The country’s civil war has killed more than 50,000 people, forced more than two million to flee abroad and plunged parts of the country into famine AFP/Getty The “shocking scale” of violence against women and girls in South Sudan is double the global average, a new study says. The first comprehensive report on the “magnitude, frequency and brutality” of such violence in South Sudan’s conflict zones was released by the International Rescue Committee and George Washington University’s Global Women’s Institute. As the world’s youngest nation approaches its fifth year of civil war, rape has often been used as a weapon by both government and opposition forces. The civil war has killed more than 50,000 people, forced more than two million to flee abroad and plunged parts of the country into famine. Up to 65 percent of women and girls interviewed for the new study said they had experienced sexual or physical violence. More than half of the women reported domestic abuse. Women and girls living in the United Nations-run civilian protection site in the capital, Juba, were most vulnerable to sexual violence. Chuol Madol said she was gang-raped by government soldiers in October when she left the camp in Juba to look for firewood. “Women were crying but we were so deep in the bush that no one could help us,” the 27-year-old said. “We’re not fighting anyone. We’re only here, trying to live.” The new report cites a “breakdown in the rule of law” in South Sudan, meaning perpetrators go unpunished. “As we have seen in South Sudan time and again since this war started, armed forces on all sides engage in sexual violence with impunity. It is used both opportunistically and as a weapon of war to intimidate, punish and abuse civilians,” said Jehanne Henry, senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch. Civil society organisations are calling on South Sudan’s government and UN agencies to create a “concrete strategy” for combatting the violence. The government did not respond to a request for comment on the new study. Earlier this year, acting spokesman Choul Laam condemned reports of rampant sexual assault, telling the Associated Press the government was “moving swiftly to protect civilians from such behaviour by educating all armed forces and holding the perpetrators accountable”. “Perpetrators of violence against women and girls in South Sudanese communities are multiplying regularly,” said Edmund Yakani, executive director for the Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation, a local advocacy group In light of the new UK-funded study, the British Government has increased support aimed at helping 750,000 survivors in South Sudan and around the world to help “stop the cycles of violence”. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Independent

Burundi has been in political turmoil ever since president Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in 2015, flouting the country’s constitution. Nkurunuziza got his third term, but the country was plunged into crisis just as it was recovering from a thirteen-year civil war. As hundreds flee fearing for their lives and the politically isolated opposition turns to violence, Nkurunziza distracts by passing a series of laws policing women and personal relationships. Earlier this year, Nkurunziza introduced new laws banning women from beating Burundi’s traditional drums. The fine of $280 dollars is more than most women can afford. “It is strictly forbidden to those of the female sex to beat drums. They can however carry out female folk dances accompanying the drums,” read a decree signed by the president. The drumming and ritual dance is performed during festivals and feasts, with drummers selected from sanctuaries, and are often descendants of drummers. In 2014, Unesco added the drums and rituals around them to the list intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The rituals were traditionally male, but more and more women have started their own drumming groups, until the recent law. Nkurunziza’s government has also given cohabiting couples until the end of year to get married or face a fine of $25. The government’s moral crusade will see “common-law unions” put on a special list in some provinces, while in others they face unspecified sanctions. “We want Burundians to understand that everyone is responsible for his life, we want order in this country,” said government spokesman Terence Ntahiraja. The small east African country, he told AFP, is facing a population boom due to “illegal marriages,” which have seen hundreds of schoolgirls getting pregnant. Burundi offers no similarly strict approach to the protection of women who are the victims of gender violence. While the country changed its penal code in 2008 to finally define what rape is, women who are survivors of sexual violence had to scrape together $15 to get the necessary medical exam. Along with the fee, stigma, harassment and a lack of implementation in the courts means that most women simply don’t report. In recent months, militia groups have used rape as a weapon to terrorize communities in opposition strongholds. A pro-Nkurunzinza youth group known as the Imbonerakure was heard shouting chants calling for rape. In a video circulated on social media, dozens of men were seen shouting “Make opponents pregnant so they can give birth to Imbonerakure.” Senior ruling party officials were seen at the rallies and did nothing to stop the chanting. Nkurunziza’s government has issued statements condemning the chanting, but done nothing tangible. The threats are real enough for the hundreds who have fled into neighboring Burundi, telling stories of brutal gang rapes. This, however, is not the immorality Nkurunziza’s government is interested in policing. https://qz.com/1141438/burundi-bans-women-from-drumming-forces-marriages/ (c) 2017 Quartz

Two former colonial powers of the European Union, France and the United Kingdom, have long shaped the bloc’s approach to Africa. France kept the EU’s focus on West Africa and the Sahel, while the UK made sure that the Horn of Africa and East Africa would not be ignored. After Brexit, that may all be about to change. The UK provides almost 15 percent of the budget for the European Development Fund, which runs until 2020, and through which the African Union’s peace and security activities are funded. Somalia, which has close ties to Britain, is by far the continent’s greatest recipient of this funding. Meanwhile, France has championed the efforts of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, known collectively as the G5 Sahel, to combat cross-border jihadist and criminal threats. A French military force comprising 4,000 troops has been based in Chad since 2014, leading the effort to counter the spread of jihadism across the region. The EU’s strategy has thus been more a compilation of national strategies than a truly European plan. The UK’s withdrawal opens a major funding gap for the EU’s development fund, and the European response must be more than a mere redeployment of limited resources toward West Africa. Germany’s New Interest France, with good reasons, will undoubtedly push the EU to give a higher priority to the Sahel. The paltry €50 million awarded by the EU to the G5 Sahel force are largely the product of French diplomatic efforts, as is EU support for the recently launched Alliance for the Sahel. This increased European interest in the Sahel is welcome, but it needs to have a broader base than French diplomacy. By chance, Brexit coincides with increased German interest in Africa. Partly because of the European migration crisis, Germany has recognized that instability in Africa directly affects its national interests. In January 2017, it unveiled its “Marshall Plan with Africa,” hoping to promote bottom-up economic development and greater employment opportunities for Africans. Germany also raised its troop ceiling from 650 to 1,000 for MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. It is now Berlin’s largest military deployment, exceeding those in Afghanistan and northern Iraq. However, there are still major differences between Germany, which favors a largely civilian approach to African issues, and France, which has not shied away from bold military missions in an emergency. A truly European strategy for Africa should borrow from the best of the diverse cultures of its member states, and the EU should use the likely reduction in funding as an opportunity to review its priorities, its methods, and its procedures. The Europeans should discuss with their African interlocutors the best way to support an African security architecture able to respond to new and emerging threats: is it through ad-hoc, regional coalitions like the G5 Sahel and the Multinational Joint Task Force combating Boko Haram in Lake Chad, or African Union-led peace operations such as AMISOM? They should develop a more strategic vision of the relationship with Africa, and of the respective roles of the private sector and public development aid. They should also take a hard look at the way they disburse funds, with excessive management costs, uncoordinated national and EU rules, and rigid procedures that pale in comparison to the swift decision-making of China. Thursday and Friday’s AU-EU summit in Abidjan should thus be seized as an opportunity to identify shared strategic interests: Africa and Europe are neighbors and they need each other to succeed, but the asymmetric nature of the relationship, as research by International Crisis Group shows, has led to much frustration. An honest appraisal of past successes and failures of past African-European relations would be a good foundation for the future. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 International Crisis Group

A United Nations women's rights panel called on Myanmar on Tuesday to report within six months on rapes and sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls by its security forces in northern Rakhine state and measures taken to punish soldiers. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) also asked authorities to provide details on women and girls killed in the violence since the army crackdown began in late August. The campaign, which followed attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents, has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh and left their villages burned to the ground. The rare request for an "exceptional report" from a country was only the panel's fourth since 1982. "We request an exceptional report from a state when a situation of grave, massive and systematic violations occur and these issues are relevant to mandate of the Committee," panel member Nahla Haidar told Reuters. "The exceptional report is also like a red flag," she said. The move aimed to help Myanmar authorities "get out of the tunnel of this recent conflict which has really set back Myanmar which was going on the right foot to democratisation", she said. The U.N. watchdog panel, composed of 23 independent experts, set a six-month deadline for the government to submit the report to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "The Committee requested information concerning cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls by State security forces; and to provide details on the number of women and girls who have been killed or have died due to other non-natural causes during the latest outbreak of violence," it said in a statement. Haider said: "Essentially it's rape, sexual violence which amounts to torture in certain cases for girls and women. And gang-raping also was documented...And yes, torture - rapes used as a systematic weapon of war". The experts requested information on "investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentences or disciplinary measures imposed on perpetrators, including members of the armed forces, found guilty of such crimes." Specifically, they sought information on the battalions that have undertaken the "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine state since August 25 "and under whose command". They asked whether instructions have been given or are being issued to all branches of state security forces that torture, sexual violence and expulsions are banned "and that those responsible will be prosecuted and punished". The panel said it wanted to know how many Rohingya women and girls are being detained by security forces. Pope Francis on Tuesday urged the leaders of majority-Buddhist Myanmar, mired in a crisis over the fate of Muslim Rohingya people, to commit themselves to justice, human rights and respect for "each ethnic group and its identity". _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reuters

A German court has upheld two convictions of a well-known neo-Nazi for Holocaust denial and sentenced her to 14 months in prison. Ursula Haverbeck, 89, was sentenced Tuesday by a district appeals court in Detmold for repeatedly denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany. Haverbeck had appealed her 2016 conviction for writing to the Detmold mayor during the trial of an Auschwitz guard claiming the death camp was only a labor camp. In closing arguments at that trial she again denied the Holocaust, prompting another conviction. Several courts have sentenced Haverbeck to prison sentences in the past, including a Berlin district court in October, but Haverbeck has remained free pending appeals. The German news agency dpa reported Haverbeck's lawyers would again appeal this latest conviction. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 ABC News

Members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) are summoned for a hearing before a special court in Dhaka, July 12, 2010. © 2010 Reuters The Bangladesh government should agree to new trials meeting international standards for members of the former Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) accused of mutiny and murder, including 139 whose death sentences were upheld on November 27, 2017, by the High Court, Human Rights Watch said today. The court also upheld life sentences for another 146 people. On February 25 and 26, 2009, members of the BDR mutinied against their commanding officers at the central Dhaka headquarters, killing 74 people, including 57 army officers. A number of women relatives of the officers were sexually assaulted. Human Rights Watch research has found that many of the accused were tortured in custody and most were denied access to proper representation. “We have long said that the atrocities that took place during the mutiny need to be investigated and prosecuted, but this should not be done through unfair mass trials after the use of torture,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Particularly when the death penalty is involved, expediency cannot take priority over justice.” The BDR mutiny took place soon after the new Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina won elections in December 2008. Under great pressure from the army and amid fears of a coup, the government responded to the mutiny by rounding up nearly 6,000 members of the BDR. Many were tried in mass trials before closed military courts. A separate civilian prosecution team chose to try nearly 850 members of the BDR in a single mass trial in one courtroom. In July 2012, Human Rights Watch released a report, “‘The Fear Never Leaves Me’: Torture, Custodial Deaths, and Unfair Trials after the 2009 Mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles,” which provided a detailed account of the mutiny and the authorities’ response. Human Rights Watch documented serious abuses by the authorities in the aftermath, including at least 47 custodial deaths and widespread torture of BDR members by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and other security forces. The government has claimed that all deaths in custody were due to natural causes. Human Rights Watch documented how the mass trials of hundreds of the accused left most without adequate counsel, adequate time to prepare a defense, or notice of the charges or evidence against them. Crucially, many made confessions under torture. The chief prosecutor claimed that no confession obtained under duress would be used in court, but legal teams eventually assigned to some of the cases showed Human Rights Watch documentation demonstrating that coerced confessions had been used as evidence. “Families of those killed and injured in the mutiny need justice and closure, but the answer is not through flawed trials,” Adams said. “True justice comes only through sound procedures that comply with the rule of law, and the families of the victims deserve better answers than this mass roundup.” The Bangladeshi authorities should establish an independent investigative and prosecutorial task force with sufficient expertise, authority, and resources to rigorously investigate allegations of human rights abuses after the mutiny. All those subject to unfair trials should be given a new trial. The November 27 judgment was in response to an appeal of the trial judgment. As with those sentenced to death, the trials against the mutineers sentenced to life in prison were rife with due process concerns, including coerced confessions. Similarly, few of the accused sentenced to life in prison had access to lawyers or information about the case against them. “The death penalty is a cruel and irreversible punishment that should never be used,” Adams said. “Bangladesh should join the international movement to abolish it, particularly in cases like these in which suspects were tortured, nearly 50 died in custody, and due process failed.” ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

National Security Advisor Thaung Tun speaks at the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre in Yangon in July 2017. Photo: MOI Myanmar’s leaders are worried the UN will invoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in order to intervene in the Rakhine State crisis, said national security advisor Thaung Tun during a televised roundtable discussion on Sunday. R2P is defined by paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Outcome Document of the 2005 UN World Summit. These passages allow countries to take collective diplomatic action through the Security Council to protect the populations of other countries from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, as well as their incitement. Military intervention is understood to be a last resort in preventing these crimes. Myanmar military operations in Rakhine State have sent more than 620,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh since August. The Myanmar government has repeatedly insisted that the crisis must be solved on a bilateral basis with Bangladesh and has relied on China to block efforts to internationalize the crisis. However, Thaung Tun, who was recently chosen for a newly created cabinet post, said the danger of UN intervention is rising. “They have listed us as a red color country. It is very dangerous for our country,” he said, referring to a crisis level advisory system that is not included in the official R2P language. (The Irrawaddy has posited that yellow indicates that conditions are present to cause worry; orange indicates the first signs of genocide; while red indicates a crisis.) “We cannot leave this problem. We need to solve it the best way. We need to repatriate [the refugees] back to our country, but we need to bring them back based on their own wishes and not force them,” Thaung Tun said. Pressure from the UN has been mounting as Myanmar’s leaders have refused to acknowledge military abuses and have blocked any thorough investigation of numerous allegations. On November 6, the Security Council issued its first presidential statement against Myanmar in a decade, calling for an end to military violence in Rakhine State and expressing “grave concern” over allegations of atrocities. UN Secretary General António Guterres is expected to report back to the Security Council on Myanmar’s progress in early December. If the violence and denial continue, the next move by the Security Council could include punitive measures, such as sanctions. Thaung Tun said during the discussion that international pressure poses a greater threat to Myanmar today than it did following the military crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 or following the military’s refusal to honor the 1990 election results. “International pressure did not hurt our sovereignty at that time, but it could this time, as well as the stability of the country.” ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Coconuts Yangon

Aung San Suu Kyi has been stripped of the "Freedom of Oxford" award by the city's council, over her failure to speak out on abuses against Myanmar's Rohingya. In a unanimous decision on Monday evening, Oxford City Council voted to strip the Burmese State Counsellor of the award she received in 1997 and collected personally in 2012, after 15 years under house arrest. "It was right to give the Freedom of the City to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1997 in recognition of her long struggle for democracy and her personal links to Oxford," the cross-party motion read. But, according to the motion, she had not responded to the council's letter calling on her to "do whatever she can to stop the ethnic cleansing in her country". More than 600,000 members of the largely-Muslim Rohingya ethnic group have fled to Bangladesh, after Myanmar's military launched a campaign ostensibly aimed at eradicating Rohingya armed groups. Those who have fled describe a campaign of killing, rape, and destruction, accounts that have been backed by human rights groups and journalists working in the region. Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to recognise that atrocities are taking place and has not spoken out against the Burmese military. Labour party councillor Mary Clarkson said the City of Oxford would not turn a "blind eye" to the ongoing violence in Myanmar. "The burning of [Rohingya] villages has been independently confirmed by satellite images, and the UN has called the situation 'a textbook example of genocide', yet Aung San Suu Kyi has denied any ethnic cleansing and dismissed numerous claims of sexual violence against Rohingya women as 'fake rape'." The council joins a growing list of institutions which have revoked honours. Students at Aung San Suu Kyi's alma mater, St Hugh's College at Oxford University, removed her name from its common room, and the college took down her portrait from its entrance. Last week, students at the London School of Economics voted to strip an honourary presidency awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1992. Prior to Oxford, the cities of Sheffield and Glasgow also stripped the Burmese leader of their Freedom of the City awards. Organisations outside the UK have also taken steps to withdraw awards. Canada's largest trade union, Unifor, revoked the honourary membership it had awarded Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winner, in 2000. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Al Jazeera

Ethiopia's government says more than 20 people have been killed in renewed clashes between ethnic Oromos and Somalis in the past week. Spokesperson Negeri Lenco says 98 people were arrested in the Oromia region and five arrested in the Somali region. A long-standing border dispute and an increased military presence in the regions triggered the recent fighting. Officials agreed to reconcile differences in April and troops were deployed to major roads, but clashes have continued. Fighting in September killed several dozen people and displaced tens of thousands of Oromos. "People were fighting with whatever means they have against the Somali Special Police," Galagalo Daalacha, an ethnic Oromo, told The Associated Press of Friday's fighting in the Borana area. "Many people fled to the forest after troops ... entered the area." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 News24

By July 2017, over half a million people have visited The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), widely known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT), in which three top Khmer Rouge leaders were convicted: Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, and Kaing Guek Eav. Nearly 300 million USD has been spent over the past eleven years to sustain this hybrid court operation. As the KRT approaches its end, some Western observers in the transnational human rights community have hailed this court as a successful transitional justice mechanism. At the local level however, the effects of the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime continue to linger to this day. On Snail Island (Koh Kjang in Khmer), near Sihanoukville, lives Yanna, a victim of the Khmer Rouge regime. She was separated from her children and sent to different concentration camps, as part of the regime’s reeducation programs. Daily activities mostly consisted of manual labor, specifically working in rice paddies and digging canals, from sunrise to sunset. After Liberation Day, January 7, 1979, Yanna returned to her village to personally confront the elderly women whom she believed had starved her children to death during the KR regime. Her strong belief in the Buddhist principle of karma – that everyone will ultimately get what they deserve – allowed her to make peace with the elderly women. Survivors often contemplate the past, and how their lives could have been without the KR. Yanna, who prior to the KR had been a successful businesswoman, was forced to burn all her money; she spends most nights thinking about “what if’s” and how she could have had a big, healthy, and happy family. A former S-21 guard Khieu Peou, who insists that he has no blood on his hands, is regretful over the loss of his youth. He has lived through and fought in multiple wars and was homesick the entire time; he wishes things had been different. Before the war ended his education, another former S-21 guard Cheam Seur dreamed about becoming a teacher. While imagining what life could have been without the KR regime, survivors and former KR cadres have begun to see the importance of educating the younger generation about what happened. Yanna believes that it is her duty to educate the youth about the KR regime and that not doing so only reinforces the generational disconnect; she has often met youth who simply laughed at her stories of being put to work in KR concentration camps or were unable to believe that something of that nature could have possibly ever happened. Khung Run, another survivor who lives in Banteay Chheu, a village just in the outskirts of Siem Reap, has also encountered difficulty in educating the youth. Like many survivors, he fears the possibility of another genocide and sees education is a form of prevention. Even his own children cannot fathom how a genocide or a mass famine could have occurred, despite repeatedly hearing the personal accounts of their parents and older siblings. The children of former KR cadres often find it hard to believe that mass killings and starvation occurred during the KR regime simply because they were told otherwise growing up. For instance, Ngin Sinoun from Anlong Veng, the niece of Ta Mok, one of the senior officials during the KR regime known as “the Butcher,” was never taught about the harsh reality of the regime despite having a father who was a former KR soldier. Her family led her to believe that the KR revolution existed to help the country fight off the Vietnamese invaders, and that “the Vietnamese killed everyone, including Cambodian intellectuals,” an erroneous claim that KR revolutionaries continue to make today. The KR revolution was not just something that she heard about or read in a textbook – she experienced it everyday in this former KR community. Growing up, she would often flee to the mountains to escape the fighting with Vietnamese troops. Ta Mok even told her to be careful and study hard to prevent the Vietnamese from ever brainwashing her or indoctrinating her. However, it is important to keep in mind that her circumstances are also quite different from that of the children of other survivors. She grew up in Angling Veng, which up to 1997 was still occupied by the KR. The KR regime that she is familiar with, in the 1980s and 1990s, is very different from the KR responsible for developing the Killing Fields in the late 1970s. This raises the importance of writing a collective history for the entire nation to allow a deeper understanding of this historical complexity. Today both survivors and former KR cadres stress the importance of genocide education for the younger generations, but limited resources significantly hinder their efforts. History teachers emphasize the need to educate children about past events in order to prevent events like the genocide from re-occuring. Education is prevention. In Kampong Tralach district Kampong Chhnang province, the hotbed of KR recruits in the early 1970s, history teachers Sok Saruon and Cum Chandara, both born after the KR regime, bemoan that the current educational curriculum covers too limited a time period. They believe that interactive forms of education can be more effective: bringing in survivors to tell their stories, having field trips to S-21 or the Killing Fields, and using visual media. Peace and reconciliation activist Man Sokkoeun, at Youth for Peace, has adopted such an approach, showing pictures and videos to the youth to raise awareness about the KR regime and draw their interests in learning about their country’s history. While the United Nations and transnational human rights community have urged for the ending of the prosecution of the KR leadership for crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Cambodians now have the enormous task of preserving the history of the genocide and the memory of its victims for younger generations. Since 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a non-governmental organization that has documented the atrocities of the KR regime since 1995, has partnered up the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Royal Cambodian government to work with schools to provide information and resources to educate students. For the first time in their modern history, Cambodians have begun to take ownership in not only documenting but defining their own history. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 IAPS Dialogue

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees wait to receive permission from the Bangladeshi army to continue their way after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, near Teknaf, Bangladesh, November 26, 2017 The repatriation agreement applies to Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh who fled Myanmar in two major outbreaks of violence since October 2016 Rohingya are still fleeing into Bangladesh even after an agreement was signed with Myanmar to repatriate hundreds of thousands of the ethnic minority displaced along the border, officials said on Monday. The arrangement struck by the neighbours on Thursday raised the prospect of at least 700,000 Rohingya living in overcrowded camps in southeastern Bangladesh being returned to Myanmar. But at least 3,000 refugees have crossed since then, the United Nations said in its latest report on the crisis, with guards at check-posts along the frontier also reporting a largely uninterrupted flow of newcomers. “The number of arrivals has declined, but it has not stopped,” Commander of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Lt Col SM Ariful Islam said. Ariful said at least 400 refugees had passed by guards under his command along the border with Myanmar since the agreement was signed. An estimated 624,000 Rohingya have fled a military crackdown in Myanmar since August described by UN and US authorities as ethnic cleansing. The repatriation agreement applies to Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh who fled Myanmar in two major outbreaks of violence since October 2016. It does not extend to an estimated 200,000 Rohingya refugees who were living in Bangladesh prior to that date. The UN refugee agency UNHCR has raised concerns over the terms of the arrangement, saying conditions for the safe return of the Rohingya were not yet in place. Bangladesh said at the weekend those returned would initially live in temporary shelters or camps. Rohingya leaders have said they will not return to Myanmar unless they are recognised as citizens with full rights and ensured protection from violence. Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya, denying them citizenship and restricting their movement. The UNHCR says any repatriation deal must include “the informed consent of refugees.” ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Dhaka Tribune

Pope Francis previously condemned the atrocities committed against the Rohingya [Max Rossi/Reuters] Pope Francis has arrived in Myanmar on his first trip to the Southeast Asian nation, where tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees have faced brutal military crackdown in the past three months. His trip comes as the Myanmar government is accused of "ethnically cleansing" its Rohingya Muslim minority, more than 600,000 of whom have taken shelter in neighboring Bangladesh. The 80-year-old leader of Roman Catholic Church who has spoken against "persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters" in the past has been advised not use the word Rohingya. On his first day in Myanmar, Francis met general Min Aung Hlaing, a senior army commander who is in part behind the persecution of the Rohingya's in Myanmar. In a post on his Facebook page, Hlaing wrote that he told the Pope that there was no religious discrimination in the country. Neither Francis nor general Hliang clarified if the Rohingya issue was discussed. Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya? Ro Mayyu Ali, a Rohingya Muslim who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in September, said he hoped the pope would use his visit to speak up for the persecuted minority. "I will never forget the moment you stopped your white popemobile and kissed the separation wall, a barrier between Palestine and Israel, during your visit to Bethlehem in 2014. It was a massive political statement," Ali told Al Jazeera. "I hope you use this opportunity to use speak up for some of the 620,000 Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh and witnessed gang rape, mass killing, and seen their children burned alive." Francis has previously condemned the atrocities, including mass killings and gang rapes, committed against the Muslim minority. He is also expected to meet with refugees in the coming days. "Rohingya is a very sensitive topic, it is a very sensitive word here in Myanmar, particularly when it comes to dealing with the government," said Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler, reporting from outside the archbishop's house in the country's largest city of Yangon. "The archbishop himself has advised the pope not to use that term here because it is something the government doesn't recognise," Heidler added. Ethnic cleansing According to the United Nations, security forces in Myanmar reportedly burned down entire villages and opened fire at people fleeing burning homes. Myanmar's ruling party has objected to the use of the term "Rohingya" to identify the mostly Muslim minority, demanding that they be called "Bengalis" despite the persecuted group living there for generations. Is it safe for Rohingya refugees to return to Rakhine? "But what a lot of people are saying here…what they really want is for him [Francis] to focus on peace in this nation," the Al Jazeera correspondent said. "Obviously, the international community expects him to focus on the Rohingya issue because that is a crisis viewed by the world…as ethnic cleansing," he said. Besides senior general Hliang, the pontiff is also expected to meet Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has blamed the Rohingya for the crisis. The UN, as well as the United States, have said the violent actions taken by Myanmar's armed forces and "local vigilantes" amount to "ethnic cleansing" against its Rohingya minority. In 2012, Myanmar's armed forces began to force Rohingya into refugee camps, both in Rakhine state and across the border into Bangladesh. The ongoing crisis is being described as the world's biggest forced exodus this year. Last week Bangladesh government signed a deal with Myanmar on the repatriation of Rohingya but details of the deal have still not been made public. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Al Jazeera