In recent months, the United Nations has hardened its view of the Rohingya’s plight in Myanmar to be that of “textbook ethnic cleansing,” as expressed by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. But earlier this month, at a session of Human Rights Council in Geneva, Zeid asked(presumably not rhetorically) who can “rule out that elements of genocide may be present?” More recently, Zeid said that you also cannot rule out the possibility that one day Aung San Suu Kyi (along with head of the armed forces Aung Min Hlaing) will find herself in the dock on genocide charges. This certainly raises the stakes from simply taking away her Nobel Peace Prize or a few honorary titles awarded by foreign governments and cities. Zeid’s comment, as to be expected, has reared the head of Suu Kyi’s apologists, a legion that is growing smaller by the day, though remains rather persistent and dogged. The apologia for Suu Kyi tends to rest on four arguments. I’ll begin with the most persuasive. Suu Kyi, as the de-facto civilian leader of Myanmar, has no control over the country’s military forces, which have acted independently of civilian government. This is an argument favored by many of her claquers, but it has countless flaws. The most obvious is that, even if Suu Kyi has no direct control over the military, she has tactically vindicated its actions and, more importantly, refused to come to the defense of the Rohingya. It is commonly reported that she has said “nothing” about the issue, or been “silent” on it, though neither is true. She has repeatedly refused to even call the minority group by its name, referring to the Rohingya mainly as “refugees.” Zeid said of this: “To strip their name from them is dehumanizing to the point where you begin to believe that anything is possible.” Her office has described some accounts of the atrocities as “fake news,” including the rape of women and girls by soldiers. She has attempted at moral equivalency, blaming terrorist attacks for being as bad as what the military is doing, when the numbers inflicted by the former pale in comparison to the latter’s. It took her until November to actually visit Rakhine state for the first time, a PR visit where her apparent message was that all is fine, stressing some Rohingya decided not to flee, unlike more than the 650,000 others who have. “I hope everything will go fine as local villagers handle the rebuilding process,” she said, not bothering to mention why they needed to rebuild in the first case (in some cases because their entire villages were burnt to the ground). She has also said the Rohingya can return to Myanmar, as long as they can prove they used to live in Rakhine, a flinty comment considering most likely fled without any documentation, and considering the Rohingya have long been stripped of citizenship, which Suu Kyi’s government hasn’t said they can have. In fact, her spokesman last month blamed Bangladesh for not wanting to send the Rohingya back, “because [the Bangladeshi government is] afraid they will lose international donations,” a most reprehensible comment about a country that has willingly, and to its own detriment, taken in hundreds of thousands of people. Then there have been flat out lies. Her cabinet, which she reportedly strictly controls, has in the past denied that any Rohingya have been killed by the military. “There is no case of the military killing Muslim civilians,” the social welfare minister said in October, “Muslim people killed their own Muslim people.” In a speech to parliament in mid-September, she said there had been “no armed clashes or clearance operations” since September 5, something contested at the time by many independent observers. In the same speech, she claimed that “all people in Rakhine state have access to education and healthcare without discrimination,” which simply isn’t true. Daring at self-pity, and self-aggrandizement, she has constantly tried to redirect international empathy for the Rohingya’s plight to her own past struggles. “We know very well, more than most, what it means to be deprived of human rights and democratic protection,” she is thought to have told the Turkish leader in September. One suspects that she now knows, more than most, what it means to deprive others of human rights and democratic protection, as well. Let’s attempt a brief thought experiment. Imagine that it wasn’t Suu Kyi, the Nobelist and (former) international democracy icon, in charge of Myanmar’s civilian government. Instead, it is some person you never heard of, who hasn’t been beatified by the likes of Luc Besson or Hillary Clinton. Now, imagine that you are told this individual has done all of the above and, as well as disregarding ethnic cleansing, has also censorednewspapers, arrested journalists, attacked honest reporting as “fake news,” and failed to live up to most of their electoral promises. I imagine, or hope, that the reader would come to conclusion that the leader shouldn’t be supported. Indeed, I suspect few politicians would find the level of support (nay sympathy and pity) if they didn’t have the PR history of Suu Kyi. Whichever way one looks at it, Suu Kyi has become a synonym, or par excellence, of Christopher Hitchen’s penetrating maxim that some people’s actions are judged by their reputations and not their reputations by their actions. Even if Suu Kyi has justified the military’s action, she has no power to stop their ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. This is a not-so-subtle extension of the first apologia, only it gives certain ground on her deplorable comments. But the subtlety is that Suu Kyi is suddenly provided some autonomy in this defense, which some loyalists deny her, many of whom think of her as still being under a sort of house arrest, albeit in the lower house of parliament. Suu Kyi’s civilian government has restrained the military from what could have been a far worse ethnic cleansing. This might be a justification, but it is a hard one to prove. (Nor, is it that much of an excuse; an accomplice that convinces a murderer to slay only 10, not 15, people is no less an accomplice). Much easier to prove is that the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya didn’t start in its worst manifestation and then ease off. Instead, it got increasingly barbaric as the year went on. Holding Suu Kyi responsible for the Rohingya’s plight would be disastrous for Myanmar’s democratic movement, likely handing power back exclusively to the military leadership. By far, this is the most reprehensible apologia, tarnishing not only the name of democracy but also embracing the worst of realpolitik and the vilest of utilitarianism. In short, it justifies the sacrificing of hundreds of thousands of people for the sake of political power. And, if true, would admit Suu Kyi is willing to sacrifice one portion of society for the possible benefit of the majority. Imagine I told you that if Suu Kyi can bring about economic reform, introduce some progressive social measures and, even, put an end to Myanmar’s endemic corruption, and that this would justify her vindications of possible genocide. I trust the reader would consider such a statement deplorable. But in this defense of Suu Kyi one also finds a fallacy. To argue that Suu Kyi and the NLD ought to stay in government because there is the distinct possibility of domestic reform is to admit that she actually does hold some power. Not only that, she must have considerable power, given the difficulty of reforming a system that has been in place for decades, and held in place by once-hermetic military sadists. So, either Suu Kyi doesn’t have any real power or she does. Her apologists cannot have it both ways. If she has no real power, then her retention of numerous political portfolios and de-facto control of civilian government is the sign of a naive opportunist, not a moralist. And if she doesn’t have the power to even criticize the actions of the country’s military, what chance does she have to actually reform a political system still dominated by that military. Or, even more basely, if she cannot find the moral strength to denounce a possible genocide (or, simply, call a people by their name) why on earth should we believe she has the moral strength to battle corruption, or poverty, or human rights abuses not related to a Muslim minority? In one sense, her civilian leadership has become inane. Worse still, stained by association. The NLD might have won a democratic election, but that’s it. Indeed, this article hasn’t even begun to scratch at what is currently happening to civil society in Myanmar, including the detention of two Reuters reporters this month. Even if the Rohingya ethnic cleansing wasn’t taking place, there would be few good things to say about what her civilian government is currently doing, nor able to argue that the pro-democratic party is acting in a democratic manner. The only moral thing left to do (though it might now be too late) is for Suu Kyi to resign, extract the NLD from the current regime and regain some bloody courage by vehemently opposing genocide in her country, in opposition. Let the military generals take the opprobrium from the international community and let them stand trial alone for genocide, if such an event actually happens. I feel compelled to admit that history is littered with politicians of contradictions. Lincoln was a volunteer captain in the Black Hawk War, one instance in the genocide of Native Americans, but would later become the Great Emancipator. Maybe, then, historians will look upon Suu Kyi in a more kindly light. Today, however, I cannot justify taking such dispassionate stance. No, she deserves nothing but opprobrium and censure. https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/aung-san-suu-kyi-culpable-of-genocide/ (c) 2017 The Diplomat

El Salvador, a small country in the isthmus of Central America, is wracked by an implacable strain of gang warfare. Exceptionally intense and persistent violence pits rival street gangs against one another and in opposition to the police and state. Formerly hailed for its smooth transition to democracy and for turning the two foes of its 1980s civil war into political forces competing vigorously yet peaceably for power, El Salvador once again is famed for its bloodletting. Its recent murder rates rank among the highest in the world and its jails are among the most overcrowded. For the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, its main gang, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), personifies the menace of undocumented immigration. Although the Salvadoran state has developed a series of strategies for violence prevention, its mainly repressive efforts over the past fifteen years have checked the influence of these alternative approaches. It should now implement plans to prevent crime, rehabilitate gang members and spur development in marginalised communities. Most urgently, El Salvador will require protection from the turbulence that U.S. mass deportations could provoke. Read Report: https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/el-salvador/64-el-salvadors-politics-perpetual-violence (2017) International Crisis Group

Two former Ford executives are facing court, accused of helping Argentina's military kidnap and torture workers during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The case sheds light on the company's alleged collusion with the junta. The families of victims of Argentina's dictatorship have campaigned strongly for perpetrators to face justice Former Ford factory director Pedro Muller and ex-security manager Hector Francisco Jesus Sibilla were due to appear in the San Martin Federal Criminal Court, just outside Buenos Aires, on Tuesday, Argentina's Telam press agency reported. The men are accused of conspiring with security forces to target union workers at Ford's suburban factory north of the Argentine capital in 1976. According to the prosecution, they provided names, ID numbers, pictures and home addresses to military officials who then abducted 24 factory employees and union members. The victims were allegedly subjected to hours of torture, electric shocks and interrogation on the factory premises in the suburb of General Pacheco before being hauled off to military prisons. Two other prominent Ford officials will be absent from the court: human resources chief Guillermo Galarraga died last year at the age of 93 and then president of Ford Motors Argentina Nicolas Enrique Courard died in 1989. Also on trial Tuesday is the head of the Argentine army's fourth battalion, Santiago Omar Riveros, 94, who faces fresh charges of unlawful search, deprivation of liberty and torture, among other offenses. He is already serving multiple life sentences for crimes against humanity. Colluding with the dictatorship Muller, 85, and Sibilla, 91 are accused of aiding the military to carry out these crimes — by allegedly identifying union workers, letting security forces use Ford premises for torture, and providing cars for transporting prisoners to police stations. The court's indictment detailed a meeting around the time of the March 24, 1976 coup in which the factory's union leaders were allegedly told to "forget any kind of labor complaints" and all their problems would go away. Between the day of the coup and August of that year, two dozen Ford workers, including union leader Juan Carlos Amoroso, were arrested and taken away. Plaintiff Carlos Propoato, 69, who worked at the factory from 1970 to 1976, told Agence France Press he was kidnapped and had his jaw broken. "They tortured me from 11 o'clock in the morning to 11 at night — there were beatings, electric shocks," he recalls. "What was my crime? Fighting for workers rights." He says he was taken to a police station where he endured daily torture for 40 days. He spent nearly two years in prison before he was eventually released. Thousands 'disappeared' According to official data, about 13,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared as part of the campaign to eliminate leftist dissent during Argentina's so-called "dirty war." Rights groups, however, put the number of victims at 30,000. A number of police and military officials have already been convicted of crimes committed between 1976 and 1983. But decades on, a new wave of trials has begun focusing on corporate support for the regime. The alleged abduction and torture of Ford workers was investigated after Argentina's return to democracy in 1983, but amnesty laws passed in 1986-87 prevented the case from ever being prosecuted. The so-called "Pardon Laws" were overturned by the country's Supreme Court in 2005, clearing the way for hundreds of perpetrators to be brought to trial. The "Ford trial," as it is known in Argentina, is expected to last for several months. (c) 2017 Deutsche Welle

(New York, December 18, 2017) – Analysis of satellite imagery reveals new destruction of Rohingya villages during October and November 2017 in northern Rakhine State in Burma, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch identified 40 villages with building destruction occurring in October and November, increasing the total to 354 villages that have been partially or completely destroyed since August 25, 2017. During this period, thousands more Rohingya refugees fled Burma and arrived in Bangladesh. Satellite imagery confirms that dozens of buildings were burned the same week Burma and Bangladesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding on November 23 to begin returning refugees in Bangladesh within two months. On November 25, satellite data detected an active fire and building destruction in Myo Mi Chang village in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township. Four villages suffered building destruction between November 25 and December 2. “The Burmese army’s destruction of Rohingya villages within days of signing a refugee repatriation agreement with Bangladesh shows that commitments to safe returns were just a public relations stunt,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The satellite imagery shows what the Burmese army denies: that Rohingya villages continue to be destroyed. Burmese government pledges to ensure the safety of returning Rohingya cannot be taken seriously.” Human Rights Watch has used satellite imagery to assess and monitor over 1,000 villages and towns in the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathiduang, where the Burmese military and vigilantes have engaged in attacks on Rohingya. Human Rights Watch found that the damage patterns in the 354 affected villages are consistent with burning occurring in the weeks after the military operations began in late August. Of the 354 affected villages, at least 118 were either partially or completely destroyed after September 5 -- the date the Burmese State Counsellor’s office announced as the end of clearance operations. Of the 40 new villages with building destruction identified by Human Rights Watch, 24 were destroyed in October, 11 in November, and 5 over both months. The latest documented arson attacks occurred between November 25 and December 2 in four villages. Satellite data from environmental sensors detected an active fire at 12:30 p.m. in the Rohingya village of Myo Mi Chang in Maungdaw Township on November 25. Building destruction was concentrated in the center of the village, which was undamaged until this attack. Other villages subjected to arson attacks during this period include Nga/Myin Baw, Goke Pi, and an unknown village in the village tract of Zee Pin Chaung. On November 23, Bangladesh and Burma signed an Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State on behalf of “residents of Rakhine State” who crossed from Burma into Bangladesh after October 9, 2016 and August 25, 2017. In letters to both governments, Human Rights Watch said the agreement should be shelved, noting the lack of involvement by the United Nations and the unrealistic timetable for safe and voluntary returns starting in January 2018. Since late August, the Burmese military has committed widespread killings, rapes, arbitrary arrests, and mass arson in hundreds of predominantly Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine State, forcing more than 655,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch has found that this campaign of ethnic cleansing amounts to crimes against humanity. Attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) armed group on 30 security force outposts and an army base that killed 11 Burmese security personnel set off the Burmese military “clearance operations” against the Rohingya. In November, a Burmese army “investigation team” report concluded that there were “no deaths of innocent people” during the military operation in Rakhine State, and that at least 376 “terrorists” were killed during fighting, contrary to information reported by the UN, media outlets, and human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch. The humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on December 14 concluded that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the violence, over 700 of whom were children, based on survey data of refugees in Bangladesh. “The UN Security Council and concerned governments shouldn’t continue to stand by as evidence of continuing attacks on the Rohingya community comes to light,” Adams said. “Targeted sanctions need to be imposed now against those responsible for ordering and carrying out crimes against humanity.” (c) Human Rights Watch 2017

The number of displaced persons in Darfur and (as refugees) eastern Chad exceeds 3 million human beings (see below), overwhelmingly of non-Arab/African ethnicity.Although they have long greatly desired to return to their homes, and villages, and farmlands, insecurity of the most extreme sort has prevented this, and continues to prevent it, as the example below indicates. Repeatedly, non-Arab/African Darfuri civilians from camps for displaced and other locations have attempted to return to their homes, often encouraged to do so by UN and UNAMID. Both are quick to claim “success,” even when ensuing events prove that returns have failed because of violent assaults and threats. Indeed, the results have far too often been tragic. In the Radio Dabanga dispatch below, reports make clear that Arab nomadic pastoralists were intent on intimidating people from reclaiming their lands. Seven children went missing and two people were wounded in an attack by armed men in Daba Naira in East Jebel Marra on Tuesday evening. A number of the victims are recent returnees from camps for the displaced. Witnesses who have fled the area following the attack, told Radio Dabanga that “militant herders,” driving a Land Cruiser and others riding camels, attacked villagers of Daba Naira at 8pm. They opened fire into the air and the bullets wounded a man and a woman. In addition seven children went missing during the attack. [This attack by Arab pastoralists (“herders”) was eminently predictable, as such attacks have been on many previous occasions when displaced populations have attempted to return to their homes from the IDP camps and other locations. Ignoring the problem, as the UN and other international actors are content to do, is the solution of expedient diplomats and moral cowards—ER] “Last week we returned to Daba Naira after staying in the Shangil Tobaya camp for displaced people,” one of the witnesses said. “But following the attack, about 150 people fled Daba Naira into different directions. Some people are still searching for their missing relatives.” Daba Naira is 15km east of Dobo El Omda. On 2 October, armed herders shot a farmer who later succumbed to his injuries. Camps for displaced people in this area were searched for illegal weapons in November, but the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces conducting the weapons collection did not find any weapons illegally held in the camps. [UNAMID—already powerless to protect civilians on this occasion, as on so many others—will be even less capable as it draws down its forces. 44% of military personnel and 30% of police personnel are leaving Darfur: at Khartoum’s demand and UN Security Council acquiescence (June 2017). Returns are essential for people in Darfur to resume their lives, but cannot occur amid the extreme insecurity that continues to prevail. The world has profoundly failed the 2.7 million internally displaced people of Darfur and refugees in eastern Chad (320,000 according to UN figures). African Union celebration of UNAMID’s “achievements” is obscene, self-serving mendacity—ER] For a somewhat lengthier overview of the issue here (1,000 words), see: “Obstacle to Peace Continue to be Ignored: Darfur remains the longest, and arguably the most successful, genocide in modern history,” November 30, 2017 | http://wp.me/s45rOG-8248 See also: “Changing the Demography”: Violent Expropriation and Destruction of Farmlands in Darfur, November 2014 – November 2015,” Eric Reeves, author, Maya Baca, research and editing: December 1, 2015 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1P4 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Her face was tired and bruised, her arms bone-thin, her dress torn in several places. “Look at my body,” she whispered. “Is this the body of somebody who is normal?” There was a short pause before she responded herself: “This is death.” The 36-year-old, who asked not be named, is one of dozens of women to accuse soldiers battling a new insurgency in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern South Kivu province of rape and sexual violence. The abuses documented by IRIN began in late September after government soldiers reoccupied areas briefly captured by a new alliance of local Mai-Mai militias called the National People’s Coalition for the Sovereignty of the Congo (CNPSC). The CNPSC is one of three Mai-Mai coalitions that have recently emerged in eastern Congo, an area mired in conflict since the mid-1990s, when the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide fled there, triggering two regional wars. The coalitions say they are fighting against Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who refused to step down and hold elections last year when his constitutionally mandated two-term limit expired. An agreement between the government and opposition, reached last December, stated Kabila would leave office and hold elections by the end of 2017. But Congo’s electoral commission now says that a vote will not be held until December 2018. In September, the CNPSC launched a fresh offensive in the Fizi region, capturing a string of strategic villages before attempting an audacious naval assault on Uvira, the second largest town in South Kivu. The group was eventually driven back by MONUSCO, the UN’s peacekeeping mission, which deployed attack helicopters to protect the town. Congolese army moves in As the Mai-Mai coalition withdrew from nearby villages, Congolese soldiers began systematically raping women and arbitrarily arresting young men, according to dozens of interviews IRIN conducted over several weeks with victims and witnesses. In Makobola, 15 kilometres south of Uvira, the representative of a local peace organisation said at least 25 women were gang raped by Congolese soldiers over the course of one day in late September, after the army retook the town. Sat in a small, two-roomed hut, away from the main road where soldiers lounged around in a makeshift barracks, four women took turns to tell their stories. They all spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the army and stigmatisation by friends and families. The still-bruised 36-year-old woman said she was gang raped by soldiers alongside her 65-year-old blind mother at 10 in the morning. The attack was so brutal she said her mother was subsequently paralysed from the waist down and died shortly afterwards. “She couldn’t move; she couldn’t even go to the toilet,” the woman said. Nearby, a 35-year-old mother-of-four said she was stopped by soldiers outside her home at 10am while taking her two-year-old son to the toilet. The soldiers asked where her husband was. When she replied that he was travelling, they accused her of collaborating with the rebels. “They told me, ‘You are telling us this because your husband is Mai-Mai and you have sent him to the bush’,” she said. The soldiers stole her phone and money hidden in her underwear before entering her house. “They said, ‘Today we will rape you until you regret being alive’,” she recalled. Five men then raped her in front of her children until she fell unconscious. “I woke up to the sound of my children shouting Mama, Mama!,” she said. In a restaurant on the main road through Makobola, five women tried to hide but were caught and raped by 15 soldiers, according to the peace organisation representative. One of the women, passing through the town to visit a hospital further south in Baraka, subsequently died. Another was hospitalised after being penetrated with a wooden object. The owner of the restaurant told IRIN the five women were eventually freed after she paid soldiers the equivalent of around $100. “After what happened, I felt very bad,” she said. At another restaurant, an owner said she was raped at night on 11 October, after soldiers accused her of providing a place for Mai-Mai to sleep. Two more women inside her restaurant were also raped, with soldiers shooting into the air to stop them screaming. The soldiers then stole $130, leaving the owner broke. “I have nothing to restart my business,” she said. Further south in Sebele, another village in the Fizi region, three men were killed by Congolese soldiers and eight women raped after the the army regained control, according to village deputy chief Elias Feruzi. The rebel alliances The CNPSC label has been in use since late 2013 but only recently gained traction when Babembe warlord William Amuri Yakutumba rallied behind it. Yakutumba’s group, Mai-Mai Yakutumba, is the largest component of the CNPSC, which claims to unite several Mai-Mai groups and has expanded into the western end of Fizi Territory as well as Maniema and parts of southern Shabunda. Yakutumba and the Babembe have a long, fractious history with the region’s Banyamulenge community, who are ethnic Tutsi and often perceived as “foreigners”. Ethnically targeted massacres have occurred on both sides over the past two decades. Analysts say the presence of a small number of Banyamulenge commanders in units deployed against the CNPSC, could aggravate these tensions. Meanwhile, in neighbouring North Kivu province, another coalition called the National Movement of Revolutionaries (MNR) has also recently emerged to take advantage of the current political crisis. It includes several ethnic Nande Mai-Mai leaders from groups including Corps du Christ and Mai-Mai Mazembe. MONUSCO sources told IRIN that the MNR also includes allies from the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group accused of the attack earlier this montn on a UN military base near Beni that left at least 14 blue helmets dead. The CMC, a third new coalition, brings together various factions of Nyatura, a Congolese Hutu militia. The coalition was recently able to take over a large amount of territory in Kalehe when army units withdrew to fight the CNPSC. The strong anti-government rhetoric of the coalitions marks a shift in direction for Mai-Mai groups, which have traditionally focused on local grievances and ethnic rivalries. It remains to be seen whether they will be capable of building popular support outside their usual constituencies. “At the moment, none of them represent a major national threat, and, given geographical distance, ideological divergence, and the risk of co-option, it appears unlikely they will merge into something bigger,” said Christoph Vogel, a researcher on Congo at the University of Zurich. Nonetheless, fighting in both North Kivu and South Kivu continues to cause massive population displacement and major problems for Congo’s overstretched, demoralised army. Areas retaken from the CNPSC are now covered with army checkpoints, where soldiers harass and extort money from the local population. In the South Kivu town of Mboko, which was occupied by the CNPSC for a week, locals told IRIN that soldiers subsequently looted houses, including a compound belonging to the Congolese NGO GEADES, and that they continue to rob people at night. A 32-year-old teacher in Mboko said he was robbed by a soldier on a recent evening. “The solider put his gun on my chest and said, ‘You are a Mai-Mai; you must say your last prayers.’ He then put his hands in my pocket, took out two phones and money and told me to run.” Arrests and extortion In Sebele, deputy chief Feruzi said 30 young men had been arrested and accused of being Mai-Mai since September. “[The soldiers] use it at as an excuse to extort money,” he explained. “Once people are arrested they have to pay [$100] to be set free.” IRIN also received reliable reports of arbitrary arrests of young men in Simbi, Mboko, Lukoke, and Fizi town, where 20 youths were arrested while watching a football match on 23 October and some were subsequently tortured. In many villages, locals said the actions of Congolese soldiers are helping to build sympathy for the CNPSC. After the coalition withdrew from Mboko, dozens of young men and children were recruited into the group, while others told IRIN they would consider joining in the future. “There are two options people have here,” said the teacher. “Go to Tanzania and join the refugee camps or join the Mai-Mai and fight for the country.” “His image comes into our minds and we start running” Rapes victims spoke of their trauma, the stigma they felt in speaking about it, and their anger at the impunity as the abuse continues. A 39-year-old woman from Sebele said she was raped alongside her 14-year-old daughter at 3pm in late September while farming in a nearby field. Her account was confirmed by medical certificates. “Today, whenever we go to our field and reach the place where the solider raped us, his image comes into our minds and we start running,” said the women. The Congolese NGO, Solidarity of Volunteers for Humanity, told IRIN that several women were also raped in Lulimba and the mining town of Misisi, both sites of recent clashes between the CNPSC and the army. A reliable report from local researchers, shared with IRIN, claims that eight women were also raped by soldiers on 8 November in the hills above the village of Sangya. The women were asked what they knew about the Mai-Mai before being assaulted. According to the same report, on 10 November, a woman arrived at Mboko health centre claiming she had been raped by two soldiers who accused her of providing information to the Mai-Mai. That followed two other cases of rape in Mboko, reported on 6 October. In Makobola, women told IRIN the soldiers responsible for the attacks remain in the village and continue to rape women despite the cases being reported to army commanders. “The rapes are still going on in the fields,” said the peace organisation representative. “Because of stigmatisation, women don’t say anything. They are afraid of being abandoned by their families.” The women said they are now too afraid to farm or leave home at night. Some said they have decided to flee the country. “I am waiting for some money and then I will go [to Tanazania],” said the 35-year-old mother-of-four. A spokesperson for the Congolese army in South Kivu did not respond with comment in time for publication. (c) 2017 IRIN News

Yazidi women, who were sold as sex slaves by Islamic State militants, are now returning to their families from formerly ISIS-controlled territories. Special correspondent Jane Ferguson visits the Yazidi religious community in Iraq to hear the stories of these survivors and what they are doing to move on with their lives. Judy Woodruff: But first, the American war against ISIS was driven initially by the militants’ attack on the Yazidi religious minority of Iraq. The campaign of mass murder, forced displacement and enslavement of the Yazidis shocked the world. Now many have returned to their ancestral homeland around Sinjar Mountain in Iraq’s far Northwest. But, as special correspondent Jane Ferguson found, so much there will never be the same. Jane Ferguson: On Iraq’s Sinjar Mountain, this is a celebration of one of the world’s oldest religions people giving thanks to God and the angels for who they are. Among the graves of their ancestors, families meet here for one of the greatest festivals of the year in the Yazidi religion, a time to celebrate their identity as a people. It’s called the Eid al-Jamma festival, or the Feast of the Assembly. The community invited us to join them in their celebrations. It’s normally a time of spiritual rebirth for the Yazidi people, and, right now, rebirth is something they desperately need. Man (through Interpreter): The men are not here because they are happy. They are here to pray and ask God for the return of their wives and daughters. Jane Ferguson: When ISIS gunmen swept across Iraq in 2014, they came here, to this peaceful rural community, declaring the Yazidi people infidels for their ancient religious practices. They took away thousands of women and girls as sex slaves, and they slaughtered many of the men. The road back to Sinjar is an emotional journey for Adeeba Qasim. Her homeland is a broken, scarred place, haunted by memories of what the United Nations determined was a genocide. She is a local journalist and brought us here. When ISIS arrived into her village, Khana Sor, the extremists showed no mercy. Adeeba grew up on this street surrounded by her extended family. When they got word ISIS was coming, her aunts and uncles decided to stay. Despite rumors of ISIS brutality, they could not imagine the stories were true. They never thought anything so terrible would happen to them. Adeeba’s parents, alongside her and her siblings, played it safe and drove away, she says, just 15 minutes before the Islamic State fighters came down here. Do you ever think about what would have happened if you had stayed? Adeeba Qasim: My father, the other people who stayed, they all have been killed. Their bodies are in the mass graves, yes. So we were lucky. Jane Ferguson: Around 70 members of her wider family are still missing, she tells us. Some were young women sold as sex slaves. The men were probably killed. Her half-brother has come back here now with his family. When Adeeba brings us for a visit, it’s a rare moment of joy for them. Adeeba is now 24 years old, and, like thousands of other Yazidi survivors, she is trying to recover. She moved to the nearby capital of Kurdistan, where she works with foreign journalists and aid workers. Her whole family are scattered. Some have managed to get asylum in Germany, while others are refugees in Turkey. And then there are those who became ISIS victims, missing or killed. She took us to her old home. Adeeba Qasim: I mean, I lost everything. This house is full of memories of mine, beautiful things, but not anymore. Yes. Jane Ferguson: You don’t want to go inside? Adeeba Qasim: No, never. Jane Ferguson: Do you think you will ever go back to this house? Adeeba Qasim: No, I don’t think so. Jane Ferguson: Helping other Yazidi women and girls is now part of Adeeba’s recovery. She took us to visit one such family she met through her work with charities providing psychological support for victims. They are one of the only Yazidi families to return to Hardan village, and now they’re trying to move on with their lives. Zahida was just 17 when the militants came. They took her to Mosul as a sex slave for a year before she managed to escape. Her mother, Ramzia, was held as a house slave, cooking and cleaning for an ISIS family, until finally being freed just a few days ago. We have changed their names and hidden their identities because other family members are still being held by ISIS. Ramzia watched as nine of their children were taken from her, the girls sold as sex slaves, the boys sent to militant training camps, never returning. Then she was sold too. Ramzia (through Interpreter): ISIS families wanted Yazidi old women to clean for them, but not if they came with children. They put my picture and my name on social media as a slave for sale, and said I come without children. Jane Ferguson: She was bought by a Saudi family in Raqqa, at the time the Islamic State’s capital in neighboring Syria. Ramzia (through Interpreter): I told the woman who bought me that I dreamed of going home, and she said- “You will never go home. You will die in my house.” Jane Ferguson: She didn’t die there. Instead, as Raqqa began to fall to coalition forces, her captors contacted her family and sold her back, exchanging her freedom for $13,000. Her daughter’s story is one of personal triumph. She waited in a refugee camp after escaping, while one by one her sisters also managed to buy their freedom, and after so much pain, Zahida found love. Zahida (through Interpreter): I never thought I would be happy again. When something so terrible happens to you when you are just a girl, just 17, it’s very hard to forget it. In the refugee camp, life was very tough, but eventually my sisters returned, and then I met my husband in the camp. We dated for a year and fell in love. So I have experienced both great sadness and great happiness in my life. Jane Ferguson: The wedding was just a month ago. She and her husband now live in the battered village. Just a few hundred yards down the road, a mass grave, this nameless hump of scrubland, is a cruel reminder that the men of the village who are still missing are unlikely to be coming home. The old lady in that village just told you that she saw your cousins, she heard from them? Adeeba Qasim: Yes, she told me that she saw two of them. And, I mean, the last time I saw them they were like 12 years old. And she told me that they were bought and sold. They were, like, slaves. And last time she saw them was last year. And then after that, she — she couldn’t hear from them anymore. Jane Ferguson: In Raqqa? Adeeba Qasim: Yes. Jane Ferguson: They were sold? For the rest of the community, many turn to prayer to recover from the past. And celebrations like Eid al-Jamma are as much about keeping their identity alive too. Since 2014, thousands of Yazidis have left Iraq as refugees. The religious practices of the Yazidi community are some of the oldest in the world, and with so many members of the community leaving the country, traditions like this are in danger of dying out. Once people enter into the temple, they take pieces of colored cloth and they tie it on to the walls inside here. Each one represents a prayer or a wish. The elders here are praying for joy to return. Man (through Interpreter): In the past, people were coming here and dancing and celebrating, but, after the genocide, they don’t dance anymore. Jane Ferguson: During the ceremony’s climax, the atmosphere is triumphant. A bright cloth, representing the colors of life and God, is carried with elation into the temple. For the people here, it is a brief moment of triumph, something to be savored at times like these. Standing in the way of recovery is a deep sense of betrayal. Many of the Yazidis we spoke with adamantly believe their Arab Muslim neighbors welcomed ISIS in and handed them over. It has left a bitterness those like Adeeba struggle to overcome, especially, she says, because her father’s friends in nearby villages assured them they would be safe. Do you think there can be never any healing? Adeeba Qasim: Never. There is something in our hearts, and we will never get healing for it, never. And it will never be forgotten. Jane Ferguson: You can’t forgive? Adeeba Qasim: It’s difficult to forgive. It’s not easy. Jane Ferguson: Across Iraq, the violence of recent years has pitted neighbor against neighbor. Bitterness and mistrust have pulled diverse communities apart from one another, and in turn pulled the country apart. For the Yazidis, the memory of this genocide will last for many generations to come, and forgiveness may take generations too. For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Jane Ferguson in Sinjar, Iraq. (2017) PBS Newshour

SAN CASIMIRO, Venezuela — Kenyerber Aquino Merchán was 17 months old when he starved to death. His father left before dawn to bring him home from the hospital morgue. He carried Kenyerber’s skeletal frame into the kitchen and handed it to a mortuary worker who makes house calls for Venezuelan families with no money for funerals. Kenyerber’s spine and rib cage protruded as the embalming chemicals were injected. Aunts shooed away curious young cousins, mourners arrived with wildflowers from the hills, and relatives cut out a pair of cardboard wings from one of the empty white ration boxes that families increasingly depend on amid the food shortages and soaring food prices throttling the nation. They gently placed the tiny wings on top of Kenyerber’s coffin to help his soul reach heaven — a tradition when a baby dies in Venezuela. When Kenyerber’s body was finally ready for viewing, his father, Carlos Aquino, a 37-year-old construction worker, began to weep uncontrollably. “How can this be?” he cried, hugging the coffin and speaking softly, as if to comfort his son in death. “Your papá will never see you again.” Hunger has stalked Venezuela for years. Now, it is killing the nation’s children at an alarming rate, doctors in the country’s public hospitals say. Venezuela has been shuddering since its economy began to collapse in 2014. Riots and protests over the lack of affordable food, excruciating long lines for basic provisions, soldiers posted outside bakeries and angry crowds ransacking grocery stores have rattled cities, providing a telling, public display of the depths of the crisis. But deaths from malnutrition have remained a closely guarded secret by the Venezuelan government. In a five-month investigation by The New York Times, doctors at 21 public hospitals in 17 states across the country said that their emergency rooms were being overwhelmed by children with severe malnutrition — a condition they had rarely encountered before the economic crisis began. “Children are arriving with very precarious conditions of malnutrition,” said Dr. Huníades Urbina Medina, the president of the Venezuelan Society of Childcare and Pediatrics. He added that doctors were even seeing the kind of extreme malnutrition often found in refugee camps — cases that were highly unusual in oil-rich Venezuela before its economy fell to pieces. For many low-income families, the crisis has completely redrawn the social landscape. Parents like Kenyerber’s mother go days without eating, shriveling to the weight of children themselves. Women line up at sterilization clinics to avoid having children they can’t feed. Young boys leave home and join street gangs to scavenge for scraps, their bodies bearing the scars of knife fights with competitors. Crowds of adults storm Dumpsters after restaurants close. Babies die because it is hard to find or afford infant formula, even in emergency rooms. “Sometimes they die in your arms just from dehydration,” Dr. Milagros Hernández said in the emergency room of a children’s hospital in the northern city of Barquisimeto, noting that the hospital had started seeing an increase in malnourished patients at the end of 2016. “But in 2017 the increase in malnourished patients has been terrible,” she added. “Children arrive with the same weight and height of a newborn.” Carlos Aquino weeping over the casket of his son, Kenyerber, who died of heart failure caused by severe malnutrition. Before Venezuela’s economy started spiraling, doctors say, almost all of the child malnutrition cases they saw in public hospitals stemmed from neglect or abuse by parents. But as the economic crisis began to intensify in 2015 and 2016, the number of cases of severe malnutrition at the nation’s leading pediatric health center in the capital more than tripled, doctors say. This year looks even worse. In many countries, extreme malnutrition “can be caused when there is war, a drought, some sort of catastrophe or an earthquake,” said Dr. Ingrid Soto de Sanabria, the chief of the hospital’s nutrition, growth and development department. “But in our country it is directly related to the shortages and inflation.” The Venezuelan government has tried to cover up the extent of the crisis by enforcing a near-total blackout of health statistics, and by creating a culture in which doctors are often afraid to register cases and deaths that may be associated with the government’s failures. But the statistics that have come out are staggering. In the Ministry of Health’s 2015 annual report, the mortality rate for children under 4 weeks old had increased a hundredfold, from 0.02 percent in 2012 to just over 2 percent. Maternal mortality had increased nearly fivefold in the same period. For almost two years, the government did not publish a single epidemiological bulletin tracking statistics like infant mortality. Then in April of this year, a link suddenly appeared on the Health Ministry’s official website, leading to the unpublished bulletins. They showed that 11,446 children under the age of 1 had died in 2016 — a 30 percent increase in one year — as the economic crisis accelerated. The new findings made national and international headlines before the government declared that the website had been hacked, and the reports were swiftly removed. The health minister was fired and the military was put in charge of monitoring the bulletins. No reports have been released since. Doctors are censored in hospitals, too, often warned not to include malnutrition in children’s medical records. “In some public hospitals, the clinical diagnosis of malnutrition has been prohibited,” Dr. Huníades Urbina said. But doctors interviewed by The Times at nine of the 21 public hospitals said that they had kept at least some count. They encountered nearly 2,800 cases of child malnutrition in the last year alone, with starving children regularly brought to emergency rooms. Nearly 400 of the children died, the doctors said. “Never in my life had I seen so many hungry children,” said Dr. Livia Machado, a pediatrician who gives free consultations at her private practice to children who had been hospitalized at Dr. Domingo Luciani Hospital in the capital, Caracas. The hospital is one of the few still accepting malnourished infants for treatment. Other hospitals often turn them away, telling desperate parents that they do not have enough beds or medical supplies to treat their children. Nearly all of Venezuelan hospitals report shortages of basic provisions like baby formula. President Nicolás Maduro has acknowledged that people are hungry in Venezuela, but he has refused to accept international aid, often saying that Venezuela’s economic problems are caused by foreign adversaries like the United States, which he says is waging an economic war against his country. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. But many economists contend that years of economic mismanagement set the stage for the current disaster. The damage was masked when oil prices were high, giving the government large resources. But when oil prices began a steep fall at the end of 2014, scarcities became common and food prices skyrocketed. Inflation could reach 2,300 percent next year, the International Monetary Fund warned in October. The Health Ministry and the National Institute of Nutrition did not respond to requests for interviews or official health reports containing malnutrition statistics. But the nation’s political opposition, which has been stripped of its power by the government, continues to sound the alarm. “We have a people who are dying of hunger,” Luis Florido, a congressman who leads the National Assembly’s foreign policy committee, told lawmakers in November, calling the food crisis “a humanitarian emergency that all Venezuelans are living.” ‘So Many Children’ Kenyerber was born healthy: 6 pounds 7 ounces. But his mother, María Carolina Merchán, 29, was bitten by a mosquito and infected with a severe case of the Zika virus when Kenyerber was 3 months old. She had to be hospitalized, and doctors instructed her to stop breast feeding because of serious complications from her illness. Unable to find or afford infant formula, the family improvised with whatever they could find: bottles of cream of rice or cornstarch, mixed with whole milk. It did not provide Kenyerber with the nutrients he needed. At 9 months, his father found him listless in bed, with blood running from his nose. He rushed him to the overcrowded pediatric emergency room at Dr. Domingo Luciani hospital, where patients and beds spill out of rooms, into dingy hallways paced by armed soldiers. Kleiver Enrique Hernández, 3 months old, was being treated for severe malnutrition a few beds down from Kenyerber. He too was born healthy — 8 pounds 2 ounces — but his mother, Kelly Hernández, could not breast-feed him, either. Again, despite searching endlessly, Ms. Hernández and her boyfriend, César González, could not get infant formula for their son. It was not for lack of trying. In online inventory searches of Locatel, one of the largest pharmacy chains in Venezuela, The Times found that only one of its 64 locations across the country reported having the infant formula doctors had prescribed for Kleiver in stock. It is unlikely that Ms. Hernández could have afforded it anyway. Hyperinflation has shriveled wages paid in the local currency, bolívars, to a small fraction of what they were worth two years ago. A month’s worth of the formula Kleiver needed cost more than twice the entire monthly salary that Mr. González earned as an agricultural worker. Formula shortages hit the hospitals, too. Doctors in the emergency room at Dr. Domingo Luciani hospital said they had no formula in stock to feed patients like Kenyerber and Kleiver. The 2016 National Survey of Hospitals found that 96 percent of Venezuelan hospitals reported not having all of the infant formula they needed to attend to patients. More than 63 percent reported having no formula at all. With so few options, Kleiver’s mother warily prepared bottles of rice starch and water, occasionally with whole milk, when they could find it. It was not enough. Sisters and cousins of Kelly Hernández holding her up at the wake for her 3-month-old son, Kleiver, in August. Children carrying Kleiver’s coffin during his funeral procession. Friends and family gathering in the early morning hours at Kleiver’s wake. His parents had taken him to three emergency rooms. Each hospital was full. “I was desperate — and seeing so many, so many children in the same situation as our boy,” Ms. Hernández said. When they were admitted to Dr. Domingo Luciani, they were tremendously relieved. But soon they watched a steady stream of parents arriving with malnourished babies — only to leave, crying, “My child has died!” They waited anxiously for Kleiver’s condition to improve, sleeping in a chair by his side or in the courtyard outside, on alert to go searching for any supplies the doctors might ask for. After 20 days in the hospital, they became one of the families they had watched in horror. A team of doctors worked for hours to help Kleiver, inadvertently covering him in blood and bruises as they tried to insert a tube into his neck. By the time doctors finally accepted that they could not save him, his lifeless body looked brutally beaten. Kleiver had suffered an incredibly painful death, his doctors said — one that they said could have been avoided had infant formula been available. Severe acute malnutrition is both self-evident and strikingly complex. Even when doctors are open to recording it for a patient, it is not necessarily the official cause of death. Instead, acute malnutrition can set off a range of pathologies in the human body, leading to death from respiratory failure, infection or other ailments. But in the case of Kenyerber and Kleiver, a rare situation occurred for Venezuela: Severe malnutrition was listed as a cause of death on their death certificates. More than 100 friends and family members came to the all-night wake in Kleiver’s family home. His aunts and cousins hung large posters decorated with colorful hand-drawn cartoons and messages. Kleiver lay underneath, in a small white coffin, on paper wings. Just three months earlier, the family had colored signs and tacked them to the walls — to celebrate his birth. One still hung over his bed the night of his wake, cut into the shape of a balloon. “Welcome Kleiver Enrique, I love you so much,” it said. After the sun came up, the neighborhood held a large funeral procession to the cemetery. Ms. Hernández collapsed on a nearby tombstone, sobbing uncontrollably. Overcome by the guilt of not being able to breast-feed or find infant formula for her son, she shouted repeatedly, “Am I an awful mother? Please, just say it!” Helpless and Indignant In Barquisimeto, Dr. Hernández rushed into the emergency room, shouting: “I’m coming in with an 18-day-old baby. He was fed with anise tea, cow’s milk and sometimes breast-fed by a neighbor. It’s a bad one!” Doctors and nurses at Dr. Agustín Zubillaga University Hospital of Pediatrics worked quickly to assess the baby, Esteban Granadillo. He weighed 4 pounds 10 ounces, and looked scared, fixing his hollow eyes on the doctors outside the thick plastic walls of his incubator. “Tell me what you gave him to eat,” Dr. Hernández asked the boy’s great-aunt, María Peraza, who had taken him to the hospital. “This child’s stomach was destroyed and possibly even his liver by what you fed him!” Children suffering from malnutrition occupied four of the 12 beds in the pediatric emergency room that day in August. Doctors there said they had received malnutrition cases nearly every day — a rarity until the crisis started getting worse two years ago. But only a fraction of the medicines they need are available. In June, the hospital director at the time, Dr. Jorge Gaiti, said he had requested 193 necessary medications from the government agency responsible for distributing them to public hospitals. Only four of the 193 were delivered, according to the reports visible on his computer. The hospital even lacks the most basic medical supplies — soap, syringes, gauze, diapers and latex gloves. Nurses send parents away with lists of items to look for in pharmacies or to buy from the black-market vendors who circle the hospital, selling exorbitantly priced, hard-to-find medical supplies. Dr. Hernández said she felt indignant and helpless as a doctor, as children died in her emergency room unnecessarily. “It is unfair,” she said. At 18 days old, Esteban Granadillo was taken to Dr. Agustín Zubillaga University Hospital of Pediatrics with severe malnutrition. Dayferlin Aguilar, a 5-month-old girl diagnosed with malnutrition and dehydration, was treated at Dr. Agustín Zubillaga University Hospital of Pediatrics in August. Esteban’s mother was single, disabled and unable to breast-feed him, his great-aunt said. In desperation, relatives had asked a neighbor with a young child to step in and breast-feed. The family also fed him bottles of cow’s milk, or chamomile water and anise tea, to fill his stomach. “We could not find formula anywhere,” said Ms. Peraza, the great-aunt, acknowledging that she knew the food could hurt the baby. “Yes, it was bad, but I tell you — if we had not done it, this baby would have died.” Ms. Peraza stayed at the hospital next to Esteban’s incubator for days, stroking his stomach through the openings and whispering softly to him. He spent weeks in and out of the hospital — and died on Oct. 8. Three floors above, pediatricians examined a 1-month-old baby, Rusneidy Rodríguez, a week after she was admitted for severe malnutrition. Her mother, hospitalized with an infection, had been unable to breast-feed her. As in Esteban’s case, her relatives had been unable to find formula, so they made bottles out of what they could find: whole milk, cream of rice, or water mixed with barley — an ingredient used to make beer. The emergency room was so overwhelmed that gurneys overflowed into the hallway. Sometimes the hospital has to double up patients, two per bed. In the incubator next to Esteban, a 5-month-old girl, Dayferlin Aguilar, struggled to open her eyes and smile at her mother, Albiannys Castillo. Ms. Castillo had brought Dayferlin to the hospital when the little girl became very weak, falling in and out of consciousness and suffering uncontrollable diarrhea. Doctors diagnosed malnutrition and dehydration. Ms. Castillo could not produce any breast milk, so she routinely arrived at 1 a.m. to wait in line outside pharmacies until they opened, to search for infant formula. More often than not, she said, they had none in stock or would run out by the time she got to the front of the line. “Your mamá is here with you, my daughter — and I love you,” she told Dayferlin when the little girl managed to open her eyes. Dayferlin died three days after being admitted to the hospital. She was buried with fuchsia-colored wings made from paper, trimmed in turquoise, with a matching crown placed on her head. Digging Through Garbage Oriana Caraballo, 29, waited in line for hours with her three children — Brayner, 8; Rayman, 6; and Sofia, 22 months — to enter a crowded soup kitchen run by a local Roman Catholic church in Los Teques. Aside from drinking water, they had not eaten for three days. Before the crisis, Ms. Caraballo fed her children using the wages from her job at a restaurant. Now she wept as she spooned soup into Sofia’s mouth — and recounted how her children had foiled her suicide attempt. Ms. Caraballo could not bear the pain of watching her children go hungry. She said she had taken them outside her home, while her baby daughter was sleeping, then went back inside and shut the door. She hung a cable and wrapped it around her neck, she said. When she was just about to hang herself, she heard her daughter start to cry. “I heard a voice tell me, ‘Do it, do it, do it,’” she said. “Then in my other ear I heard, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it — look at your children.’” Her son called to her, telling her to open the door. She became overcome with guilt and decided against suicide. Her oldest son has fainted several times at school, from going without breakfast or dinner the night before. He cries every night because he is hungry and, at 8, begs his mother to let him work to buy food for the family. Families scavenging for food scraps from garbage bags in Caracas, an uncommon sight before the economic crisis worsened. Oriana Caraballo feeding her children, Brayner, Rayman and Sofia, at a soup kitchen in Los Teques in September. A recent report by the United Nations and the Pan American Health Organization found that 1.3 million people who used to be able to feed themselves in Venezuela have had difficulty doing so since the economic crisis began three years ago. In soup kitchens around the country visited by The Times, many of the parents who brought their children had full-time jobs. But hyperinflation had destroyed their salaries and savings. A 2016 survey by three Venezuelan universities found that nine out of 10 households had become “food insecure” in Venezuela. Caritas, the Roman Catholic aid group, has been weighing and measuring groups of children under 5 in working-class communities in multiple states since last year. Fifty-four percent of children in them suffer from some sort of malnutrition, the study has found. Many families scavenge for food in the streets or at garbage dumps. Few are homeless, and most said they had never had trouble finding food before the crisis. Hundreds of people can be seen picking through garbage cans each evening when restaurants, grocery stores and residential buildings take out their trash for collection. In the coastal town of Morón, dozens of people waded knee-deep in garbage at a large dump, looking for food and recyclables to sell. The nearby port in Puerto Cabello was once the driving force behind the local economy. Now it is largely empty. Many of the people picking through the trash at the dump said that they used to work in the port but were now desperate to feed their families after being laid off once ship traffic slowed to a trickle. Several mothers said they had never imagined having to feed their families from discarded garbage. Families are also increasingly sending their children into the streets to beg, or to work for money for food. Some never returned. Turning to the Streets, or Sterilization In Caracas, two brothers — José Luis Armas, 11, and Luis Armas, 9 — said they had run away from home, where there was scarcely enough to eat. Now they live in the streets with other homeless boys in street gangs, getting into knife fights to expand or defend their territories and to control areas for panhandling or picking through garbage for recycling. Several of their friends have been killed, they said. Luis raised his shirt to show a large gash across his stomach — the result, he said, of a machete attack by a member of another gang. The attack nearly killed him, he said. They say they prefer to live on the streets, despite the danger, because they eat better than they could living at home with their families. They spend their days panhandling, searching for discarded food and recyclables, bathing in public fountains, stashing their belongings in trees and storm drains, while constantly avoiding run-ins with the police and rival gangs. Nelson Villasmil, a government social worker in the capital, said that before the crisis, most of the homeless children he encountered lived in the streets because of parental negligence or abuse. But now when he interviews them, he says, they often tell him they left their homes because there was no food to eat. “What they cannot find in their houses, they go to find in the street,” Mr. Villasmil said. Three months ago, Yail Fonseca, 13, said he left his home in Los Valles del Tuy to search for food in Caracas. “I left my home because things are hard,” he said. “We weren’t eating well.” He says he eats better as a homeless person on his own in the capital than at home with his family on the outskirts of the city. He sleeps under an overhang at an outdoor skate park with a group of other homeless adults and children, waking up at 6 a.m. to search through garbage for food or beg for handouts from local restaurants. In the evenings, he says, he practices sparring with other young members of his gang, using sticks to become more agile at knife fights. His leader requires them to practice at least 30 minutes a day. The gang leader, an adult who would not reveal his full name, said they had a code: If anyone in the gang is attacked by a single member of a rival gang, he must defend himself alone, even to the death, no matter how old he is. The rest of the gang will step in only if a member is attacked by multiple rivals at once. Four young members of the gang had been stabbed to death in recent months, the leader said. The boys around him lifted up their shirts to show their own scars. Sometimes the state steps in, taking away children from some homes where hunger is common. After two of their children died of complications from malnutrition, Nerio Parra and Abigail Torres lost three more — to social workers. Women waiting to be surgically sterilized at a free event at a government-run hospital in Caracas in July. Families lining up at a free children’s health clinic in Morón in September. Eduardo José Martínez, 13, at the skate park in Caracas where he lives with other homeless children and adults. Their 7-month-old daughter, Nerianyelis, died in September 2016 when the family could not find infant formula for sale, they said. Mr. Parra had a full-time job at a company that makes labels, but the couple said they could afford to feed their children only once a day. The morning Nerianyelis died, she was sluggish and very thin. Her parents said they had carried her in the rain to the hospital, to no avail. Abigail was so distraught that she broke down and refused to let go of her daughter’s body, they said. Hospital security had to forcibly separate the two. Then on Dec. 1, 2016, their 5-year-old son, Neomar, who suffered from malnutrition, dehydration and other ailments, died as well, his case worker said. After Neomar died, social services took away the three remaining children and placed them in group homes. Now, the couple visit their surviving children and go to the cemetery to visit the graves of their deceased ones. The burden of caring for children in Venezuela can be so great these days that many women are opting to be sterilized. Just after dawn one Saturday in July, 21 young women dressed in surgical gowns waited to be surgically sterilized during a free event at the state-run José Gregorio Hernández Hospital in a working-class neighborhood of the capital. The hospital says it has sterilized more than 300 women through this program. On that Saturday, all 21 of the women, who ranged from 25 to 32 years old, said they already had children and wanted to be sterilized because the economic crisis had made it too difficult to raise children. Each feared becoming pregnant again, citing dire shortages of essential supplies like diapers, formulas, milk and medicine. The crisis has also led to widespread shortages of birth-control pills and condoms. Many of the mothers at the sterilization event said that their most recent pregnancies had been unplanned and unwanted, but that they did not have access to birth control. Eddy Farías, 25, a hair stylist, said she was nervous about the operation but resolute in her decision to undergo it. As a single mother with a full-time job, she said her wages at a salon were barely enough to feed her five children. “It’s hard to be a mom,” she said. “If your child gets sick, you have to run circles trying to find a hospital,” she added. “It is a war just to survive day to day.” After her operation, she said, she was in pain from the large incision across her lower abdomen, but relieved. “If I got pregnant again, that would mean I’d have to go to war again for diapers,” she said. “It is like war to have to buy diapers on the black market, or have to wake up before dawn to wait in long lines and fight others for the food, the diapers, the personal things a child needs.” Skipping Meals So Her Children Can Eat Six weeks after cutting out angel wings from the food rations box to bury Kenyerber, his family was still battling hunger. His mother, María Carolina Merchán, said she had wilted to 66 pounds from skipping meals so that her four surviving children had a little more to eat. Government social workers said she was severely malnourished, as were her own mother and her 6-year old daughter, Marianyerlis. The family has gone as long as five days at a time without consuming anything besides water. Marianyerlis follows Ms. Merchán around for hours, wailing and sobbing, begging for food. Ms. Merchán stares blankly at the floor as tears roll down the little girl’s cheeks. “Mama, I’m hungry!” she cries. Her weight fluctuates between 20 and 29 pounds, depending on how much food she is able to get. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists 6-year-old girls who weigh less than 35 pounds in the lowest fifth percentile. Marianyerlis recently fainted after going two days without eating. The family have made their home with relatives in an abandoned government housing project, with no running water or indoor plumbing, and jury-rigged electricity. It is uncomfortable, but all of their income must be spent on food. Kenyerber’s mother, María Carolina Merchán, right, weighs just 66 pounds. Her daughter follows her for hours, begging for food. Baby portraits of the children, one of their few cherished belongings, hang prominently on the wall. The only food in the entire house is half a bag of salt, and one lime. “This is a nightmare,” said Ms. Merchán’s sister, Andreína del Valle Merchán, 25, describing how the children start to vomit, sweat and become sluggish after days of not eating. Her own 5-year-old daughter had lost 11 pounds this year and now weighed only 17 pounds, she said. The suffering of Venezuelan families is expected to worsen next year. Beyond the I.M.F.’s warning that inflation could surpass 2,300 percent, observers worry that the leftist government will continue to refuse international aid for political reasons. “If they accept the help, they accept that there is a humanitarian crisis here, and officially recognize that their population is vulnerable, and just how much their policies failed them,” said Susana Raffalli, a specialist on food emergencies who consults for Caritas in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has used food to keep the Socialists in power, critics say. Before recent elections, people living in government housing projects said they were visited by representatives of their local Socialist community councils — the government-aligned groups that organize the delivery of boxes of cheap food — and threatened with being cut off if they did not vote for the government. Kenyerber’s relatives do not expect the economic crisis to improve anytime soon. They fear that another child in the family may die as well. “I worry about it day and night,” said his aunt, Andreína. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html?mtrref=www.google.com (c) The New York Times

Thousands of new Rohingya refugee arrivals cross the border near Anzuman Para village, Palong Khali, Bangladesh. Credit: UNHCR/Roger Arnold Almost 70 years since the Genocide Convention was adopted, the international community still faces a continued and growing risk of genocide. On the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide, the UN launched an appeal for member states to ratify the 1948 convention by the end of 2018. “Genocide does not happen by accident; it is deliberate, with warning signs and precursors,” said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “Often it is the culmination of years of exclusion, denial of human rights and other wrongs. Since genocide can take place in times of war and in times of peace, we must be ever-vigilant,” he continued. The Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng echoed similar sentiments, stating: “It is our inaction, our ineffectiveness in addressing the warning signs, that allows it to become a reality. A reality where people are dehumanized and persecuted for who they are, or who they represent. A reality of great suffering, cruelty, and of inhumane acts that have at the basis unacceptable motivations.” The Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” This includes not only killing members of the group, but also causing serious bodily or mental harm and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Despite the comprehensive definition of genocide in the Convention, genocide has recurred multiple times, Guterres said. “We are still reacting rather than preventing, and acting only when it is often too late. We must do more to respond early and keep violence from escalating,” he said. One such case may be Myanmar. After a year of investigation, the organization Fortify Rights and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum said that there is “mounting” evidence that points to a genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar with Burmese Army soldiers, police, and civilians as the major perpetrators. “The Rohingya have suffered attacks and systematic violations for decades, and the international community must not fail them now when their very existence in Myanmar is threatened,” said Cameron Hudson from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Without urgent action, there’s a high risk of more mass atrocities,” he continued. More than half of Myanmar’s one million Rohingya have fled the country since violence reignited in August. “They tried to kill us all,” 25-year-old Mohammed Rafiq from Maungdaw Township told researchers when recalling how soldiers gathered villagers and opened fire on them on 30 August. It has been the largest and fastest flow of destitute people across a border since the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. “There was nothing left. People were shot in the chest, stomach, legs, face, head, everywhere.” Eyewitness testimony revealed that Rohingya civilians were burned alive, women and girls raped, and men and boys arrested en masse. “These crimes thrive on impunity and inaction…condemnations aren’t enough,” said Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights Matthew Smith. On the other side of the border, refugees find themselves living in overcrowded camps with limited access to food, water, and shelter. They are in need of treatment for not only their physical injuries, but also the mental and emotional scars from their traumatic experiences. IOM spoke to some of the survivor who made the treacherous journey by boat to Bangladesh including 8-year-old Arafat. His entire family including his parents, two brothers, and a sister drowned when the fishing boat carrying them capsized in stormy weather. “Where will I go now,” he cried, transfixed with shock. The government’s strict restrictions on Rohingya’s daily lives also point to signs of genocide. In 2013, authorities placed a two-child limit on Rohingya couples in two predominantly Muslim townships in Rakhine State. Others have come forward to claim that the crisis in Myanmar may constitute genocide such as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein and the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. “Considering Rohingyas’ self-identify as a distinct ethnic group with their own language and culture – and [that they] are also deemed by the perpetrators themselves as belonging to a different ethnic, national, racial or religious group – given all of this, can anyone rule out that elements of genocide may be present?” al-Hussein asked. Though the UN Human Rights Council recently condemned the systematic and gross violations of human rights in Myanmar, the Security Council has failed to act on the crisis. As the UN appeals for the remaining 45 member states to ratify the Genocide Convention, what about nations like Myanmar who are already party to the document? The Convention requires all states to take action to prevent and punish genocide. Not only Myanmar, but the entire international community has failed to protect Rohingya civilians from mass atrocities. “The world has reacted with horror to the images of their flight, and the stories of murder, rape and arson brought from their still smoldering villages in North Rakhine State. But this horror will have to be matched by action on the part of the international community, if we are to avert a humanitarian disaster on both sides of the border,” said IOM’s Director-General William Lacy Swing. Perhaps the international community may need to consider additional mechanisms to address and prevent genocide, making sure ‘never again’ really means never again. To date, a total of 149 member states have ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Military Technologies

What’s the issue? In September 2017, Moscow proposed the deployment of UN peacekeepers along the line dividing Ukrainian from separatist and Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. Such a mission would not help end the conflict. To do that, peacekeepers would need a greater role, including helping secure the Ukraine-Russia border. Why does it matter? The Ukraine conflict has killed over 10,000 people and provoked a humanitarian crisis. It undermines Ukrainian sovereignty and is hugely detrimental to relations between Russia and the West. There are good reasons to suspect Russia’s intentions, but with implementation of the Minsk peace agreement stalled, its proposal provides a slim opening for diplomacy. What should be done?  Kyiv and its Western allies should further develop ideas on how peacekeepers might help. Discussions with Russia should continue and a more central role for Europe would make sense. Western powers must, however, better factor in developments on the ground, notably increasing resistance to the Minsk agreement in Ukraine itself. Executive Summary In September 2017, Russia circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution proposing a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine’s breakaway eastern regions. There are good reasons to suspect its motives for doing so, not least that the narrow mandate and lightly armed force envisaged would do little to resolve the conflict. At most, it could establish just enough security to pressure Kyiv into making concessions to separatist held areas, which would weaken its hand and strengthen that of Russia. Moscow’s proposal does, nevertheless, present an opening for dialogue and for Kyiv and its Western allies to explore how peacekeepers might facilitate return of those areas to Ukrainian authority, including by helping both secure the Ukraine-Russia border and unblock implementation of the February 2015 Minsk II agreement. In so doing, however, their diplomacy should factor in developments on the ground, including growing Ukrainian resistance to Minsk, by promoting a more nuanced debate on the agreement and thus helping tackle this animosity. Without that, even a credible peacekeeping mission could provoke a nationalist backlash. Peacekeepers might offer a way to help settle the conflict, but would almost certainly need to fulfil at least three core tasks: securing the line that divides Ukrainian from separatist and Russian forces after withdrawal of heavy weapons; helping secure the Ukraine-Russia border; and fostering Kyiv’s implementation of Minsk, particularly by creating conditions for credible local elections and the reintegration of breakaway areas into Ukraine. Kyiv’s and Moscow’s consent would be critical: not only to avoid a Russian veto on the Security Council and enable a mission’s deployment, but also because peacekeepers could not operate without a reasonable degree of support from both capitals. Even then, they could face considerable local hostility and potentially violent spoilers. A force would need to be relatively large and capable, but with troops from neither NATO nor Russia. Moscow’s proposal contemplates little of that. True, it comes after three years of diplomatic deadlock; implementation of the Minsk Agreement, which foresees reintegration of separatist held areas into Ukraine, has stalled. Kyiv insists it cannot fulfil its Minsk commitments while the east remains insecure and Russia controls the border; Moscow says it cannot cede border control to Ukraine until political conditions for the breakaway regions’ self-governance are in place. But the small, lightly-armed force that, under the Kremlin’s proposal, would protect Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors in the conflict zone does not help bridge this gap. In particular, it denies peacekeepers a role along the Ukraine-Russia border, essential for reestablishing Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moscow’s intentions in submitting the proposal are uncertain too. While, in principle, there may be reasons for it to seek a way out of a costly intervention in eastern Ukraine, the small force proposed would more likely freeze the conflict than resolve it. The draft resolution more likely served to highlight Kyiv’s failure to implement its side of Minsk, play for time and test Western resolve after U.S., French and German elections. While Western diplomats regard Moscow’s proposal warily, some also view it as an opportunity to engage. U.S. Envoy Kurt Volker has met several times with Vladislav Surkov, aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss peacekeeping options. Europeans for the most part have supported his efforts. Some privately express concern that American diplomacy is insufficiently inclusive, but European leaders themselves have provided few fresh ideas on how to break the deadlock. In Kyiv, suspicion of Moscow’s draft runs deeper still, particularly given the narrow mandate and deployment area envisaged. Many Ukrainians fear Moscow intends to create just enough security to compel Kyiv to implement Minsk while retaining leverage in the east. Peacekeeping talks that fail to address this concern risk escalating violence on the front line, or even in government-controlled areas. Talks also need to factor in other critical developments in Ukraine: anger at elites; mutual distrust between not only Kyiv and separatists but also Kyiv and other parts of the east; and, especially, mounting resistance to Minsk. Many see that agreement, signed in the wake of two disastrous military defeats, as reaffirming Russia’s gains in the conflict rather than guaranteeing a just resolution. Minsk political provisions – notably on special status; local elections; amnesties; and reintegration of separatist held areas – are widely disparaged. Even reformist politicians denounce them, while heated parliamentary debates on related legislation provoke nationalist protests. Anger at Minsk could colour the 2019 election campaign and strain Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s ruling coalition, which comprises the only parties – bar pro-Russia ones – that still support the agreement. Absent efforts to reverse it, the deployment of peacekeepers, even were Moscow to concede to their role on the border, could provoke a backlash. Reaching consensus on peacekeeping for now appears a stretch. But Western allies are right to try; indeed, they should expand efforts. The Volker-Surkov meetings provide a useful direct U.S.-Russia channel. Europe’s influence in Kyiv and enormous levels of assistance to Ukrainian development and reform should give it a more central role; appointing a high-level European Union (EU) envoy could complement Volker’s diplomacy. The Normandy Format, currently comprising French, German, Russian and Ukrainian leaders, could be expanded to include both the EU and U.S. (at least at ministerial level). For now, neither an EU envoy nor expanded Normandy Format appears likely, but Europe’s diminished involvement leaves a gap; genuine progression in negotiations will require it to play a more active role. Too many parallel tracks also risk forum shopping by Moscow or Kyiv. Continued discussions require Western diplomats to develop incentives for Russia. They could, for example, specifically address the concerns (whether genuine or not) that Moscow raises about the risk of reprisals in separatist areas. The core incentive for Russia’s withdrawal must remain the prospect of lifting sanctions only once Minsk agreements are fully implemented or once Russia gives up its military and political interference in Donbas and facilitates the return of the Ukrainian side of the Ukraine-Russia border to Kyiv's control. At the same time, Western diplomats should reassure Kyiv that Ukrainian security concerns lie at the heart of negotiations. They should also promote debate in Ukraine on Minsk by encouraging leaders currently stoking resistance against it to instead clarify measures – whether peacekeeping modalities or forms of Western support – that could make its implementation more palatable. After several years of deadlock, Moscow’s proposal opens a window, however small and potentially disingenuous, for diplomacy. Developing peacekeeping plans would be valuable: were Moscow ever to seek an exit, a neutral, UN-mandated force would likely be required to facilitate its withdrawal and the return of Ukrainian authorities. Kyiv’s Western allies should redouble diplomatic efforts, but also better factor in conditions on the ground. For Ukraine, the only scenario worse than continued Russian interference in the east would be nationwide civil unrest over a mismanaged rollout of Minsk political provisions. Brussels/Kyiv/New York/Vienna/Washington, 15 December 2017 I.Introduction The conflict in Donbas is entering its fourth winter and has claimed over 10,000 lives. Implementation of the February 2015 Minsk II agreement, which Ukraine’s Western allies and Moscow still insist is the only way to end the crisis, has stalled. In fundamental breach of that agreement, high concentrations of heavy weapons and forces persist along the line of separation, leading to daily exchanges of fire and cutting off the separatist-controlled areas – the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – from the rest of the country. Normandy Format meetings, which comprise Ukrainian, Russian, German and French leaders and give a political steer to the Minsk process, have helped hammer out a number of partial ceasefires. OSCE Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) working groups, consisting of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE and primarily responsible for implementing Minsk, have met dozens of times and provide a forum for valuable exchanges. But progress – whether withdrawal and cantonment of heavy weapons, agreement on procedures for local elections, hostage exchanges, even the provision of humanitarian assistance – has been minimal. Talks are stalled too: Moscow points to Kyiv’s lack of progress on Minsk political provisions; in turn, Kyiv argues it cannot implement those provisions while there is no security in the conflict zone and adjacent segment of the Ukraine-Russia border. Given this deadlock, Russia’s circulation in September 2017 to other members of the Security Council of a draft resolution for peacekeepers in Donbas came as a surprise. The draft went through two iterations. The first called for lightly-armed UN forces along the line of separation to provide security to civilian teams working with the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM). Kyiv and Western powers on the Security Council rejected this: not only did it not envisage peacekeepers securing the border, a critical step toward reestablishing Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, but it also fell short of providing security throughout the zone of conflict, where heavy weapons are the greatest risk, including to SMM monitors. In the words of a UN diplomat, the draft was a non-starter because it would “effectively freeze the conflict” and legitimise the de facto entities. The content of Moscow’s second draft has not been widely publicised. It appears, however, to have conceded to UN deployment throughout those areas covered by the SMM mandate (in principle all of Ukraine),without explicitly foreseeing a role for peacekeepers along the border.By suggesting willingness to extend peacekeepers’ area of operations – and thus potentially some readiness to compromise – this draft generated more interest among Ukraine’s Western allies. Moscow’s proposal was all the less expected because it followed repeated Russian rejections of calls by Kyiv for peacekeepers. President Poroshenko first floated the idea, which Russia at the time opposed, of deploying UN forces to the Ukraine-Russia border in spring 2015. In September 2017, he pressed the issue again at the annual high-level UN General Assembly meeting, though Kyiv, perhaps pre-empted by Moscow’s draft, has yet to submit its own. In November 2017, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin announced a fresh Ukrainian proposal was ready, but the U.S. reportedly discouraged its submission, opting to focus instead on further diplomacy with Moscow. With little progress made on the margins of the General Assembly, negotiations moved from New York to capitals: Moscow, Washington, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and even Minsk and Belgrade, both of which have hosted meetings in which Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and now special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and close Putin aide Vladislav Surkov have attempted to tease out common ground. This report examines the extent to which Moscow’s proposal represents an opportunity, particularly for Kyiv’s Western allies, to explore how peacekeepers might play a role in Donbas. It looks at competing perspectives from Moscow, Washington and European capitals, the gap between negotiations in those capitals and developments in Ukraine, challenges on the ground that peacekeepers would have to overcome and options for the role and composition of such a force. It draws on interviews with Ukrainian civilian and military officials; U.S., UN, OSCE, EU and Russian officials; Donbas residents; and Russian experts. II.Competing Perspectives in Capitals Russia’s proposal has generated a mixed response in the capitals of Ukraine’s Western allies. Distrust between the West and Moscow, the Kremlin’s rejection of the idea of peacekeepers in the past and doubts that it genuinely intends to facilitate the return of separatist-held areas to Kyiv mean that many Western officials are sceptical about its intentions now. A wide gulf still separates what Russia has proposed and what Ukraine and Western powers would accept. Absent better alternatives, many Western diplomats have been willing to explore whether Moscow’s proposal represents an opening, however small, to break the deadlock. The U.S. has been particularly active, mainly through Volker’s meetings with Surkov. European officials have supported U.S. diplomacy, even as many privately express concerns it has been insufficiently inclusive. Some argue, too, that European security mechanisms should lead efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis. But while Germany and France provided decisive leadership to contain the conflict through the Minsk I and II agreements, neither they nor the EU have actively proposed ways to unblock the stalled settlement process. The appointment by the EU of a new envoy and the expansion of the Normandy format to include the EU and U.S. might be ways to reinvigorate discussion of peacekeeping options, although both for now appear unlikely. A.Moscow Moscow’s peacekeeping overture is, on paper, a notable shift in posture, but the intentions behind it are far from clear. The proposal could have been a first step in a genuine attempt to find a way out of an increasingly expensive entanglement in Donbas, a way to test the West’s appetite for compromise – particularly with a view to sanctions relief – after U.S., French and German elections, or simply a tactic to divert attention from the question of its withdrawal from Donbas by burying the conflict in negotiations over peacekeeping modalities. Russia’s willingness to compromise on a mission’s strength, composition and mandate clearly hinges on what kind of role for peacekeepers, and what outcome, it seeks. A Russian diplomat confirmed to Crisis Group that Moscow preferred a limited mandate, along the lines formulated in its draft resolution, with the force protecting, not replacing, the OSCE SMM. This does not indicate much flexibility. Regardless, Moscow’s proposal opens up opportunity for discussion of what role peacekeepers in Donbas could perform should that option be seriously considered. There are reasons why Russia might, at some point, seek a face-saving way out of eastern Ukraine. Its role in Donbas incurs a significant financial toll. Some costs are direct; a leaked September 2017 Russian finance ministry memorandum, which calls for Moscow to move funds away from Donbas into Crimea and Kaliningrad, suggests Moscow funding keeps the self-proclaimed republics afloat. Russia spends over $1 billion a year on pensions, social benefits and salaries to de facto officials and the separatist forces and even more on the military. These direct costs may be significant but are unlikely decisive. More significant are indirect costs, related to sanctions. While the Russian economy has largely stabilised, thanks to consumer borrowing and higher oil prices, experts suggest Putin is increasingly eager to have sanctions lifted. Russian experts say that Moscow knows Donbas is a liability, not only financially, but also to Russia’s reputation on the world stage at a time when it seeks greater recognition as a global power. The intervention in Donbas drives a significant anti-Russia backlash in the rest of Ukraine; in that sense, too, the deadlock incurs costs. A peacekeeping compromise could serve Russian interests in other ways. A mission could increase pressure on Kyiv to implement the Minsk agreement’s political provisions, which until now it has deferred, citing the security situation and Russia’s continued influence in Donbas. Such an operation might force Poroshenko to start rolling out those provisions during the run-up to the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary and presidential polls, potentially jeopardising his and his party’s chances to continue leading the government. Donbas elections, required by Minsk, would likely result in local authorities friendly to Moscow winning power in the east; pro-Western politicians are unlikely to fare well even in credible local polls. Moscow also retains other forms of leverage over Kyiv that could prove more effective and less costly than direct engagement in Donbas: cyber-attacks; manipulation of the oligarchy; strategic business acquisitions; clandestine support to far-right groups; extensive information and influence operations via Russian government-controlled broadcasters RT and Sputnik, or social media bots and troll factories. So in principle, there are reasons to think Russian openness to compromise might not be completely off the table. That said, Moscow’s track record suggests there are also good reasons to regard it warily. For now, it appears more plausible Putin was testing the waters after French and German elections, almost a year into a new U.S. administration initially expected to be friendlier to Moscow, and ahead of Russia’s March 2018 presidential election. In this light, the peacekeeping proposal served as a trial balloon. It arguably aimed to give Moscow a clearer reading on how flexible the U.S. and EU might be, prospects for sanctions relief and how united a front they present overall, thus allowing Putin to better assess his options, especially after his widely expected re-election, even as they served as a dilatory manoeuvre. Whatever Moscow’s intentions, its proposal creates a tactical window in a diplomatic process that has been stuck for three years. This is particularly true because, by citing concrete reservations (regardless of how genuine) over Ukrainian and Western red lines for peacekeepers, Russia is presenting Ukraine’s Western partners with the opportunity to develop counterproposals that explicitly address them and thus put the ball back in Moscow’s court. In response to demands that peacekeepers patrol the border, for example, Moscow expresses fear of reprisals against the population of the breakaways. If Russian and separatist forces withdraw, Moscow claims Ukrainian nationalist forces may exact revenge on those they perceive as separatist collaborators, with peacekeepers unable to protect them. Putin himself suggested such a scenario could lead to another Srebrenica, referring to the failure of UN peacekeepers to prevent atrocities in Bosnia. Such comparisons are farfetched, but reprisals are a concern, given the presence of Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries along the line and dehumanising language some use to describe inhabitants of separatist-held areas (see Section III). According to Russian experts, a peacekeeping mission that deploys in phases, securing areas as Russian and separatist forces withdraw, could better guarantee the safety of inhabitants of the self-proclaimed republics. Indeed, one option floated by an expert close to the Kremlin is three-phase deployment: first along the line, consistent with the first Russian draft resolution; then a second phase involving peacekeepers occupying a 50km zone beyond that line in areas currently outside government control; and a third involving deployment up to and including the border, if and when political provisions of Minsk are met. The downside of such an option would be that it delays deployment along the border, and potentially gives Moscow the opportunity to block latter phases after peacekeepers’ initial deployment. In sum, while reasons to regard Russia’s proposal cautiously are many, the West should, nonetheless, continue to test Moscow’s willingness to compromise and, in turn, develop its own thinking on how peacekeepers could create conditions in the east that encourage Kyiv to advance Minsk political provisions. Russian calculations may also evolve. Some Russia experts, for example, suggest new opportunities could open up after Putin’s re-election, especially if downward economic trends compel him to launch long-discussed economic reform. Such reform could require improved cooperation with the West on issues like technology transfer that in turn could create incentives for compromise on Donbas. Again, prospects appear slim but, in a crisis with few openings, are worth pursuing. B.Washington More than any other Ukrainian ally, the U.S. appears willing to test whether a UN-mandated force could help in Donbas. President Trump himself may have inadvertently played into Ukrainian fears that the U.S. and Russia might strike a deal behind Kyiv’s back when he reportedly told Poroshenko during their September 2017 meeting that the U.S. wanted peace in Ukraine, suggesting that his administration was particularly vested in capitalising on the current diplomatic opening. Meetings between Volker and Surkov, which take place in parallel to the Normandy Four and TCG, have become the main venue for discussion of potential peacekeeping modalities. Thus far these talks appear to have yielded little, despite positive official statements. Washington reportedly is now deliberating whether to table or ask an ally to table its own draft Security Council resolution. The renewed energy Volker has brought to U.S. diplomacy on Ukraine stands in stark contrast to the past few years of Minsk deadlock. The political capital invested in his efforts suggests that the U.S., at least initially, found grounds to take Moscow’s proposal seriously, or at least viewed it pragmatically as the only opening for discussion with Russia over Ukraine. State and Defense Department officials assert that Russia “needs a way out” of eastern Ukraine, though some admit that remains an assumption. Volker himself portrays the proposal as an opening to explore whether a peacekeeping mission with the right strength and mandate might give Kyiv sufficient confidence to implement Minsk political provisions, even if reaching consensus with Moscow subsequently proves impossible. Volker and Surkov have met three times, once in Minsk and twice in Belgrade, where they held a “discussion of principles”, according to Volker. A joint statement released by the U.S. embassy in Moscow after that November 2017 meeting was reasonably positive. Behind closed doors, however, U.S. diplomats admit it is easier to agree on principles with Russians than concrete measures, and that the last meeting was tense.For his part, Surkov told reporters that Volker presented 29 paragraphs of counterproposals to Russia’s second draft resolution, of which the Russians accepted three, illustrating the distance remaining between the sides. Strained U.S.-Russia relations reportedly complicated this latest round of talks. For Kyiv and Western allies, the red line for any mission is that peacekeepers secure the Ukrainian side of the Ukraine-Russia border, a basic premise of national security for Kyiv that should ultimately lead to hand-over of control to Ukraine, as per Minsk. Without control of the border, Moscow could provide political and economic support to the self-proclaimed people’s republics, supply weapons and rotate forces in and out without consequence. Peacekeepers deployed without a clear mandate to control the border risk freezing the status quo in the conflict zone. Volker envisages a robust peacekeeping force, potentially comprising some 20,000 peacekeepers, a number floated not only by him but also Ukrainian diplomats in New York. Such a force would help stabilise Donbas, secure the border, oversee cantonment of weapons and withdrawal of forces from the line and potentially administer elections. Volker’s vision is, in other words, almost the polar opposite of the lightly armed force Russia suggested to protect OSCE monitors. After the November 2017 Belgrade meeting, U.S. officials indicated they or an ally may table a new Security Council resolution in New York. One option would be for Volker to prepare a draft that lays out, in response to Moscow’s proposal, a peacekeeping force with the strength and mandate he envisages as necessary to create conditions for Minsk implementation. Moscow may, however, reject it outright. A second option could be to explore a phased approach, though with clear language in the resolution that guarantees subsequent phases will follow initial deployment. This approach might plausibly win Russian consent or at least continued discussion, but could encounter Ukrainian resistance. Either of these options also risk parties getting stuck in debates over peacekeeping minutiae without evidence Russia genuinely seeks a mutually acceptable compromise. The U.S. reportedly hopes a resolution can be tabled before Ukraine relinquishes its Security Council seat at the end of the year, possibly in December when Japan has the presidency of the council. Whether Volker will remain in the job past March 2018, when his post formally closes, is unclear. U.S. officials report that newly confirmed Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Wess Mitchell may assume management of the Ukraine file. There are important limits on the extent to which the U.S. would be willing and able to offer sanctions relief in return for a Russian compromise. A senior U.S. diplomat noted sanctions should only be lifted once main Minsk provisions were implemented – after credible local elections – rather than partially, in parallel with incremental progress on benchmarks. State and Defense Department officials similarly stress that only full Minsk implementation would enable lifting sanctions, an important qualification that could help allay fears in Kyiv that the U.S. and Russia might strike a deal on Donbas behind Ukraine’s back. Moreover, even then, only sanctions related to Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine would be lifted; sanctions related to Russian actions in Crimea, 2016 election interference, or the Magnitsky Act would not be affected.Finally, Congress could complicate any effort to lift sanctions for reasons including recent legislation that requires the president to notify Congress if he intends to proceed with any significant lifting of Russia-related sanctions. C.Europe U.S. officials present cooperation with EU and OSCE counterparts as close, and the latter view Volker as a serious, clear-headed negotiator. That said, some European diplomats privately express concern that the U.S. risks monopolising diplomacy on peacekeeping; is insufficiently inclusive of the OSCE, the EU and its member states, which tend to lead efforts to end or manage crises on the continent; and does not have an adequate feel for what an endgame acceptable to Ukrainians looks like. One EU official, who stressed the need for more multilateral cooperation, said that – without more direct channels at the time – EU and German counterparts went to an October informal meeting in Stockholm organised by a European think-tank in order to better understand Volker’s vision. For their part, however, Europeans have provided little recent visible leadership on Ukraine, and the OSCE has allowed the settlement process to be bogged down in often inconsequential details without addressing bigger picture challenges. This is unfortunate. Greater European involvement could bring valuable perspectives and influence to talks on peacekeeping, even if many in Europe doubt this is a genuine opening. Many Europeans, especially those from newer EU member states better understand Ukrainian sensitivities and are keenly aware of the obstacles peacekeepers would face on the ground. Some worry that direct U.S.-Russia diplomacy raises the potential for a deal without sufficient Ukrainian and or EU buy-in. A former European leader said the EU is well aware Ukraine could be pushed over the brink if Ukrainians do not believe their security concerns are addressed. However sceptical they are about the prospects for a peacekeeping mission, EU and OSCE officials should express their concerns clearly and directly with the U.S. if they are not yet doing so. Better to do so now, than for discussions on peacekeeping to progress without these concerns being factored in. The EU Association Agreement with Ukraine, which entails political association and economic integration between the EU and Ukraine, and related cooperation on security and governance reform also should, in principle, give the EU a prominent voice in discussions on peacekeeping. EU officials privately admit the crisis chills nearly every area of reform: principles such as civilian oversight of the security sector, judicial presumption of innocence, press freedom and even anticorruption all fall casualty to real or perceived national security threats. At the same time, the EU’s framework for cooperation and vast bilateral support to Ukraine give it leverage and a practical way of nudging Kyiv forward on sensitive issues, if and when it implements Minsk political provisions. Europeans, like the U.S., must hold the line on sanctions. Only were the Minsk agreements to be completely implemented or Russia to end its military and political interference in Donbas and facilitate the return of the Ukrainian side of the Ukraine-Russia border to Kyiv’s control should sanctions aligned to the implementation of Minsk be lifted. In other words, there should be no partial lifting with partial progress. Moreover, even with complete implementation of the Minsk agreements, the EU and European governments should uphold restrictive measures linked to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol. It is important for European security to maintain them. In short, European powers could and should better use their influence to further negotiations. One idea would be for the EU to appoint a special envoy for Ukraine. For now, there is little appetite in Brussels to do so. But an envoy could play a useful role as a European counterpart to Volker and work closely with him to ensure talks benefit from both U.S. influence and authority and the EU’s leverage and close ties to Ukrainian institutions. Optimally, too, Germany and France, together with the EU and U.S., would push for an expanded Normandy Format, adding EU and U.S. participation to that of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. This would reinforce Euroatlantic solidarity, centralise diplomatic efforts and signal to Russia Western commitment to resolving the conflict. Although a protocol discrepancy would exist without U.S. presidential participation, Normandy Format meetings between heads of state have only taken place five times, whereas regular meetings at the foreign ministerial and working levels offer another platform to engage. Volker has expressed public opposition to U.S. participation. But, together with the EU, the U.S. could bring new gravitas and momentum to those meetings. At a minimum, Washington and Brussels should work more closely with Berlin, Paris and the OSCE to ensure a substantive link between diplomacy and bilateral cooperation, including on reform. By cooperating more closely, Kyiv’s allies also could guard against forum shopping by Moscow and Kyiv. III.Ground Realities While Russia’s proposal provides an opportunity for Western allies to explore what role peacekeepers could play, the discussion risks overlooking important dynamics in Ukraine itself. Ukrainian diplomats mostly express concerns about security in Donbas, which would require peacekeepers controlling the border. Kyiv, they say, could implement Minsk political provisions once Donbas is secure; even if this will be a tough sell at home, they insist Ukraine will stick to its commitments. Behind these statements, however, lies a complex reality: increasing resistance in Ukraine to Minsk and the presence of potential spoilers on both sides. Even were Russia to consent to peacekeeping at the border, Kyiv might still struggle to implement Minsk political provisions in the face of domestic opposition. Minsk is likely to become even more salient as Ukraine’s 2019 elections approach. Bar pro-Russia parties, Poroshenko’s ruling coalition is Minsk sole defender; were it to lose the 2019 vote, implementation of Minsk’s political provisions could be harder still. A.Kyiv’s Sensitivities on Minsk II Political Provisions Ukrainian concerns about Russia’s proposal are not only motivated by distrust of Moscow. They are also rooted in the domestic unpopularity of the Minsk agreements themselves. Many see Kyiv’s obligations under Minsk as concessions that would grant the Kremlin continued political and military leverage in eastern Ukraine even after reintegration of separatist held areas. Kyiv thus far has deferred its fulfilment of these obligations by appealing to insecurity in Donbas, Russia’s continued influence and Ukrainian authorities’ lack of access to those areas. Ukrainian officials fear that the Kremlin could create enough of a semblance of normalcy in Donbas, through the limited deployment of peacekeepers, to spotlight Kyiv’s deferral of its own Minsk commitments. Much domestic opposition to Minsk stems from the circumstances in which it was devised. The first agreement was signed in the wake of Ukrainian forces’ August 2014 defeat in Ilovaisk, when Russian-backed militants encircled 1,400 Ukrainian troops and volunteers, negotiated a ceasefire and then opened fire on them as they withdrew. Minsk II was negotiated after the Donetsk airport and Debaltseve debacles of early 2015, which saw Ukrainian forces lose strategic territory. As a result, many Ukrainians feel both agreements’ cemented Russia’s gains more than they provided for just resolution of the conflict. The low regard with which many Ukrainians hold the agreements’ signatories reinforces this animosity. These include, on the Ukrainian side, former President Leonid Kuchma, who faced various corruption scandals while in office, and, on the separatist side, unelected leaders of the self-proclaimed republics, Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky. Minsk viability in Ukraine is, if anything, lower now than when it was signed. Four years of war, over 10,000 dead and sixteen short-lived ceasefires, whose breakdown Kyiv blames on the separatists (though in reality they are broken by all sides), have hardened resistance to compromise. Some Ukrainian experts openly suggest Kyiv sees Minsk as a framework for managing the situation until Ukraine is in a better position to pursue its own interests. Western allies should be prepared to face a new set of obstacles with Russia should Ukraine suggest crafting a new deal. Even liberal Ukrainians argue the country needs to build up its security capacity and protect itself from Russia, in Donbas and elsewhere, and call for measures such as securing from the West large-scale arms provision. Minsk is so unpopular that a broad parliamentary coalition forced authors of a recent law on reintegration of the self-proclaimed republics to remove all references to the agreement before they would allow parliament to consider the draft. This would have been Minsk’s first appearance in Ukrainian law and they feared legitimising it. Not only nationalist politicians attack Minsk defenders as Russian sympathisers or insufficiently Ukrainian, the sentiment is widespread among political elites. Even a leader of the pro-European and reformist Samopomich party told Crisis Group that Minsk is tantamount to treason and implementation could destroy the country. Mainstream politicians appear to be competing to outbid each other in denunciation of the agreement. The only political forces outside the ruling coalition of Bloc Petro Poroshenko and People’s Front that do not actively oppose it are pro-Russia parties.It looks likely, therefore, that Minsk will be a key issue ahead of 2019 polls, and ruling coalition support for it could become a campaign albatross. While it is unclear whether opposition parties could actually win power, their politicisation of Minsk could fracture Poroshenko’s coalition, as those of its members who went along with it to satisfy the West abandon ship. There is a risk that Minsk, were it to happen, could provoke a violent backlash. According to a former Ukrainian statesman and several foreign security advisors, a marginalised but vocal and well-resourced minority could take violent action against whatever ruling government is unfortunate enough to be tasked with Minsk implementation. Many UN and other humanitarian staff in the conflict zone privately share this view; one UN official warned that “the slow boil of anger is palpable”.That said, a growing sense of fatigue across the wider population, illustrated by the failure of ongoing protests to mobilise large numbers (see Section III.A.1), could dampen risks. The desire among many Ukrainians for a return to normalcy might encourage the majority of political and civic actors to continue working within the rule of law. In sum, even were Moscow to agree on the deployment of peacekeepers along the Ukraine-Russia border, the implementation of Minsk’s political provisions would require a greater degree of national consensus than currently exists and could provoke a backlash, potentially, some fear, a violent one. Particularly contentious are provisions on the special status of what Minsk identifies as “certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions”; the question of amnesty; local elections; and the reintegration of separatist-controlled areas into Ukraine. 1.Special status The special status law, renewed in October 2017, grants separatist controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk special rights consistent with Minsk. That law also includes a proviso that it enters into force only if and when the separatist controlled areas fully disarm and Russian forces withdraw. Parliamentary debate on special status, both during recent renewal and earlier, has been heated. An August 2015 session on the issue provoked street fighting between Ukrainian nationalist demonstrators and national guardsmen assigned to cordon off and protect parliament, climaxing with detonation – by a member of the far-right Svoboda party’s paramilitary wing Sich – of a grenade in the crowd outside, killing four national guardsmen. According to the health ministry, the fighting left 21 people hospitalised with gunshot wounds. During the clashes, Right Sector, another nationalist militia, occupied streets around parliament and the cabinet of ministers. Police made no visible effort to intervene. During the October 2017 debate on the special status law’s renewal, protesters erected a tent city, self-dubbed “liberation”, outside parliament and the cabinet of ministers. After the first week, however, it failed to attract more than a handful of people, suggesting popular fatigue four years after Maidan and thirteen after the Orange Revolution may finally be settling in. Such fatigue could provide a counterweight to radical, vocal minorities intent on destabilising the country. The contribution of special status laws in other European conflicts also does not inspire Ukrainians with confidence that such laws further reintegration, for which a complex set of measures are required, as discussed below. Ukrainian political elites cite examples of Serbia’s Vojvodina or Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska for instance, as well as Moldova’s Transnistria, where special status laws did not secure full reintegration. Even EU officials who worked on the former Yugoslavia point out that the special status applications in those conflicts are hard to qualify as reintegration successes. 2.Amnesty The issue of amnesties is equally divisive. Relevant Minsk II provisions – notably Article 5 providing for “pardon and amnesty by way of enacting a law that forbids persecution and punishment of persons in relation to events that took place in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine” – leave room for interpretation. Some Ukrainians take a minimalist line: only those whom credible courts substantiate beyond a reasonable doubt to have participated in war crimes or crimes against humanity should be prosecuted. Others argue that all who collaborated with unrecognised authorities in the self-proclaimed republics, including even doctors and teachers, should be brought to justice. Not only is consensus absent, but so are signs of public debate. Yet, open discussion of the issue will be essential to build support for an approach consistent not only with Minsk but also with human rights principles and Ukraine’s obligations under international law. Neither blanket incriminations nor blanket amnesties will win international support. Were peacekeepers to deploy and prospects for the return of separatist held areas to Ukrainian sovereignty improve, those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity on all sides would have to be held accountable. Some form of vetting also would be necessary. Statements by Kyiv that those areas would not suffer retribution would be a good start; emphasising due process could avert the risk that some inhabitants, including qualified civil servants, leave, fearing for their livelihoods or safety. 3.Local elections Of all Minsk provisions, Kyiv is perhaps most nervous about local elections, fearing they would legitimise existing structures in the self-proclaimed republics. Overcoming these concerns would require, at a minimum, that pro-Western parties enjoy unimpeded access to campaign in those areas freely. Even then, prospects for such parties to win would be low, given animosity generated by the conflict. Even on the Ukraine-controlled side, support for Kyiv is far from assured; citizens and local authorities both complain about lack of national interest in their regions. A peacekeeping mission would almost certainly have to help overcome some of these challenges, whether by supporting administration of local elections, even running the polls itself, or providing security on the campaign trail and around the vote (see Section IV). Even successful local polls that represent a step toward peace in Donbas could, however, provoke a nationalist backlash in the rest of the country, particularly if pro-Western parties lacked adequate access and pro-Russia candidates were perceived to have won as a result. 4.Reintegration Full reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine, the end goal of Minsk, is elaborated in provisions on restoration of social and economic links between separatist areas and the rest of the country. Most experts agree this is unlikely to happen any time soon, if at all. That residents of separatist areas have little faith in the current Ukrainian parliament’s ability to draft legislation consistent with its Minsk commitments on reintegration is understandable. Not only nationalists, but even some liberal Ukrainian politicians in Kyiv support the isolation of the self-proclaimed republics. Pro-EU and reformist Samopomich party, for example, led a rogue economic blockade of separatist areas in January 2017, wide public support for which prompted Ukraine’s president to capitulate and legitimise it five weeks later as official government policy. Other liberal reformers, like parliamentarian Mustafa Nayem, an instigator of the Maidan protests, publicly warn that Ukraine must not formalise its Minsk obligations under national law. Forces on the ground reject reintegration too: a civil-military official in Kyiv-controlled areas along the line told Crisis Group his unit was ready to fully isolate separatist held areas were Kyiv to issue such an order – though he did argue for continued humanitarian support. Even some young internally displaced people with family members across the line prefer to isolate those areas. Some parliamentarians and experts in Kyiv suggest that rather than paying for the recovery and reconstruction of separatist controlled areas, Ukraine should spend its limited capital on reforms in the rest of the country, and by doing so also raise the cost of the conflict for Russia. Some cite the prospective price tag of reconstruction in Donbas as another argument against reintegration. That Donbas’s defunct and uncompetitive heavy industry provides a weak base for revitalising its economy is widely understood in Kyiv; vast investment will be necessary to build viable alternatives. Others argue that as Ukraine strives to build a modern, Western-style state, it cannot afford to be overly concerned with the wellbeing of what they portray a wilfully primitive population without a shared sense of national identity. This point of view has been prevalent in Ukrainian society since the start of the conflict and largely ignored by Western allies, but may now be experiencing a renaissance. It also serves to reinforce Kremlin propaganda of Kyiv as fascist, alienating both residents of the breakaway republics and Donbas citizens on the Kyiv-held side of the line alike. While calls for isolating separatist areas are not new, the peacekeeping debate and new legislation on reintegration have reinvigorated them. In October 2017, parliament passed the first reading of a reintegration bill naming Russia an aggressor, re-emphasising that Ukraine’s military operation is self-defence, denying Kyiv’s responsibility for human rights violations in the conflict zone and enabling the president to impose martial law far beyond it. The bill has few provisions for actual reintegration: reformist MPs and Western diplomats quip that its more plausible outcome is disintegration. Whether Ukraine as a whole – or even a majority of elites – genuinely want the devastated region back is a question. Nor do those in Donbas necessarily want to reintegrate. A senior Russian journalist captured opinion in separatist-controlled territories: “The worst scenario” he wrote, “could only be the return of Kyiv”. A pro-Russia activist expressed hope for reunification with Russia. Leaders in the self-proclaimed republics fear a peacekeeping mission would be used by Ukraine to get rid of them. It does not help that war trauma and Kremlin misinformation have led to a widely-held view in separatist controlled areas of post-Maidan coalitions as neo-Nazi juntas that encourages ethno-nationalists to beat Russian-speakers and spit on Red Army graves, and forces municipal authorities to rename streets after Holocaust collaborators. Moscow-affiliated media outlets incite fear through their coverage of politicians like parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy, a founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine, and hawkish national security and defence council secretary Oleksandr Turchynov. B.Potential Spoilers Beyond Kyiv’s animosity toward Minsk political provisions, another challenge that should factor into peacekeeping discussions is the risk of spoilers on both sides. On the Kyiv-controlled side, units of volunteer paramilitaries reportedly numbering in the low hundreds continue to operate in Donbas, though Kyiv has integrated or disbanded the majority of volunteers since 2015. The government appears to accept that it cannot force the formal integration of those remaining into the military or national guard at this stage, while disarming them might not only prove politically fraught but could provoke outbreaks of violence even far removed from the conflict zone. Such groups seemingly enjoy a degree of impunity; former members assumed senior positions in the interior ministry. The challenges of reintegrating or demobilising paramilitaries are also linked to the security structures’ reservations about Minsk, given the paramilitaries’ public preference is for a military resolution to the conflict. Moreover, while hate speech is more prevalent in separatist controlled areas, both civilian and military Ukrainian nationalists along the line of separation routinely describe inhabitants of separatist-controlled areas in dehumanising terms. The UN has documented instances where the Ukrainian secret police, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), threaten to hand over families of alleged separatist sympathisers in Kyiv-controlled areas to paramilitary groups to be tortured. Even some ostensibly Western-oriented parliamentarians, like Samopomich MP and former Donbas battalion commander Semen Semenchenko – responsible for the January 2017 Donbas blockade – reportedly make nationalist-tinged threats against the state. Speaking to Crisis Group in late October, one Ukrainian army officer in Avdiivka and Kramatorsk expressed deep resistance to the idea of peacekeepers, hinting strongly that Ukrainian forces would make a push to regain separatist controlled territory in anticipation of any potential UN deployment. On the separatist side, potential spoilers include leaders of the self-proclaimed republics and local opponents. Donetsk leader Zakharchenko, for example, has stated he would reject any peacekeeping mission with a mandate beyond providing security to the SMM. Influential critics of the authorities in the self-proclaimed republics may pose an even graver threat. Vostok battalion Commander Aleksandr Khodakovsky, rumoured to be close to both Moscow and Ukraine’s richest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, opposes peacekeeping talks and repeatedly states there can be no peaceful resolution to the conflict. He plans to challenge Zakharchenko in elections scheduled to be held by de-facto Donetsk authorities on an as-yet-unspecified date in 2018. While known candidates like Zakharchenko are likely to follow Kremlin orders, figures like Khodakovsky are less predictable. The proliferation of weapons, mostly from the conflict zone, further heightens risks. In November 2017, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told an expert panel in Kyiv that constant instability makes Ukraine vulnerable to attacks from within. Broad Ukrainian resistance to Minsk, likely difficulty rolling out its political provisions, the presence of spoilers and arms proliferation all pose potential obstacles to a Donbas peacekeeping mission aimed at reinvigorating Minsk’s implementation. Unless they are factored into planning, the deployment of peacekeepers could provoke a backlash or even turmoil if and when it eventually was to occur. Reinvigorated efforts are needed to address such challenges before peacekeepers deploy. Poroshenko’s ruling coalition claims Ukraine will implement even Minsk’s most divisive measures with or without opposition consent. But recent events – like a mob freeing Mikhail Saakashvili from arresting police by force in December 2017 – and tacit government admission it cannot reintegrate all volunteers, cast doubt on this. Parallel to further talks and thinking on peacekeeping, Western allies should insist Kyiv demobilise or reintegrate into formal security structures any remaining volunteers as part of ongoing security sector reform. The West should also encourage Kyiv to initiate a broader discussion on how to implement political provisions of Minsk without undercutting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Kyiv should prepare Ukrainian society to deal with divisive issues like amnesties and lift taboos on public debate about politically charged issues such as special status in the context of a diverse but unitarian state. It should also encourage discussion on whether the Minsk provisions themselves, or rather misinformation and misunderstanding about them, drive resistance. IV.Peacekeeping Options Further thinking on how a UN-mandated peacekeeping force in Donbas could help resolve the conflict would be useful. Clarifying the specific roles peacekeepers could fulfil, how to overcome operational and political hurdles they might face and how the red lines of Moscow, Kyiv and Ukrainians more broadly could be met and their fears allayed would help lay the groundwork for any future opportunity. Such planning should factor in not only major powers’ stances and Ukrainian leaders’ official statements, but also developments on the ground in Kyiv and Donbas. Given the positions of Kyiv and Moscow, a compromise on peacekeeping would need to be built around three core elements. First, following the withdrawal of heavy weapons, peacekeepers would need to establish control over the line of separation, protect civilians and provide security across the zone of conflict and verify cantonment of weapons and withdrawal of forces. Second, they would monitor the Ukrainian side of the Ukraine-Russia border. Third, a peacekeeping mission would help advance Kyiv’s implementation of Minsk political provisions, particularly creating conditions for credible local elections. UN and other peacekeeping operations in the past have fulfilled similar functions, but such a mandate in eastern Ukraine would still be daunting. The potential compromise that would underpin such a mandate and the ability of peacekeepers to operate in Donbas would hinge on the consent and goodwill of both Moscow and Kyiv. Volker’s team has done some planning. But within the UN Secretariat, whose role could become central were prospects for a mission to increase, considerable apprehension exists over deploying peacekeepers. Such scepticism is reinforced by the fact that the UN until now has not been invited to help resolve a conflict hitherto managed mostly by the Normandy Four and TCG. UN officials warn of the risk that member states achieve some limited consensus and deploy peacekeepers in hope of breaking the stalemate, but the UN then either get bogged down “without a real political roadmap”, and Moscow or even Kyiv put on the brakes.Wider suspicion of Russia’s motives weighs heavily; its veto on the Security Council and influence on the ground would give it enormous power over any mission once deployed. But resistance to Minsk in Ukraine could also prove a complicating factor. Other dilemmas are more operational. The first is whether the Security Council would deploy a UN mission or mandate a group of states to act with its blessing, with one acting as lead, or framework, nation. The latter, which Volker’s team has reportedly explored, is regarded as more agile, allowing peacekeepers to deploy faster and more flexibly. Were a non-NATO European government to provide such a lead, logistics support would probably require a wider European effort; it is unlikely that a non-NATO military force could manage the supply chain alone. A framework force would benefit less from UN expertise on specialised aspects of its mandate – weapons cantonment, ceasefire monitoring, election preparation or vetting – although the OSCE might fill some of these gaps. Notwithstanding the UN’s slow logistics, particularly around the deployment of a mission, the idea of UN peacekeeping should not be dismissed too quickly: in principle, nothing would prevent capable Western forces operating under UN command; in Lebanon and Mali, such forces are deployed as blue helmets. Another option might be for the Security Council to mandate an initial deployment of a small non-UN coalition. This could then re-hat under UN command, together with forces from other nations, once critical areas were secured, much as peacekeepers entered Timor Leste after the 1999 popular consultation. A second question is which countries would contribute troops that could pose a credible deterrent. NATO or Russian forces are out of the question. Volker initially appears to have hoped for Sweden to lead as a UN-mandated framework force. Reportedly, however, the Swedes expressed significant misgivings, particularly if the mission entailed monitoring the Ukraine-Russia border. He has also suggested Kazakh forces; Kazakhstan, like Sweden, holds a non-permanent Security Council seat through 2018. Whether Kyiv would accept Kazakhstan’s role is unclear, given its membership in several Russia-led multilateral bodies. Even were consensus to emerge on peacekeeping, finding a mix of troop contributors acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow, and persuading them to commit forces, would likely prove a challenge. Any contributing government would have to factor in the risk of military entanglement with Russia or its non-state allies, particularly if a peacekeeping mandate foresaw military operations against spoilers. A third question relates to the number of peacekeepers deployed, which would obviously hinge on their mandate. Volker himself has floated the figure of 20,000, also a number cited by some Ukrainians and military experts. Other Ukrainians suggest still higher numbers. Even 20,000 would be at the upper end of existing UN operations, though it is hard to imagine a force with fewer monitoring the border and projecting force across Donbas as elections approach. The UN Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES), deployed in 1996 to help reintegrate those areas into Croatia after the Yugoslav wars – a mandate with parallels to the potential mandate of any Donbas mission – comprised a 5,000-strong force. But that mission secured an area with a considerably smaller population size and could also rely, in an emergency, on NATO forces stationed nearby. In Kosovo, some 40,000 NATO forces initially deployed, again to a much smaller area. But that force aimed to deter conventional Yugoslav forces, whereas peacekeepers in Donbas could deploy only with Moscow’s consent. A fourth is the extent to which the Security Council would grant peacekeepers explicit enforcement capability, how robust a posture they would adopt in the face of spoilers and the manner in which they would deploy. For now, security in the conflict zone is dire. The deployment of peacekeepers along the line of separation would need to be choreographed with the withdrawal of heavy weapons and forces, including paramilitary and other non-state groups, by both Moscow and Kyiv. No peacekeeping mission would want to force its way in. A phased deployment, along the lines proposed by some Russian experts – a first phase along the line, a second within a wider radius and a third across Donbas, including the border – could help address fears of reprisals. However, Kyiv would have reason to oppose such a proposal, given its fear that the Kremlin could obstruct latter phases once peacekeepers had deployed. That separatist forces are likely to withdraw – at least initially – only as far as existing depots, which already prove hard for the OSCE SMM to monitor, poses another challenge. That said, a September 2017 memo by an organisation working for the Ukrainian government recommended a variant of phased deployment. Some space for compromise may, therefore, exist. Overall, though, given the potential for Moscow to disrupt latter phases, peacekeepers deploying as fast as possible probably makes most sense. Even with clear agreements between UN-mandated forces, Russia and Ukraine and a careful deployment, peacekeepers securing Donbas would confront local hostility, potentially protests and perhaps even violent resistance. The Security Council would almost certainly grant any mission a Chapter VII mandate but, in addition, could explicitly foresee military operations against groups attempting to obstruct the mission’s work, whether by targeting civilians, attacking peacekeepers, refusing to disarm or impeding elections. The mandates of a number of recent UN missions include stabilisation activities, involving military operations against spoilers; the NATO force in Kosovo played an even more coercive role.Even a robust force with a strong enforcement mandate would struggle, however, against determined local opposition, particularly if it enjoyed Moscow’s backing. A last question relates to whether the Security Council would grant the mission executive powers to oversee implementation of Minsk in separatist areas. UN or OSCE expertise could, for example, prove critical to administering local polls or even the 2019 Ukrainian general elections. This could involve providing security to the campaign and vote, supporting Ukrainian authorities’ administration of registration and polling or – given potential friction between those authorities and communities in separatist controlled parts of Donbas – even running the elections directly. Both the UN and OSCE have administered elections in the past with some success. A peacekeeping mission might also assist with or supervise the vetting – and further training – of local officials and police. The latter could potentially complement the disarmament and demobilisation of non-state groups, which peacekeepers might also supervise. Both the UN and EU have significant experience building the capacity of public administrations and training security forces. A mission might also facilitate the safe return of those displaced by the conflict. The Security Council could even consider a temporary international administration, along the lines of the UN’s role in Eastern Slavonia, Kosovo and Timor Leste. This would entail not only peacekeepers providing security, but the UN fulfilling basic state functions before elections and also reintegration of separatist-held areas. Kyiv would likely accept such an intrusive mandate only were there a clear UN-facilitated roadmap laying out the return of Ukrainian authority to Donbas. On the other hand, fears of reprisals in separatist-controlled areas mean that an interim authority, assuming at least some aspects of public administration, would likely be necessary, with Kyiv committing to a gradual and facilitated return to Donbas. V.Conclusion There are good reasons to regard with scepticism Moscow’s peacekeeping proposal and, more broadly, its willingness to allow the return of Donbas to Ukrainian sovereignty. But thedfd for some time. n). I tried though has not had an executive mandate for elections administration for some time. n). I tried the proposal and concrete reservations Moscow expresses about Ukraine’s red lines, notably peacekeepers on the Ukraine-Russia border, nonetheless present a small window in otherwise deadlocked negotiations and an opportunity for fresh thinking on what purpose peacekeepers might serve. Were Moscow ever to genuinely want out of its costly Donbas intervention, then overcoming distrust between sides, Ukrainian fears of continued Russian meddling and the danger of reprisals would likely require a neutral, UN-mandated force. Discussions could continue in different venues. Meetings between Volker and Surkov have reinvigorated diplomacy. They should persist as long as feasible, whether based on reworking Russia’s proposal, a fresh proposal from the U.S. or the three points in the last U.S. proposal on which reportedly there is consensus. Peacekeeping modalities that aim to address ostensive Russian fears about reprisals might help prolong such talks. Western powers might also prepare their own draft Security Council resolution – one either drafted together with Ukraine or if not that meets its red lines – as a counterproposal to Russia’s drafts. How far Russian officials will proceed in such discussions is unclear; but it is likely that Western officials will need to put incentives on the table in return for any compromise. Sanctions relief is almost certainly of most interest to Moscow. But Minsk-related sanctions should remain in place until Moscow fully meets its end of the bargain: returning to Kyiv control of Ukraine’s border. In whatever format discussions take place, they should factor in not only substantive differences between Ukrainian and Russian positions, but also Kyiv’s fears of Russia and the U.S. striking a deal behind its back. Already some in Kyiv feel side-lined from a process critical to Ukraine’s survival as a state. Ukraine itself should continue developing its own vision for a peacekeeping mission, drawing on relevant international expertise. Any discussion should also account for Minsk’s domestic unpopularity and seek to address it head-on. In this context, the West should promote more active debate in Ukraine on Minsk and publicly reassert their confidence in Kyiv’s ability to fulfil its part of the deal. Ideally, leaders in Kyiv, instead of stoking opposition to the agreement, would initiate a broad and honest debate on Minsk to convince their electorate of its legitimacy. This would include discussion of measures that could help Ukraine feel comfortable implementing its political provisions, notably in terms of control over the border and Western security guarantees, and how those provisions could be rolled out in a way that averts backlash. Likewise, Western powers should help Kyiv prepare for the social and political challenges that Minsk implementation would engender: Kyiv may require support dealing with spoilers outside the east and devising reconciliation strategies. Kyiv’s allies should also encourage it to develop a strategy to re-integrate Donbas that takes into account the need for nationwide buy-in to the process. The UN could join in offering technical proposals to address these issues. For its part, Europe should reinvigorate its Ukraine diplomacy. The creation of an EU envoy could provide a European counterpart to Volker and help ensure talks benefit from both U.S. influence and EU leverage through its close ties to Ukrainian institutions. Ideally, too, Germany and France, together with the EU and U.S., would push for an expanded Normandy Format, including the EU and U.S. This could galvanise further momentum, unify diplomatic initiatives and help avoid both Ukrainian and Russian forum shopping. For now, neither an EU envoy nor expanded Normandy Format appears likely. But the lack of Europe’s leadership is a gap, given its leverage in Kyiv and that some Europeans lament exclusion from recent U.S.-Russia diplomacy. After several years of deadlock, Moscow’s peacekeeping proposal opens a window for diplomacy. Kyiv’s Western allies should expand their diplomatic efforts to push for a credible peacekeeping force that protects Ukraine’s core security interests. They should also better factor in conditions on the ground, particularly growing resistance to the Minsk agreement. Russia’s interference in the east is bad enough; nationwide civil unrest over the attempted rollout of Minsk’s political provisions could be worse still. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) International Crisis Group

Widespread sexual violence marred Kenya’s 2017 elections, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Kenyan government should urgently take steps to protect women and girls, as well as men and boys, from sexual violence. The 31-page report, “‘They Were Men in Uniform’: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Kenya’s 2017 Elections,” documents the devastating physical, mental, social, and economic impact of gender-based violence and serious human rights abuses surrounding the recent elections. Human Rights Watch found that the government failed to prevent election-related sexual violence, properly investigate cases, hold attackers accountable, and ensure that survivors have access to comprehensive, quality, and timely post-rape care. Many attacks were by security forces, survivors said. Widespread sexual violence marred Kenya’s 2017 elections. The Kenyan government should urgently take steps to protect women and girls, as well as men and boys, from sexual violence. “The impact of sexual violence on survivors is devastating,” said Agnes Odhiambo, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Almost all women and girls we spoke to suffered physical harm and profound mental trauma and feared that their attackers may never be held accountable.” Human Rights Watch interviewed 68 females, three male survivors of sexual violence, and 12 witnesses in Mathare, Dandora, and Kibera in Nairobi, and in Kisumu and Bungoma in western Kenya. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 12 Kenyan and international civil society activists and community volunteers providing services to women. Human Rights Watch identified significant barriers that prevent many survivors from getting even basic medical and mental health support services and from seeking justice. The women and girls interviewed described brutal gang rapes involving two or more attackers. Many said that they were raped vaginally and anally, that they were penetrated with objects, or that dirt was inserted into their private parts. Some were raped in the presence of family members, including young children. Most women said they were raped by policemen or men in uniform, many of whom carried guns, batons, teargas canisters, whips, and wore helmets and other anti-riot gear. In at least one case, a girl died after being raped. A 27-year-old woman interviewed had given birth on August 7, and was raped by three policemen on August 11. “I feel useless,” she said, describing her life afterward. “I don’t speak to people. I feel so sad. I feel as if I have reached the end. I think of killing myself.” Many women and girls said they suffered incapacitating physical injury or experienced other health consequences that left some unable to work or care for their families. Young girls said they experience nightmares, lack of sleep, listlessness, fear, and anxiety that limits their ability to study. Most had not received post-rape medical or psychological care, including medication to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy. Barriers included insecurity, the cost of services or transportation, stigma, a lack of health facilities, and a lack of information about the importance of timely treatment or where survivors could get free treatment. Some women who received medical treatment said that the services were not comprehensive, there was no forensic documentation of sexual violence, or that they did not get appropriate referrals for medical treatment, counseling support, or to the criminal justice system. A history of impunity for sexual violence in Kenya seriously undermines women’s ability to report sexual crimes to the police, Human Rights Watch said. Very few women said they made police reports, and many expressed a lack of confidence in the police due to a long history of human rights abuses and corruption. Others said they feared retaliation. Some women who did try to report sexual violence said that police sent them away without taking statements, ridiculed or verbally abused them, or failed to follow up on complaints. One woman who said she was raped in the presence of police, along with five other women, described what happen when they tried to report the attack: “They asked, ‘How do you know they were police?’ They said, ‘If you had been raped you would have gone to hospital first. Where is the evidence? How can we believe you?’ They told us we must have enjoyed the rape.” The Kenyan government has long ignored election-related sexual crimes and victims’ suffering, Human Rights Watch said. Thousands of women and girls are estimated to have been raped during the 2007-2008 political violence, including by state security agents. They continue to suffer serious physical and psychological trauma, and socioeconomic hardship almost a decade later, and very few cases have been properly investigated or attackers held accountable. Past government plans to assist victims of the 2007-2008 violence have excluded rape survivors, and they have not received medical or other assistance. Barriers to reporting, problems with the collection of forensic evidence, and the unwillingness of authorities to initiate genuine, credible, and fair investigations and prosecutions to punish attackers were key challenges in Kenya after the 2007-2008 election-related rapes, and remain a problem. The Kenyan government should change its approach. It should ensure that all sexual assault victims get timely, quality, and confidential post-rape treatment, including psychosocial, or mental health, care for themselves and their families, and inform communities where victims can get post-rape care, including free treatment. The Kenyan government should ensure that credible investigations are conducted into all allegations of elections-related sexual violence. “Sexual violence survivors should not be left suffering and ashamed of being victims while the Kenyan government shows no shame at failing to meet their needs or to prosecute their attackers,” Odhiambo said. “Instead of downplaying the election-related sexual abuse, the Kenyan government should ensure that all survivors get appropriate medical care and justice.” Selected Accounts Names of victims have been changed for their protection. Rose Otieno, 37, was in her house with her five children on the night of August 11. She said that two men dressed in green-and-black uniforms, boots, and helmets broke into her house. One had a gun, the other a baton and a whip. They asked her where her husband was. “One asked me to say, ‘I do not support Raila [Odinga, the presidential challenger], I support Uhuru [Kenyatta, the winner].’ I refused…. The other one said, ‘Let’s teach her a lesson.’ He raped me in the presence of my children.” She said that due to the stigma and rejection attached to rape: “I didn’t go to hospital. I feared, I was ashamed. I have never gone to hospital. I feared because if you tell someone, even the doctor, you will hear about it.” Liz Nzau said that she was on her way home from work on the night of August 11 when she met a group of young Kikuyu men who were out celebrating Kenyatta’s victory. They asked her, “Why are you not joining the celebration? You are Luo, you are NASA [National Super Alliance] supporter.” She said: “They took me into a shack where there were five other women. They brought some dirty-looking men who raped us as police walked around the shack. They were moving from one woman to another. They were slapping us and beating us with a rubber whip, and urinating on us. One of the women had her [menstrual] period and they wore a plastic paper bag when raping her. One of the women said they inserted a medicine bottle in her anus.” On August 11, Gladys Moraa went to help her neighbor’s young child, who had been hit with a teargas canister. In the ensuing chaos, Grace tripped and fell: “A police officer kicked me on my upper back with his booted feet. I couldn’t move. He raped me and left. Another one came, kicked me on the stomach and back, and raped me. I thought I would die. I was in serious pain.” “My back pains a lot,” she said. “My business was destroyed, and now I do casual work washing for people. But most of the time it is difficult. I have problems bending.” Gladys Moraa said that since she was raped: “even a slight sound scares me. I used to have nightmares. If I got counseling, it would really help me. I feel so sad when I remember. I was not counseled at the hospital.” Moraa heard a scream as a Human Rights Watch researcher was interviewing her and she jumped out of her seat saying, “Are those the police? Are those police?” Purity Onyancha said that her 17-year-old daughter, Peris Onyancha, and a friend were gang raped together on August 14. Peris was left for dead, and her friend died following the rape. “She trembles when she sees boys,” the mother said. “I am worried about her mental health, and how she will perform at school. Sometimes her teacher calls me to say she is not talking, or she’s just walking around the school. When I talk to her, she says she is feeling dizzy and has headache, but when she is checked in the hospital there is nothing.” Mercy Maina and her sister were raped on the night of August 13 by men she described as “police with rastas [dreadlocks].” She said that since the rape, “I feel pain during sex and there is a yellowish discharge. I smell and I have to shower many times a day. When I go near people I feel anxious, like they will smell me.” Grace Kungu said she was raped on August 12 on her way home from work: "They took me to an unfinished building and all four raped me in front [vaginally] and behind [anally]. Since that day, when I am pressed urine just comes out. Even stool, if I hold for long I find that I have stained my underwear. I wear a sanitary pad sometimes or tissue or a handkerchief to prevent leakage. I have a lot of pain in my lower abdomen. I take painkillers all the time." https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/12/14/kenya-sexual-violence-marred-elections utm_content=buffer0e084&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

At least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the month after violence broke out in Myanmar in August, Med The Myanmar military blames the violence on "terrorists" and has denied any wrongdoing. More than 647,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh since August, MSF says. The aid group's survey found that at least 9,000 Rohingya died in Myanmar, also known as Burma, between 25 August and 24 September. "In the most conservative estimations" at least 6,700 of those deaths have been caused by violence, including at least 730 children under the age of five, according to MSF. Previously, the armed forces stated that around 400 people had been killed, most of them described as Muslim terrorists. A case for the International Criminal Court? Jonathan Head, South East Asia correspondent Media captionRohingya Muslims displaced from Tula Toli village in Rakhine State gave disturbing accounts There have been plenty of detailed reports by journalists and researchers, based on interviews conducted with refugees, which make it hard to dispute that terrible human rights abuses took place at the hands of the security forces. But many of these reports focussed on the worst cases; there are several media reports about a massacre at one village called Tula Toli. Some Rohingya I interviewed told me they had fled in fear of violence, but had not actually experienced it. This well-researched figure by MSF suggests the operation conducted by the military was brutal enough to raise the possibility of taking a case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. The problem would be that Myanmar has not ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC and is not bound to co-operate with it. Bringing a case would require the approval of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and China has until now given its full support to the Myanmar government's handling of the crisis. The military crackdown began on 25 August after Rohingya Arsa militants attacked more than 30 police posts. After an internal investigation, the Myanmar army in November exonerated itself of any blame regarding the crisis. It denied killing any civilians, burning their villages, raping women and girls, and stealing possessions. The mostly Muslim minority are denied citizenship by Myanmar, where they are seen as immigrants from Bangladesh. The government does not use the term Rohingya but calls them Bengali Muslims. The government's assertions contradicted evidence seen by BBC correspondents. The United Nations human rights chief has said it seems like "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Image captionMSF says the experiences recounted by refugees were "horrific" "What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured," MSF Medical Director Sidney Wong said. Among the dead children below the age of five, MSF says more than 59% were reportedly shot, 15% burnt to death, 7% beaten to death and 2% killed by landmine blasts. "The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don't account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar," Mr Wong said. In November, Bangladesh signed a deal with Myanmar to return hundreds of thousands of the refugees. MSF said the agreement was "premature" pointing out that "currently people are still fleeing" and reports of violence have come even in recent weeks. The group also warned there was still very limited access for aid groups into Rakhine state. The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who have long experienced persecution in Myanmar. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 BBC News