage of the process, official and unofficial harassment, deprivation, arbitrary arrests and detention, violence and terror were unleashed for a considerable period of time. Third stage of the process involved political, legal, social and geographical isolation to sever their historically existing relations with the broader Burmese community. Fourth stage of the process involved systematic weakening of the group by enforced malnutrition, epidemics, torture and sporadic violence and psychological destruction by humiliation and persistent abuse. At the fifth stage of the process the state ensures the “physical destruction of the group as such” (the key element of genocide)through mass killing and persecution. Last stage of the genocidal process would involve symbolic enactment by rebuilding a society where the targeted group is clearly “gone”. Professor Green argues that 2017 August-October atrocities of the Myanmar regime undoubtedly mark the final stage of the genocidal process and the world must act NOW. Unfortunately, the world seems reluctant to take note of the concern. Professor Penelope J Green herself unveils the most plausible account of this politics of terminologies.The world super powers are politically reluctant to take theobligations a finding of genocide would cast upon them under the 1948 Genocide Convention. It is the obligation to prosecute the perpetrators - to kick off the International Criminal Court (ICC) process straight. For reasons not understandable, neither the UN Security Council nor the ICC Prosecution department is showing much interest in that line. Question then comes, what our government is doing? While our immediate concern with the “Refugee Aspect” of the problem is understandable, should we shut-down acollateral strategy of creating the highest possible pressure upon Myanmar regime by bringing the “Genocidal Aspect” to light? With our genocide stricken traumatic past, who else is better suited than Bangladesh to make a “Stop Genocide” call to the world? Bangladesh government unfortunately continues to echo the European Union by agreeing to see it as the “fastest-growing refugee crisis creating a refugee emergency”. While our rough neighbour continues to give us a tough time on the refugee repatriation talk, they are enjoying our silence on the “Genocidal Aspect” most, I am sure. http://www.thedailystar.net/law-our-rights/law-watch/rohingya-genocide-the-politics-terminologies-1510276 (c) 2017 The Daily Star

The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution urging Myanmar to end the military campaign against Muslim Rohingyas. It also called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to assign a special envoy to the country, despite opposition once again from China, Russia and some regional countries. The resolution, put forward by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), was adopted by a vote of 122 to 10 with 24 abstentions. It further called for Myanmar to grant access to aid workers, ensure the return of all refugees and give full citizenship to them. China, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Belarus, Syria and Zimbabwe opposed the resolution. December 25 marks four months since the start of the Rohingya refugee crisis and the situation remains dire. The UN has been unable to take tougher action against Myanmar. China and Russia have both prevented the UN Security Council (UNSC) from making any decision on Myanmar to protect Rohingyas from atrocities, opposed UNSC in issuing statements and voted against adopting any resolution in the UN General Assembly. An estimated one million forcibly displaced Myanmar citizens have been living in Bangladesh. Only 34 percent of the $434 million needed until February 2018 to provide assistance to the 1.2 million people, including host communities in Cox's Bazar district, has been raised. "Humanitarian partners are working round the clock to respond, but the reality remains that the needs are massive and urgent, and the gaps are wide. More funding is needed," Mia Seppo, UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, said recently. Despite an agreement signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar, more Rohingyas arrived almost every day since August 25. Sunday's motion was passed by the 193-member General Assembly after its Fifth Committee (Budgetary Questions) approved funds for the new position of UN special envoy to Myanmar. The United States, on December 21, imposed sanctions on 13 “serious human rights abusers and corrupt actors” including Myanmar general Maung Maung Soe, who oversaw this year's brutal crackdown against the Rohingya Muslim minority. The US government, applying penalties for the first time under a law passed last year, also targeted 39 other individuals and entities with sanctions that block their assets under US jurisdiction, bar most Americans from dealing with them and largely cut them off from the global financial system. The military operations since August 25 “led to the systematic violation and abuse of human rights” of Rohingyas in Rakhine State that forced more than 655,000 Muslim minorities to flee Myanmar and take shelter in Bangladesh. Myanmar authorities insist the campaign was aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25. The UN, US and international right bodies have already described the Rohingyas as the most persecuted community in the world, calling the situation in Rakhine similar to “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Earlier on November 16, the General Assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights, voted 135 in favour and 10 against with 26 abstentions on the draft text that also called upon U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a special envoy on Myanmar. China, Russia and eight other countries had also opposed the draft test. For 15 years, the Third Committee annually adopted a resolution condemning Myanmar's human rights record. The UN Security Council earlier also issued a statement calling on Myanmar to "ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine state". Last week, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said she had been banned from the country and that the government had cut off all cooperation with her. Only in its first month, the crackdown killed some 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including more than 700 children, according to Doctors Without Borders. UN member states said on December 5 that Myanmar was likely committing "crimes against humanity" against its Rohingya minority, while the UN rights chief voiced alarm over possible "elements of genocide". Following a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, the nations overwhelmingly voted in favour of a resolution expressing grave concern over widespread abuses committed against the largely Muslim minority. Thirty-three of the council's 47 members backed the text listing a long line of horrific abuses, including summary killings of children, rape, torture and large-scale forced displacement, which it said indicated "the very likely commission of crimes against humanity." The resolution, brought forward by Bangladesh, also called on the government to ensure justice for victims and access for UN investigators and aid workers. It passed by 33 votes. Nine countries, including India, refrained from voting, while three others -- China, Burundi and the Philippines -- voted against it. Addressing the special session, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Myanmar's security forces may be guilty of genocide against the Rohingyas. Earlier this month, in an interview with BBC, Zeid said he would not be surprised if a court one day ruled that acts of genocide had been committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmarhttp://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/end-military-campaign-against-rohingyas-1510399 (c) 2017 The Daily Star

Christmas Day marks exactly four months since the start of the latest influx of Rohingya into Bangladesh from Myanmar. An estimated 830,000 people – seven times the population of my Edmonton constituency – now live on the border. More arrive every day. In one month, half a million arrived. That is the highest monthly exodus of refugees anywhere on the planet since the Rwandan genocide. Médecins Sans Frontières has documented at least 6,700 deaths from violence, but the real number is likely to be much higher. The world is outraged at the savagery of the atrocities, at the sexual violence, at the torture, at the discrimination and at the sheer impunity of General Min Aung Hlaing and the failure of Myanmar’s military leaders to face consequences. But for all the outrage, the world has not done nearly enough. A long-term political solution will require much more. Earlier this month, Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee passed judgement on what else the UK Government could have done. There are immediate and massive humanitarian needs that risk being forgotten as the news cycle moves on. A recent International Rescue Committee assessment found that 95 per cent of peopleare drinking untreated water, risking a cholera outbreak. Nearly 60 million litres of safe water – the equivalent of 23 Olympic-sized swimming pools – are needed every day; 40 per cent of children are currently malnourished. Women are in particular danger: horrific accounts continue to emerge of systematic rape, abuse and torture at the hands of the Myanmar military, while there is only limited support for recovery and treatment in the camps. Access to even basic healthcare and education is severely restricted. Shelter needs too are acute: camps sprang up rapidly, without sufficient planning or space to expand. Hundreds of thousands will sleep in 2018 crowded under tarpaulins propped up by bamboo sticks. The plight of the Rohingya began long before August, and there is no quick end in sight. The chances are that whole generations will now spend their lives in Bangladesh as refugees. That is why the medium-term response in Bangladesh matters so much. International donors have already pledged some $344m (£257m) towards the response. That includes £59m from the UK – our aid provision has been both swift and generous. But governments and international institutions must now step up in the months ahead, and agree a much bigger financial package with Bangladesh. That support must be tied to a progressive refugee policy that will provide refugees with access to work, education, citizenship rights and a future, without putting further strain on already stretched public services. There are important lessons to learn from similar influxes in Uganda, Jordan, and Lebanon. But right now, that progressive, positive, outcome looks a long way away for the Rohingya. Rather than welcome and integrate, the government of Bangladesh is now activating a costly plan to transfer 100,000 Rohingya to Bhashan Char, a currently uninhabited island. At the end of November, the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar also agreed to return and repatriate Rohingya to Myanmar – the very country they fled just weeks ago – with support from the UK and other countries. It is reported that repatriation and refugee returns could start as soon as January, just a few weeks away. The UK Government says it is seeking assurances that repatriations will only happen if they are safe, voluntary and dignified. But according to human rights groups surveying refugees on the ground, many neither want to return nor believe it is yet safe to do so. That is hardly surprising when you consider their horrific experience at the hands of the military, or that a repeat cycle of counter-insurgency human rights violations is highly likely in future. We now know that the assurances of civilian leaders like Aung Sang Suu Kyi count for little in a country still dominated by the military. Until the UK Government receives far stronger and more credible assurances and evidence that any returns will indeed be safe, voluntary and dignified, and until UN agencies have full confidence in the arrangement, the UK must not support an agreement that could put thousands more Rohingya lives in serious danger. This Christmas Day, four months on from the start of the crisis, we should focus not on how the Rohingya can be sent back, but on how we can help provide short-term help, and long-term sanctuary. The UK must help the Rohingya, not send them back into danger. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rohingya-myanmar-refugees-exile-aung-sang-suu-kyi-a8127561.html (c) 2017 The Independant

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar for camps in Bangladesh. AP Photo/Dar Yasin After facing international outrage and charges of ethnic cleansing, Myanmar made a pledge: Rohingya Muslims who fled the country by the hundreds of thousands would start their journey home within weeks. With so many obstacles, however, and no real sign of good will, few believe that will happen. The returns are supposed to be voluntary. But many members of the religious minority, now living in sprawling refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, are afraid to go back. They don't trust the nationalist-led government and feel widely hated by the general population. Meanwhile, the military — which violently ousted them — says the refugees shouldn't expect to return in large numbers. Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million, was basking in international praise just a few years ago as it transitioned to democracy after a half-century of dictatorship. Since then, a campaign of killings, rape and arson attacks by security forces and Buddhist-aligned mobs have sent more than 850,000 of the country's 1.3 million Rohingya fleeing. Their home for generations, the northern tip of Rakhine state, is now virtually empty, prompting the United Nations, the United States and others to label it ethnic cleansing. In an apparent effort to quiet criticism, Myanmar reached an agreement with Bangladesh last month saying refugees would start returning home before January 23. There is "no way" that will happen, says Chris Lewa, a leading expert on the Rohingya and the policies that have made them one of the world's most persecuted minorities. The government, she notes, has done almost nothing to prepare. While Myanmar said the Rohingya would be allowed to settle in their original homes, few of which remain standing, some officials have talked about putting them in "camps" in northern Rakhine. Already, two barracks have been constructed next to a police post in the Rakhine state village of Taungpyo Letwe to receive returnees, the Ministry of Information says. The government has stockpiled material and started breaking ground for 41 modular houses. The idea, the ministry said, is that returnees can stay there temporarily. That scares Arif Ullah, a 34-year-old Rohingya living at the Balukali camp in Bangladesh. He worries it could lead to something more permanent like apartheid-style camps erected after violence broke out in Sittwe, the state capital, in 2012. Five years later, those camps remain home to 120,000 people. International aid agencies are effectively banned and the Rohingya have little access to food, education or basic medical care. Mothers regularly die in childbirth. Babies and children have clear signs of malnutrition. "We miss our home," said Arif Ullah, married and a father of two. "But we are human beings." "If the Myanmar government is really willing to take us back and give us our rights, they could have built houses on the land where our houses were burned down," he says. "But clearly they don't want to do that. And we are not going back to just live in the camps." Anagha Neelakantan, Asia Director of the International Crisis Group, meanwhile, warned of potential security risks. She also does not believe large numbers of Rohingya will be returning from Bangladesh any time soon. And the presence of so many traumatized, hopeless refugees in Bangladesh, she said, could be a recipe for further instability and possible cross-border attacks by Rohingya militants, known as ARSA. Attacks by ARSA inside Rakhine state — first in October 2016 and then again in August — triggered the army's heavy-handed, indiscriminate response. Well-trained and funded in part by the Middle East, the militants' agenda appears to be to localized. They want the Rohingya to enjoy the same rights as others in Myanmar. But if the situation does not improve, there are fears the militants could be exploited by transnational jihadists with their own aims. Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, says the decision as to who returns and when should not be left to governments. It should be for residents inside Myanmar to decide. "It is impossible to accept the number of persons proposed by Bangladesh," he said last month in a statement. "Emphasis must be placed on wish of local Rakhine ethnic people who are real Myanmar citizens. Only when local Rakhine ethnic people accept it, will all the people satisfy it." Though many Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for generations, they are seen by most people in the country as "foreign invaders" from Bangladesh. They have been denied citizenship, effectively rendering them stateless. In addition to saying the Muslim minority should be allowed to return freely, safely and in dignity, Myanmar's agreement with Bangladesh says Rohingya will need to provide evidence of their residency — something many say they do not have. While the agreement says that the U.N. High Commission for Refugees will play a role in the repatriations, Adrian Edwards, a spokesman in Geneva, said they have so far been excluded from initial discussions between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Bangladesh wants them to be involved, sources say. Myanmar does not. "After the widespread atrocities, safe and voluntary return of Rohingya will require international monitors on the ground in Burma (Myanmar)," says Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch. This, he says, means a central role for the UNHCR. But how that can happen and when is just one of the many obstacles to a Rohingya return to Myanmar that many fear, many simply don't want — and that, in the context of the months of violence that 2017 brought to so many people, is for the moment a political talking point and very little else. https://www.thenational.ae/world/asia/rohingya-face-uncertain-future-in-bangladesh-1.690039 (c) 2017 The National

All evidence suggests that the Trump administration State Department is in the process of removing Sudan from the Department’s annual list of “State Sponsors Terrorism.” Sudan was designated as such by the Clinton administration in 1993, and subsequent history reveals a long and deep involvement in terrorist activity by Khartoum’s National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime, which came to power by military coup in June 1989 and has remained essentially unchanged in character and ambition. Pressure for removing Sudan from the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” has been building since the early years of the Obama administration, which in its last week began the process of lifting U.S. economic sanctions from the regime, a process the was completed by the Trump administration in October 2017, under heavy pressure from the U.S. intelligence community, which wants to establish a strong counter-terrorism relationship with the regime and utilize the vast new U.S. embassy in Khartoum as a listening post for northern Africa. Past evidence of the Khartoum regime’s strong support for international terrorism, however, particularly Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, argues for a delay in any decision about removing Sudan from the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism”: the history is too long, too deep, and reflects the decisions and actions of ruthless men who continue to wage genocidal counter-insurgencies in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile. The present overview of that history—with an extensive accompanying COMPENDIUM of documents, dispatches, reports, and other relevant evidence (see | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/)—makes clear just how premature it is to certify that Khartoum is no longer a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.” Introduction Sometime before May 2018 the U.S. State Department will decide whether to keep Sudan on the very short list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (the others are Syria, Iran, and North Korea). Given the evidence provided by the actions and statements of the Obama administration, and the Trump administration to date, this decision has essentially been made. The most recent State Department report on international terrorism (July 2017) under its “Sudan” heading has no criticisms of Sudan’s performance according to the relevant standards and criteria. Given the long history of the current National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime supporting terrorism and radical Islam, it requires a leap of extraordinary faith to believe that the men who have controlled this regime for 28 years have completely reformed themselves and their priorities. Indeed, the expedient changes that were made in order to secure a lifting of U.S. economic sanctions (finalized in October 2017) have been partial and already reneged upon in significant ways, especially with respect to humanitarian access issues in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile. The U.S. decision concerning Sudan’s place on the State Department list must be understood as driven not by State Department thoughts about the most effectively balanced policy toward the Khartoum regime, but rather by the U.S. intelligence community, whose thinking has long been defined almost entirely by highly problematic assumptions about the value of “cooperation” in counter-terrorism efforts by the NIF/NCP regime. The Los Angeles Times (2005) and The Washington Post (2010) have reported compellingly on this dishonest tendency (see “Year 2005” in the COMPENDIUM | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/). The regime has been heavily involved in terrorist activities since June 1989, when it came to power by military coup and whose leadership is essentially unchanged. The National Islamic Front, an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, was and is dominated by the same cabal of military and security officials that ascended when Lt.-General (later Field Marshal) Omar al-Bashir emerged as “president” of the regime. To be sure, there has been an ebb and flow in the power and fates of various men within the regime (and only men have power in the regime): currently there is a distinctly more militaristic quality to the regime than at times when non-military officials exercised considerable power (e.g., Ghazi Salah el-Din and Nafie Ali Nafie). The second most powerful man in the regime currently is Vice-President (and Prime Minister as of March 2017) Lt.-General Bakri Hassan Saleh, who formerly led the regime’s notorious security services. There are good reasons to doubt the wisdom of lifting the State Department designation of Sudan as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism,” and not only for historical reasons, although these are many. The regime remains deeply committed to Islamizing and Arabizing projects in Sudan, the region, and internationally; support for radical, militant Islam is longstanding and retains strong ideological commitment from many in the regime. The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen were originally backed by Khartoum until economic realities compelled an orientation away from Iran and toward arch-rival Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. The regime has boasted (if unwittingly) of its recent support for the radical Islamic forces of Libya Dawn in that fractured country. From 1992 – 1996 the regime hosted Osama bin Laden, critical years in the formation of al-Qaeda. U.S. federal courts have found the Khartoum regime complicit in the deadly 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden Harbor, Yemen. For many years, Khartoum actively supported the manically brutal Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda as a way of preventing President Museveni from assisting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in its long war with Khartoum over self-determination (1983 – 2005). The regime was deeply complicit in, if not directly responsible for the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The list goes on and on; the COMPENDIUM [ https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU ] to this analysis provides a lengthy overview of documents and materials relevant to understanding fully the extent of this regime’s support for international terrorism. But given the value the U.S. intelligence community places on the NIF/NCP regime’s cooperation in providing counter-terrorism intelligence, we may be sure that once removed from the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” it will not be placed back. The regime is essentiually unchanged in character: those with power are largely the same, and their determination to exert that power in support of radical Islam is conspicuous, most especially in minutes leaked from an extraordinary meeting of the most senior military and security officials on August 31, 2014 (see below). Sudan has deserved its place on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for many, many years; it would be nothing if not precipitous to remove the Khartoum regime from the list given past and recent history, and after such a relatively short period of putative “good behavior.” If we want a measure of how barbarically indifferent to human destruction and suffering this regime is, we have only to look at its ongoing genocidal campaign in Darfur and its brutal, also finally genocidal assault on the people of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, as well as large African populations in Blue Nile. Sudan and Terrorism, a Brief History: June 1989: The National Islamic Front, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, came to power in Sudan during a military coup; Lt.-General Omar al-Bashir emerged as president, but depended on a powerful cohort of radical Islamists and Arabists. 1992 – 1996: Most notoriously, in a move orchestrated by immensely powerful Islamic ideologue Hassan al-Turabi, Khartoum hosted Osama bin Laden from 1992 – 1996, the formative years for al-Qaeda. While the circumstances of bin Laden’s decamping from Sudan to Afghanistan remain controversial, what is not controversial are the very substantial ties he maintained with the Khartoum regime, and the regime’s active support for al-Qaeda, including fund-raising and providing diplomatic cover to al-Qaeda operatives (see the detailed COMPENDIUM of historical data and report | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/). A host of serious terrorists attacks can be traced back to Khartoum in one way or another: 1993: attack on the World Trade Center in New York City was carried out by a number of men, led by mastermind Ramzi Yousef, who received training from the rapidly growing and well-financed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. 1993: The Clinton administration designated Sudan as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” 1995: Khartoum regime officials were behind the assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) (again, see the detailed account early in the COMPENDIUM of historical data and reports | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/). 1997: The Clinton administration imposes comprehensive trade and economic sanctions on the Khartoum regime (still at this point the National Islamic Front regime) because of support for international terrorism and gross domestic human rights abuses—abuses that continue to this day. 1998: al-Qaeda carried out bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania); in December 2011 a U.S. federal district judge ruled that the governments of Sudan and Iran should be held liable for monetary damages to victims of the embassy bombings. 1998: the Clinton administration ordered an attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory as the site of chemical weapons manufacture and because of Khartoum’s ongoing support for international terrorism; although al-Shifa proved not to be the site of chemical weapons manufacture, the Khartoum regime has innfact used chemical weapons on a number of occasions, most recently during the Jebel Marra (Central Darfur) offensive of 2016. 2000 – 2016: Chemical weapons use by Khartoum’s forces during the 2016 Jebel Marra offensive was authoritatively established by Amnesty International (September 2016). Early authoritative reports on chemical weapons use by the regime include Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Switzerland (2000): (See below and also the COMPENDIUM [ https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU / ] for more evidence of the Khartoum regime’s use and distribution of chemical weapons, including from a [leaked] U.S. State Department cable, December 2006). The use of chemical weapons, particularly against civilians (as has been the case in Sudan), inevitably constitutes war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under the Rome Treaty that is the statutory basis for the International Criminal Court. Notably, several senior members of the Khartoum regime have been served arrest warrants; in the case of President Omar al-Bashir, these warrants include multiple charges of genocide and massive crimes against humanity. October 2000: an al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor (Yemen) killed 17 American sailors and wounded 39; in March 2007 a U.S federal district court judge held that, “There is substantial evidence in this case presented by the expert testimony that the government of Sudan induced the particular bombing of the Cole by virtue of prior actions of the government of Sudan.” (New York Times, March 15, 2007) September 11, 2001: The horrific terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City put the Khartoum regime in a precarious situation, given its ongoing support for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Although condemning the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the regime would simply move more quietly and secretly in its ongoing support for terrorism. Iran would become an increasingly important partner, particularly in attacks against Israel by means of support for Hamas and others (see below). A wide range of reporting in the wake of 9/11 established extensive financial connections between al-Qaeda and the Khartoum regime, as well as fund-raising efforts and diplomatic assistance to al-Qaeda by the regime. (See COMPENDIUM | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/.) 1990s – 2005: Khartoum offered substantial support to the terrorist organization the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a means of preventing President Museveni of Ugandafrom assisting more aggressively South Sudan’s Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army. 2006: A U.S. State Department cable of December 28, 2006 (leaked by “Wikileaks”) indicates that a number of Sudanese entities had engaged in activities with Syria and Iranthat violated the U.S. “Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act,” which prohibits transfer to or acquisition from these two countries of: “Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) or other items with the potential to make a material contribution to missile, WMD, or certain other weapons programs.” The cable notes that, “The U.S. Government has determined that [Sudan’s] Al Zarga Optical and Electronics Company, Giad Industrial Complex, and Yarmouk Industrial Complex have engaged in activities, as noted above, that warrant the imposition of measures pursuant to Section 3 of the ISNA.” (All emphases in all quoted texts have been added—ER. Full text of the cable as well as a photographic scan contained in COMPENDIUM | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/ ). 2007: The annual State Department report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (published April 2008) notes: Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist elements, elements of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), HAMAS, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), remained in Sudan. In light of the ongoing hybrid United Nations-African Union deployment to Darfur, various terrorist threats against these forces emerged, and Al-Qaeda leadership has called for jihad against UN forces in Darfur. Further, Sudanese authorities uncovered and largely dismantled a large-scale terrorist organization targeting western interests in Khartoum in summer and fall of the year. The terrorist threat level remained high in Khartoum and Darfur, and potentially other parts of Sudan. 2008: Beginning in late 2008, Khartoum agreed to serve as an intermediary for weapons shipments from Iran to Hamas in Gaza (see below). The annual State Department report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (published April 2009) notes: Al-Qa’ida (AQ)-inspired terrorist elements, and elements of both Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and HAMAS remained in Sudan. In light of the continuing hybrid UN-AU deployment to Darfur, various terrorist threats against this mission have emerged, and AQ leadership has called for “jihad” against UN forces in Darfur. In the early hours of January 1, 2008, attackers in Khartoum sympathetic to AQ shot and fatally wounded two U.S. Embassy staff members – an American and a Sudanese employee – both of whom worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Sudanese authorities cooperated closely with the USG in investigating this terrorist crime. On February 1, five alleged conspirators were arrested and put on trial for murder on August 31. Their trial was ongoing at year’s end. Other extremist groups also have threatened attacks against Western interests in Sudan. The July 14 request by International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges related to atrocities committed in Darfur has further inflamed tensions. Therefore, the terrorist threat level remained critical in Khartoum and Darfur, and potentially other parts of Sudan. Elements of designated terrorist groups remained in Sudan. With the exception of HAMAS, whose members the Sudanese government consider to be “freedom fighters” rather than terrorists, the government does not appear to openly support the presence of extremist elements. We note, however, that there have been open source reports that arms were purchased in Sudan’s black market and allegedly smuggled northward to HAMAS. 2009: Khartoum’s involvement in supporting terrorism is revealed in a series of additional”wiki-leaked” documents, as well as the State Department assessments from preceding years. In the document we find: …al-Qa’ida-inspired terrorist elements as well as elements of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS, remained in Sudan in 2009. (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/index.htm). Moreover, U.S. intelligence knew that in March 2009 Sudan had played a role in supplying Iranian arms for Hamas in Gaza. The Guardian (UK) reported in late 2010 on “wiki-leaked” State Department cables from both January and March 2009: State department cables released by WikiLeaks show that Sudan was warned by the U.S. in January 2009 not to allow the delivery of unspecified Iranian arms that were expected to be passed to Hamas in the Gaza Strip around the time of Israel’s Cast Lead offensive, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed. (December 6, 2010,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-sudan-iranian-arms-gaza/) U.S. diplomats were instructed to express “exceptional concern” to Khartoum officials, but those warnings evidently went unheeded. The Guardian goes on to report: In March 2009, Jordan and Egypt were informed by the U.S. of new Iranian plans to ship a cargo of “lethal military equipment” to Syria with onward transfer to Sudanand then to Hamas. The cables don’t specify what the disposition of this “lethal military equipment” was. But Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union, Japan—and the U.S., a fact confirmed repeatedly in the State Department reports on “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Again, Khartoum’s role in the supply operation to Hamas in March 2009 is explicitly identified by U.S. intelligence. Although this evidence was available to U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration during his July 2009 Senate testimony, he deliberately ignored it with his claim that, “There’s no evidence in our intelligence community that supports [Sudan] being on the state sponsors of terrorism. It’s a political decision” (see below). 2010: The annual State Department report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (published August 2011) notes: [E]lements of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including al-Qa’ida-inspired terrorists, remained in Sudan, as gaps remained in the Sudanese government’s knowledge of and ability to identify and capture these individuals as well as prevent them from exploiting the territory for smuggling activities. Some evidence suggested that individuals who actively participated in the Iraqi insurgency have returned to Sudan, and may be in a position to use their expertise to conduct attacks within Sudan or to pass on their knowledge. Sudanese officials continued to view Hamas members as representatives of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas members conducted fundraising in Sudan, and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) maintained a presence in Sudan. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continued to operate in the region, though there was no reliable information that corroborated allegations that the Government of Sudan provided support to the LRA. [In fact, a considerable about of intelligence, from a wide range of sources, confirmed Khartoum’s continuing support for the LRA—ER] 2011: The annual State Department report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (published July 2012) notes: Elements of several designated terrorist groups including al-Qa’ida (AQ)-inspired terrorist groups remained in Sudan. In addition, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas maintained a presence in Sudan and Hamas has increased its presence there since late 2011. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal visited Khartoum in November 2011, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh led a delegation of Hamas officials to Khartoum in late December during a regional tour. In addition, Haniyeh was President Bashir’s guest of honor at the Sudanese independence celebrations on December 31 . Khartoum also has maintained a relationship with Iran. In 2011, President Bashir and the Sudanese Ambassador to Iran both met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss bolstering political and economic ties between Khartoum and Tehran. In June of 2010, four Sudanese men sentenced to death for the January 1, 2008 killing of U.S. diplomat John Granville and his Sudanese driver, escaped from Khartoum’s maximum security Khobar Prison 2011 – 2015: In the wake of the disintegration of Libya with the fall of Muamar Gadhafi, Khartoum made clear its support for radical Islam in the form of assistance to the powerful organization “Libya Dawn,” which controlled much of western Libya. Sudan Tribunereports in June 2014: Sudanese planes carrying arms land in Libya: report | June 6, 2014 (KHARTOUM) Libyan forces loyal to a renegade former general accused the Sudanese government of sending weapons via planes to Islamist militias. Colonel Mohamed al-Hejazi, spokesperson of Khalifa Heftar forces, told Cairo-based al-Youm al-Sabe’ newspaper that the latest shipment arrived on Friday morning at Meetiga military base airport. The military spokesperson asserted that Sudan sent planes carrying arms to these extremist groups at different times in the past without the knowledge of the Libyan government. He said these weapons have already been received by a militia loyal to Abdul Hakim Belhaj, adding that Qatar funds these deliveries. These allegations by Colonel al-Hejazi would be borne out by revelations in the minutes of an August 31, 2014 meeting of the Khartoum regime’s senior military and security officials (see below). 2012: The annual State Department report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (published May 2013) notes: Elements of designated terrorist groups, including AQ-inspired terrorist groups, remained in Sudan. The Government of Sudan took steps to limit the activities of these organizations, and has worked to disrupt foreign fighters’ use of Sudan as a logistics base and transit point to Mali and Afghanistan. With the exception of Hamas, the government does not appear to support the presence of violent extremist elements. In November, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal visited Khartoum during a meeting of Sudan’s Islamic Movement, and Meshal met with several senior members of the Sudanese government during his visit. The United States continued to monitor Sudan’s relationship with Iran, itself designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. In October 2012, two Iranian warships docked in Port Sudan, which Sudanese officials characterized as a solid show of political and diplomatic cooperation between the two nations. 2013: The annual report from the U.S. State Department (April 30, 2014, representing findings for 2013) continues to list Sudan as one of only four countries designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” (the others were Syria, Iran, and—now replaced by North Korea—Cuba). The report, with its expedient praise of the regime, seems designed to encourage Khartoum to get out of the terrorism business entirely, but such was not the case in 2013. The report notes: • Elements of al-Qa’ida-inspired terrorist groups remained in Sudan. The Government of Sudan has taken steps to limit the activities of these elements, and has worked to disrupt foreign fighters’ use of Sudan as a logistics base and transit point for terrorists going to Mali, Syria, and Afghanistan. • Groups continued to operate in Sudan in 2013 and there continued to be reports of Sudanese nationals participating in terrorist organizations. For example, regional media outlets alleged one Sudanese national was part of an al-Shabaab terrorist cell that attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in September. There was also evidence that Sudanese violent extremists participated in terrorist activities in Somalia and Mali. • In 2013, Sudan continued to allow members of Hamas to travel, fundraise, and live in Sudan. • The UN and NGOs reported in 2013 that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is likely operating in the disputed Kafia Kingi area, claimed by Sudan and South Sudan, in close proximity to Sudanese Armed Forces. [The Kafia Kingi area is completely controlled by the Sudan Armed Forces SAF—ER] At year’s end, the United States continued to engage the Government of Sudan, the AU, and the UN to evaluate these reports. 2014: Agence-France Presse reports (May 12, 2014 | Khartoum): Evidence suggests Iran has played a key role in supporting war torn Sudan’s weapons production, while Tehran has also been Khartoum’s second biggest supplier of arms, a study said on Monday. Some of those imported arms, along with others from China, have reached rebel groups in Sudan as well as South Sudan, said the Small Arms Survey report based on more than two years of investigation. It said that there is “emerging evidence that Iran has played a significant role in supporting Sudan’s weapons manufacturing sector.” China has also reportedly provided training and technical support for Sudanese weapons production, the report said. It cited data showing that most of Sudan’s imported small arms, light weapons, ammunition, rocket and grenade launchers have come from China in recent years. But the report also elaborates on the extent of Sudan’s military links with Iran, which have repeatedly been the subject of regional concern and speculation. “Military ties between Iran and Sudan have grown strong over the years,” said the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based independent research group. In March, Israel intercepted in the Red Sea a ship, the Klos-C, which it said carried M-302 missiles and other weapons shipped from Iran. They were to have been offloaded at Port Sudan and then taken overland to Palestinian militants in Gaza. [The full report from the Small Arms Survey (“Following the Thread: Arms and Ammunition Tracing in Sudan and South Sudan”), explains these military affiliations in detail | http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/fileadmin/docs/working-papers/HSBA-WP32-Arms-Tracing.pdf ] 2014: The Khartoum regime supported the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s bloody civil war. In September 2014, the Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. When, for urgent financial reasons, Khartoum abandoned Iran for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in 2016, the regime began to fight against the Houthis as part of the Saudi-led coalition (now preventing desperately needed humanitarian assistance from reaching Yemeni civilians). August 31, 2014: In an extremely high-level meeting of military and security officials in Khartoum, regime attitudes toward a host of terrorism-related issues are starkly revealed. Minutes of this extraordinary meeting were leaked and fully authenticated; as a result, and the world had a clear view of attitudes that the regime had done so much to conceal. In particular, the words of former Minister of the Interior and Minister of Defense Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein stand as supremely revealing of attitudes toward “cooperation” with the United States: America is facing the crisis of the ISIS and the other Jihadist movements that are newly formed and can move freely outside the traditional surveillance networks. Currently, there are twenty thousand (20,000) Jihadists and fifteen (15) newly formed Jihadist Movements who are scattered all over, from Morocco to Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, all the Gulf States, a wide presence in Africa and Europe and nobody owns a data-base on that as the one we have. We release only limited information to the Americans according to request, and the price is the armed movements file. The coming days carry a lot of surprises. [The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Hussein, charging him with massive crimes against humanity in Darfur—ER] 2015: An insightful analysis published in Sudan Tribune (February 14, 2015) suggests a concern widespread among regional analysts: Insecurity in Darfur tempts African and Arab extremist movements | http://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article53986 By Amira Khair The internal conflicts, extremist movements and turbulent militias in several African states that neighboring Sudan have stirred significant concern that some of these extremist groups may find suitable opportunities to infiltrate through the western borders into Darfur which suffer from lack of security and disorder since the beginning of the current conflict. The 2015 U.S. State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” continues to include Sudan (along with Iran and Syria), noting: In 2014, members of Hamas were allowed to raise funds, travel, and live in Sudan.However, in 2015 the use of Sudan by Palestinian designated terrorist groups appeared to have declined. The last known shipment was the Israeli-interdicted KLOS-C in 2014. In June 2010, four Sudanese men sentenced to death for the killing of two U.S. Embassy staff members on January 1, 2008, escaped from Khartoum’s maximum security Kober prison. That same month of the escape, Sudanese authorities confirmed that they recaptured one of the four convicts, and a second escapee was reported killed in Somalia in May 2011. The recaptured murderer is being held in Kober Prison, and, as of December 2015, appeals of his pending death sentence were still ongoing. The whereabouts of the other two convicts were unknown at year’s end, although one is rumored to have been killed in Somalia in November 2015. [It is a virtual certainty that those who assassinated American diplomat John Granville, a development expert, were soon known to and fully in the control of the regime’s extremely efficient National Intelligence and Security Services; those responsible for the assassination could not possibly have escaped from the highly secure Kober prison without NISS knowledge and assistance—ER] 2016 – 2017: There have been no reported terrorist incidents that directly involve the NIF/NCP regime; however, financial and even material support for terrorist groups and radical Islamists is extremely difficult to trace. Moreover, the investments Osama bin Laden made in Sudanese entities and banks, before and after his departure from Khartoum for Afghanistan in 1996, may well continue to fund al-Qaeda activities. Khartoum has never provided a complete accounting of bin Laden’s investments and has little incentive to do so. Prospectively, it is important to ask whether a regime that has supported international terrorism for so many years has truly foregone such activities. Saudi Arabian financial, particularly private, support for terrorist groups has been well documented. And given the Khartoum’s deep financial indebtedness to Saudi Arabia—following the economically dictated abandonment of long-time strategic ally Iran—the regime may well be of use to the Saudis as a financial intermediary (Khartoum’s banks are almost completely opaque to outside observers, including the IMF). The answer to the question of whether Sudan is truly out of the terrorism business, whether it should be removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” simply cannot be answered, given the brutal past history of the men who retain a monopoly on Sudanese national wealth and power, and whose ruthless survivalism will trump any commitment made to the U.S. or any external power. Moreover, so long as genocidal counter-insurgency campaigns continue, mutatis mutandis, in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that this regime is engaged in massive domestic terrorism by means of its security and military forces, which continue to command well over half the domestic budget. Further Analysis: The highly schematic account of Khartoum’s involvement in international terrorism that I offer in this overview essay should be read in light of a lengthy compendium of reports on terrorist activities, which may be found at the very substantial COMPENDIUM associated with this analysis (see | https://wp.me/p45rOG-2aU/). Despite the fact that Khartoum has had such long and full involvement in supporting terrorism, terrorist organizations, and radical Islamic cadres, the Obama administration was determined to improve relations with Khartoum in order to secure counter-terrorism intelligence. The major push for this changed Sudan policy began during the Bush administration, but accelerated significantly during the first years of the Obama administration. At times, the push for a change in policy has been distinguished by ignorance and mendacity, as with the July 2009 Senate testimony of Obama’s first (and fantastically unqualified) Special Envoy for Sudan, Air Force Major-General (retired) Scott Gration: “There’s no evidence in our intelligence community that supports [Sudan] being on the state sponsors of terrorism. It’s a political decision,” Gration said. He also said the sanctions are getting in the way of development work, particularly in southern Sudan, which is still recovering from a long civil war. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111422940/) In a mark of the disingenuousness and outright prevarication that marked Gration’s enormously destructive tenure, in an interview with Radio Dabanga (September 15, 2009), Gration declared that, “‘he never said anything [about] lifting the sanctions and removing Sudan from the list of state-sponsored terrorism.” While he offered no explanation of the gross disparity between his Senate testimony and his Radio Dabanga interview, perhaps Gration was forced by facts to reassess his assessment of the Khartoum regime. He would certainly have had access to what was reported by The Guardian (UK) recently reported (December 6, 2010) concerning “Wikileaked” U.S. cables: In March 2009, Jordan and Egypt were informed by the U.S. of new Iranian plans to ship a cargo of “lethal military equipment” to Syria with onward transfer to Sudan and then to Hamas. Host nations were requested to require that the flights land for inspection or deny them overflight rights. It is not known whether any deliveries went ahead. In April Egypt’s interior minister, General Habib al-Adly, was described in U.S. cables as being behind the dismantling of a Hezbollah cell in Sinai as well as “steps to disrupt the flow of Iranian-supplied arms from Sudan through Egypt to Gaza.”(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-sudan-iranian-arms-gaza/) More diplomatically skilled, but pushing for the same radical transformation of U.S. Sudan policy, Obama’s second Special Envoy for the Sudans, Princeton Lyman, offered a deeply disingenuous characterization of what the Obama administration expected under a continuation of the NIF/NCP regime: “We [the Obama administration] do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.” (Interview with Asharq al-Awsat, December 3, 2011 | http://english.aawsat.com/2011/12/article55244147/asharq-al-awsat-talks-to-us-special-envoy-to-sudan-princeton-lyman ) The preposterous notion that men such as regime president and indicted génocidaire Omar al-Bashir could oversee in Sudan “reform via constitutional democratic measures” marked a breathtaking cynicism that betrayed every hope that U.S. policy might actually foster democratic change in Sudan, and gave the regime breathing room to continue its genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur, and continue as well with its savage war on the people of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, regions that had been under a total humanitarian embargo, imposed by Khartoum, since summer 2009, more than two years earlier than Lyman’s December 3, 2011 with Asharq al-Awsat. For extended accounts of the shift in U.S. Sudan policy during the Obama administration, clearly driven by the intelligence community, see my analyses of recent years | • “Sudan, Terrorism, and the Obama Administration” | February 9, 2011 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-B9 • “What Really Animates the Obama Administration’s Sudan Policy?” 10 October 2011 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-GT • “The Obama Administration, Terrorism, and Hypocrisy,” Sudan Tribune, 6 May 2014 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1i8 • “Sudan embraces genocide, terrorism—and now Iran,” The Washington Post(Sunday), November 30, 2014 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sudan-embraces-genocide-terrorism–iran/2014/11/30/2ed603ae-75bb-11e4-a755-e32227229e7b_story.html?utm_term=.c644b4fe4c63 • “Yemen, Khartoum, and Obama Administration Priorities in the “War on Terrorism,” January 27, 2015 | https://wp.me/p45rOG-1zB • “The Obama Administration, Counter-terrorism Intelligence, and Khartoum’s National Islamic Front/National Congress Party Regime: A retrospective glance,” May 14, 2016 | https://wp.me/p45rOG-1To But above all, I would highlight what was early on and correctly emphasized by the person best positioned to render an assessment of these changed Sudan policies, Senator Russ Feingold, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and chair of the Africa subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a statement of May 2009Feingold declared: “I take serious issue with the way the report [on international terrorism by the US State Department] overstates the level of cooperation in our counterterrorism relationship with Sudan, a nation which the US classifies as a state sponsor of terrorism. A more accurate assessment is important not only for effectively countering terrorism in the region, but as part of a review of our overall policy toward Sudan.” (Statement by Senator Russell Feingold, Chair of the Africa Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, May 1, 2009) But despite the prescience of Feingold’s assessment, and despite the continuing presence of Sudan on the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (July 2017), this designation appears destined to disappear when the next “list” is promulgated in (or around) May of 2018. In addition to the permanent lifting of U.S. economic sanctions that occurred in October 2017, this following Obama’s provisional lifting of these sanctions in January 2017, the most recent State Department report gives Khartoum a clean bill of health on all terrorism issues. Without access to classified information, I have no way to judge the extent of the politicization of this judgment by the State Department. But as the example of Scott Gration’s Senate testimony of July 2009 made fully clear, prevarication and disingenuousness are tools that the U.S. intelligence community is prepared to use in getting the Sudan policy it wants. A primary motive—one that the NIF/NCP regime is well aware of—is the new U.S. embassy in Khartoum, an immense building that far exceeds any possible diplomatic purposes: it has already been filled with state-of-the-art listening, surveillance, and monitoring equipment and is (the intelligence community feels) ideally situated to be the primary U.S. listening post for northern Africa, a region of increasing concern in the struggle to contain terrorism. The U.S. is acutely aware that full access to the embassy—for all equipment and personnel—is contingent on a determination whether Sudan continues on the U.S. State Department list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Notably, so long as Sudan remains on the list, it has no chance to secure debt relief for its more than $50 billion in external debt, almost all of it accrued during the 28 years the NIF/NCP regime has been in power. There are, of course, no limits to the expedient behavior in which Khartoum will engage to ensure access to debt relief. What are we prepared to overlook in giving Khartoum what it wants? What leverage are we prepared to lose in securing a meaningful peace in Darfur? Or an end to the barbaric humanitarian blockade imposed on civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile? What domestic human rights abuses—abuses of the most brutal sort—are we prepared to count as part of the price for whatever it is that Khartoum may choose to give us? We would do well to recall the previously cited and thoroughly unguarded words of Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, speaking while Minister of Defense on August 31, 2014: cryptic in some respects, its tone is fully revealing of the contempt that runs to the core of the NIF/NCP regime: Hussein: America is facing the crisis of the ISIS and the other Jihadist movements that are newly formed and can move freely outside the traditional surveillance networks. Currently, there are twenty thousand (20,000) Jihadists and fifteen (15) newly formed Jihadist Movements who are scattered all over, from Morocco to Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, all the Gulf States, a wide presence in Africa and Europe and nobody owns a data-base on that as the one we have. We release only limited information to the Americans according to request, and the price is the armed movements file. The coming days carry a lot of surprises. What are the surprises that General Hussein’s cronies have in store now? We may be sure that the support for Hamas, Libya Dawn, and other radical Islamic groups will be a good deal more circumspect, communications much more guarded in the wake of the catastrophic leak of such revealing minutes. But the same men who came to power 28 years ago rule Sudan, and continue to share a ruthless Islamizing and Arabizing agenda. How that will play out domestically is all too clear in the marginalized regions of Sudan; how it will play out regionally and internationally…we simply do not know. http://sudanreeves.org/2017/12/24/the-national-islamic-front-national-congress-party-and-international-terrorism-a-long-grim-history/ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy