Rohingya Muslim women lined up to tell reporters of missing husbands, mothers and sons on Saturday as international media were escorted for the first time to a village in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state affected by violence since October. "My son is not a terrorist. He was arrested while doing farm work," said one young mother, Sarbeda. She had bustled her way -- an infant in her arms -- through several other women telling reporters their husbands had been arrested on false grounds. In November, Myanmar's army swept through villages where stateless Rohingya Muslims live in the area of Maungdaw. Some 75,000 people fled across the nearby border to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. U.N. investigators who interviewed refugees said allegations of gang rape, torture, arson and killings by security forces in the operation were likely crimes against humanity. Myanmar's government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied most of the claims, and is blocking entry to a U.N. fact-finding mission tasked with looking into the allegations. The government has also kept independent journalists and human rights monitors out of the area for the past nine months. This week, the Ministry of Information escorted more than a dozen foreign and local journalists representing international media, including Reuters, to the area under a guard of officers from the paramilitary Border Guard Police BRUTAL TACTICS The reporters spent nearly two days in Buthidaung, a township in Maungdaw district of Rakhine state, where they were taken to sites of alleged militant activity. They were taken to Kyar Gaung Taung, one of three settlements requested by the journalists. Officials cited time constraints for the limited access. Reuters had previously gathered accounts from residents by phone and from former residents who have fled to Bangladesh, of brutal counterinsurgency tactics unleashed in Kyar Gaung Taung and several nearby villages in mid-November. When a group of journalists insisted on speaking to villagers away from security forces, allegations of abuses by troops emerged almost immediately. Kyar Gaung Taung resident Sarbeda, 30, had been able to visit her son, Nawsee Mullah, 14, at a police camp where he is being held separately from adult detainees. She was not sure if he had a lawyer, she said. Reuters reported in March that 13 boys under the age of 18 were detained during security operations. They were included in a list of 423 people charged under the colonial-era Unlawful Associations Act, which outlaws joining or aiding rebel groups. At least 32 people from Kyar Gaung Taung village had been arrested and 10 killed, said a village schoolteacher, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. He estimated that half the village's 6,000 residents had fled during the clearance operation. BURNED TO DEATH Another villager, Lalmuti, 23, pointed to a small pile of ashes where she said she found her father's remains. She described how he was bound and thrown into a house and burned to death. Her mother was later arrested when authorities deemed her complaint about the killings to be fabricated. She is serving a six-month jail sentence, Lalmuti and two other villagers said. Reporters were not given a chance to put these allegations to authorities, and Reuters was unable to reach officials to confirm the details of the cases by phone. In a press briefing on Friday, Brigadier General Thura San Lwin, commander of Myanmar's Border Guard Police, said some villagers had made what he said were erroneous claims and were subsequently charged and jailed for lying to the authorities. "The media said we torched houses and that there were rape cases -- they give wrong information," Thura San Lwin told reporters. He also disputed the U.N.'s estimates for the number of people who fled, claiming local records showed that only 22,000 people were missing in the conflict. Myanmar officials say a domestic investigation, led by Vice President Myint Swe - a former lieutenant general in the army - and a commission headed for former U.N. chief Kofi Annan - which is not mandated to investigate human rights abuses - are the appropriate ways to address problems in Rakhine State. Simon Lewis , Wa Lone in Yangon, Bill Tarrant. | Reuters ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reuters

If there has been a “sea change in improvement in humanitarian access” in Sudan, as the outgoing Obama administration claimed in justifying its initiation of the process for lifting U.S. economic sanctions on the genocidal Khartoum regime, why do we continue to see headlines such as these on such a regular basis? Is the absence of humanitarian presence in these areas of Darfur a lack of capacity on the part of the UN and international nongovernmental humanitarian organizations? Or, as a number of INGO’s report, is it because Khartoum still restricts access to many hundreds of thousands of people? To ask the question is to answer it. And why is there still no yielding by Khartoum on humanitarian access, especially food, to starving civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile? Why is the continuing humanitarian embargo so rarely mentioned? By the U.S., the UN, the African Union, and other international actors of consequence. In the case of the UN, the failure is compounded by the refusal of the UN World Health Organization, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and UNICEF to use the word “cholera”—this in deference to the sensibilities of the Khartoum regime, which perversely refuses to use or allow use of the word “cholera.” The health consequences of this shameful acquiescence are massive and growing. Resources to address the country-wide cholera epidemic are most conspicuously absent in Darfur: • Malnutrition cases increasing among Darfur IDPs: official | Sudan Tribune | July 14, 2017 (NYALA) http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article62990 A growing number of children and elderly are malnourished at Darfur camps for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) due to the reduction of food rations provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), said IDPs official. In its weekly bulletin on 24 June, the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said a recent survey conducted by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found critical levels of acute malnutrition in Jebel Marra…. The humanitarian official at the Darfur Refugees and IDPs Association Salih Idris told Sudan Tribune on Thursday that “malnutrition cases among children and the elderly are growing continuously.” The world well knows that not nearly enough food is being provided to many hundreds of thousands of children throughout Sudan, especially in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile; the failure to gain access is a failure to confront the Khartoum regime over its various strategies and tactics for denying access. • Cholera update: Displaced people in Darfur especially vulnerable | Radio Dabanga | July 13, 2017 | DARFUR / SOUTH KORDOFAN / EL GENEINA / TOKAR | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-update-displaced-people-in-darfur-especially-vulnerable On Monday six people died at Kabkabiya hospital in North Darfur of cholera, while on Tuesday the isolation centre reported 18 new cases of the disease, bringing the total number of hospitalised cases to 28. More deaths and infections have been reported from across Sudan. The Coordinator of Kabkabiya camps told Radio Dabanga that four of the dead were displaced persons residing at El Salam, Midan El Kheil and Hay El Salam camps, while the other two were residing in the western and northern areas of Kabkabiya. The Coordinator said that the Minister of Health of North Darfur visited the isolation centre in Kabkabiya hospital on Tuesday. On Tuesday the number of hospitalised cases of cholera at the medical isolation centre of camp Zamzam in North Darfur amounted to eight. The Coordinator of Zamzam camps told Radio Dabanga that the patients are suffering of lack of light in the isolation centre. He pointed out that there is only one medical assistant for all infection cases in the hospital. He said the local authorities have not responded to their repeated demands to spray the camp and specify the health centre for cases of cholera. Cholera breeding grounds such as this are increasingly common during the current rainy season in Darfur • Woman dies giving birth, care lacking in Jebel Marra | Radio Dabanga | July 14, 2017 | DERIBAT | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/woman-dies-giving-birth-care-lacking-in-jebel-marra A women died in labour in a village near Deribat in East Jebel Marra on Wednesday. There was no adequate medical care or an ambulance available. The woman died in Talba, north of Deribat, in the most mountainous area of Darfur. One of her relatives told Radio Dabanga that there was no adequate medical care, or an ambulance to transport her to El Fasher. “There has been a lack of health facilities in Jebel Marra recently. This causes an increase in the mortality rates of pregnant women and women in labour in this area,” he said. Medical sources reported that health services are “entirely absent” in large parts of East Jebel Marra, while the government of South Darfur continues to deny medics access to the area. In 2015, the federal Ministry of Health in South Darfur reported it has the highest maternal mortality rate in Sudan, without the government being able to reduce the figures. Conditions in many locations for displaced persons in Darfur remain appalling for lack of humanitarian access and resources • Darfur’s East Jebel Marra devoid of health services, 30 die of cholera | Radio Dabanga | July 10, 2017 | DARFUR / NORTH KORDOFAN / EASTERN SUDAN | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/darfur-s-east-jebel-marra-devoid-of-health-services-30-die-of-cholera Medical sources in South Darfur reported that more than 30 people died of cholera and at least 50 others have been infected in East Jebel Marra locality during the first week of July. The disease has spread to Liba, Jasu, Fugouli, Rakona, Dolda, Sawani, Duwo, and Fina, they said. The sources confirmed that health services are “entirely absent” in large parts of East Jebel Marra, while the government of South Darfur continues to deny medics access to the area. They called on the federal health authorities, the international community, especially the World Health Organisation, to act to allow health actors access to the locality to save the lives of people. Darfur, Kordofan In North Darfur, eight people died of cholera in the Kabkabiya camps for the displaced over the weekend. The coordinator of the Kabkabiya camps reported that two children died on Friday, four adults died on Saturday, and two on Sunday. He said that there are 16 patients currently being treated in Kabkabiya Hospital. A number of patients recovered and left the hospital. The hospital of Ed Daein, capital of East Darfur, is receiving at least five cases of cholera daily. In the area of Labado two cholera cases were reported, a doctor told this station. The medical isolation centre of the El Baraka administrative unit in Sheikan locality in North Kordofan received two cholera patients last week. • Cholera update: Nine die in West Darfur camp | Radio Dabanga | July 7, 2017 | MURNEI / SHEARIA / KABKABIYA / SENNAR | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-update-nine-people-die-in-west-darfur-camp Nine people died of cholera in Murnei camp in West Darfur this week. Three people died in Kabkabiya on Wednesday. In Murnei, nine displaced people died, and at least seventeen others were infected with cholera, the head of the camp reported on Sunday. “The disease begun to spread in the beginning of this month, but intensified, with four patients who died on Monday.” On Wednesday, two people infected with cholera died in Murnei. The next day three cholera patients passed away. “The total number of hospitalised cholera cases amounted to seventeen people, among them patients who are in a life-threatening situation.” East Darfur One person died of cholera and four others were infected at Khazan Jadeed area in Shearia, East Darfur, on Wednesday. Omda Jaafar told Radio Dabanga that the medical isolation centre has seen eight patients die from cholera since the disease broke out in the area on 6 June. He said that so far there had been 102 cases of cholera. 88 people recovered from the disease. Fourteen are still being treated. “I am concerned about the increase in the number of cases because of the residents’ dependence on drinking water, which is unsafe.” North Darfur Three people who were infected with cholera died on Wednesday in Kabkabiya. The number of dead in the local hospital has risen to eighteen patients. Six others were also hospitalised that day. The patients come from Wadi Bari village, a witness told Radio Dabanga. Yesterday, one of the sheikhs of Zamzam camp, south of El Fasher, reported that they received two new cases, two women of 27 years and 37 years old. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

War is messy, leaving in its wake, not just death, injuries and destruction, but persistent distrust. To heal, there needs to be communication, understanding, and above all a sense of righting wrongs. In this, Sri Lanka’s Government is faltering, despite promises to its own people, as well as to the international community. Sri Lanka’s three-decade war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) killed an estimated 100,000 civilians, left many more injured and displaced, and widened a seeming unbridgeable rift between the minority Tamil and Muslim communities, and majority Sinhalese communities. After an October 2015 pledge to the United Nations Human Rights Council to address justice and accountability, Sri Lanka’s Government in 2016 embarked on a nation-wide consultation to find ways to deliver answers. The Government entrusted the task to an 11-member Consultation Task Force (CTF), representing a cross-section of Sri Lanka’s ethnic, regional, and religious groups. Nearly half the team, including the head of the CTF, were women. The consultation process was a complicated one. The CTF recruited representatives of local civil society, political, feminist, healthcare and religious leaders as Zonal Task Force members (ZTF), who could conduct consultations on the ground across the various districts and provinces. Several ZTF members told Human Rights Watch that it was a difficult process, with little support or outreach from the government. Worse, they said people turned up for meetings despite intense fear of security force surveillance. The ZTF reported robust participation even in the southern predominantly Sinhala provinces, and from within the military forces themselves – groups that had been expected to be somewhat recalcitrant. This is because communities trusted members of the task force, and wanted to both understand the transitional justice process and work towards justice, in spite of the fears and difficulties. The ZTF ended their consultations in August 2016, and submitted their reports on their respective districts and provinces. The CTF then compiled these various reports, and distilled the findings and recommendations into one central report, which was submitted to the government on January 3, 2017. The report makes strong recommendations. It calls for the creation of a war crimes court comprised of both national and international judges and other officials, with no time limit on its jurisdiction. Support for this court included Sinhalese, whose population suffered thousands of enforced disappearances three decades ago, for which there has been no accountability. The task force also recommended a countrywide response to disappearances, financial and symbolic reparations, a constitutional and political settlement, resolution of longstanding land disputes, and attention to psychosocial needs. Half a year later, the Sri Lankan Government has let this important initiative languish. Although officials travelling abroad boast about the consultation process and herald it as a signal of the Government’s determination to abide by the Human Rights Council resolution, it has completely ignored the report domestically. Foreign governments watching Sri Lanka’s progress on the resolution need to ask tough questions about why yet another Sri Lankan Government report is banished into silence. Meanwhile, the task force members, both national and zonal, are left in a quandary. While many joined the effort with a fair degree of scepticism, aware that the Sri Lankan State had undertaken many commissions of inquiry which in the end led to no redress, they had hoped that the Government led by President Sirisena was sincere in its promises. And now they feel let down. A CTF member described both the exhilaration of the process and the attendant disappointment: “The consultations gave way to an amazing non-patronising community of support…the best thing about the experience is that people had ideas. But by January 2017, I was wondering: what the hell?” ZTF members, particularly community leaders who have spent years building relationships of trust, feel they are bearing the brunt of public rage over the lack of action. They feel exposed, and are confronted daily by their communities, yet another failed promise but this time by trusted local leaders. “They are very angry with us, people have lost their faith, even with me,” one ZTF member told Human Rights Watch. “And now, I also have lost faith.” The Government of Sri Lanka should publicly acknowledge the findings of the consultation report and ensure that its recommendations – which are nothing more than the voices of the aggrieved nationwide, across ethnic and religious lines – are appropriately implemented through robust justice mechanisms. This is not just so Sri Lanka can keep its commitments internationally, as it must, but to reassure its own citizens that it believes that peace includes justice, and not just the end of war. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

Buddhists have protested in Rakhine state against the information-gathering visit of the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, who has slammed the government's treatment of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority. Fewer than 100 demonstrators waited for the arrival of Yanghee Lee in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, on Wednesday, chanting slogans and holding signs that called the UN rapporteur unfair and unwanted as she passed in her car. Rakhine has been the scene of communal violence at the hands of Buddhist extremists since 2012. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands forced from homes to live in squalid camps in dire conditions in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. According to the UN, the Rohingya are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Last October, the army launched a crackdown in Rakhine after a deadly attack on the country’s border guards left nine policemen dead. The government blamed the Rohingya for the assault. There have been numerous accounts by eyewitnesses of summary executions, rapes and arson attacks against Muslims since the crackdown began. The military has blocked access to Rakhine and banned journalists and aid workers from entering the zone. Upon an invitation of the government, Lee is on a 12-day visit to Myanmar during which she is scheduled to meet political and community leaders and civil society representatives to discuss human rights issues with them. After her arrival in Sittwe, Lee visited a prison where hundreds of Rohingya men are detained on suspicion of having connections to the perpetrators of the October assaults. Than Tun, a leader of the Rakhine Buddhist community, said, "Yanghee Lee has been here in Rakhine three or four times but every time she goes back and writes a report about her trip or has press conferences and never mentioned any good thing about either Rakhine people or the Myanmar government." "What Rakhine people think about Yanghee Lee is that she is too one-sided," he claimed. The United Nations Human Rights Council agreed in March to send an international fact-finding mission to Myanmar tasked with investigating allegations of crimes by Myanmar’s security forces against the Rohingya. Myanmar said it would deny entry to the members of the UN fact-finding mission. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 presstv

On 29 June 2017, Michael Vickery, the legendary historian on Southeast Asia and perhaps the very best expert on ancient Khmer (Cambodian) civilization, passed away. He was, as one writer put it, a historian’s historian. I knew Vickery (or Michael no. 1 as I kiddingly referred to him when his name came up) for over two decades. I had the privilege of spending hundreds of hours with him. We talked about history and politics, but mostly about the pre-Khmer Rouge period when he first came to Cambodia, his research on the Khmer Rouge period (formally known as Democratic Kampuchea – “DK”), which generated several articles and perhaps one of the most lucid texts on that period, Cambodia 1975-1982, and the post-DK / post-Paris Peace Accords (1991) Cambodia. Vickery was my friend, my teacher, and when it came to critical historical analysis from which credible conclusions could be drawn, my mentor. Vickery was also my expert historian in the Ieng Sary case (Mr. Ieng Sary was the former DK Foreign Minister) at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”). And it is through this experience of working with him, watching and listening to him carry on with Ieng Sary, reviewing his research, analyzing the works of other historians and journalists who wrote on the DK period, and dissecting the statements and testimonies of witnesses, that I began to fully appreciate the hazards of what he characterized as the Standard Total View, or STV as he commonly referred to it. I had read several of his books, most notably Cambodia 1975-1982, where he devotes a good part of a chapter to discussing and showing the STV, but it was not until I began having lengthy conversations with Vickery – where he would mercilessly go through a text by some celebrated historian, pointing out the inadequacies of critical and well accepted assertions and conclusions – that I fully understood why he would get all worked-up about certain historians, chroniclers, and journalists who had written on the DK period. It was through these discussions that my approach, my analysis, and my assessment of data, chronicles, reports, assertions and conclusions by the “experts” took a turn – for the better. When Vickery passed away, a journalist writing an obituary asked me to comment. And I did. Aside from stating the usual about Vickery known to anyone who had come across him (his brilliant mind, knack for languages, adventurous spirit), I mentioned his disdain for sloppy historical analysis and his penchant for unvarnishingly exposing untested and unsupported mythology posing as fact or irrefutable truth. Naturally, in my email to the journalist, I mentioned Vickery’s theory of the STV: [H]e could be acerbic when dissecting historical facts and what he claimed as the Standard Total View, where unsubstantiated facts are repeated from text to text as if true with no real analysis or proof of credible authority, just regurgitation by historians and journalists claiming to be writing history. Michael thought that history should be written based on hard, provable facts from which well-reasoned conclusions could be drawn after rigorous analysis, unpeeling the onion as it were. Disappointingly, the journalist offered a partially misleading description of Vickery’s STV: Most relevant to the trials was Vickery’s rejection of what he called the “Standard Total View”: the body of widely accepted – and, in his view, insufficiently rigorous – scholarship that suggested the Khmer Rouge was a monolithic entity. Vickery set a high bar for analysing historical facts, and challenged the popular version of Khmer Rouge history on such issues as death totals, sexual violence and how fragmented the regime was. Vickery’s STV theory has nothing to do with the trials at the ECCC, though one cannot ignore its significance if the primary purpose of the trials is to get as close to the truth as possible in affixing responsibility and accountability. While the STV is featured in the context of the events in Cambodia from 1975 to 1982, Vickery’s theory is much more than what has been written by historians, pseudo-academics, chroniclers, journalists, and old Cambodian hands. The STV is not limited to Cambodia or to many of those who claim to have written authoritatively about the DK period. Vickery brought this theory to our attention in writing Cambodia 1975-1982, but a close reading of his cogent exposition on the STV shows that Vickery was talking in a much broader context, his thoughts having been shaped by the many years of intellectual rigor he applied (and saw others – many of whom enjoyed accolades – decline) in analyzing original source material, carefully reaching nuanced and, when appropriate, qualified conclusions and/or suppositions. Reading what the journalist printed on the STV moved me to re-read Cambodia 1975-1982 and to revisit what Vickery wrote as opposed to relying on my memory from my countless talks with him. This was perhaps my fourth or fifth time reading this book, and every time I read it I am left in awe of his lucid analysis. For anyone interested in this period of Cambodia, it is one of the must-read books. I have cited Vickery’s STV in a chapter I wrote on The Role of the Defense in the Trial Stage, so this is not the first time I am drawing attention to the STV and how relevant it is in defending war crimes and mass atrocity cases. I have also cautioned against using the international(ized) criminal tribunals and courts as a venue to establish the historical truth – even though establishing historical facts beyond a reasonable doubt is achievable. However, far too often, and easily, experts and so-called experts of history or of historical events waltz into courtrooms to give evidence based on their research, their published works, or their journalistic accounts, with little heed being paid to the authoritativeness of their work, their accounts, their sources, or their conclusions; hence the value of Vickery’s contribution to our critical thinking in piercing the veil of enticing yet junk historical claims and mythologies masquerading as historical truths. With Michael Vickery’s passing away, I can think of no better way to pay tribute to my friend and extraordinary historian than by discussing his STV theory and the critical thinking tools he left us for challenging historical conventional wisdom that too often is based on anecdotal and apocryphal stories that never suffered the scrutiny deserved and demanded. Let no orthodoxy go unchallenged If Vickery taught me anything, it was as he would put it: “let no orthodoxy go unchallenged.” He was, after all, a polemicist extraordinaire. But it was more than just that. From his own rigorous analysis of historical documents in his research, even pre-dating his PhD studies at Yale University, he had discovered that many of the great and near-great historians occasionally got things wrong. And unchallenged, those wrongs were never righted because who would dare to think, let alone take on a peerless peer, a lionized giant historian with an impeccable pedigree. Vickery, however, believed in going to the well and drinking from the original sources, challenging, testing, and critically dissecting the sources and interpretive methodology applied in drawing conclusions. The road less traveled. The road that frequently led him to draw different conclusions in debunking long-held sacred views. And whenever he did, he could be blunt to a fault in unmasking the errors and decrying how a more prudent approach in handling sources would have avoided such errors, which to him appeared plain and elemental. When Vickery took a respite from his primary interest of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian history and ventured into the DK and post-DK periods (1975-1982), he did so with the same academic rigor expected of a serious historian. Musing: What is the point of prodding [refugees] to reveal exculpatory aspects of the regime which tormented them, and in the process insinuate that they must be lying? Such is indeed the attitude of the refugees themselves – if one accepts that DK was bad, as I do, there is no point in analyzing it further or relativizing its evil. They were bad people who did bad things, and that was that. (p. 54) Vickery retorted: [A]s an historian, one of whose special interest is Cambodia, it is incumbent on me, if I choose to write about it at all, to search for as much of the entire truth as possible, wherever that may lead. A chronicler, or journalist, may simply repeat stories as they are handed to him, even when he knows they may be less than honest, but an historian may not. If he thinks they are less than honest, or incomplete, or imply certain things not expressly stated, it is his duty to draw out these aspects, break down the stories, reorder their details, and fit them into wider contexts. (pp. 54-55, footnotes omitted) Vintage Vickery. Vickery was criticized for supposedly relativizing the Pol Pot regime, for challenging the body of widely accepted views that it was an intrinsically genocidal regime. Vickery challenged this orthodoxy, this article of faith that many experts have come to assume without fully and objectively gathering and analyzing the facts within the proper context, and without considering the challenges of securing unadulterated accounts from survivors or scrutinizing the purveyors of chronicles and reports for any biases, agendas, or misconceptions. Recognizing the mass suffering and deaths that resulted from the “radical social and economic experiments in which Cambodia’s first generation of revolutionaries indulged,” Vickery considered that “the total picture” of the DK “required a historical treatment as though viewed from a distance, in the manner in which the horrors of the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648) or the Napoleonic wars are studied by historians.” (p. v) Simply, Vickery did not suffer fools. Intolerant of those who cherry-picked facts, relied on rumors or gossipy conversations, third-hand writings or commentaries on the works of those who dealt with primary sources, which he characterized as exegesis of exegeses, Vickery demanded proof, contextualization, nuance, and intellectual integrity. In his view, “a major fault of most writings about the [DK] events has been its ahistorical character, ignoring all that happened before 1970, 1975, or even 1979.” (p. 3, emphasis added) But, as we will see, Vickery found other critical faults in the narratives that make up the body of widely accepted views, faults which, in my opinion, are endemic in much of what is paraded before the international(ized) criminal tribunals and courts by historians, chroniclers, and journalists as historical facts. Vickery gave little credence to discussions on the “Khmer personality” or “Khmer psychology” in explaining the “DK phenomenon,” (p. 8) though if anyone was qualified to opine on these traits – at least in a general sense based on experience and cultural understanding – Vickery was well placed, having lived and worked in Cambodia in both urban and rural areas in the 1960s and being an astute student of Khmer history and civilization, and fluent in Khmer. Vickery stressed that historical context, inclusive of which are clues to behavior and attitudes which may help explain cause and effect, is essential to any analysis. But for Vickery, his starting point above all was the source material used to establish historical facts from which reasonable and nuanced (as opposed to dogmatic and rigid) conclusions could be drawn. Much of what has been written on the DK period, especially early on when Cambodia 1975-1982 was written (published in 1984), was based on accounts of refugees/survivors who managed to cross over to the Thai border during and after the DK period where most settled in refugee camps. Vickery recognized, however, the intrinsic risks and pitfalls of these accounts, which is why he demanded brutal scrutiny and intellectual integrity from those taking and relying on these accounts. These are the people who, by the nature of the circumstances, have been the main object of study for most post-1975 research on contemporary Cambodia, and also until late 1980 the main source of information about conditions inside the country. Even without conscious misinformation or exaggeration their portrayal of those five years could not help but be very one-sided; and the straight reporting of what they wish to say will inevitably give a distorted, sometimes even false, picture, of little use in understanding the revolutionary regime or for situating it properly within wider contemporary history. The bias in their stories would already be serious enough if they were again working at their old occupations, or some other useful task, on post-DK Cambodia; but it has been compounded by the frustrations and tensions of life in the refugee camps, and treated with insufficient perspicacity by many investigators, subjects to which we shall now turn. (p. 28) Many of the accounts from the refugees were accepted as “irrefutable evidence,” and this, in Vickery’s opinion, and based on his field studies and interviews, often shaped a skewed or even false narrative that has now become an article of faith. “The STV has permeated public consciousness to such an extent that is has become conventional wisdom and may be forced on evidence which does not support it.” (p. 40) And anyone who dared challenge the STV conventional wisdom was either ignored, marginalized, or branded an apologist or relativist. Anything written about Communist atrocities, however unhistoric, uncritical, or dishonest, was immediately taken up by the press, pushed through large printings, excerpted and reviewed, and taken as authoritative even if its author … was completely unknown and devoid of scholarly or journalistic credentials. Writers on the other side, who took a sympathetic view of the revolution and its difficulties, had little chance of a hearing, and when the purveyors of the STV took notice of their work at all it was to vilify the authors rather than to examine and discuss the evidence. (p. 51) Vickery came to his conclusions primarily from conducting meticulous interviews, testing and verifying to the extent possible the accounts, reviewing primary sources, discussing with others doing field research, and critically analyzing the works of some who were in his opinion the instigators and inventors of the STV. Vickery was “convinced that all the worst atrocities which have been reported occurred at some place at some time, but not as the STV would have it, everywhere all the time.” (p. 54) In his view, getting to the more accurate account behind the STV required careful questioning and careful listening “as people become loquacious and freely associate, for some of the more interesting details comes out accidentally and unexpectedly.” (p. 54) Consider the source According to Vickery, the starting point for any study of a social or historical situation begins with a description and evaluation of the sources, being mindful that “preconceived notions of outsiders may be imposed on the evidence, or equally serious, how sources may be coached, or influenced by their environment to produce information different from what they might have offered spontaneously.” (p. 44) In the case of extracting information from refugees, Vickery rightly points to the remarks of Charles Twining, an experienced United States Foreign Service Officer who specialized in Cambodia: “you must talk to a refugee as soon as he comes out for the story may become exaggerated.” He also found credible what another experienced Foreign Service Officer observed, that in making an assessment on information provided by a refugee, one must discount everything that is not from first-hand experience – what the refugee saw or experienced, as opposed to what he or she may have been told by others. (p. 44) Sound advice. Elementary. Doing his own research and meeting with refugees, Vickery noticed that the picture was much more complex, much more nuanced than presented in the press by journalists or researchers, in part because of their handling or mishandling of the sources, preconceptions, and biases. According to Vickery: Less attention has been given to the bias of the reporter or researcher; and this gets us into a very complex area. Even though investigations post-1975 Cambodia have generally been motivated by anything but intellectual objectivity, the very nature of the Cambodian question is such that a certain amount of subjective value judgment seems inevitable. At the very least each observer has certain views about what measures are permissible in order to effect social change and necessary to cope with political and social crises; and these views will invariably color interpretations of even the most objective facts. So let no one imagine that any writer on contemporary Cambodia is merely searching for objective historical truth in the manner of one writing, say, about twelfth century Angkor. … All of us have certain preconceptions – sometimes well researched and thought out – … and we are in a way hoping to discover information to justify those – in most cases erroneous – preconceptions. (p. 45) …. Neither should a writer, or reader, accept that a simple, unqualified claim to interest in the welfare of the people is sufficient to justify any interpretation, for given the clear and deep divisions among Cambodians manifest since 1970 at the latest, any such stance involves implicit assumptions about who the real people are and which of them deserve most sympathy. (p. 45) Vickery reasoned that to fully appreciate the events in Cambodia during the 1975-1979 DK period one must look at the precursors, recognizing, however, that inherent ideological biases do get in the way in the selection of information to fit these biases, and in part because of preconceived notions. Vickery correctly observed that among other things, the conflict in Cambodia that swept the Khmer Rouge into power “was also, if not first of all, a war between town and countryside in which the town’s battle was increasingly for the sole purpose of preserving its privileges while the rural areas suffered.” (p. 46, footnotes omitted). Which is why in pressing the point on how ideological biases consciously or subconsciously influence the selection of information to fit these biases, he reasoned: Any account which, from the vantage point of the present and assuming the information presented to be factual, casts blame on one camp while showing sympathy for the other must be based, not on any objective assessment of their works, but on preconceptions of the observer about the proper organization of society or the inherent morality of particular points of view. (p. 46) Vickery also recognized that “[o]ccasionally, apparently reliable accounts contain clear contradictions,” which is why he emphasized the need to take great care in analyzing this information. (p. 58) Beating the STV traps Vickery’s observations are as relevant to historians, chroniclers, and journalists in the Cambodian context as they are to those of us who are involved in mass atrocity trials. I have yet to come across a case where establishing the historical context that led to certain events is not relevant and where some sort of historical expert testimony is not taken. The lesson to be drawn: the historical narrative is only as reliable as the quality of the source. I have written in the past about the importance of not tampering, even inadvertently, with the source of the evidence from witnesses – their memories. The questioning has to be careful and meticulous, avoiding leading questions that suggest the answers, or showing documents to witnesses that are unknown to them and then asking the witnesses to comment, or providing information to witnesses as to what is believed to have happened or what others may have recounted. Such sloppy questioning, let alone outright attempts to manipulate and taint the source of the evidence, is rampant at the international(ized) criminal tribunals and courts – by all parties. This is partly due to inexperience in investigating, though I hazard to suggest that much of it is a purposeful attempt to shape a witness’s memory to fit a desired narrative. Unethical but inherent. And it is not limited to just the parties. At the ECCC, the Co-Investigating Judges in Case 001 brazenly invited the accused, Duch, to answer written questions and provide opinions beyond the ken of his knowledge and well outside his experience, by providing him or allowing him to refer to texts written on the DK period (where the STV abounds), much like an open-book test. Duch, by his own accounts, was a minnow confined within the radius of where he worked, the now infamous S-21 torturing center, commonly referred to as Tuol Sleng. He acknowledged the strict secrecy and compartmentalization of information, especially in matters dealing with the administration at the highest level of the regime (which is widely accepted). Yet, having studied the texts, having reviewed original source material to which he was never privy during the DK period, and having been led to believe that telling the truth and assisting the judges in understanding how the DK functioned, who held which positions and what their remit would have been, etc., Duch abided: he testified as a factual witness and effectively as an expert witness on matters he assuredly would have been clueless about during the DK period. When considering that the source of much of Duch’s memory was implanted by the Co-Investigating Judges, coupled by Duch’s desire to get a reduced sentence for his cooperation (invariably telling the Trial Chamber what it wished to hear – self-evident from reading the charging documents of the accused in Case 002), it begs the question: just how reliable is Duch as a source of historical facts? More disturbingly, it begs the question why would the Co-Investigating Judges, whose duty was to objectively investigate and search for the truth without passion or prejudice, employ such methods (or less generously, tactics), which, assuredly, irrevocably contaminated the source, Duch – a master manipulator and unscrupulous chameleon. A fine example of a variance of the STV: priming a witness by exposing him to much of the STV found in books, only to have the witness repeat the STV at trial for the purpose of establishing the truth. Parting thoughts Michael Vickery will mostly be remembered by his fellow historians for his enormous contributions from his detailed research and writings on the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries of Cambodia and on Siam – a legacy that is virtually unrivaled. But his legacy on modern Cambodia, especially his writings on the DK and post-DK periods, cannot be underestimated. In the span of a few pages where he lays out his thesis on the STV, which he followed with concrete analysis debunking or devaluing much of what was accepted as conventional wisdom, Vickery prescribes how historical sources should be handled, scrutinized, and appreciated. He exposes how sources of evidence may have intrinsic biases that, if not accounted for, may lead to wrong conclusions; how preconceptions and ideological biases, if unchecked, can lead the historian, chronicler, or journalist to selectively use sources to fit and validate preconceptions and biases; how when interviewing sources it is important not to impose information and contaminate the source; how historical context is essential in understanding cause and effect; and how essential it is to question and test conventional wisdom, to let no orthodoxy go unchallenged – however sacred or well accepted. Vickery’s thesis on the STV is relevant not just for historians or chroniclers, but also for those who are involved in prosecuting, defending, and judging cases before the international(ized) criminal tribunals and courts, where alleged crimes are invariably related to a set of complex events which often far precede the alleged criminal activity. Conscious doubt cannot be assumed to be in the repertoire of historians, analysts, journalists or observers coming to testify as “objective” witnesses. Once fixated on a thesis, confirmation bias assuredly drives their search, analysis, and conclusions; i.e. they generally conduct a deliberate search to confirm evidence compatible to their beliefs and thesis. It thus becomes necessary to isolate the sources of information and examine them independent of each other with the goal of identifying whether the dominant narrative of certain witnesses is the product of a collaborative, biased or redundant source of information which, when dissected and exposed reduces the total value of the information. What may appear at first glance to be an established fact or truth may occasionally prove to be nothing more than a repetition or adoption of a false narrative based on a false premise, inconclusive evidence, supposition or bias. All proclaimed orthodoxies of factual “truths” must be chased down the rabbit hole. Perhaps much of this is already known intuitively but, even so, Vickery cogently elucidated it in Cambodia 1975-1982, where he warns us to distrust the STV. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 International Criminal Law Blog

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 11, 2017 EXECUTIVE ORDER ALLOWING ADDITIONAL TIME FOR RECOGNIZING POSITIVE ACTIONS BY THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN AND AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 13761 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7201-7211), the Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act of 2004, as amended (Public Law 108-497), the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2006 (Public Law 109‑344), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, in order to take additional steps to address the emergency described in Executive Order 13067 of November 3, 1997, Executive Order 13412 of October 13, 2006, and Executive Order 13761 of January 13, 2017, with respect to the policies and actions of the Government of Sudan, including additional fact-finding and a more comprehensive analysis of the Government of Sudan's actions, hereby order as follows: Section 1. Amendments to Executive Order 13761. (a) Section 1 of Executive Order 13761 is hereby amended by striking "July 12, 2017" and inserting in lieu thereof "October 12, 2017". (b) Section 10 of Executive Order 13761 is hereby amended by striking "July 12, 2017" and inserting in lieu thereof "October 12, 2017". (c) Subsection (b) of section 12 of Executive Order 13761 is hereby amended by striking "July 12, 2017" and inserting in lieu thereof "October 12, 2017". (d) Section 11 of Executive Order 13761 is hereby revoked. Sec. 2. General Provision. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. DONALD J. TRUMP THE WHITE HOUSE, July 11, 2017. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017

Everywhere you turn in Budapest these days, there are posters and billboards portraying a grinning George Soros, the Hungarian-born philanthropist billionaire. The government-funded posters say that 99 percent of the public who submitted the May national consultation questionnaires on migration and civil society [1.2 million out of 8 million] reject settlement of “illegal immigrants.” The large font says: “Let’s not allow George Soros to have the last laugh!” Anti-Soros campaign poster defaced with "vampire" scribbled across Soros' face. Budapest metro, July 12, 2017. © 2017 Lydia Gall/Human Rights Watch Several billboards have already been scribbled with anti-Semitic graffiti like “Stinking Jew,” “vampire” and stars of David. On some Budapest trams, passengers are forced to step and stand on Soros’s face as the poster is placed on the tram floors. The billboards defaming Soros bear similarities to WWII Nazi posters depicting Jews as evil, grinning people seeking to destroy German society. The largest Hungarian Jewish organization, Mazsihisz, wrote to Orban saying that the billboards encourage anti-Semitism and urged Orban to pull them down. This is just the latest phase of a vile campaign that has been going on for months against Soros, whom the Hungarian government has declared public enemy number one. The government, and Prime Minister Orban, have repeatedly accused Soros, and the Hungarian civil society organizations he funds, of wanting to settle millions of “illegal immigrants” in Europe, all of whom are potential terrorists endangering national security and seeking to topple the government. In recent months, the government has adopted alarming laws that seek to close the prestigious Central European University in Budapest that Soros founded and require independent groups receiving more than €27,000 per year from abroad to register as foreign funded – a move inspired by Russia’s notorious “foreign agents” law. Many of the groups affected are funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations. (Full disclosure: Human Rights Watch is among the many groups around the world that receive funding from Open Society Foundations). Orban has ignored calls to cancel the billboard and poster campaign, arguing that the government has a zero-tolerance policy of anti-Semitism. This might be easier to believe were it not for Orban’s praise for Hungarian interwar leader Miklos Horthy, responsible for the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to extermination camps, as an “exceptional statesman.” The government announced on July 12 that the anti-Soros billboards and posters will be removed as of July 15. In a country where anti-Semitism is alarmingly commonplace, it’s irresponsible for the government to use taxpayers’ money to run a campaign that plays into anti-Semitic tropes and encourages hateful views. Hungary’s government should aim to tamp down intolerance, not stir it up. __________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

George Herscu's eyes filled with tears when he got the news: More than 75 years after he survived a Holocaust massacre, the German government had finally agreed to recognize his suffering. "After so many years, justice is done," the 90-year-old said, crying in his Springfield, New Jersey, home. "My mother, my father..." he said, his voice trailing off as he remembered his murdered family. "For me it's a little bit too late, you know. But it's just the fact that they recognized the barbaric way they killed my father." Herscu is one of 1,000 survivors of what's known as the Iasi Pogrom, a 1940 roundup of Romanian Jews planned by Romanian and German officials. For years, the Germans refused to compensate the Iasi survivors the same way it compensates those who made it out of concentration camps or were trapped in open ghettos. But the Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germany announced Wednesday that it negotiated an agreement that makes Iasi survivors eligible for pensions. Now the survivors who meet the criteria will receive pensions of about $400 a month and are eligible for more home care services. Herscu and his wife Sonia, who is also a survivor, will each get pensions. The money can make a big difference to elderly retirees scraping by on fixed incomes, but for many survivors, that's not the focus. "It's about the recognition from the German government," said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference. "It's a deep, emotional psychological issue." The horror in Iasi began a week after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Police and soldiers in Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, began attacking Iasi's 100,000-strong Jewish population. Eight thousand were shot, stabbed or beaten to death — 5,000 of them in a public square. Another 7,000 were put on overcrowded trains where most of them died of heat, starvation or madness before reaching their destination. Herscu, then just 13, escaped death by hiding in a cornfield, but his father was one of those passengers. A relative said he lost his mind and his life on the train, and his body was tossed off and buried in an unknown spot. Those left were forced to live in one section of the city under a curfew, in fear of deportation and beatings or worse. Herscu said his mother and sister were shot dead three years after his father died on the train. He married Sonia and they moved to Rome as refugees and then to the United States in 1966. Retired for 20 years from a career in graphic design, he now takes care of his wife, who recently suffered a fall. For the last three years, the Claims Conference has been working to get compensation for the Iasi survivors. Germany was reluctant to recognize the city as a ghetto — which would entitle those who lived there to pensions — and said no three times, Schneider said. On Wednesday morning, Lori Schuldiner Schor, social welfare program manager for the Claims Conference, arrived at the Herscu's home with news that Germany had finally relented. "No compensation could ever repay you for your suffering, your losses, for the suffering of your family," Schor told him. Herscu kissed her hands. "I'm happy for humankind that succeeded in getting a little bit of justice. This is more important to me than anything else," he said. He and Schor looked at photographs of a cemetery where some Iasi victims are buried and both began to cry. But, he said, he was happy that he had made some contribution to the process by sharing his family's story. "It came too late for me. But I'm very very happy that it happened," he said. "Truthfully, I didn't think that one little insignificant person could say something that would make a difference." ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NBC News

In a move that is finally obscenely political in motivation, the “UN Country Team” in Sudan (UNCT/S) is reported by Radio Dabanga to have weighed in with its view about the decision on a permanent lifting of U.S. economic sanctions imposed on the genocidal regime in Khartoum (1997). In hopes of affecting a political decision by the Trump administration in the U.S., UNCT/S has provided a highly misleading set of statements concerning humanitarian access in Sudan, thereby continuing a past history of making statements—or not making statements—that might offend the Khartoum regime. This time the focus is squarely on a U.S. political decision that is supposed to be based on various criteria (not simply humanitarian access, important as it is): UN team in Sudan “hopes for positive decision on US sanctions” | Radio Dabanga | July 10, 2017 | KHARTOUM | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/un-team-in-sudan-hopes-for-positive-decision-on-us-sanctions According to the UN Country Team (UNCT) in Sudan, there has been a marked improvement in humanitarian access over the past six months. This has prompted the team to cite its hopes that Washington will finally cancel the economic sanctions on Sudan. Besides being wildly inappropriate, given the multiple conditions supposedly governing a decision about lifting U.S. sanctions permanently—again, the sole focus of UN statement is on humanitarian access—the assessment of humanitarian access is patently disingenuous and misleading. Most notably, there is no mention of the humanitarian embargo that remains in place for huge areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, specifically the areas where civilians are concentrated under control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N). (The embargo has recently been lifted on a small area in Blue Nile under full regime military control; for an explanation of this action, see below.) The people in the areas under embargo have in a great number of cases fled to them to escape Khartoum’s relentless assault on civilian populations in these two southern Sudanese states. Malnutrition in some areas is catastrophically high; and until recently, and with the likely resumption following the U.S. decision on sanctions, Antonov “bombers”have terrified civilians throughout South Kordofan and Blue Nile for six years, displacing many hundreds of thousands (many as refugees to South Sudan and Ethiopia). Dropping crude, completely indiscriminate, shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs—dropped from high altitudes by these retrofitted Russian-made cargo planes without bomb-sighting mechanisms, merely rolled out the back cargo bay—Khartoum has deliberately destroyed the agricultural economy of the areas under assault. This is what has produced the growing and extremely dangerous malnutrition—malnutrition that is unalleviated in any way by the “improved humanitarian access” the UN celebrates. One of countless victims of Khartoum’s Antonov bombing attacks in South Kordofan and Blue Nile; the aircraft, retrofitted cargo planes, have no militarily useful accuracy; they are instruments of civilian terror and destruction In fact, for over five years now—since the UN/African Union/Arab League “tripartite proposal” for humanitarian access in February 2012—Khartoum has refused to negotiate humanitarian access to these two areas in good faith. Rejecting the original “tripartite proposal”—even as the SPLM-N promptly accepted it—some fifteen rounds of negotiations have failed to produce humanitarian access. And the answer as to why is clear: not only did senior Khartoum regime officials signal early on that they had no intention of allowing South Kordofan and Blue Nile to become “another Darfur,” a humanitarian embargo is the cheapest way of waging war against a powerfully aggrieved and determined rebel adversary: kill the civilian base of support. We saw this in the Nuba Mountains in the 1990s; we saw it during the long north/south civil war (1983 – 2005), and in Darfur we have seen in for fourteen years. [A recent piece by U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Khartoum, Steven Koutsis, attempted—incredibly—to lay the blame for the continuation of the South Kordofan/Blue Nile embargo on the SPLM/A-N (March 3, 2017 | Sudan Tribune | http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article61783/). Notably, it was Koutsis who also erroneously declared that the imposition of U.S. sanctions in 1997 had “nothing to do” with human rights (it explicitly does), and that thus human rights should have nothing to do with the lifting of sanctions. In talking about the humanitarian embargo on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Koutsis failed to ask the most obvious question: cui bono? who benefits from a continuation of the embargo, Khartoum or the SPLM/A-N? The answer is obvious—and yet Koutsis is so historically myopic in his analysis that he can look back only to November 2016and fails even to mention the “tripartite proposal” first rejected by Khartoum in February 2012.] Despicably tendentious and inaccurate U.S. charge d’Affaires in Khartoum, Steven Koutsis Despite claims by the UNCT/S, which ignores the more than fourteen years of humanitarian obstruction of access to many areas of Darfur, there are many areas of Darfur that remain inaccessible. To be sure, parts of Jebel Marra—the scene of Khartoum’s massive military offensive in 2016 (including chemical weapons attacks on civilians that extended to August 2016)—are finally gaining humanitarian access, but only those areas under full military control. But many parts are not gaining such access, or have done so only very recently. And much of the evidence is provided by the UN itself—here, for example, in a recent dispatch (less than a month ago): “UNICEF Reports High Levels of Malnutrition in Jebel Marra” | Radio Dabanga | June 23, 2017 | Jebel Marra | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/relief-news/article/unicef-reports-high-malnutrition-rates-in-jebel-marra A recent survey conducted in the Jebel Marra area of Central Darfur found critical levels of acute malnutrition, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported. A UNICEF mission found cases that relate to a Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate of 15.7 per cent, and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) of 5 per cent. ‘WHO defines GAM rates above 15 per cent and SAM rates above 3 per cent as emergency situations,’ the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports in its news bulletin. April this year, after lobbying and repeated requests, UUNICEF was granted access to areas and residents or displaced people in Darfur and Blue Nile that were previously sealed-off by the Sudanese authorities for international aid organisations. Golo area in Central Darfur was one of the newly accessible areas for UNICEF. The September 2016 report by Amnesty International makes clear that Khartoum was using chemical weapons against civilians as recently as August 2016, a date that falls within the nominal “look back” period of Obama administration assessment of Khartoum’s behavior Child dying from wounds caused by a chemical weapons attack in Jebel Marra; the UN Country Team in Sudan and the UN in New York have had nothing to say about such victims—nor had the Trump administration, which claimed to be so moved by infants killed by chemical weapons in Syria; similarly, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called chemical weapons use in Syria a “moral obscenity,” but had not a word to say about chemical weapons use in Jebel Marra in 2016 Since the “look back” period specified by the Obama administration in its January 13, 2017 provisional lifting extends back in time to mid-July 2016—with humanitarian access as one of two key criteria for the permanent lifting of sanctions—we must wonder why it is that only eleven months later UNICEF is making an assessment of a population that had also previously been under Khartoum’s humanitarian embargo: why did they not arrive in this part of Jebel Marra much sooner to make their assessment? All, including even the UNCT/S, knew perfectly well that assessment has been urgently necessary last July; even more urgent was the provision of food and therapeutic feeding supplies for children. Why is UNICEF reported as having begun only the assessment process in June 2017? The answer is all too clear: Khartoum, in the run-up to a decision by the Trump administration on the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions, is creating the appearance of humanitarian access. And we may be sure that whatever decision is made—with the possible exception of a decision to extend the “probationary” period before making a final decision—humanitarian access will be reduced shortly thereafter: [i] If sanctions are lifted permanently, Khartoum—confident that there will be no “snap-back” imposition of these sanctions—will resume its old ways of controlling access to Darfur and will have no incentive to lift the embargo on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, its most effective weapon of war; [ii] If the decision is not to lift sanctions permanently, then an enraged Khartoum will also resume its old habits of denying humanitarian access. In short, what we are seeing now is a last-minute show for the benefit of the UN, which obediently takes Khartoum’s words (and reversible actions) at face value in assessing humanitarian access. It is revealing the very tendencies that have done so much to eviscerate UN and INGO humanitarian operations in Darfur, and that have also taken the spotlight off the humanitarian embargo on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, an embargo that under international humanitarian and human rights law constitutes a crime against humanity (see | “On the Obstruction of Humanitarian Aid,” African Studies Review, Volume 54, Number 3 (December 2011), pages 165 – 74 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-I6/). Realities of Humanitarian Access The lack of humanitarian resources is conspicuous in many parts of Darfur, if one talks with humanitarian actors outside the corrupt UN system. Such conversations make unsurprising the fact that we see so many dispatches such as the following, making clear that access is still being denied: Darfur’s East Jebel Marra devoid of health services, 30 die of cholera | Radio Dabanga | July 10, 2017 | DARFUR / NORTH KORDOFAN / EASTERN SUDAN | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/darfur-s-east-jebel-marra-devoid-of-health-services-30-die-of-cholera Medical sources in South Darfur reported that more than 30 people died of cholera and at least 50 others have been infected in East Jebel Marra locality during the first week of July. The disease has spread to Liba, Jasu, Fugouli, Rakona, Dolda, Sawani, Duwo, and Fina, they said. The sources confirmed that health services are “entirely absent” large parts of East Jebel Marra, while the government of South Darfur continues to deny medics access to the area. They called on the federal health authorities, the international community, especially the World Health Organisation, to act to allow health actors access to the locality to save the lives of people. Here we should note that the UN Country Team/Sudan—including UNICEF, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the World Health Organization—all refuse to use the word cholera to identify the disease that is in fact clearly cholera (and identified as such in Sudanese laboratories). The only reason is political pressure and threats from the Khartoum regime, which itself insists that cholera be called “Acute Watery Diarrhea.” But the two terms—cholera and “Acute Watery Diarrhea”—are not the same and the distinction is critical in mounting an appropriate, country-wide humanitarian health response. Khartoum refuses to acknowledge that cholera has broken out in Sudan and spread wildly since last August—mainly for reasons having to do with how the country is perceived internationally—and disgracefully, the UN acquiesces. How can we take humanitarian access assessments from the UNCT/S seriously? Particularly since we know that senior officials for the UNCT/S have in the past deliberately distorted key data, particularly the number of Internally Displaced Persons in Darfur. Former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator George Charpentier (2009 – 2011) deliberately promulgated a grossly mislead figure that was lower, by hundreds of thousands of human beings in Darfur, than previous UN displacement figures. Since humanitarian resources for Darfur were and are in many ways tied to the numbers of IDPs, this acquiescence before Khartoum’s demand that the figure be lowered in order to show a non-existent “progress” was despicably destructive and caused tremendous suffering. It took years for the UN to acknowledge, and only implicitly, the deliberate misrepresentation by Charpentier (for details, see my contemporaneous analysis in Dissent Magazine, April 28, 2011 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-Bq/). George Charpentier, UN lackey-in-chief in Sudan, 2009 – 2011; his deliberate misrepresentation and understatement of internal displacement in Darfur cost lives and untold human suffering; he represents the very worst of the UN According to several journalists working on Darfur from Khartoum and with first-hand knowledge of Charpentier’s behavior with the regime and his private comments, the chief UN humanitarian in Sudan allowed his public statements to be vetted by officials of the Khartoum regime—an act entirely consistent with his cruel acquiescence before the regime’s demand that he lower the UN-promulgated figure for IDPs. Currently, the UN figure is where it was before Charpentier lowered it by some 800,000 human beings from the figure that had been used by the UN before Charpentier’s tenure and before the March 2009 expulsion of 13 international humanitarian organizations from Darfur: UN OCHA in an obscure location in a January 1, 2017 “info-graph” again uses the figure 2.7 million IDPs. We should also remember that it was Charpentier who declared, defying all available evidence and many assertions by the broader humanitarian community, that: “UN humanitarian agencies are not confronted by pressure or interference from the Government of Sudan,” [Charpentier said in a written statement to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting]. (January 7, 2011) Such patent falsehood finds its current UN embodiment in yesterday’s dispatch from Radio Dabanga; it is also an uncanny anticipation of the bizarrely false claim by Samantha Power, Obama administration Ambassador to the UN, on the occasion of Obama’s announcement of a provisional lifting of sanctions: “We have seen a ‘sea change” [of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan],” citing no evidence and belied by all that we know from those who are not part of the feckless UN agencies that can’t bring themselves to declare “cholera”—this in the midst of a raging epidemic for fear of offending Khartoum, even as the failure to designate the disease accurately forestalls critical humanitarian responses. As we might expect, the view of humanitarian access from outside the UN is quite different. The distinguished Norwegian Refugee Council recently (June 1, 2017) ranked Darfur as “number three” among the world’s neglected crises: The aid group listed Sudan as number three in its latest report, “The World’s Most Neglected Displacement Crises,” saying almost five million Sudanese were now dependent on humanitarian aid, with three million of those living in the war-scarred region of Darfur. [The UN figure was most recently 3.1 million—ER] “Hundreds of thousands of people do not receive the lifesaving help they need because of challenges in accessing communities,” the council said before blaming “a 40 percent shortage in funding and a lack of international media attention to the crisis.” Some of those displaced in the Jebel Marra offensive of 2016; many will have died by this time, as UN officials have only very recently gained access to conduct assessments in some parts of the Jebel Marra region And while lack of funding certainly accounts for lack of humanitarian response in some areas, reports from international nongovernmental humanitarian actors on the ground in Darfur make clear that hundreds of thousands of people are still beyond humanitarian reach because of actions by the Khartoum regime: outright denial of access; real and artificial creation of insecurity in areas desperately in need; harassment of humanitarian workers and officials; denial and delay of visas and travel permits. The “challenges in accessing communities” in Darfur are Khartoum’s creation. Crucially, in considering humanitarian capacity, we should recall that since the expulsion of thirteen INGOs in March 2009, more than a dozen other organizations have been expelled or have withdrawn because of intolerable insecurity (March 2009 also saw the closing of three Sudanese national humanitarian organizations, including the Sudan Social Development Organization—founded and directed by Mudawi Ibrahim, now facing charges of capital crimes in Khartoum’s grim Kober prison). The courageous human rights and social development worker, Mudawi Ibrahim—not a word about him from the international community and certainly not the UN Moreover, nominal humanitarian access will mean little in the wake of the decision by the UN Security Council (June 30, 2017) to gut the UN/African Union “hybrid” Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), reducing the military component of the force by 44 percent. One immediate effect of this reduction will be to reduce drastically the locations to which humanitarians and humanitarian supplies can be moved: the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) will not fly to areas that are not protected militarily, even as much of Darfur—the size of Spain—is accessible only by air transport. Needless to say, none of this had figured in any statements from the UN, the U.S., or the rest of the international community. Khartoum, in short, is “improving access” at the very moment when the drastic reduction of the military component of UNAMID makes “access” meaningless. The UNCT/S of all actors in Darfur should understand this, and yet predictably makes no mention of this drastic change in humanitarian operating conditions in Darfur. The political instincts of the UN in Sudan have long been cowardly and expedient; that cowardice and expediency, so deeply destructive of any chance to hold the Khartoum regime accountable for its barbarous denial of humanitarian access over decades, is on full display in its comments about the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions on a regime that remains genocidal in its ambitions and actions. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Don't Let President al-Bashir of Sudan Get Away With Murder Eight years of impunity is too long for the suffering people of Darfur On this date, eight years ago the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued the second arrest warrant against President al-Bashir for the crime of genocide committed against the people of Darfur. Today we write to remind you that President al-Bashir remains an internationally known fugitive and the only sitting head of state wanted by the ICC. We at Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) would like to express our grave concern about the continued impunity that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir enjoys and the inaction by the United Nations Security Council. We wish to remind the world that al-Bashir's crimes must not only be exposed but must be punished and brought to justice. For fourteen years, violence, killing, rape, arrest, and torture have devastated the lives of the innocent civilians in Darfur. Countless men, women, and children have died while survivors endure unimaginable conditions and yet the perpetrator remains free. In 2009, in response to the ICC arrest warrants, President al-Bashir retaliated by forcing thirteen international NGOs to leave Sudan, and he shut down three national organizations that provided lifesaving assistance to internally displaced people (IDPs) in Darfur. As a result, conditions severely deteriorated, and IDPs were subjected to acute malnutrition, disease, water shortages, and starvation. These actions constitute another grave crime of intention for which the Sudanese government must be held responsible. Between the beginning of 2017 and last month, the Sudanese government has committed brutal attacks against civilians. Recent attacks include the Nertiti massacre and in Elgenaina, West Darfur and the recent cruel attack in Golo, Jebel Marra during the last week of June. Systematic rapes of women and girls have been a dominant feature of the weekly reports from Radio Dabanga and other news sources coming out of Darfur. Throughout 2016, we have witnessed the highest rate of escalation of terror in recent years. The most troubling is that there have been credible allegations of the use of chemical weapons reported by reliable sources; however, this has not yet been investigated. The Arab Janjaweed (Rapid Support Forces) has been fully integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces and has been given full authority over Darfur; they have been allowed to rape, kill, burn and oppress their victims. To this day, conditions have not improved. Over three million Darfur genocide victims remain displaced, living in deplorable conditions and are unable to return home, in part because foreigners brought by the government have occupied most of their lands. At the same time, the Sudanese Government continues to carry out or sponsor violent attacks against innocent civilians in Darfur President al-Bashir has continuously used tactics of mass violence, not only in Darfur but in other regions of Sudan, including South Kordofan and the Blue Nile where over one million people have been forced to flee and are unable to return. We are extremely concerned that the international community has been collaborating with al-Bashir instead of holding him accountable for his crimes. The former United States administrationworked to improve relations with Sudan; they even attempted to lift economic sanctions that have been in place since the 1990s. At the same time, the European Union recently joined Sudan in creating an initiative that bars refugees from entering Europe. By negotiating with Sudan, the United States and the European Union undermine the ICC. They are also ignoring the human rights norms and standards that they have promised to uphold, such as the Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The international community has repeatedly failed to impose consequences for President al-Bashir's atrocities and has allowed the government of Sudan to continue its crimes in Darfur and throughout Sudan with impunity, betraying the people of Sudan who face violence every day. The failure to hold President al-Bashir accountable not only has devastating effects within Sudan but sends the wrong message to leaders like Syrian President Assad and others who are perpetrating extreme violence throughout the world. It supports their ability to continue killing their people with total impunity. EIGHT YEARS OF IMPUNITY MUST END July 12, 2017, marks the 8th anniversary of the second ICC arrest warrant against President al-Bashir. We wish to remind our supporters to join us and remind our leaders that genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity must not go unpunished. Member states of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), including the United States, must try to bring al-Bashir to justice. We recognize the fact that some ICC state parties demonstrate a strong commitment to justice by restricting al-Bashir's ability to travel. However, some countries have failed to uphold their legal obligation, allowing and aiding a genocidal president to defy justice. We must speak up and shame these countries and their leaders who are actively promoting impunity for the most serious crimes. China, for example, a UNSC member, welcomed President al-Bashir for a state visit in 2011. Other ICC members, such as Chad, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, and Nigeria, have all greeted and hosted the president. Among the countries that are not ICC members but have also welcomed al-Bashir are Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Sudan. Therefore, we urge all members of the UNSC and the Rome Statute to stand for justice and make this year the final anniversary of President al-Bashir's impunity. We demand that member states of the United Nations, and especially members of the Security Council and the Rome Statute, abide by the obligations derived from the ICC arrest warrants for President al-Bashir. They must fulfill their legal obligations to arrest the President should he enter their territory by transferring him to The Hague for trial. We urge Western countries to consider withholding military and economic aid from those countries that allow President al-Bashir to enter their territory without being arrested. The United Nations (UN) should also seriously consider adopting new mechanisms to enforce ICC arrest warrants on any areas administered by the UN, including its headquarters. Because of the inaction of the international community, to date, President al-Bashir remains free, and the Sudanese Government continues to carry out vicious attacks against innocent civilians. It is imperative that the US and the international community make clear to President al-Bashir and all perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, that impunity will not be tolerated for another year. * We urge the Trump administration to lead the UNSC members to enforce the ICC arrest warrant and bring al-Bashir to justice. *We call upon members of the UNSC and the Rome Statute to stand for justice and accountability and work to bring al-Bashir to justice. *We call upon the international community to do what is right for the people of Darfur by pursuing justice and bringing al-Bashir to The Hague. *We call upon all members of the Rome Statute to transfer al-Bashir to The Hague to await trial should he enter their territory. *We call upon the UNSC members to fulfill their legal obligations and support the ICC in arresting President al-Bashir. We must stand up and demand accountability. Justice can only be achieved if we ordinary citizens demand it. Our leaders have failed in bringing al-Bashir to justice, and we must let it be known that we will not stand for it. With gratitude, Niemat Ahmadi President and Founder www.darfurwomenaction.org __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Darfur Women Action Group

Press Statement Heather Nauert Department Spokesperson Washington, DC July 11, 2017 Today, the President issued an Executive Order (E.O.) extending the review period established by E.O. 13761 of January 13, 2017, which set forth criteria for the revocation of certain sanctions on Sudan. The President’s E.O. extends the review period for an additional three months and provides for the revocation of those sanctions if the Government of Sudan (GOS) sustains the positive actions that gave rise to E.O. 13761, including maintaining a cessation of hostilities in conflict areas in Sudan; improving humanitarian access throughout Sudan; and maintaining its cooperation with the United States on addressing regional conflicts and the threat of terrorism. The United States will revoke the sanctions if the GOS is assessed to have sustained progress in these areas at the end of the extended review period. The general license issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which became effective on January 17, 2017, remains in place and broadly authorizes U.S. persons to process transactions involving persons in Sudan; engage in imports from and exports to Sudan; and engage in transactions involving property in which the GOS has an interest. While we recognize that the GOS has made significant, substantial progress in many areas, the Administration has decided that some more time is needed for this review to establish that the GOS has sustained sufficient positive actions across all areas listed in E.O. 13761. We remain deeply committed to engagement with the GOS and working toward further progress on achieving a sustainable peace in Sudan, removing remaining obstructions to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and bolstering cooperation to counter terrorism and promote regional stability. Beyond these key areas connected with the potential revocation of most sanctions on Sudan and the GOS, the Administration is also committed to intensifying engagement with the GOS on a broader range of vital issues, including our ongoing dialogue on improving Sudan’s human rights and religious freedom practices, and ensuring that Sudan is committed to the full implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Jubilee Campaign

U Zaw Htay, government spokesperson and director-general of the President’s Office recently talked to The Irrawaddy about the threats facing Rakhine State and press freedom in Myanmar. Fourteen parties including the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) have called for a state of emergency to be declared in Rakhine State. What is the government’s response to their demand? The parties have concerns over national security, so they gave the government suggestions. We welcome this. A special meeting was held at the presidential residence on June 30 with an extensive discussion on the Rakhine issue. At the meeting, the military presented future plans and we discussed our ‘responsibility to protect.’ I can assure you the government is handling this issue seriously, though we cannot explain everything in detail. What I can tell you is we are doing everything that we should be doing. National security is not only the concern of a single political party, but an issue the entire country should join hands to tackle together. I’d like to urge all political parties to disseminate knowledge about national security to the people. As for the government, it is working to protect national security. The parties calling for a state of emergency need to understand this. We’d like to urge them to cooperate with us in a constructive way. Does their statement hassle the government? We aren’t hassled by it. It is usual for political parties to do such things. Some may not know about the procedures of the UN, and they may have drawn the wrong conclusions as a result. They can come and discuss with our foreign ministry experts to get a better understanding of UN procedures. USDP lawmaker U Hla Htay Win said the government did not try to put a UN resolution to form a fact-finding mission on Rakhine State to a vote at the Human Rights Council. Is that the case? There were disagreements over whether or not to put it to a vote. We had to think about whether the resolution would change even after a vote was taken. This is a technical matter and it is difficult to explain. So, what I want to say is, we welcome suggestions and we invite [the USDP and other parties] to come and talk with our UN experts. They were demanding the declaration of a military administration in Rakhine State, so what is the take of the Myanmar Army? Is it fully cooperating with the government? Yes, the army fully cooperates with the current government. It cooperates and collaborates with us. The responsibility of national security lies with the military. The Myanmar Police Force was under the direct control of the army in the past, but it has been under its own ministry since 2010. We [the government] still have a lot to learn about national security. At the same time, the army is doing what it should do, I’d say. Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Tin said the government was handling the Rakhine issue through diplomatic channels on the international stage, and urged security personnel to take action with responsibility and accountability for human rights. Will the government investigate alleged human rights abuses? The army has formed an internal investigation team, as have the police. There are a lot of alleged human rights violations. But the commission led by the vice-president has yet to publish its report. One of its three responsibilities is to investigate alleged human rights violations. The commission will investigate and publish its report. The government, Myanmar Army, Myanmar Army leaders, police chiefs, and the home affairs minister are not denying all of the allegations. What they have said is to present the cases to them with strong evidence if there were such violations. If there is evidence, they will investigate and find the truth. We’ve told this to the UN and all of the other organizations. So, give us strong evidence, and we will take action in line with the law if allegations are found to be true. Military leaders share the same stance. So, we will have to review the reports of all investigative bodies to determine if those allegations are true. Why did the government decide to appoint Kofi Annan as chair of the Rakhine State Commission despite criticism and opposition? What is the benefit to the country? We formed the Rakhine State Advisory Commission led by Kofi Annan last August, and its mandate is to give us advice. It is an advisory commission, and is responsible for assessing the issue from various aspects and providing recommendations to bring about sustainable development. Our government also released a statement that we are implementing the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Commission. There was no problem [insurgency] at the time we formed the commission last August. We formed it at that time so that we could explain to the international community in case of a problem in the future. Whenever there is an accusation from the international community, we say we are taking action in line with the recommendations of the Kofi Annan commission. The commission is serving as a shield for us. Was it not for Kofi Annan commission, the allegations would be much worse, I think. The government has appointed a national security advisor. What is his role? What can he do for national security? Most countries have a national security advisor. India has one and the US has a national security advisor and a national security council. In protecting national interests and national security, the first line of defense is diplomacy, and the last line of defense is the military. It is not unusual to appoint a national security advisor. Those who criticize this may have their own reasons to do so. But, we need to observe international practices. If we take a look at where our national security advisor is going and what he is doing, then we’ll see. The media often covers his statements and you can know what he is doing by assessing those statements. National security advisor U Thaung Tun is a former ambassador and has lots of experience and served as an ambassador under Snr-Gen Than Shwe amid mounting pressure [from the international community.] He has a network and other advantages that he gained from his experiences as an ambassador. He will contribute to national security and national interests. Does the government have a strategic master plan for security and economic development of the entire country, including Rakhine State? The vision of our government is ‘Peace, Prosperity, Democracy.’ The State Counselor is focusing her efforts on peace. As for prosperity, the government is working for the promotion of education, health services and administrative reforms. These are priorities under our 12-point economic policy. As for democracy, we are working for constitutional amendments and to build a democratic federal Union through the 21st Century Panglong peace conference. Members of the media are facing prosecution under laws such as Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law and 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act. Why should the media face such restrictive laws under a democratic government? It is about the application of the laws. It is up to the complainant to choose under which law and article to file a lawsuit. The government can’t intervene in this. And it is the job of judges to decide with their own rationale if the charges fit the offenses or not. What the government can do is to assess how the laws are applied and their consequences and propose that Parliament changes the laws if necessary. The government may take political conditions and the democratic cause into account in considering violations of those laws. But, it is difficult for us to tell the complainants not to use this and that law because this is a democracy. Speaking of the media, we can’t just look at Article 66(d) and Article 17(1). We need to think about its entirety and have a long-term view. Similar things will happen in the future, and we need to think about how to monitor the media. There should be an institutional mechanism that monitors the media on their behalf before other institutions directly sue them. If there is an internal control, direct lawsuits from outsiders will be less likely. The complainants may not accept it if we ask them not to use charges of 66(d) and 17(1). What I prefer is a mechanism like the press council, which will monitor the media and then prosecution will be the last option. The media is also involved in the democratic transition of the country. Based on democratic norms, the media usually gets freedom of expression first. They can expand their space and rights – such as the right to information – during the transitional stage [of a democracy.] Once democracy is rooted, then [the government] will be able to protect the media. Our transition has not reached a firm stage. And both parties need to understand this. Concerned institutions and stakeholders should join hands and brainstorm how to solidify this transitional stage. Each side will have their own views and concerns, but they should discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and consequences of the existing laws to find a solution that is acceptable to all. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Irrawaddy