Hungary has returned right-wing extremist Horst Mahler to Germany after he fled to avoid serving out the rest of a sentence for Holocaust denial and incitement to anti-Semitism. Mahler, 81, was transferred late last week into German custody at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt Airport, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. He was arrested May 15 in the Hungarian city of Sopron while trying to cross into Austria. He had asked Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for political asylum in a letter he published May 12 on the internet. Referring to Orban as the “Fuehrer” of the Hungarian nation, Mahler said he “placed his fate in the hands of his government.” A Budapest court ordered his extradition earlier this month. In April, Mahler had been ordered to return to the Brandenburg/Havel correctional facility on May 19 to begin serving the final stretch of a 10-year sentence handed down in 2009. He had been released temporarily for health reasons and reportedly had part of a leg amputated due to an infection. Despite the health problems, he allegedly continued to give talks to neo-Nazi audiences, as recently as April. According to Die Zeit newspaper, Mahler spoke in January to right-wing extremist audiences on such topics as “Jewry is the real enemy” and the so-called plan by Jews to destroy the German people. The one-time founder of the far-left Red Army Faction terror group famously underwent a transformation in the 1990s to the extreme right. He served as a lawyer for the right-extremist National Democratic Party of Germany until he left the party in 2003. In November 2007, he was sentenced to six months in jail for raising his arm in the illegal “Hitler salute” to greet his jailers while serving a previous sentence. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Photo taken at the annual intergenerational brunch for Holocaust survivors and their families. Front: (From left) Holocaust survivors Hanna Ehrlich and Cyla Kowenski, and Jane Stark, director of the Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage. Back: (From left) Gail Rosenthal, director of the Sara & Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center, and Gloria Weitzenhof. | Photo provided While the parents and grandparents are dwindling to a precious few, the stories passed on to the children of Holocaust survivors and their children live on. That’s in part because of organizations like the USC Shoah Foundation, which have recorded video and audio testimonies for posterity. Those accounts have been archived at colleges nationwide, among them Richard Stockton University in Galloway, N.J., an area that has a rich history when it comes to the subject. When many of those survivors came to the United States after World War II, this was where they called home, working on chicken farms and in factories thanks to grants from the Baron de Hirsch Fund. And this is also where Stockton offers students an extensive curriculum and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Holocaust and genocide studies. The focal point is the Sam & Sara Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center, which, in addition to being South Jersey’s Holocaust museum, now houses the 54,000-volume Shoah Foundation archives. But teaching its students about the Holocaust has been going on at Stockton long before the center came into existence. “We began teaching Holocaust studies in the 1980s,” center Director Gail Rosenthal said. “Rabbi Murray Kohn, who was one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, began teaching an introductory course about the Holocaust here. “So he laid the foundation. We also came up with the idea to begin taking oral histories of local Holocaust survivors. Around 1989 we went to [then-Stockton President] Dr. Vera King Farris and said, ‘We have all these tapes. We need a place to store them.’” Farris had the perfect suggestion. “She said, ‘It’s always been my dream to open a center,”’ said Rosenthal, who was volunteering on the project back then. “She had been so shocked when she first read about the Holocaust when she was in high school in Atlantic City.” An endowed chair was established at Stockton, with an Ida E. King Scholar annually teaching Holocaust studies and doing research there. And the Stockton Holocaust Center was dedicated in 1990, eventually becoming the Schoffer Center in 2009. Along the way, there’s been major expansion nearly doubling its size. That has come about through support from the Schoffer family, as well as the family of Sam Azeez, which also is the driving force behind the Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage. And with Stockton’s recent buy giving it access to the Shoah Foundation archives, there’s an even greater opportunity for Stockton students to learn more about not only what happened in Nazi Germany, Poland and other neighboring countries during the war, but other mass genocides. “The director of Yad Vashem came to visit us a year ago and said we have more undergraduate courses — we offer a minimum of 15 a semester — than any college in the United States,” said Rosenthal, who estimates that 1,000 of Stockton’s 9,000 students per year take one of those classes. What’s made the Schoffer Center and the Holocaust programs so effective is its leadership, Rosenthal said. “Students taking a course in Holocaust studies may not even know what they’re taking initially — and then they get hooked,” she said. Not only Jewish students and professors are affected. “I remember seeing pictures of the concentration camps, but it was never taught to me in school,” said Maryann McLoughlin, the center’s assistant supervisor, who has written and edited some 60 Holocaust memoirs. “I guess I got interested reading books like Exodusand Sophie’s Choice.” “But I’m really proud to be working with someone like Gail. She goes out of her way to help students who need counseling and has a wonderful relationship with the Jewish community.” For Rosenthal it’s simply passing on what she learned growing up. “L’dor v’dor–from generation to generation,” she said. “We want to make students better citizens one by one. “The reality is students may not always gonna remember dates, but they will remember stories, lessons, resilience, survival. “The Holocaust and other genocides are not the total story of story of man’s inhumanity to mankind. But it’s a lesson for today. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Jewish Exponent

Ed Mosberg reaches into his wardrobe, and takes out his concentration camp uniform. He buttons it neatly, and forces the striped hat onto his now elderly head. His teenage years were spent in the Krakow ghetto, then the nearby Plaszow concentration camp under the capricious, sadistic rule of the commandant made notorious by Schindler’s List, Amon Göth, then as a slave labourer in the Mauthausen-Gusen camp in Austria, and finally the Hermann Goering factory in Linz. On 5 May 1945, with their Nazi captors on the point of defeat, he and his fellow slaves were ordered into dynamited caves. They lived because the dynamite failed. Mosberg’s family of 16, including his parents and sisters, had already been murdered. When he was filmed putting the uniform back on in 2015, he was back at Mauthausen for the 70th anniversary of the camps’ liberation, where he walked through gasping tourists, a living, stubborn rebuke to industrial murder. This forms the opening scene of a new Holocaust documentary, Destination Unknown, which offers new testimonies, but also asks how the camps’ victims have survived the rest of their lives. Mosberg is 92 now, as he sits across from me in London, smartly dressed in blazer and tie. Back in New Jersey, where he and his wife, fellow camp survivor Cesia, have made their home, he is a successful, sometimes controversial property developer, and he makes calls on his iPhone before our interview, still very much in the world around him. But his former, nightmare world is also literally close enough to touch. “It was my [camp] uniform [in the film], yes,” he confirms. “With my number on it.” Then he leans close to show me a metal plate like a large dog tag, which he is wearing on a metal chain, with the number 85454. “This is the original number. With two holes, and you wear with wires on your wrist.” I realise later that this plate must have been on Mosberg in Plaszow. Putting the uniform on, too, must surely be painful. “I just put it on so that people know that something did exist. I don’t do this for pleasure. It hurts me. Okay? But I have to do it. Because for as long as I live, I will do it.” Mosberg shows little interest in the indulgence of analysing how the Holocaust changed him. Instead he’s here to implacably bear witness, as he has in countless forums before. But his forcefulness in Destination Unknown as, still in his striped uniform, he barges his wheelchair-bound wife through the Mauthausen crowds, does suggest a man who no longer bothers with backward steps. “That’s his character,” the film’s British director, Claire Ferguson, tells me. “When he wants something, he will go for it. When he has his wife in a wheelchair, he will do everything to get her where he needs her.” Llion Roberts, the British producer who instigated the film and spent a decade assembling its testimonies, agrees. “Ed would always be ahead of you, and you’ve got to catch up. He still does 100 press-ups every morning, at 92, and 10 minutes on the treadmill in his apartment. He wants to get from A to B, and he wants to go now. They all move out of the way in the film, because he’s going so fast.” Mosberg was 13 when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. I ask him how life had been for a Jewish boy in Krakow before then. “I never saw any anti-Semitism before the war,” he states. When, then, did he realise the extent of what the Germans were doing to Jews? “When they start making ghettos,” he says flatly, in his still strong Polish-Jewish accent. “In 1941,” he remembers, “they declare that all the Jews from the city of Krakow have to move to another location. And we had a big apartment, my grandparents had a big apartment. One of my aunt’s had an apartment, she was a lawyer, another one was also. They moved us all together to one apartment with two bedrooms. So many people. And then they started making the ghettoes smaller. So they started moving people out. My grandparents, my parents’ cousins. They told me that they had to go resettle in another part of Poland. They brought them into Belzec. Belzec was not a concentration camp. Belzec was an extermination camp. And they were murdered there.” The idea of a survivor type seems redundant in such terribly circumscribed conditions. Still, I ask Mosberg if he resolved to survive, in part to protect his family. He is composed till now. But this brings two long, bottomless sighs. “There was no way to protect,” he says. “No way to protect. I did once. And then I made a mistake.” He sounds angry, and desperately upset. He’s thinking of the way he kept his sisters in the back line when the Nazis selected who they’d kill, till the day they reversed the lines’ order, condemning his sisters. “I never want to talk about it,” Mosberg says. “But Mr. Roberts made me talk. I never talk about it because it bothered me all my life.” They lived longer because of you, I tell him. Ed Mosberg looks back at me, unpersuadable. He was perhaps 15 when he was trying to save his family. Did what he saw make him think less of humanity? “Well those people were not human beings,” he answers. “They were murderers. They did this for satisfaction. Amon Göth, I worked in his office, so I saw what he was doing. He did this for pleasure. To take dogs, and let the dogs rip up the people. He stood and was shooting people from the balconies. When he was walking through the camp, you knew that somebody would get killed.” Mosberg was reunited with Göth when he was put on trial then hanged by the Allies. “I saw him in jail,” Mosberg recalls. “And you want to know something? He was guarded by two policemen at that time. And I was still afraid of him. I was afraid. I don’t know why. I lived in Krakow after the war, but I never went to Plaszow. I was afraid to go. And I’m not a person where I’m afraid of anything. I don’t know why.” But he does. “Because Plaszow reminded me of my mother. I give her a piece of meat, and she spit it out and she said, ‘This is not kosher’, she cannot swallow it, and the next day they took her to her death [in Auschwitz in 1944]. And the same thing, when my two sisters were taken there. So, I was afraid to go.” Mosberg and his wife Cesia moved to the US in 1951, where there was initially little interest in what they’d suffered. “When I said to some people the story about the Holocaust, they said, ‘Don’t think, sir, we had it so easy here. We couldn’t buy a steak,’” he recalls with bitter irony. “I was laughing.” But he did return to the camps, with his young, American family. “It’s close to 50 years already,” he considers. “Because I remember I was carrying my daughter Caroline in my arms up the steps of Mauthausen, and my wife was worried. I said, ‘I could carry at that time boulders. I can carry my child.’” Roberts filmed Mosberg in 2004, hoisting a boulder on his 79-year-old shoulder as he climbs the camp’s 186 steps, as he once did daily, on pain of death. Did managing that make him stronger inside? “Yes. It made me stronger,” he says. “Because if someone was walking up the steps and he dropped the boulder, it went down and broke the legs of the other prisoners. And the top of that wall, they called the parachute wall. They lined up the Jews there and told them, ‘You have to push the one in front of you.’ Ok? And they didn’t have no choice. And they were just falling down being killed there. I don’t know if this made me stronger. It made me not to forget it. Stronger? If you see people being killed, it don’t make you stronger. And I saw killing all the time. When they liquidated the ghetto. How they were beating people, shooting them, I was there,” he says fiercely, looking me straight I the eye. “I saw it.” Destination Unknown’s makers believe their film is timely, in the face of resurgent racism and anti-Semitism, and an “apathy” Roberts sees growing towards the Holocaust, as its witnesses die. Mosberg, though, doesn’t see what he experienced as repeatable, whether in Rwanda, or the future. He sees the Nazis as uniquely vicious robbers, from Kristallnacht till the end. “Even Amon Göth, at the end, was arrested for taking belongings for himself. Pope Benedict when I met him, went into the Bundestag and said, ‘We Germans know the best that the Nazis were gangs of robbers.’” Mosberg is wholly forgiving of Germany today, knowing that “99 per cent of Germans from before then are not alive any more. If there is still some anti-Semitism there, I don’t have to go into Germany or Poland. I find it in the United States. People don’t like it when I say it, but this is the truth.” Mosberg, a staunch Republican, doesn’t, though, lay blame for this with President Trump’s populism. “It doesn’t worry me,” he says of the world’s fractious state. “Because it never happens as the same thing it was before. This is politics. Now because of this President, they’re saying there’s [more] anti-Semitism. There was always anti-Semitism.” Another survivor in Destination Unknown, Marsha Kreuzman, says she dreams of walking on snow, which is the bones of her fellow victims. Does Mosberg have a recurring nightmare? “Well, I have many times dreams about the Holocaust, yes. But my wife, she has it constantly. Two days ago, she was calling for her mother. She was calling for her sisters. She said, ‘I want to put me into the water. I want to drown like they were drowned.’ I say, ‘Don’t say that.’ And this is the way I live, with my wife,” he says heavily. “We’ve been married for 70 years.” Ed Mosberg, like many of the survivors, was left alone in the world by the camps. His love with Cesia has clearly helped that hollowness. “Two days ago I wasn’t sure I was coming here, because I didn’t want to leave my wife,” he continues. “But I asked her. I said, ‘I’m going to London. She said, ‘For what?’ I said, ‘The movie, and I have to talk, that our family will be remembered. And also the other people in other families and the rest of the people who were murdered. She said, ‘Okay, go.’” The Holocaust may seem like it could fade into history. But not while Ed Mosberg remembers. ‘Destination Unknown’ is in cinemas on 16 June. Ed Mosberg introduces it at Curzon Soho on 15 June __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Independence

It could all be about to kick off in Myanmar. But this time in a good way for the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Possibly. Hopefully. It seems that the UN is finally getting serious about the ethnic cleansing of this community that has been going on since 2012. Last month, the world body appointed a group of experts to the Southeast Asian nation in the hope of having them probe human rights abuses suffered by the Rohingya at the hands of the military junta. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi — the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning figurehead — has rejected the mission. On the grounds that it would ignite communal tensions. Not long ago, of course, she was the poster girl for peaceful resistance of the most stoic and dignified kind. Today she wears the hat of the oppressor and seems to find the fit just perfect. True to form she has this week stamped her foot down on UN hopes of entering the country. On the grounds that such a move would ignite communal tensions. Apparently, only an independent mission headed by a certain Mr Kofi Annan will do. That is, the man whom the world body, if it had any bite left at all, would have long ago seen tried for war crimes over his failure to stop Iraq; before then deciding to keep calm and push the issue of illegal aggression under the plushest of carpets. Yet there is some silver lining to be had. If one is prepared to, like, really squint. The BBC reported yesterday — the same day that Suu Kyi rejected the UN probe — that the world body is removing its top official to the country. While the latter has claimed the move is simply a routine matter, insisting that she has come to the end of her three-year stint there. The BBC, however, reported anonymous diplomatic and aid sources as saying otherwise. That is, there has been talk of the mission under her stewardship as being “glaringly dysfunctional”, focusing more on establishing ties with the junta than trying to implement mechanisms to safeguard the Rohingya. We sincerely hope that her removal, if that is, indeed, what it is — is not a case of too little too late. Some academics have termed the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya as “genocide in progress”, contending that this community is already suffering the four stages of genocide. These being: stigmatisation, harassment, isolation, systematic weakening and then, ultimately mass annihilation. No one has ever been prosecuted, let alone jailed, for the ongoing ethnic cleansing. At this stage, all we can do is hope that the UN is verbally aggressive in its response to having its fact-finding mission kicked out even before it arrived. Let us also hope that it is equally vocal in not accepting an independent inquiry overseen by Mr Annan. And let us, finally hope against hope that the world will now get serious about the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar.* _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Daily Times

The second day of closing arguments in Case 002/02 started as usual: Judge Nil Nonn started the proceedings at 9 a.m., and the Greffier confirmed that all parties were present, except for Nuon Chea, who is not present due to back pain. Nuon Chea waived his right to attend today’s hearing due to his medical condition, but he clarified that he has not waived his right to be tried fairly or challenge evidence admitted by this Chamber at any time. The Chamber granted Mr. Nuon’s request to follow the proceedings remotely. Judge Nonn turned the proceedings over to Co-Prosecutor Chea Leang who began to present the prosecution’s final arguments. Ms. Leang greeted the court and provided an overview of the crimes in Case 002/02 that were suffered by the Cambodian people during the Democratic Kampuchea. She stated that the crimes include starvation, overwork, disease, other inhumane acts, persecution, genocide of the Cham and Vietnamese, the forced marriage and rape of Khmer women, and the imprisonment, forced labor, and torture of millions of others in worksites and security centers. Ms. Leang explained that the reason for the second part of the trial, regardless of the guilty verdict in the first part, is that justice continues to be sought of the victims of these crimes. She acknowledged that the process of seeking justice has been neither quick nor easy, nor should have it been. To this end, Ms. Leang detailed the evidence-gathering efforts in this case. Between 2007 and 2010, the Office of Co-Investigating Judges (OCIJ) investigated the crimes in Case 002. During this time OCIJ also conducted over 1,000 witness interviews and received over 8,000 civil party applications and victim complaints. Ms. Leang then briefly reviewed the procedural history of Case 002/01 and Case 002/02. Taking both Case 002/01 and Case 002/02 together, this Chamber has heard testimony from 278 witnesses, civil parties, and experts, and admitted over 16,000 documents. Documents include contemporaneous documents from the Democratic Kampuchea area, such as telegram and reports sent to the CPK leaders from the zones and Democratic Kampuchea organizations, minutes of meetings of meetings, the Revolutionary Flag and Youth Party publications, records from the S-21 prison and Tram Kok district, interviews, speeches, statements of Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan , and other CPK leaders, witness interviews conducted by OCIJ and DC Cam and other organizations, and publications by experts who have researched the Democratic Kampuchea regime. Ms. Leang stated that contrary to Defense claims, this case has always been about the evidence, and not narrative, which shows the truth and proves the crimes for which the Accused are responsible. She said that it is the evidence that will be the focus of the Co-Prosecutor’s submissions in the next two days. And she maintains that it is this evidence that will be the basis for the Chamber’s decision. Ms. Leang will discuss crimes at worksites, including enslavement, other inhumane acts, persecution relating to Buddhists, and forced marriage and rape. Ms. Leang’s colleague will cover the crimes at security centers, genocide, and other key issues, such as whether a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) existed. Ms. Leang stated that enslavement at worksite cooperatives was a crime that affected nearly every Cambodian who lived in the cooperative and that the impact of this crime on the Cambodian people cannot be overstated as it affected a person’s job, occupation, home, religion, family life, and friendships. Virtually every defining part of Cambodian day -to-day life was taken away by the CPK in what was the most extreme transformation of society in modern times. No matter what workers did before April 1975, they were required to give up that life to become a worker who built infrastructure dams or a rice farmer. The Accused have been charged with crimes at four worksites, the Trapeang Thma Dam, Tram Kok Cooperatives, 1st January Dam worksite, and the Kampong Chhnang Airport. Ms. Leang first discussed nature of the crimes alleged against the Accused. Enslavement is the crime of exercising power over a person akin to ownership, by exploiting them for economic gain through forced labor, controlling their movement and environment, depriving them of their freedom, and preventing their escape from your control. Forced labor exists when it is shown that the victims had no real choice as to whether or not to work. Other inhumane acts are acts or omissions that cause serious suffering or injury to victims, such as detaining people in inadequate living conditions. Next, Ms. Leang discussed the criminal liability of the Accused. She stated that Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were in a small group at the top of the CPK who decided that Cambodians would give up their lives and become peasants or workers in the cooperatives and worksites of the Democratic Kampuchea. These decisions were made at party congresses and central committee meetings, attended by both Accused, including the critical meeting in May 1975 after the CPK seized power. Both Accused have admitted that people were forced to work in the cooperatives and were not free. Nuon Chea has done so in his testimony at the ECCC, and Khieu Samphan has done so in previous public interviews. Ms. Leang stated that one of the key elements of the crime of enslavement is the control of victimized people. She said that evidence will show that control was the principle reason for the CPK implementation of cooperatives. A CPK publication “Revolutionary Flag,” written by Khieu Samphan, stated that the cooperatives were critical in controlling the production of rice, the country, and the people. Nuon Chea has stated in his books the need to control and seize the people by means of cooperatives. Ms. Leang then quoted experts who have also described the Democratic Kampuchea as a slave state, in which people had no control over their lives or anything they did. As an example, Ms. Leang stated that testimony showed that daily life in the cooperatives started very early in the morning, workers had no control over when or what they ate, or what kind of work they did. Land, family, and religion were the three most important aspects of daily life, and Cambodians had no control over any of them. Ms. Leang explained that the CPK had developed a policy to produce three tons of agricultural output per hectare, while building the necessary supporting infrastructure projects at “breakneck speed.” This policy was called the Great Leap Forward. Khieu Samphan had described this revolution plan at the May 1975 Central Committee meeting at the Silver Pagoda where he discussed the need to urgently build these projects. Nuon Chea had also agreed with the plan to build infrastructure quickly. Ms. Leang stated that both Accused knew the cost of building these works so quickly and increasing the agricultural output so drastically. They knew they were pushing people too hard, the same people who did not have adequate food or medical care, and who were living in conditions that would eventually lead to death. People were working fifteen hours a day while there were shortages of food and medicine that led to sickness, pain, and malnourishment. Despite the conditions at the worksites, the leaders continued to celebrate the Great Leap Forward. Ms. Leang said that they even increased the goal to 3.5 tons per hectare and pushed the population even harder to dig even bigger dams. The two Accused played an instrumental role in implementing this policy through their speeches and reeducation sessions where they exhorted their followers to push harder. Ms. Leang explained that the Accused were aware of the situations at the worksites. At one reeducation session, for example, both Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea instructed cadres on how workers who were sick should be considered enemies, and they instructed cadres on how oppressive work and living conditions could be used to draw out enemies. One witness testified to his attendance at this meeting, and his terror at hearing the policy of branding Cambodians who did not work hard enough or were lazy as enemies. In addition, Ms. Leang gave examples of how the Accused have themselves admitted how their policies caused suffering to the Cambodian people. Khieu Samphan did so in a Voice of America interview where he described his thinking about the hardship imposed on Cambodians in order to achieve the plan, saying that he realized that the CPK would not be able to reach this goal unless the people ran faster and faster, and that the Cambodians ran with starvation and some with less food, and they lacked rice and medicines, and he knew this because Khieu Samphan was managing the medicines. Nuon Chea had also acknowledged in a 2007 interview with a German reporter that the progress was too fast and the demands on the people were too high. He also admitted to Thet Sambath, his personal biographer, that the CPK regime may have been destroyed because the Great Leap Forward was very fast. Next, Ms. Leang reviewed and addressed the Accused defenses to these charges, which was primarily that they did not know that people were starving, and that they did not know that conditions were so awful. Ms. Leang pointed out that their own statements show otherwise. In addition to their statements, both Accused traveled throughout the country visiting the sites personally and had the opportunity to witness the conditions for themselves In support of this, Ms. Leang offered evidence from King Father Norodom Sihanouk who had given interviews describing how he traveled with Khieu Samphan through Cambodia in 1976 and describing the conditions that King Sihanouk saw, specifically how work went on day and night, the conditions were like those in concentration camps, that food amounts were insufficient, and the diet was very, very bad. Ms. Leang noted that what Norodom Sihanouk could see, Khieu Samphan could also see. Moreover, Ms. Leang noted that on December 13, 2011, in the same courtroom where this hearing was held, Khieu Samphan himself described how he saw workers walking through rice fields at 4 a.m. In addition to the statements made by both Accused, Ms. Leang reviewed the documentary evidence on the conditions at the worksites and whether the Accused were aware of the stress on the Cambodian people. Ms. Leang stated that the reporting during the period was extensive. Zones sent reports and records regularly to the party center leaders in Phnom Penh, and, despite the party center leaders attempt to destroy these records before fleeing in 1979, many records have survived. Ms. Leang proposed that these records prove beyond any doubt that Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were notified of the starvation, killings, and arrests in their regions. Both Accused received reports that the people in the countryside suffered from disease, starvation, due to lack of medical supplies, food, and overwork. For example, the Central Zone secretary reported that people across the zone were suffering from diarrhea and overheating and he recommended a reduction in work hours. The Northwest Zone reported that there were shortages in many regions and people were only receiving gruel. The Southwest Zone reported that there were shortages, and people had cholera, and were dying. Ms. Leang explained that in addition to written reports, the Accused received reports in person at the leadership office in Phnom Penh from zone and sector leaders who came to report and receive instructions. Witnesses of these meetings included cadres at the K-1 office, the one surviving sector leader who described his trips to Phnom Penh to meet with Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, and Son Sen. Although there are few surviving members of the Standing Committee today who could testify, meeting minutes have survived that detail the rice production, health of people, lack of food supplies, and enemy situation. Lastly, Ms. Leang stated that the Office 870 committee comprised of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, and Doeun, and this office received documented reports of the deaths of Cambodians, lack of food, disease, and enemy arrests. The response from Office 870 was to build more dykes and to ration food supplies. This evidence shows clearly that Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan knew of and had ultimate control of the living and work conditions at the worksites. Next, Ms. Leang discussed each of the four worksites, the first of which is the Trapeang Thma Dam. This worksite was in the Southwest Zone, and included a 14km dyke on the east side and an 8km dyke on the south side. It was a huge worksite, and workers were instructed to finish the dam by 1977 to satisfy the needs of the Great Leap Forward. According to the Northwest Secretary, this reservoir was built in less than two months. Khieu Samphan stated in 2013, that, in 1976, he saw canals and dams, including Trapeang Thma Dam, which looked like a sea in the middle of a field where there used to be dry land. He also described this dam in his book. Other CPK leaders visited the Trapeang Thma Dam, including Pol Pot, and it was regularly reported on by the Northwest Zone to Office 870. It was known well enough by the CPK leaders that they could describe it in a 1977 edition of “Revolutionary Youth.” Ms. Leang noted that during this trial, there have been 15 former Trapeang Thma Dam workers and cadres who testified. Like other worksites that were part the Great Leap forward, witnesses described how the people at Trapeang Thma Dam worked day and night with little rest. A company chief at Trapeang Thma Dam testified that during work offensives, workers would work without sleep, sometimes for several days in a row. Khieu Samphan, in considerations on the history of Cambodia, said that workers worked from 3 or 4 a.m. through midnight, and he described the grueling manual nature of the work, including a personal requirement to carry three cubic meters of earth per day, and that food rations were reduced if they failed to meet their quotas. The food rations were already insufficient, as most meals were a small bowl of gruel. One witness said that he was so hungry that he often thought of giving up his life for one meal of rice and chicken. In mid-1977, the Northwest Zone was purged and the cadres were replaced by trusted Southwest cadres. Ms. Leang described how there was no clean water available and the only source was muddy pond water. Ms. Leang offered a documentary example of the knowledge of the top CPK leaders of the lack of clean drinking water at Trapeang Thma Dam, specifically, reference to the lack of clean water in the July-August 1977 issue of Revolutionary Youth and which stated that “[o]bviously, they had to face with the problem of water shortage.” This issue of Revolutionary Youth also described the long hours, difficult conditions of work, and grueling manual nature of the work at the Trapeang Thma Dam. Witnesses, such as a former guard, district secretary, company chiefs testified about seeing youth and Phnom Penh evacuees at the construction site who were thin and ill. The consequences of living conditions such as the lack of food, non-existent hygiene, lack of toilets, and pestilence like flies and lice, were that workers were malnourished and died from over-work. Witnesses explained that they continued to work until collapse because of their fear of reprisals and fear for their lives. Witnesses were not allowed to leave or to visit family, and cadres patrolled the units to prevent workers from escape. Ms. Leang concluded that the conditions at Trapeang Thma Dam, in which emaciated workers labored for 15 hours a day on poor rations, worked until collapse, and were hunted by armed guards if they tried to escape, satisfied the requirements of the crimes of humanity of enslavement and other inhumane acts. Ms. Leang stated that the conditions at Trapeang Thma Dam also satisfy the crime of political persecution. She explained that the company and battalion chiefs were instructed to seek out former Lon Nol soldiers or intellectuals. The chiefs were given the authority to execute these people and anyone who opposed Angkar. At this point, Ms. Leang paused in her presentation as the time for the mid-morning break had come. Before Judge Nonn called for a recess, he noted that Ms. Leang did not refer to the page or document number of the slides and video clips that she had presented to the Chamber during her presentation. He mentioned that one of the video clips was of King Sihanouk who spoke in French and without a provided Khmer translation. This issue was raised because without document numbers, Judge Nonn could not be certain that the slides presented this morning had been previously presented to the Chamber and the other parties. Ms. Leang responded that she will provide the document numbers to the Chamber and the other parties, and noted that with regard to the video clip of King Sihanouk, he spoke in French on the video and it had not been previously translated into Khmer. Co-Prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian provided the Chamber with the video reference number, and explained that translations had not been provided for the King Sihanouk video as the Co-Prosecutors intended to rely on the simultaneous translation provided by court translators during the hearing. Next, Nuon Chea Co-Defense Lawyer Victor Koppe mentioned that his presentation also did not include reference to document numbers with the same expectation that it would improve the flow of the presentation. He requested a resolution to the question now. Judge Lavergne noted that what is important to the Chamber is to be sure that the materials have been presented to the Chamber and have been admitted by the Chamber. Mr. Koumjian offered to provide all parties a list of all audiovisual materials with reference numbers by the end of the day. Judge Nonn thanked the prosecution and suspended the hearing for the morning break. When the hearing resumed at 10:41 a.m., Judge Nonn began by stating that all parties should adhere to instructions in E457/7 (which were the guidelines that the Chamber reviewed yesterday with the parties). Ms. Leang continued her presentation on the crime of political persecution at Trapeang Thma Dam. She stated that witnesses testified that the CPK screened people with relatives who were former Lon Nol soldiers, and who were taken away and disappeared. One witness testified that his parents and sister had been killed because his father was former Lon Nol official. In the West Zone, multiple witnesses testified about killings, disappearances, arrests, beating, and burying bodies of workers killed at the Trapeang Thma Dam site. The also testified that people who were sick were executed as they were accused of being concealed illness. Next, Ms. Leang discussed the 1st January Dam worksite. The 1st January was a 60km long dam in the Central Zone. Like the Trapeang Thma Dam, this was designated a “hot site” which meant extended hours for the workers. Ms. Leang showed an authenticated video of workers at the 1st January Dam, working barefoot, carrying earth in sacks attached to poles that rested on their shoulders, the workers walked quickly in long lines sometimes running to keep their place. They were dressed simply, some had hats, and others used scarves or cloth for head covering, the tools used to break the earth and shovel it were rudimentary, and there was no heavy machinery. The site was enormous and the embankment they had to climb was steep. Nuon Chea, Pol Pot, and other CPK leaders visited the 1st January Dam worksite. The Center Zone secretary visited the site on an almost daily basis and reported back to the party in Phnom Penh. Witnesses testified that Nuon Chea inspected the dam site often enough to see that it was not constructed well, and that Nuon Chea gave instructions to improve the construction. Another video was shown of Nuon Chea inspecting the site, and he is shown in close proximity to the workers and not observing from afar. Like Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea had ample occasions to observe the 1st January dam site. Ms. Liang described a speech that Khieu Samphan gave on April 15, 1977, which was broadcast on the radio. In that speech, he clearly showed his knowledge of the worksites, the number of workers, and the lack of machinery. This speech also showed how Khieu Samphan contributed to the party’s plan to build these sites at the cost of the Cambodian people. At one point in the speech, he described the speed with which the dams were built, and acknowledged the quality of the work by saying that it did not matter if the dam only lasted five years. Khieu Samphan finished the speech by exhorting the people to work at a feverish pace to fulfill the party’s plan. Ms. Liang concluded that Khieu Samphan and the other party leaders’ disregard for the quality of the dam indicated that they did not hesitate to exploit the workers for CPK gain, and that the Khieu Samphan speech indicated the party’s commitment to its policy of building faster than ever before regardless of the human cost. Ms. Liang stated that the workers at the 1st January Dam suffered from crimes that were not due to excesses or failures of their local leaders, but of the leaders in Phnom Penh, who were willing to enslave, deprive people of basic freedoms, force them to engage in hard labor in the most inhumane conditions, and take their lives where necessary to achieve the party’s goals. Thirteen former workers and cadres testified about the conditions at the 1st January Dam, including one witness who was only 12 years old when he was working at the dam. The use of child labor was known to and approved by the top CPK leaders. In his April 15, 1977 speech, Khieu Samphan praised the use of child labor stating that the children of Cambodia were very happy collecting natural fertilizer and helping to build dams and embankments and helping to build reservoirs and ditches. Pol Pot’s nephew testified that he saw children working at the 1st January Dam when he visited there with Pol Pot. Ms. Leang reviewed the testimony of witnesses on the conditions at the 1st January Dam. Witnesses testified that the conditions were almost identical to those at the Trapeang Thma Dam: the workers worked from before dawn until midnight, sick workers were perceived as lazy and punished (assigned to longer work hours, received smaller rations and beatings). There was rampant disease, such as malaria, dysentery, and cholera. There was no medicine or medical care, flies were everywhere, and every ladle of soup contained flies. Women had no form of sanitation or hygiene during their menstrual cycle which was a particular indignity. There were tens of thousands of people working there, with no latrines. One witness said you cannot hide thousands of flies and you cannot hide the smell of 30,000 people who had to defecate on the ground. Ms. Leang concluded that this testimony indicated that the workers were enslaved: they had no choice whether to work, every aspect of their lives was controlled by the party, they could not move around freely, and armed militia patrolled the site to prevent escape and ensure constant work. The fate for workers who did not abide by Angkar’s plans was to be considered an enemy, and then to be smashed as they were blocking the progress of construction. The Kampong Chhnang Airfield worksite was used to discipline and reeducate soldiers within the RAK who came from regions of the country distrusted by the leaders, like the North and East zones. The workers at this site also included handicapped soldiers. The workers built two runways that were 2.4km long, and a massive underground system of tunnels blasted out of the mountain. Like the other worksites, most of the top CPK members visited it, including Khieu Samphan and other members of the standing committee. Ms. Leang summarized the evidence relating to the testimony: There were no days off, meals were provided twice a day, and workers became thin and sick. The Chinese supervisors at the site had plenty of food and weekly banquets. Witnesses described their extreme exhaustion from the overwork and lack of nutrition. People had to continue work while sick or be accused of being the enemy, which caused workers to work until they collapsed, though they were thin and fatigued. Workers were infected by lice, had to drink water out of the same creek where they bathed. Blasting the tunnels on the site resulted in workers being seriously injured or killed from rock fragments because they could not run fast enough after the explosives were ignited. Installing the explosive into the rock was a method of execution, and no one cared about the health or safety of the workers. These assignments were tasked to people that they wanted to die. Workers were not free to leave the site and constantly monitored by squads of armed guards. Workers were not allowed to move freely, which led many to call this a prison without walls. Workers were required to finish the work quota, no matter how long it took. Ms. Leang suggested that the most compelling evidence of enslavement is the documentary evidence on what happened to those who tried to escape. In one monthly report from 1978, sector troops found three enemies trying to escape from the airport location, the zone reported that troops fired shots, captured the workers, and that one of the captured workers had been sent to the reeducation place for interrogation. West Zone reports included a section on attempted escapes from worksites, and Northwest Zone reports also detailed the investigation, pursuit, shooting and execution of the “enemies” who tried to escape. Though these were different zones and different years, Ms. Leang noted that they all described the same response to escapees from the airport site. Next, Ms. Leang reviewed the crimes and evidence related to the Tram Kok District in the Southwest zone. In 1977 and in 1978, the central committee honored the cooperative for its efforts to increase its production of agricultural product and held it out as a model for the rest of the country. In 1977, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan visited Tram Kok with Ta Mok and others. Witnesses testifying about Tram Kok included base people, new people, three former commune chiefs, a cadre who was district chief of hospital, detainees and guards, the district reeducation officer, and two former secretaries of the district. In addition to the witness testimony, there are hundreds of documents that indicate the crimes that happened there and corroborate the witness testimony. Ms. Leang stated that the evidence showed that there was complete control by Angkar over work, meals, family life, thought, and movement. One witness said the only activities allowed were eating, sleeping, and working. Even going to the bathroom required permission from a unit chief. Personal property was confiscated by Angkar, no picking mangos or coconuts or other field produce was allowed. One witness’s 13-year old son was taken away and killed for picking potatoes. Families were broken up with husbands placed in male units, women in female units, and children in youth units. Children were beaten for trying to see their parents. Pregnant women were forced to engage in hard labor, like collecting cow dung. One witness who was pregnant during her time there said that she was accused of being sick and lazy when she had morning sickness. As in other worksites, the food quota was inadequate to sustain the people, workers often only received a spoonful of rice, or had to work very hard for a bowl of rice porridge. When people became sick as a consequence, they were treated even worse and those who were not able to work had a reduced food ration. The former deputy chairman of Tram Kok District hospital testified to the malnutrition at the worksite, and that the malnutrition only worsened as the regime continued. When asked, he told the CPK leaders that there were so many people in the hospital because there was not enough food, and as a result, he was accused of attacking the cooperatives and his request to increase food rations was denied. Ms. Leang further stated that many workers were arrested and disappeared after they complained of inhumane conditions. There is documentary evidence supporting the lack of food, the complaints by workers, and the subsequent treatment of the complaining workers. Ms. Leang concluded that the crimes of enslavement and other inhumane acts have clearly been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Nonn thanked Ms. Leang and called for a lunch break until 1:30 p.m., at which point Judge Nonn reconvened the court for the first afternoon session. Ms. Leang resumed her presentation. Ms. Leang stated that the Accused are also charged with the crime against humanity of persecution on the basis of religion for their treatment of Buddhists. Ms. Leang identified the policy of the CPK during the Democratic Kampuchea regime as one that focused on closing pagodas, disrobing monks, and prohibiting the practice of Buddhism. This information was based on the experience of people who lived through and survived the regime, and who survived a profound change in one of the cornerstones of Cambodian life when they were no longer able to visit pagodas and worship. Ms. Leang maintained that there is simply no credible evidence denying the CPK elimination of Buddhism. She noted that Annex E to the Prosecutor’s Final Brief lists every witness from every zone who testified to this crime in their area. She also said that the defense would have the Chamber believe that it was coincidence that every pagoda was simply closed and every monk defrocked in every corner of the country between the time the CPK came into power in April 1975 onwards. Rather, this was a policy determined by the CPK leaders in Phnom Penh, and the policy was communicated to a mass of top cadres in a meeting in Phnom Penh held from May 20 to 25, 1975. One of the surviving attendees of that meeting testified that both Pol Pot and Nuon Chea talked about the closing of pagodas at the meeting. Moreover, one of the local Tram Kok leaders who attended the May 20 to 25 meeting was the daughter of Ta Mok. When she returned from that meeting, she convened a meeting in Tram Kok where she communicated what was to happen with pagodas, monks, and Buddhism. Ms. Leang noted that two monks testified about their personal experiences in being forced to leave the monkhood. They were told that they could not stay as a monk, and any monk should leave the monkhood or be defrocked. They were told that not following Angkar instructions would lead to their deaths. This event was also confirmed by local cadres and residents. CPK leaders announced in a party circular that Buddhism and the monks no longer existed. Pol Pot and Nuon Chea also announced this at a study session attended by Duch in 1978, and they said that they had succeeded in making monks work at sites. Other contemporaneous documents confirm the reports of complaints of local youth who complained about the missing monks and places of worship. Many pagodas became CPK prisons and killing sites, like Wat Baray Choan Dek, which was located near the 1st January Dam. In the Southwest Zone, 15 of 21 security centers were housed in pagodas. Despite this, Nuon Chea claims that there was no ban on religion. A former Tram Kok District Secretary testified that “Buddhism was eliminated because it was too gentle.” He testified that monks were defrocked, and that the chairperson of the party (Khom) gave the order and the communes implemented it. Ms. Leang stated that the evidence is clear that the CPK implemented this policy both in the Tram Kok district and throughout Cambodia. Lastly, Ms. Leang asked to allow her colleague, Deputy Co-Prosecutor Seng Bunkheang, to present the crime of forced marriage to the Chamber. The request was accepted by Judge Nonn. Mr. Bunkheang began by stating that the CPK believed that they could treat ordinary Cambodians as property to do with as they pleased, and this was shown by the use of the policy to force individuals to wed spouses chosen by the regime and to consummate the marriage. He continued to say that these policies constitute two separate crimes that are legally classified as the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts: first, for the forced marriage, and second, for the rape in those cases where the couple was forced to have intercourse without the consent of one or both individuals. Mr. Bunkheang explained that the CPK arranged marriages without people’s consent in order to form a revolutionary family loyal to Angkar. This was implemented in every zone and autonomous sector of the country, and in the military division. Mr. Bunkheang stated that both Accused had affirmed that the CPK intended to increase the Cambodian population dramatically from approximately 8 million to 15-20 million people within 10 years. Khieu Samphan agreed with an expert who stated that Pol Pot wanted to increase the population dramatically and not reduce it. Khieu Samphan also gave a speech in which he discussed and supported this policy. Nuon Chea admitted his support for this policy in a 1981 interview, and said that the four-year plan for 1977-1980 had been to increase population to 15 million people within 10-15 years. In addition to the statements of both Accused, Mr. Bunkheang also noted the documentary evidence issued by the CPK which stated that population increased, but not as much as was needed by the party. He noted that achieving a goal of doubling a population that was systematically being starved and killed would require an unprecedented increase in the birth rate. To further these goals, CPK would arrange and approve marriages. Nuon Chea admitted to his approved biographer, Thet Sambath, that “the man always wants to choose a beautiful girl, and that is why we force them to get married and Angkar chose the wife.” Various zone, district, and other CPK officials oversaw the marriage ceremony. This was a policy carried out by individuals at the highest echelons of the party, and its implementation included persons at all levels of society. For example, one witness worked at the Ministry of Commerce, which was overseen by Khieu Samphan. She testified that Khieu Samphan made a speech in which he stated that all female cadres had to work for the state and all females over the age of 19 should arrange to get married. Khieu Samphan did not say whether the marriage should be about love or not, but that women about 19 and male youths about 25 should be arranged to be married. He said that the reason for this was so that they would produce children for the defense of the country. Mr. Bunkheang noted that another witness testified that in 1977, the Ministry of Commerce was told to marry at least 100 couples a month. And a witness from the Ministry of Social Affairs stated that she was forced to marry, and that Angkar arranged the marriages. Mr. Bunkheang stated that this evidence shows that the first marriage policy emanated from the center of the party. In case 002, 54 trial witness testified on forced marriage and 131 witnesses gave written record of interviews of forced marriages. Specifically, 27 witnesses in court testified that they personally were forced to marry; 59 people provided this same evidence through the OCIJ. In addition, 22 people testified to personally witnessing other forced marriages and an additional 52 people provided evidence through the OCIJ that they personally witnessed a forced marriage. This evidence is extensively covered in the final brief. Mr. Bunkheang stated that this and other evidence concerning forced marriage on the case file shows how forced marriages were implemented, men and women who had sometimes never met each other previously could be married and with little or no notice, and parents were rarely if ever allowed to attend the weddings. After the ceremony, the couple had to make commitments to Angkar, and the policy also determined who could marry whom and paired people of similar socio-economic background. One witness testified that base people had to marry base people and not the 17 April people because of their unclear biographies. He said that there was a fear that the 17 April people would be implicated with the KGB or CIA. Youth league or progressive people should only propose to their own people and likewise party members should propose to other party members. This approach to match-making was not documented, but only discussed in the meetings. Forced marriages happened all over the country, and there were reports from zones that showed the number of people who were married. Mr. Bunkheang stated that there was also a concern that the union that was formed should not threaten the CPK. As a result, after marriage, couples were only allowed to see each other for a few days each month – enough for pregnancy but not enough to create a spiritual bond. This was one way the CPK controlled spiritual private property. Khieu Samphan had a comment on controlling spiritual private property around 39 – that bonds include parents, children, someone? King Norodom also had an exchange with Khieu Samphan about this – in which Khieu Samphan told him not to have a family life any more, but only to think of the country. A Ministry of Commerce employee recalled that Khieu Samphan said we were under the supervision of Angkar and should not look for parents because Angkar was the parent. Next, Mr. Bunkheang discussed the marriage ceremonies, noting that ceremonies had many similarities nationwide, though with some small variation. It is not the Prosecution’s position that every partner in every marriage was forced. Rather, it was shown that some fortunate cadres were allowed to marry a partner of their choice. However, almost universally, others did not have the choice of who to marry regardless of if they were a high-ranking cadre or a new person. Once a male cadre had selected a woman, the woman could not refuse the marriage. The prosecution also recognized that many couples who were married parted ways after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and some did not for a variety of reasons. Mr. Bunkheang stated that those reasons are personal to the individuals and irrelevant to the criminal liability of the Accused in this crime. Mr. Bunkheang highlighted the evidence relating to the coercion to marry and consummate. The couples lacked real choice as to whom to marry, whether to marry and whether to consummate that marriage. Coercion occurred explicitly through threats, punishment, and execution for those who resisted marriages or consummations. Coercion happened implicitly through the climate of fear of punishment in an environment where they were already barely surviving. This implicit coercive environment was created through warnings not to question Angkar, punishments for refusing any order, no matter how small, or breaking any rule, total dependence on the state which was all-powerful, and knowledge that others who had resisted had been punished or killed. In this environment, individual consent to marriage proposed by Angkar was impossible and any refusal could result in branding the person as an enemy and result in refashioning, reeducation or execution. The vast majority of those who were forced to marry were also forced to consummate or have conjugal visits. Both men and women testified about being forced to marry and consummate their relationship with the fear that not doing so would result in their mistreatment or death. Both men and women testified about the emotional harm that resulted in marrying someone they did not know, or did not love, or did not choose. To ensure that the consummation occurred, the new couples were monitored by militia who reported who talked about Angkar and who refused to consummate the marriage, and those who refused to consummate would be taken away for reeducation and executed. Mr. Bunkheang stated that consummation when one or both did not consent constituted rape, and both men and women were subject to rape. Many couples consummated their marriage because they knew they were being monitored and knew that not doing so could result in their death. In some circumstances, men threatened to report their wives if they did not submit to the consummation, and some men forced their wives. When couples did not consummate, they were taken for reeducation, threatened, punished and executed. While the defense acknowledged a desire by the CPK to increase the marriage, they maintain that the marriage policy of the CPK required the consent of both partners. They based their argument on revolutionary moral precepts, in which both parties must agree to a marriage and they claim that this precept accurately reflects the position of the CPK. The Co-prosecutors respond that not only is this refuted by the evidence, but looking at the other precepts, this argument is further refuted. For example, another precept was to not do anything to impact the people, not even give a chili pepper. These precepts do not reflect the reality of the CPK, rather that if it is true that both parties needed to agree, then it is clear that this only happened as a result of the coercion. Nuon Chea claims that there are no specific examples or object reasons why consent is not possible. Mr. Bunkheang said that these are covered extensively in the brief, but a few highlights would be offered now. In one witness’s testimony, she was married to a handicapped soldier who had been blinded in fighting, the witness says that she was married in a group, some of the people cried and two ran away. She said that she cried and was very disappointed as she had never seen her would be husband before the marriage day, but they would be killed so she had to bear the situation. Her husband described the wedding from his perspective to the OCIJ judges – he found out that morning he was to get married, and no one told him he was to get married but he had to do so because they had to follow Angkar orders. Another man said the when he was questioned by the Khmer Rouge about his marriage he said they got along because she was his cousin, but if the man said that they did not get along, they would be required to have sex and a militia person would eavesdrop. If the wife refused, she would be taken to be killed. Further, the defense states that in the cultural context of Cambodia these policies were not harmful or out of the ordinary, rather that they were like parents organizing marriages for their children. Khieu Samphan said that Cambodian marriages were not primarily about love. Mr. Bunkheang said that in making this defense, the defense mischaracterized the criminality of forced marriage – in which lack of love or the involvement of parents does not make a forced marriage criminal. What does make a forced marriage criminal is when the state usurps the role of choosing partners for people, punishes them for refusing, and punishes them for not consummating Lastly, Nuon Chea in his brief likens forced marriage and rape program to countries who have taken to promote an increase of population growth by promoting fertility centers. He describes the forced weddings as a practical and economical decision and the speculation that the militia monitored couples to see if they consummate that they were acting as an ordinary police force trying to protect the village. Mr. Bunkheang stated that one witness was not doing ordinary police functions when he was told to report on couples who refused to sleep together. Nor was a second witness when he was told to monitor the activities of newly married couples. Mr. Bunkheang concluded that considering the Convention of 1966 and the definition of a full and free marriage, CPK marriages came nowhere near. Khieu Samphan said the CPK marriages were an improvement over traditional marriages and the CPK marriages were an insignificant shift from parents arranging the marriages to the CPK arranging them. But Mr. Bunkheang noted that witnesses felt the opposite – they felt robbed of one of the most important traditions in life – choosing a partner and celebrating in traditional ways that have been in place for generations. Many respondents identified forced marriage as an important aspect of the violence the CPK perpetrated against the population in Democratic Kampuchea. The Co-Prosecutors are not saying everyone was forced to marry, but there was a situation where many were forced, and evidence of those who were not does not diminish the evidence of those who were forced to marry. Those at the top who were responsible for the policy tended to minimize the severity of the forced marriage policy or interpret statements of commitment and consent as genuine to minimize their own criminality. In contrast, other witnesses who were cadres who organized marriages and who admitted that the couples in those marriages were forced. Additionally, another said that women did not refuse though she did not like the men, and these women got divorced after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Nuon Chea challenges the occurrence of marriages in various zones, but this is categorically untrue, as there are witnesses in each zone who have testified to forced marriage in those zones. Mr. Bunkheang noted that Nuon Chea seemed to forget that he proposed a witness in the Northwest Zone who had also provided information on forced marriages in that zone. He testified that he and his wife knew each other before their marriage, and he was recommended to her, but other couples were not treated like he was – the others were forced to get married. He also testified that other men who got married that day found out that day who they would marry – they would be asked if man a loved woman b, and if they agreed in the evening they would be married in the morning. Finally, Nuon Chea argues that militia men monitoring couples could not have happened because it would have violated cultural norms. But violating cultural norms was normal for the CPK, for example, the CPK was violating cultural norms to make monks work, and in fact the entire policy of forced marriage violated Cambodian cultural norms. Mr. Bunkheang said that the issue of forced marriage is untouched by the arguments in the defense briefs. The evidence on forced marriage and rape is extensive, painful and irrefutable asking chamber to find both Accused guilty of the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts with regards to the crimes of forced marriage and rape. Mr. Bunkheang yielded the floor to Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak with president’s approval. Mr. Lysak will discuss the crimes committed at the four security or reeducation offices, Tram Kok district office, Kraing Ta Chan, Au Kanseng, Phnom Kraol, and S-21. These were just 4 of 196 security offices identified by DC Cam that were in operation during this regime. Mr. Lysak stated that the execution numbers at S-21 represent just one security center – the scale of killings is an unimaginable atrocity. There were no trials, no appeals, no lawyers, no law, when people were killed on that day. As this Chamber heard from Duch, these executions were under the order of Nuon Chea, Brother #2. Mr. Lysak showed pictures of some of the people executed at S-21, from a 24-year old woman to a former ambassador to the Soviet Union to a 13-year old Vietnamese girl, whose 8-year old brother and father were later killed as well. Although Mr. Lysak will only discuss the four security centers, he said that what happened at the four in this case was replicated in security centers across the country. Mr. Lysak brought a hard copy of a report numbered E31094, which was a monthly report from the West Zone for July 1978. He described how the report makes a clear statement of the party policy that the zones were instructed to implement with regard to to these enemies. The report includes people who dared to complain of insufficient food, overwork, or separated them from family. It included reports of a man who was sent to reeducation because he was a French national who during the previous regime who played music for foreigners. In every report like this seen by the Co-Prosecutors, there were reports of RAK soldiers. Mr. Lysak stated that the Accused were well aware of what was going on in this country, as the National Co-Prosecutors had discussed earlier today. Standing committee meetings were attended by both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, as Khieu Samphan admitted to the OCIJ. Any doubt is therefore removed that both of these Accused attended meetings where they received reports from regional leaders in their territories. The zone leaders reported on arrests, asked for direction from Angkar, and reported on enemies. Mr. Lysak stated that these documents obviate any argument that the zones were operating independently from the top echelon of the party. There were at last two security centers that failed to destroy all their records – S-21 and Kraing Ta Chan, and as a result, there is no serious dispute of the crimes that were committed at those centers, which has also been corroborated with witness testimony. In Mr. Lysak’s submissions continuing tomorrow, he will address the crimes against humanity that he believes are most closely associated with the security centers: imprisonment, murder, extermination, torture and other inhumane acts. He will also offer some submissions on the two Accused responsibility for those crimes. Mr. Lysak began to discuss the crime against humanity of imprisonment, defining is as a deprivation of a person’s liberty arbitrarily, that is, without a justifiable legal basis. He stated that thousands of victims were deprived of their liberty and detained at the four security centers. Among the hundreds of witnesses who testified, not one claims that there was a court, or judge, or trial available to them. It was party leaders, and party leaders alone who decided on who was arrested and who would be smashed. He noted that this is the very definition of arbitrary imprisonment and execution. In addition to witness statements, there are surviving documents that related to these crimes. For example, a telegram sent by Northeast Zone secretary to Phnom Penh in which it is decided that comrade Thi should take secret measures to take out networks of poor persons who were identified as contemptibles. Mr. Lysak stated that it is not legally justifiable to arrest and detain someone on the basis of their network, or family, or associate. That is not due process but guilt by association. Judge Nonn next adjourned court until tomorrow at 9 a.m. and instructed security to bring Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan to security facility of the ECCC and return tomorrow before 9 a.m. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

With every passing day, the likelihood of sustaining Christianity in the cradle of Christendom diminishes. Experts in the field believe that it is currently the 11th hour for the Christian community in Iraq, and if something drastic is not done within the next year, only a remnant will remain. In a positive move last week, the House unanimously passed H.R. 390, the bipartisan Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act. The bill, which was introduced by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) and co-authored by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-18), authorizes the Administration to fund groups that are effectively providing humanitarian aid to genocide survivors, addressing vulnerabilities that might force survivors to flee, identifying warning signs of violence perpetrated against religious minorities, supporting criminal investigations into perpetrators of genocide, and encouraging other foreign governments. In a press release by Congressman Smith, he noted that:“On March 9, 2016, the House passed Jeff Fortenberry’s genocide resolution (with a vote of) 393-0. A few days later, Secretary of State John Kerry declared ISIS atrocities to be a genocide. Despite this, the existential threat to Christians and Yazidis and other minorities continues to this day.”With the end of the school year rapidly approaching, and as families continue to feel forgotten in what is about to be their third year of displacement, many are being pressured by their families in the U.S., Canada or Australia to leave the region since they have lost all hope in the – so far – empty promises of the West to provide adequate aid in the region. In addition, there are ever increasing concerns by minorities who have found temporary safety within the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as President Masoud Barzani has called for an independence referendum to be held on September 25, 2017. The KRG is an autonomous government in northern Iraq near its borders with Syria, Turkey and Iran. There are roughly 30 million ethnic Kurds in a small area of the region (see map), who are widely recognized as the largest stateless national group in the world. Throughout ISIS’ genocide campaign, many ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq fled to the KRG-controlle In a highly unusual, independent report recently released by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Wilting in the Kurdish Sun: The Hopes and Fears of Religious Minorities in Northern Iraq, the Commission acknowledges that in comparison to the rest of the region, the Kurdistan region has provided a safe haven for many religious minorities in Iraq. However, it goes on to state: “Even so, minority religious and ethnic groups face specific challenges, such as systemic discrimination within the authorities or wider society. In addition, the deteriorating political and economic situation in the region, combined with poorly enforced protections and relatively weak rule of law, could put minorities increasingly at risk in the future.” Considering that many religious minorities within the KRG appear to remain “second-class citizens,” there are very grave concerns that should the KRG go through with the referendum, the religious minorities will once again be victimized as they are caught in the cross-hairs. If mechanisms such as those required by H.R. 390 are not put in place quickly in order to ensure continued aid, reconstruction and security for these religious groups, we will be out of time and once again, we will have failed our promise of “never again.” It is time we sign legislation into law to help these people before the clock runs out. Abigail Berg Director of Government Relations Take Action: 1. Call, email or tweet your Senators and ask them to support the Senate version of HR 390. 2. Read: USCIRF’s report on Religious Freedom in the KRG. 3. To help those in Syria directly affected by ISIS’ genocide, go to www.21wilberforce.org/give and donate to the Rise Up and Build Conference. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Wilberforce Initiative

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the South Sudanese government’s announcement that it is refusing to issue or renew visas for 20 foreign journalists because their coverage is regarded as overly critical. The decision to ban the 20 journalists from working or continuing to work in South Sudan was revealed during an interview by Elijah Alier, the head of the country’s Media Authority, for Juba-based Eye Radio on June 7. Alier accused the journalists of writing “unsubstantiated and unrealistic” stories that “insulted or degraded South Sudan and its people.” The Media Authority thinks they would contribute to a cycle of violence that has fuelled a civil war in South Sudan since December 2013. “We will restore the country’s image by regulating what comes out of the media because it is the same media being used to portray the country’s image negatively,” Alier said during the interview for Eye Radio, in which he did not name the journalists or media outlets concerned by the ban. “This vague and alarming statement is clearly aimed at deterring both foreign and South Sudanese journalists from criticizing South Sudan in their reporting," said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. "Given what we know about the pressure on South Sudanese journalists, it is clear that this ban on foreign journalists is aimed at creating a blackout on what is happening within the country. We call on the South Sudanese authorities to lift this ban. A bad situation doesn’t go away just because you refuse to look at it head-on.” The Nairobi-based Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa (FCAEA) said the banned journalists come from around ten countries, that they work for both print and broadcast media, and that the South Sudanese authorities refused to issue or renew their accreditation in the past six months. Foreign media and journalists continue to operate in Juba but with great difficulty. As RSF reported at the time, the Media Authority suspended the activities of the Al-Jazeera bureau in Juba on May 1 until further notice after a series of reports about the ongoing clashes between government forces and rebel troops. US journalist Justin Lynch, one of the last foreign reporters based in the country, was arrested and expelled last December. Reporting is even harder for South Sudanese journalists, who have been singled out by the authorities since the start of the civil war. Several have been arrested, tortured appallingly, and left for dead. The media censor themselves and the few that try to provide independent reporting are exposed to reprisals. Many journalists have had to shut down media outlets or flee the country. Eight journalists have been killed in connection with their work since 2013 without a full investigation by the authorities and without those responsible for their deaths being identified. South Sudan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index after falling 20 places since 2015. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reporters Without Boarders

On the morning of May 19, 22-year-old Tibetan monk Jamyang Losal set himself alight in Qinghai province’s Tsojang Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Losal, who died at the scene, was the 150th Tibetanto set himself on fire in protest against Chinese policy on the Tibetan Plateau since 2009. He had previously been detained for 10 days for posting a photo of the Dalai Lama on the heavily monitored messaging service WeChat. After this fiery act of protest, he was taken away again for the last time by police, who refused to return his body to his family. Ever since 1989 and the Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese state has explicitly prioritized “stability above all else” (wending yadao yiqie). The goal of this policy is an authoritarian feedback cycle combining political and cultural controls from the top with rapid economic growth from below that theoretically produces bottom-up support for the party-state. This stability drive targets any potential source of political, cultural, legal, or spiritual opposition and paints its foes, particularly in Tibet, as “cultic.” But this drive for stability has become a cult itself, one backed by the state: a totalitarian form of belief that refuses all counterevidence or opposition and that must be embraced regardless of consequences. This cult is locking people in Tibet, both Han Chinese and Tibetan, into a downward spiral of anger and pain. Since 2009, hundreds of Tibetans have taken the same drastic step as Jamyang Losal: Sonam Tso, a mother who set herself alight in Ngaba, a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, in 2016, leaving behind five children; Sungdue Kyab, a 17-year-old who survived his self-immolation in Labrang in Gansu province in 2012, only to be held indefinitely at an undisclosed location since; and Tapey, a Kirti monk who was the first to douse his monk’s robes in gasoline and set them alight in 2009. Looking back at the images smuggled out of Tibet showing Tapey walking down a street in Ngaba with his robes engulfed in flames, one cannot help but ask: Why is this happening? And where is this taking China and Tibet? Self-immolations have been effective tools of public protests in the past: Consider the famously powerful image of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burning himself to death in Vietnam. But in China, where self-immolations have now been ongoing for eight full years, they barely make a ripple. There is a common Chinese perception that Tibetans are “simple” and “primitive” people, who in their worship of a “feudal slave owner” — known elsewhere as the Dalai Lama — fail to recognize just how much they have benefited from Chinese largesse. Consequently, there is an assumption that immolators must have somehow been tricked by external cult forces manipulating their “primitive” and “irrational” minds. That assumption is reinforced by the primary Chinese public memory of self-immolation, the alleged Falun Gong supporters who set themselves on fire in protest in Tiananmen Square in 2001. Those scenes were gratuitously and repeatedly broadcast on state television, reinforcing notions of self-immolation as a cultic act, with vulnerable minds tricked by manipulative elders. Although some Chinese express sympathy and understanding in private, the majority see self-immolations in Tibet as another example of the simple and easily misled mind of the native. But the reality of self-immolation is far more complicated. Self-immolation is part of a tradition of protest against Chinese rule in Tibet that extends as long as China’s occupation, from uprisings against “social reform” policies throughout eastern Tibet in the 1950s to large-scale demonstrations against cultural and political controls in the late 1980s to the latest uprising in 2008 that spread across the plateau in the months before the Beijing Olympics. This last series of protests, however, became the target of an unrelenting state crackdown, followed by the all-encompassing securitization of the Tibetan Plateau in the name of sacred stability. Since 2008, the People’s Armed Police, China’s paramilitary enforcers, have roamed the streets of Tibetan areas on foot and in armored vehicles in a dramatic show of force, backed up by video cameras that watch every movement in real time and record all events for further review. Checkpoints monitor and control the flow of people from one place to another, targeting ethnic Tibetans for particular scrutiny in their own homeland. International journalists and researchers, meanwhile, are blocked from entering Tibetan areas to monitor and report on these developments. Most insidiously, “the grid” management system (Tibetan: drwa ba, Chinese: wangge), represented as a public interest project to provide access to social services, brings personalized surveillance activities down to the household level. A network of community workers overseeing sections of cities divided into “grids” provide real-time data on their territory, to be analyzed by security officials for the slightest hint of potential unrest: The results have been so pleasing that this model has now been exported to the equally troubled region of Xinjiang. The obsessive securitization of the Tibetan Plateau, seeing and tracking everything, has created an environment in which collective acts of resistance are now virtually impossible — they are nipped in the bud well before they could ever evolve into large-scale protests. Even lone individual protestors shouting slogans in support of Tibetan independence or the return of the Dalai Lama are disappeared before their message can be heard. All of this would seem to be a sign of enhanced stability, the state’s goal. Yet it is precisely this “stable” environment that has produced self-immolation as a form of protest. As Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser observes in her recent book Tibet on Fire, self-immolation requires little planning, can be executed on one’s own in an instant, and is thus virtually impossible to stop. At the same time, it conveys an unambiguous message of resistance. It is the most dramatic way of speaking out when everything else is silenced. While the cult of stability makes any other forms of protest impossible in Tibet, the issues driving protest — religious oppression, the second-rate status of Tibetans, exploitation of the poor — haven’t gone away. The stamping-down of protest in the name of stability has created the string of self-immolations, a final defiance that no security measure can stop. This practice has now taken on deep cultural and religious significance as a form of self-sacrifice for a higher cause. And this development, perceived as yet another threat to stability, has in turn led to ever greater determination by the state to stamp out dissent once and for all through an anti-immolation crackdown. Local officials are under huge pressure to stop any more self-immolators, but as devotees of the cult of stability, the only recourse they have in their toolbox is further oppression — precisely the original source of protestors’ grievances. Families of self-immolators, even entire villages, are collectively punished for self-immolations: Relatives are detained, the bodies of self-immolators are held by police, and the towns self-immolators come from are denied state funds. Surveillance is intensified, and those who report acts of self-immolation to the outside world are prosecuted. State-sponsored religious authorities condemn self-immolation as a form of violence in violation of Buddhist teachings — rather than as part of a long and honorable tradition of self-sacrifice. Propaganda has gone into overdrive, either accusing self-immolators of mental instability or accusing the “Dalai clique” of masterminding these protests and paying their enactors. The state accuses manipulative and corrupt monks in exile in India or the supposedly broken minds of the protestors — foreclosing any consideration of the role the government’s own orthodoxies play in the current situation in Tibet. In reality, the clampdown on protest since 2008 produced self-immolation as the only possible way to make one’s voice heard. In turn, the self-immolations have produced further clampdowns. And in response to this deteriorating situation, we see continued self-immolations. And so, eight years on, we face a grim milestone of 150 burnt bodies with no substantive change in the situation and no end in sight. There was hope when Xi Jinping first took power in 2012 that there could be changes in Chinese policy toward Tibet. Yet Xi appears to be a true believer in the cult of stability: The crackdown on civil society that has emerged during his reign has only made the already quite restrictive political environment increasingly constricted. While China’s leaders are typically portrayed as pragmatists gradually measuring the costs and benefits of various policies, on matters of stability and Tibet policy they are true believers, drinking the Kool-Aid of failed methods as the ultimate solution. When we talk about the historical relationship between China and Tibet, or about the present-day effects of Chinese policy in Tibet, there are bound to be differences of opinion. But when people are setting themselves on fire, one after another, there’s no longer any way to dodge the fact that something needs to change. As long as Chinese leaders remain dedicated to the cult of stability, though, it never will. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Foreign Policy

I will be writing at length soon analyzing the various implications of this callous, finally barbarous Security Council decision to reduce UNAMID drastically (see below); my focus will be on the greatly increased risks to civilians in Darfur that will follow from this decision. The conversion of this “hybrid” UN/African Union mission from “peacekeeping” to “peace-building” mission is little more than a scandalous fig-leaf for eviscerating what has been at various times the largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission in UN history. It will now take its place in that history as the most appalling failure, reflecting a willingness to abandon millions of Darfuris displaced, at risk, and often in desperate need of humanitarian relief that will not longer be possible in a great many areas because of the insecurity a massive UNAMID reduction will create. Failure though it is, UNAMID provided at least a modicum of security in some areas at some times—no longer. The United Nations Security Council is expected to make major changes to the mandate of Darfur hybrid mission transforming it from a peacekeeping to a peace-building mission and to modify its force structure, Sudan Tribune has learnt. The 15-member body is expected to renew the mandate for the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) as it will expire on 30 June. The Council will discuss the matter on 14 June and will grant the mandate extension for an additional year on 27 June. Earlier this month Sudanese officials have already alluded that strategic review of the peacekeeping mission agreed recently responds largely to their demands to reduce the deployed troops and reflects the “positive developments” and improved situation in Darfur. An international diplomat who spoke to Sudan Tribune under conditions of anonymity said that the Council would reduce nearly half of UNAMID personnel and would close the third of UNAMID team sites in the five states of the region. “Almost 1/2 the size of the troop strength (44 percent) and 1/3 the police strength (30 percent),” he said adding approximately “1/3 of the team sites ( 11 out of 36) and withdrawing military from 7 other sites.” Also, the changes will affect the civilian staff as they would be deployed only in the capitals of Darfur five states. UNAMID FAILURES IN PHOTOS Failed to investigate the overwhelming evidence assembled by Amnesty International (September 2016) of Khartoum’s use of chemical weapons during the long Jebel Marra offensive of 2016 Failed to provide security for water tankers on the road from Kebkabiya to Sortony camp (near a UNAMID base in North Darfur), compelling the airlifting of displaced civilians from Jebel Marra to be airlifted to already overcrowded El Fasher camps Failed to enforce the ban on offensive military flights by Khartoum in Darfur per UNSC Resolution 1591 (March 2005) Failed to investigate all but a painfully few of the tens of thousands of rapes of girls and women in Darfur since January 2008 when UNAMID officially took on its civilian protection mandate in Darfur Failed to investigate andy of the many deadly fires in IDP camps —some immensely destructive and the product of arson—regularly reported by Radio Dabanga Frequently failed to protect civilians under attacks even when in plain view of UNAMID personnel | See especially: “What We Learn of UNAMID from the September 2010 Tabarat (North Darfur) Massacre, 18 September 2011 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-Gi UNAMID has done nothing to control the violence and predations of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Khartoum’s primary militia force in Darfur and reported on in detail by Human Rights Watch in September 2015 | https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/09/09/men-no-mercy/rapid-support-forces-attacks-against-civilians-darfur-sudan Feckless and dishonest leaders of UNAMID have consistently misrepresented conditions on the ground in Darfur to ingratiate themselves to the Khartoum regime. In this photo, UNAMID head Ibrahim Gambari (Nigeria) is see chatting with indicted génocidaire Omar al-Bashir at the wedding of the daughter of notorious Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal (January 2012) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

__________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Centre for Unity in Diversity

Children born on the day civil war reignited in Kachin State are now starting their first grade in school, this week. Thousands of IDPs from a total of over 120,000 have fled, again, from their IDP camps, which they had called home for five years, as conflict spreads toward the Sino-Burmese border. As humanitarian relief efforts dwindle and conflict resurges, the Government’s Army has ordered all assistance to be blocked to KIO-administered areas with the sole objective of starving the IDPs and worsening the humanitarian crisis. Kachin communities throughout the world are calling today for the Government’s Army to immediately end their offensives and withdraw troops from ethnic areas, and for the international community to maintain arms embargoes and prohibit further military to military engagement with the Government’s Army while the civil war continues. After two years of unilateral ceasefire by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), in 1994, a bilateral agreement with the military government of Burma (the State Law and Order Restoration Council) was signed in hopes of ending over three decades of hostilities. During the ceasefire period, the KIO allocated its resources to economic development by investing in infrastructure projects including electricity, roads, health care, and education. Simultaneously, the majority of ethnic ceasefire groups were actively engaged in the drafting of the 2008 Constitution in hopes of achieving genuine political reforms. Tragically, the ethnic groups’ 19 point-amendment proposal to inculcate the essence of federalism was entirely rejected at the National Convention. June 9th, 2011, the Government’s Army launched an unprovoked attack against a KIA outpost and expanded its military aggression towards all corners of Kachin and Northern Shan States. After months of peace efforts, a “De-escalation of Tension Agreement” was signed in Myitkyina, on May 31st, 2013. This led to a relative reduction in conflict during 2014, 2015, and the first half of 2016. Coinciding with the start of the 21st Century Panglong Conference in Aug 2016, violating the 2013 Agreement, the Government’s Army reinitiated aggressive provocation by troop mobilization, overrunning of KIA posts, dropping of deadly barrel bombs, and the highest frequency of airstrikes in modern-day Burmese history. In conjunction with the escalation of tension, residents have also witnessed systematic horrific violence against civilians, providing compelling evidence of war crimes. The National League for Democracy, which campaigned under the slogan of rule of law, remains inept at pressing the Government’s Army leadership to adhere to the international conventions of war. We categorically condemn these systematic, widespread acts of violence against civilians by the Government’s Army and object any political party which evades addressing Tatmdaw’s culture of impunity or defends its brutalities in the interest of political expediency. The atrocities in Northern Burma must be addressed urgently. We do not want children who are born today to continue to suffer from the bloodshed and misery already endured for nearly seventy years. We, Kachin communities, call upon: The United Nations Security Council to open a discussion on war crimes committed by Government’s army during the past six years of conflict in Northern Burma. The International Community to support a credible, impartial, and independent United Nations’ fact-finding mission into Northern Burma to verify and authenticate allegations of violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Government’s Army. The European Union and the United States to continue arm embargoes and prohibit any further military to military engagement until the civil war is ended. The Government’s Army to immediately end their offensives and withdraw troops from ethnic areas Non-signatory Ethnic Armed Organizations, the Government’s Army, and NLD government to forge a meaningful Peace Agreement with tangible factors to mitigate future conflict, witnessed by the the international community. The NLD government to replace the 2008 Constitution and fully commit to the creation of a genuine Federal Union, enshrined in the 1947 Panglong Agreement. Members of political parties to halt fueling inter-ethnic and tribal tension and supplying of arms to selected villages and militia forces. Download the statement (PDF) in English :https://www.burmalink.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Kachin-Global-Action-Statement-for-9-June-English-Final2.pdf Burmese :https://www.burmalink.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Kachin-Global-Action-Statement-for-9-June-Burmese-Final2.pdf Japanese:https://www.burmalink.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Kachin-Global-Action-Statement-for-9-June-Japan.pdf ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Burma Link

Since October 2016, nearly 75,000 of Myanmar's Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh, as a United Nations international probe investigates accusations of rape and murder committed by Myanmar security forces. According to the UN, Rohingya families "may have had members killed, beaten, raped", in what likely amounts to crimes against humanity. With anti-Rohingya violence continuing to simmer in Myanmar, why doesn't the country's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, put an end to it? "We know that Aung San Suu Kyi does not control the armed forces," says Maung Zarni, an exiled dissident from Myanmar. "[But] she controls four other ministries that are directly involved in dismissing, denying, and legitimising the persecution of the Rohingyas." But former East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta disagrees, claiming Suu Kyi inherited an "extraordinarily difficult situation". "She has to deal with the military, who still have enormous power," says Ramos-Horta, a Nobel prizewinner. "She inherits a very fractured society with more than 18 armed insurgencies, ethnic groups, and this is a very difficult transition from military dictatorship to democracy." In this week's Arena, scholar and activist Maung Zarni debates with Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta on whether Suu Kyi has the power to help the Rohingya. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 maungzarni.