They say time heals, but for 30-year-old Josiane Ishimwe, it is taking longer. Twenty three years later, she is yet to recover from an incident that robbed her of her innocence during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. On the ill-fated day, Ishimwe and her mother were running for their dear lives when a ‘good Samaritan’ offered them a safe haven. Little did they know that the ‘good samaritan’ would sexually abuse them and infect them with HIV. He raped the mother, and also molested Ishimwe who was just seven years old. As the genocide commemoration week starts tomorrow, it will be yet another trying period as survivors like Ishimwe recall the brutality that was meted on them during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. When I met Ishimwe last week, it was a heart breaking moment as she narrated her childhood ordeal. Recalling what happened to her 23 years ago, revokes memories of agony. She lets out the pain that sits deep in her heart as she recalls the suffering she endured at a very tender age. “The genocide started when I was seven years old, I remember I was done with kindergarten. Our mother took me and my little brother to seek refuge at a neighbour’s place, but they weren’t as welcoming. They always threatened to throw us out, we later had to look for another hiding place,” she recalls. Day and night they endured heavy rains and throbbing hunger as they tried to avoid getting in the way of the killers. The wilderness became their home with little hope for survival. “After nights of running we stopped and camped in a bush that was far from the road, this is where a man came across us and offered us shelter. But he later turned against us, he would rape my mother regularly, and later he turned to me and molested me. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone. It was when I started bleeding that mother came to know, we had to flee his home,” she recalls as tears soak her face. With their hope of surviving fast waning, luck came their way when they met with Inkotanyi (the liberators) and this is how they survived. Sadly Ishimwe’s mother passed on in 2002 after succumbing to HIV/AIDS related illness. Regardless of what she went through, Ishimwe has slowly picked up the pieces. Before, she led a life of despair as an orphan living with HIV. The thought of committing suicide constantly crossed her mind but leaving her brothers without any one to take care of them was not something she would do. But all hope was not lost. She later joined a group of women survivors, Appui psychosocial des femmes victims des violences sexuelles, a move that gave her a second chance at life. “By the time I joined this group I was on the verge of committing suicide; everyone knew I was HIV positive since I started medication at a very tender age. I had no means of survival; I mostly did simple chores in exchange for some little cash yet I had to take care of my siblings,” she narrates. Today, life has turned for the better, she is now a married woman and a mother of one, she has her own house and has managed to shape the future of her brothers, one of them joined the Police force while the other has joined university. Ishimwe is just one out of the scores of women whose lives were extremely affected by the genocide; some have managed to heal while others are still struggling with the effects of the genocide which left over one million people dead. Emilienne Mukansoro one of the founders of Appui psychosocial des femmes victims des violences sexuelles, a project that helps women survivors in Muhanga says that by the time she started the initiative, survivors had lost hope. The pain these women felt was despicable, most were still struggling to get to terms with the reality, she recalls, and this is the major reason why she started the project. “We started this project in 2012 with the late Dr Naasson Munyandamutsa, as social workers we thought it better to look out for the psychological well being of the survivors because they needed their emotional stability back more than anything.” She says the start wasn’t easy at all; women were experiencing a lot of trauma to the extent that most of the sessions were filled with nervous breakdowns, some used to faint and it was only an ambulance that would come to the rescue. “The women were facing a lot of struggles and we thought of starting up an initiative that would help them heal emotionally. This would later lead to subsequent physical healing which we have so far managed to achieve,” Mukansoro says. Aside from helping rebuild their lives, the women are given skills on how to be self reliant. Many of the survivors have since picked up the pieces and are now healing. They are engaged in different economic activities like farming, others are into crafts and animal rearing where as others have ventured into small businesses that help them earn a living. Mukansoro says that though much has been attained, there is still a challenge when it comes to stigmatization from the societies these women live in. “Some of these women still live in areas where they were raped from; they feel guilty because they were blaming themselves for what happened to them. We are working hard to deal with this, it’s still hard but this is my target now.” Mukansoro believes that if more organizations came up to help survivors, more success will be achieved because from her observation, women have done much healing because of the interaction they have with fellow survivors, even those who were on the verge of committing suicide got the courage to live on. Pascaline Mujawase was in her early thirties when the killings started, and it wasn’t long when the killers’ next stop was on her door step. It was too late for her to escape the blood thirsty killers. “That day the killers came purposely for me, they dragged me out of my hiding place. I had a three-month old baby and they told me that I should breastfeed her for the last time, I sat quietly waiting to breath my last,” she recalls. “Fortunately one of the killers suggested that they should spare me since I was married to a man from their tribe, this is how I survived death, but that was just the beginning of a past I would never forget,” she adds. Mujawase was raped by a gang of men who after their shameful acts physically assaulted her and left her for dead. “If one tells you that they survived the genocide, you need to understand that what they went through was agonizing beyond limit. I lost my family, my child and everyone else; you can wonder how one can get the courage to embrace each day of this distressing life.” She, however, says that ever since she joined the survivors’ group, life has been better. She says her past cannot be changed but at least her future has light and hope in it. “I thank Emilienne for her generous heart; she has been there for us and has dried my tears. She has taught us so many things; we can now be self reliant and have managed to find solace.” Claudine Uwamahoro is at a loss of words when she starts recalling what happened during the genocide. Now in her late fifties, the mother of seven still mourns for her only daughter who was massacred during the war; it’s a wound in her heart that will never heal. She was tortured and recalls men pondering on whether to spare her or slit her throat, “you can only imagine fellow humans deciding the fate of your life as if I had committed a crime of being who I was. I remember as they dragged me to the place where they wanted to kill me from, they would often stop and beat me till they got tired and then continued with the journey. During the genocide, Uwamahoro lost her daughter, her husband and relatives but luckily her other children survived. She has lived a life of struggle but thanks to the group, her life too is gaining momentum. “We have now managed to go on with our daily activities knowing that at some point we are meeting with fellow survivors to comfort each other.” I think more should be done for the widows, but this should depend on their current situation and age. For the young, they should be empowered economically to be self-reliant, whereas the elderly need to be comforted and helped in all always - Cressence Mukantabana, Woman Activist ******************************** Women survivors can be mobilised and be comforted that there is still hope. We should be united such that we fight genocide never to happen again. For those who were sexually abused, they should continue getting counselling. I know it’s not easy but they should understand that it’s not the end of the world and fight for their future- Patience Murungi, Student ******************************** I understand different organisations have done a lot to help women survivors and I think the efforts need to continue. They still need people to be by their side and encourage them to work towards a better future. Marita Nyirabareba, Farmer ******************************** I really applaud what the government has done so far for the Genocide survivors. Women have come from far and now there is actually hope for a better tomorrow. What we can do is continue offering the support we can in all ways, either emotional or financially. Martha Nyange, Student ******************************** ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New Times

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at a memorial ceremony to mark one month from the killing of Ko Ni, prominent legal adviser to the government, and taxi driver Ne Win, Feb.26, 2017, in Yangon, Myanmar. The director general of an international coalition of 61 Rohingya organizations said he was “disappointed” at Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi for saying ethnic cleansing was “too strong” a term to describe what was happening in the Muslim-majority Rakhine region. Wakar Uddin also called on her to reinstate a pre-independence system that showed Rohingya’s citizenship. “I was very disappointed,” said Uddin of the Arakan Rohingya Union. “I can understand why she said that because she’s the head of state. If she admits it is ethnic cleansing, and for that matter genocide, there will be consequences from the international community.” BBC televised a rare interview with the Myanmar’s state counselor on Wednesday. Attacks on Myanmar border guard posts in October last year by a previously unknown insurgent group set off the biggest crisis of Aung San Suu Kyi's year in power. More than 75,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in the ensuing army crackdown. "I don't think there is ethnic cleansing going on," Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi said of the situation in Rakhine state. "I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening." "It is not just a matter of ethnic cleansing,” she said. “It is a matter of people on different sides of a divide, and this divide we are trying to close up as best as possible and not to widen it further.” "What we are trying to go for is reconciliation, not condemnation," Aung San Suu Kyi told the BBC. "It is Muslims killing Muslims as well." Uddin, a professor of plant pathology and environmental microbiology at Penn State University, said in response that "Ethnic cleansing … is defined by what is going on on the ground. … She needs to understand, to know, the truth of what is going on -- the violence, the turbulence, the population displacement." - See more at: http://www.maungzarni.net/2017/04/rohingya-activist-disappointed-in.html#sthash.i3jk8l83.dpuf To escape violence in Rakhine state during the military crackdown there, in November 2016, Rohingya woman Haresa Begum fled to Bangladesh with her four children, leaving her husband in Myanmar. The recent violence is the latest in a long cycle. Zar Ni, a genocide scholar in London, said “Half of the [Rohingya] population was deported from the country in 1978. Almost 300,000 were then driven out of [Myanmar]. About 200,000 of them later came back. This kind of harassment is repeated every five or 10 years. “The expression ‘genocide’ is used based on these actions of about 40 years,” he said. “There is no necessity to actively kill the entire population to say that is genocide.” Burmese authorities consider most Rohingya to be "resident foreigners," not citizens, according to Human Rights Watch. In a report, the organization says “This lack of full citizenship rights means that the Rohingya are subject to other abuses, including restrictions on their freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education, and arbitrary confiscation of property.” Uddin called on Aung San Suu Kyi to reinstate the national registration certificate (NRC), cards issued to Rohingya as proof of citizenship in 1947, a year before Myanmar - then known as Burma - gained independence from Britain. The military effectively voided the NRC with the 1982 citizenship law, by defining who was not a citizen and making some 800,000 Rohingya stateless. “Reinstate the NRC,” Uddin said. “Many people still have those cards. The NRC cardholders and their children, who hold white cards, Aung San Suu Kyi can reinstate those and go from there. That is a fundamental issue.” Myanmar has launched its own probe into possible crimes in Rakhine and appointed former United Nations chief Kofi Annan to head a commission tasked with healing long-simmering divisions between Buddhists and Muslims. A U.N. human rights report issued earlier this year said Myanmar's security forces had committed mass killings and gang rapes against Rohingya during their campaign against the insurgents, which may amount to crimes against humanity. The military has denied the accusations, saying it was engaged in a legitimate counterinsurgency operation. The U.N. Human Rights Council has called for an investigation, which Myanmar has refused to accommodate. In the interview, Aung San Suu Kyi tried to reassure those who fled that "if they come back they will be safe." _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 VOA News

Genito Gomes, third from left, is one of a group of Kaiowa who filed a claim for land but, subsequently, have been driven off of it three times. Mr. Gomes says his father was murdered the final time, by men sent by local landowners. Munir Chami and Genito Gomes have a considerable amount in common. They’re Brazilians who grew up in the countryside, straight-backed, clear-eyed men in their mid-30s. Each has a ready smile, hospitable nature and a quiet air of authority. Each is married with young children. They each work hard: They spend their days on their families’ land, and they are immensely proud of their connection with it and what they have built there. In another country, Mr. Chami and Mr. Gomes might well be friends. Not here. That land they work, it’s the same piece of land, and each man believes with utter conviction that he owns it – and that the other is an invader, a thief, who seeks to take both the land and the identity that comes with it. Munir Chami’s family bought their farm outside the town of Aral Moreira in 1970, before Brazil’s constitution formally granted Indigenous people land rights. Now, Mr. Chami’s business pays the equivalent of $17,000 a month on private security to protect the property. Mr. Chami is a soy grower whose family owns a 5,000-hectare industrial farm in the western breadbasket state of Mato Grosso do Sul. They live in a gracious farmhouse surrounded by tall trees, an island in an ocean of dark green fields, outside the town of Aral Moreira. And Mr. Gomes lives with his family across the road and a few kilometres away, in a settlement of a half-dozen dwellings built of sticks and thatch, at the edge of the last tiny patch of forest in any direction. This land, he says, has belonged to his people, the Kaiowa, since there were first humans on Earth; his people were created from this red soil, and Brazil’s constitution has recognized their right to it since 1988. Mr. Gomes’s parents and grandparents were driven out by government in the 1950s; their ancestral lands were sold as plantations to farmers. The Kaiowa shifted around the state for decades eking out a living with a bit of hunting and farming, until in 1990 they decided to try to exercise their new constitutional right and filed a claim for the land. But they had no response for years, and finally in 2004, they decided to go and live there. That year, and in 2007 when they tried again to occupy the land, they were driven out after a couple of days by the farmers who held title. In a third attempt, in 2011, they set up a rough camp of a few houses – and then a group of armed men came to confront them, and Mr. Gomes’s father, Nizio, was shot and killed. Mr. Gomes says the killers were sent by local landowners, including Mr. Chami’s family, in an attempt to force them off the land. These two men, divided by a couple of kilometres and a lifetime’s worth of conviction, are living out a daily confrontation that is both a historical legacy and an urgent modern problem for Brazil. Their competing claims to the land echo disputes in Canada and across the New World, between Indigenous communities and the governments of states that were built over top of them. Canada’s own land claims issues are far from resolved, but there the usual battleground is the courts. In Brazil, these disputes still regularly erupt into bloodshed. A soy field next to the village of Jiguarapiru in Mato Grosso do Sul. Disputes between Indigenous people and landowners in this western breadbasket state still regularly erupt into violent conflict. There are 900,000 Indigenous people in Brazil, and 12.2 per cent of the country has been declared Indigenous territory, collectively owned by First Nations. Some 98.2 per cent of that land is in the Amazon, and there is conflict around parts of it: Illegal loggers invade it, cattle ranchers try to claim it, and some areas have been irrevocably altered by large government infrastructure projects such as the Belo Monte Dam. But the worst of the conflict is here, in Mato Grosso do Sul. Slightly more than half of the 754 murders of Indigenous people between 2003 and 2014 were in this one state, according to a report on land conflict compiled by the Indigenous Missionary Council, a Catholic organization that is one of the few advocates for Indigenous rights in Brazil. Ownership of more than two million hectares in the state is being disputed between Indigenous people and other claimants, mostly farmers. Brazil’s military dictatorship ended in 1985, and the new democratic constitution, which recognized the rights of Indigenous people to their land, charged the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), an arms’-length government body, with demarcating what would be Indigenous territory. But that process has never been popular with loggers or farmers. Agriculture is one of the few healthy sectors in Brazil’s hobbled economy, and the farm lobby is a key backer of President Michel Temer, the former vice president who took power after Dilma Rousseff was impeached last August. Under his tenure, the already slow process of adjudicating land claims has stalled completely, and the disputes are growing increasingly violent. In the last hours before she was impeached, Ms. Rousseff’s government approved a long-delayed plan to expand the Guarani-Kaiowa territory, from 3,600 hectares to 56,000. Agribusiness responded with outrage, and newly installed President Temer froze action on the report. In January, the government issued a decree that ended FUNAI’s independence in deciding land claims and gave the Ministry of Justice final approval, saying the move would accelerate stalled cases such as that of the Gomes family. The farm lobby heralded the change; Indigenous activists say it is an outright violation of the constitution. Mr. Temer’s administration has taken a position on Indigenous issues that is conservative even by Brazilian standards. Last month, Osmar Serraglio, the new justice minister, said that Indigenous people need to “stop this discussion about lands” and that their problems could be fixed with better economic opportunities. “Land doesn’t fill anyone’s belly,” he said. He spoke approvingly of court decisions that have favoured agribusiness over Indigenous land claims and said the Indigenous movement was being pushed by non-governmental organizations; he suggested they might somehow be profiting from the land claims issue, although he did not explain how that would be. A third of the donations to his last campaign for office came from agribusiness. President Temer also appointed a new head of FUNAI; while the organization has traditionally been headed by anthropologists and experts on Indigenous issues, Mr. Temer chose an evangelical pastor and dentist named Antonio Costa. In his first major interview, this past week, he said that Indigenous people can’t remain “frozen in time” and will have to figure out ways to join the formal economy. “American Indians are productive – they have casinos,” he said, heaping praise on that economic model. The conflict in Mato Grosso do Sul has intensified over the past year; a series of farm occupations by Indigenous groups have been violently broken up by what the state prosecutor calls “militias” formed by farmers. At least two Indigenous men were shot and killed by militia members, and a half-dozen more were wounded. Three police officers were abducted and beaten by a group of Guarani carrying out an occupation, and farmers report that their livestock have been killed and possessions destroyed. After armed men killed his father, Genito Gomes used this whistle to call the family out of the forest when the men had left the area. Back in 1990, Mr. Gomes’s father, Nizio, made a land claim on behalf of his people for 30,000 hectares. For more than a decade, there was no official response. “They told us, ‘Wait, wait,’” says his son. “Finally, in 2004, we said, ‘Enough.’ ” Their third attempt to retake the land, in 2011, might have ended with their expulsion much as the others had. But on the 18th day, he says, a line of eight vehicles carrying armed men with masks over their faces, dressed in black or camouflage, pulled into the camp early one morning. Everyone around the houses and the cooking fires fled into the trees. The armed men went into the forest and called the elder Mr. Gomes, 62, to come out from where he was cutting brush with a machete. A dozen members of the extended family saw him shot, according to testimony collected by the state prosecutor, and then the attackers dragged him out – leaving a wide streak of blood on the ground – and loaded him into the back of a truck. His body has never been recovered. Twelve men were charged with crimes related to the killing; seven are in jail and five are out on bail, all still awaiting trial. (Mr. Chami’s father-in-law, Idelfino Maganha, is among those charged.) The accused say that Mr. Gomes was not shot – that he disappeared, fled across the border to Paraguay, and is alive and well. The case might never have gotten as far as it has had the wife of one of the accused not gone to police to report his involvement when she found out he was having an affair. Prosecutors were prepared to act on the testimony of one bitter wife, but not dozens of Indigenous eye witnesses to the attack, notes Genito Gomes. Before the shooting, the Maganha family had obtained an expulsion order – but FUNAI had it overturned after the shooting, and the Supreme Court ruled that the Gomes family could stay until their land claim is adjudicated. The farmers believed that by killing Nizio Gomes, the cassique, or chief, they could drive the occupiers off, the younger Mr. Gomes says. They have faced a constant threat of violence through the ensuing years – armed men with dogs on chains continue to patrol the periphery of the area they occupy. “But we stayed because this is our land – it belongs to the Kaiowa – we lost our leader, lost our father, but we’ll stay.” Mr. Gomes says his father remembered being carried off this land as a child of 3, in the arms of his own parents, when the Guarani-Kaiowa were forcibly dispersed by the federal government in the 1950s so the land could be made into maté plantations. (Before they were moved out, they were forced to chop down their forests and clear the land for the new occupants.) Some of the family went to Paraguay, some to towns or reserves in Brazil. “But our parents always said, this is your land.” Mr. Chami has a very different understanding of the conflict. “For 50 years there were no Indians here – these days they’re trying to steal everything,” he says. The government encouraged settlement of the land in the 1930s, he says, and his father-in-law’s family bought the farm in 1970. There were no Indigenous people around, he says. He believes that NGOs, particularly international ones, are stirring up this conflict, and bringing Indigenous people from Paraguay to the area to make fictitious land claims. (The U.K.-based group Survival International has an awareness campaign on attacks on the Guarani-Kaiowa.) Today his family business is spending the equivalent of $17,000 per month on private security to protect the land, he said; a group of Guarani invaded the farm workers’ quarters and drove out the occupants and occupied those, too, back in 2011. He said they have received no compensation from the government for the land they have lost – a fifth of their farm. What frustrates him most of all is that the occupied land is not, from his perspective, in use. “They take our land and it’s not productive: What’s the point of their land – they produce nothing. Not even cassava to eat – the government has to give them everything. They’re just producing children – now there are 200. Soon there will be 300, and then 400 – where’s it going to end?” Tamil Flores, 9, left, and her brother Hudson Flores, 6, play in a stream in Guaiviry. The Maganha farm has never employed Indigenous workers – Mr. Chami says they “have no interest” in working. This view is widely shared in the agricultural industry in the state. Indigenous people live on reserves surrounded by farms that in most cases refuse to hire them; the stereotype of “lazy Indian” is so entrenched here that the words are often spoken as one. Consequently there is near-total Indigenous unemployment. Mr. Chami says the family fears they may lose more land, if the demarcations go forward after court challenges. “Because of the politics it might be possible – but we’re working to keep that from happening.” How? “With registered arms and private security.” But he does not expect help from government. “It’s frustrating, to be honest – because our production is what lifts the country.” Agriculture contributed 23 per cent of Brazil’s GDP last year, one of the few healthy sectors as the country drags through a brutal recession. Mr. Gomes says that, in fact, his family is making intense use of the land: They must be on it to perform the rituals that keep them healthy and whole. They gather to dance in the early morning and the evenings. They hunt and they fish. Their life there is basic: their camp has no electricity, and they bathe in and bring drinking water from a river. But they prefer this to anywhere else. “We need the land to be able to live our culture,” he said. “We Kaiowa, we know the danger from the farmers. But we have to come back to our land. It’s sacred. That’s why it’s worth it to us to risk, so we can be on the land.” Some people in the tribe get a family-allowance grant (as do nearly half of all Brazilians), and some get a rations basket from FUNAI. But there is no work. “There’s only jobs on the farms and nobody wants to work for the enemy.” Carlos Marés, a former head of FUNAI and a professor of agrarian law, has spent his career assessing disputes like these, and says there is some validity in both perspectives. “The lands are Indigenous, at least part of them, according to the constitution of 1988,” he says. “But the occupants, most of the time, bought the land in good faith, without knowing the extent of the conflict.” Brazilian law permits the government to buy farm land and give it to the Guarani-Kaiowa to settle land claims, he said – but only when farmers agree to sell, and the federal government sees its interests most closely aligned with agribusiness. That means the conflict will likely intensify, he said: “Indigenous people, not just the Guarani, but all over Brazil, lack land and are determined to fight to the death for it, so there can be no solution to the conflict without restitution of the land to them.” That’s how Mr. Chami sees it, too: “They want their own country,” he said, tossing up his hands in frustration. Mr. Gomes, across the road, puts it more simply. “We just need to be home, on our land.” Stephanie Nolen is The Globe and Mail’s Latin America correspondent. With research from Elisângela Mendonça __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Globe and Mail

Disabled people say they face social prejudice and government inaction. Afghan war amputees and children practice walking at the ICRC orthopaedic centre in Kabul. (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images) Fazluddin, a tall, thin 25-year-old who lives in Dolana, central Parwan, has a whole household to support on nothing more than disability stipends. He himself lost his right eye and suffered multiple injuries aged just two when the family was caught in a Taleban bombardment. His mother, who now lives with him, lost her right arm in the same attack. Fazluddin also has to support his 55-year-old aunt Suraya, who was paralysed in a grenade strike during the Russian occupation of the 1980s. "We live in a house that stays cold all winter. We eat once a day,” he told IWPR, explaining that the whole family, including his wife, had to live from the 900 US dollars the household received annually in disability payments. “We pay 50 dollars rent per month. I still owe money from my wedding. Tell me, what can I do?" he continued. Despite an impoverished childhood, Fazluddin finished high school and has qualifications in English and computer skills. But he has been unable to find work, he said, because of his disability. "I went everywhere. When they noticed that I was blind in one eye, they not only refused me work but also made fun of me. I tore up all my school certificates in frustration," he said, adding, "You need either powerful relations or money to achieve your basic rights in this country." His aunt Suraya said that her experience of decades of living as a paraplegic had shown her that government assurances of aid were meaningless. "I’ve received nothing from the government except the monthly stipend, which I get with a lot of difficulty, since the day I was paralyzed,” she said, adding that even reaching the bank or accessing other public buildings was often impossible due to the lack of disabled access. “They promised to provide me with a plot of land to live on, but I have not yet received it. They made me many promises, but I received nothing." Disabled people in Parwan province, just north of Kabul, say that the government has failed to meet its obligations to them despite legislation guaranteeing their rights. Local officials, in turn, say that they are doing their best with the resources available to them Afghanistan has ratified several international conventions on disability rights, and according to its own Law of Rights and Privileges of Persons with Disabilities, government offices are supposed to fill at least three per cent of their posts with disabled people. Wakil Ahmad Suhail, the director of labor, social affairs, martyrs and the disabled in Parwan province, admitted that this law had yet to be enforced. Suhail said that 5,140 disabled people were registered with their office, including 300 women. All received government stipends. But he said that the only disabled employee he knew of in a local government office was a woman in his own department. Suhail acknowledged that the government was also committed to a number of other measures including improving education provision and providing low-cost housing for disabled people, although little progress had been made. But other local officials said that their departments were doing the most they could to support disabled people and their families. The director of Parwan department for refugees, Aqa Shirin Khalil, said that his office had arranged the distribution of five blocs of residential land plots to refugees, each containing 1,200 residential plots, in the Bini Arsak and Barikab areas of Bagram district. Out of this number, 650 plots were reserved for disabled people and would be transferred to them free of charge, he continued. "Residential plots have also been considered for disabled people in the department’s future plans as well, although the number is not yet clear," Khalil said. Parwan’s deputy director of education, Nizamuddin Rahimi, said that they had distributed 664 plots of land to teachers in the Hufyan Sharif area in central Parwan, including 20 plots for teachers with disabilities. "The disabled people received the plots for free,” he said. Mirajuddin Majid, the director of guidance and hajj in Parwan, said that the ministry had allocated 523 places for Parwan residents to make the pilgrimage last year. This quota included five disabled people, although he noted that applicants had to pay for their own hajj. DEMANDING CHANGE "We have always campaigned on this issue,” Ahmad Zia Langari, a representative of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IWPR. “We also always highlight the problems of disabled people to the government in our annual reports. “The government needs to read our reports. The parliament should also see our reports and in turn put pressure on the government. We bring up the issue of disabled people in every meeting and gathering and in strategic and lawmaking fields and will continue campaigning." Parwan provincial council secretary Sahmsulhaq Shaikani acknowledged that disability rights had been the subject of numerous meetings between officials and activists, but said that the government simply lacked the budget to address these problems. "Disabled people have high expectations,” Shaikhani said. “The government addresses their needs to the extent we are able. We’ve met government officials to discuss the problems of the disabled several times and shared their concerns. The officials promised to address the issues." He added that when private or state institutions provide aid, disabled people were given priority. Activists say this is far from enough. Abdul Hakim Hamdard, the chairman of social council of the disabled people in Parwan, lost both his legs in a mine blast in 1991. He said that the problem was that national and international laws related to disability provision were simply not implemented. Although Afghan disability law mandates that ministries, government offices, transportation facilities and all new public construction should include facilities for the disabled in their design, this is rarely the case. Hamdard explained that his advocacy work meant that he needed to access local government offices on a daily basis. This in itself was an enormous struggle as there were no facilities for disabled people, Hamdard explained. "Sometimes, people help us. They take our hands or carry us up. The major problem for disabled people is how to go up and down the stairs." Despite this lack of basic provision, some disabled people manage to overcome the considerable obstacles to pursue successful careers. Mushtari Danish, 34, a resident of Chanki Ulya village of Sayyidkhel District in Parwan, was paralysed in childhood as the result of polio. Nonetheless, she has been working as a teacher for the last nine years, although she said it had proved terribly hard to find work. After graduation, she said, "I went to an office and applied to be a teacher. They told me, ‘Go away my child. Even healthy people cannot find a job and you are disabled.’ I was so disappointed." Undeterred, she not only went on to find work in her chosen field but also drives and has a Corolla car, adapted by the Red Cross to have a hand-operated accelerator and brake. Last year, she completed a degree in Islamic theology in night classes at Parwan’s Alberuni university. This report was produced under IWPR’s Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan. (C) 2017 Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Dr. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word ‘Genocide.’ The Convention on Genocide was drafted by the United Nations to prevent and punish the crime of genocide – the mass destruction of national, ethnical, racial or religious groups as such. UN File Photo Raphael Lemkin is hardly a household name now, but before the Second World War, he became the driving force behind what would become, in 1948, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. UN News has reached into the audio programme archives, to revive a highly-produced 1958 profile on Mr. Lemkin, and his work at the United Nations and beyond, as part of our podcast series, The Lid is On. An American of Polish-Jewish descent, Mr. Lemkin coined the term genocide, after dedicating his life at an early age, to pursuing the international legal means to end the mass extermination of peoples. He narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazis in 1939 before managing to flee to safety, but lost 49 relatives during the genocide of the Holocaust. As early as 1933, he was working to introduce an international law recognizing the “crime of barbarity,” in a presentation to the Legal Council of the UN's forerunner, the League of Nations. He drafted the resolution that would eventually become the Genocide Convention in the early years of the UN, after 1945, and with the support of the United States, it went to the UN General Assembly for consideration, and finally, adoption. Genocide has not of course, been consigned to the history books, and on April 7, the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda, is marked each year, which was the day that the killings – which would eventually result in the deaths of more than 800,000 in the small African nation – first began, in 1994. In his message to mark the day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said that “the world must always be alert to the warning signs of genocide and act quickly and early against the threat.” “Even today, minorities and other groups suffer attacks and exploitation based on who they are,” he adds. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 United Nations

23 years ago, genocide was unleashed in Rwanda. Almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in about 100 days. Consider not just the scale of the violence but the intimate means by which some 10,000 people a day lost their lives. Men, women, and children were killed at close proximity – often butchered with machetes, knives, scythes, clubs, picks, and sharpened sticks. Their killers were not only members of the Rwandan army and the government-backed Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, the Hutu militias. They were also the victims’ own neighbours, those they had sat next to at school, played soccer with, worked alongside. Many were tortured and raped before they were killed. Instinctively, we recoil from such horror. Yet, in 2003, the United Nations General Assembly designated April 7 the “International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda”. Why should we stop to reflect on such inhumanity and brutality, an episode that evokes shame, despair, and revulsion, now decades behind us, when current global problems abound and hope already often seems in short supply? Looking back as a means of trying to gain perspective on today’s complex crises might seem naive. One might even argue that the Rwandan genocide was an aberration, a temporary slip into collective insanity, a result of some unique confluence of circumstances, still unfathomable. Yet, the events of 1994 do warrant reflection today. They serve to remind us of two things: the culpability that can accompany simply looking the other way; and the risks, including to ourselves, of building walls (both real and metaphorical) between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Acknowledging responsibility for inaction The Rwandan genocide is not only a litany of unimaginable acts and intimate violence. It’s simultaneously a story of unimaginable omissions and the distanced “allowing” of such violence. Inhumanity was not only revealed in the horrifyingly callous manner in which the machetes were wielded but in carefully calculated denial, in silence and inaction, in dithering and stalled deliberation. Blame shouldn’t be apportioned only to those who carried out or choreographed the killings. Other actors are also to blame, including institutional agents. The multiple failures of the UN to prevent or mitigate the genocide in Rwanda are acknowledged in its 1999 report which followed an independent inquiry. Inaction when the UN had a capacity to act, and could have averted great harm, is inexcusable. Of course, the member states of the UN were also blameworthy for their own discrete failures. The US, for example, stubbornly skirted around the one label that was rapidly revealed to be appropriate: genocide, a label that highlights an intention to eliminate, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Its utterance would have indicated recognition by the US – a signatory to the 1948 Genocide Convention – of its obligation to act. So, the word was avoided, and the US’s obligation to act with it. Yet, it was clear that the world was witnessing genocide. The killings were meticulously planned and orchestrated by those in power. They were executed with brutal efficiency. Weapons had been stockpiled; lists of targets had been compiled and were distributed to local groups. The genocidaires (those involved in the genocide) were infamously urged on by regime-sponsored radio broadcasts that, at first, ushered in the genocide with hate propaganda against the Tutsis and then identified who and where the Tutsis were, and provided instructions on how to kill them. By the time the killing came to a halt in July, three out of every four ethnic Tutsis were dead. One step forward Within Rwanda, a slow and painful process of reconciliation followed. The international community offered expressions of remorse – and even apology. US President Bill Clinton, speaking in Rwanda in 1998, acknowledged that [t]he international community… must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy. On the tenth anniversary of the genocide, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan lamented that [i]f the international community had acted promptly and with determination, it could have stopped most of the killing. He led the call to define a clear set of prospective responsibilities so that the UN would never again stand idly by as blatant and preventable mass atrocities were carried out. At the 2005 World Summit, all member states signed up to the groundbreaking, if imperfect, “responsibility to protect” vulnerable populations from mass atrocity. Post-Rwanda the world seemed united in its rallying cry of “never again”. A world of diluted international obligations? Yet, in an increasingly inward-looking world of Brexit and Donald Trump, fear and myopia threaten to obscure even the formally acknowledged international obligations that the experience of Rwanda supposedly bolstered. International obligations – to refugees, to those threatened with mass atrocity crimes – seem weakened. The relevance of intergovernmental organisations and supranational bodies has been questioned amid populist proclamations of “my country first”. Cosmopolitan sentiments appear diminished when confronted with often xenophobic distinctions between fellow citizens and “foreigners”. One of the many things that the 1994 genocide can teach us is how easily fear can be fostered, how effectively divisions can be constructed and manipulated, how quickly ties that we take for granted can unravel – and how our individual and collective security is sacrificed as a result. If we don’t learn this lesson, I worry that we are poised to take two steps back. As shameful as the strategic avoidance of the word “genocide” was in 1994, there was some solace in the weight that it was understood to carry. Denial that the violence in Rwanda constituted genocide was, in fact, recognition of the strength of the principle that genuine cases must be acted on. Today, I am wary of a time when there might be no hesitation to name genocide simply because the expectation to respond has become so thoroughly eroded, and our international responsibilities (as corollaries to human rights) so meaningless, that nothing hangs on inaction. How to avoid that possible future is worthy of serious reflection. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Conversation

People who are trying to access the EU in search of safety and dignity are being routinely abused by law enforcement officials in countries in the Western Balkans. State agents responsible for upholding fundamental rights are instead subjecting people to violence and intimidation and denying access to asylum procedures to those seeking international protection. Governments in the region must immediately end these violations and initiate processes to ensure safety and dignity for people on the move in their territories. Click here to access the report. (C) 2017 Oxfam; Belgrade Centre for Human Rights; Macedonian Young Lawyers Association

Today, the Enough Project released a new report, "Border Control from Hell: How the EU's Migration Partnership Legitimizes Sudan's “Militia State.” This report, authored by Senior Advisor Suliman Baldo, details how the European Union’s (EU) partnership with the Sudanese regime as part of a migration management program strengthens the capacities of the country’s security and law enforcement agencies, including the notorious Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is a paramilitary group, now branded a ‘border force,’ that has its origins in the Janjaweed militia that carried out the genocidal counterinsurgency policy of the Sudanese regime in Darfur that began in 2003. In recent years, the RSF has been transformed, re-armed, and re-branded by the government, from this genocidal militia deployed in Sudan’s Darfur region, into a national counterinsurgency force under the command of the country’s notoriously abusive intelligence services and was more recently integrated into Sudan's national army, with direct command line to the presidency. In the last few years, Europe has witnessed a large-scale influx of migrants from many countries, including those in the Horn of Africa. This massive migration has created a paradigm shift in the ties between the EU and the government of Sudan, drawing both entities closer. Within this partnership, the EU will assist the RSF and other relevant agencies with the construction of two camps with detention facilities for migrants. The EU has disbursed millions of euros to the Sudanese government for technical equipment and training. This funding, in theory, is geared toward stemming the flow of migrants to Europe from Sudan and the Horn of Africa, as well as migrants from countries in sub-Saharan Africa who transit through Sudan. However, the report notes that Sudan’s strategy for stopping migrant flows on behalf of Europe involves a ruthless crackdown by the RSF on migrants within Sudan. By extending material and technical support to the Khartoum regime, the EU risks not only supporting the RSF but also underwriting Sudan’s “militia state” and an elaborate web of corruption linked to atrocities and human rights abuse. “The EU's ‘Better Migration Management’ program in current form will subsidize one of Sudan’s most dreaded militias, one with a trail of atrocity crimes spanning the country. Equally damaging, it will legitimize an entire militia system that sustains Khartoum's abusive regime.” – Suliman Baldo, report author and Senior Advisor at the Enough Project The report also argues that through this assistance to a government that deploys a militia group that stokes violent conflict, commits atrocities, and creates massive displacement of populations within Sudan, the EU contradicts and undermines the basis of its _own founding treaty and the broader objectives of advancing peace and human rights. Baldo notes that the EU and the EU member states that are most engaged with Sudan in the actual programmatic partnership on migration flows should scrutinize the record and conduct of the RSF as the partnership unfolds. “The EU's effort to stem irregular migration at the source should not come at the cost of gross violations of the human rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Sudan.” – Suliman Baldo. http://www.enoughproject.org/files/BorderControl_April2017_Enough_Finals.pdf ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Executive Summary Two years in, the Burundi crisis shows little sign of resolution. Following the July 2015 re-election of President Nkurunziza, whose April decision to run again sparked the troubles, and with no progress made in the mediation, the crisis has turned into a low intensity conflict. Almost 400,000 Burundians have fled the country. Since the attempted coup of May 2015, political polarisation has had violent repercussions in the army. A series of attacks have targeted numerous officers, both those favourable to the president’s political ambitions and those suspected of sympathy with the coup plotters. Assassination attempts have also taken place abroad. Following over ten years of foreign support for the army’s transformation, its reputation has suffered greatly. International training has ended, and the army’s lucrative participation in peacekeeping operations is in doubt. This divided and demoralised army is a major threat to the country’s stability. Only a real dialogue, more urgent now than ever, between the government and the opposition could offer assurances to those officers concerned at the politicisation of their institution. Long seen as the primary achievement of the Arusha peace agreement which ended the civil war in 2000, the army today is a microcosm of the country’s crisis. Through its multi-ethnic makeup, foreign training, and its role in international peacekeeping, the Burundian army had acquired a good reputation outside the country and a privileged position at home. But fragilities remained under the surface, and the 2015 crisis easily broke the key consensus on which the stability of the regime was based: between the army and civilian power, and within the army between the former rebels, most of whom come from the ruling party, and the old guard. Ever since, the regime has tried to regain its hold on the military through purging or killing real or suspected opponents within its ranks – starting with officers from the pre-war army and Tutsi officers, but also targeting former Hutu rebels, including high ranking officers. The current crisis, in the form of tit-for-tat assassinations of soldiers and officers, is a violent reminder of the limits of the Arusha agreement within the army, and of the efforts made over ten years to depoliticise and professionalise it. It also reveals political and ethnic tensions that have continued to undermine it despite the reforms. The crisis has led to numerous defections and has compromised its future prospects. The European Union and the UN are reluctant to increase Burundi’s participation in peacekeeping missions and have taken steps to limit it. This participation used to be a source of revenue for an otherwise impoverished army, and a way of integrating its different parts. The current challenge to it and to associated external support could eventually weaken the economic and social advantages associated with the military career, and is a further risk for the stability of the country. Impoverished and ethnically and politically polarised, the army is reforming around a loyalist hard core and open confrontations between army factions have been avoided since May 2015. But this apparent and only relative calm is based mainly on fear and should not mislead outside observers. The army that has been built since 2004 is now in ruins, and cannot be reconstituted short of an inclusive political agreement. This appears ever further off with the continued hardening of the regime and consequent difficulties encountered by the mediation of former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa. Without such a political agreement, the army faces two scenarios: a new confrontation, which could take the form of a new coup d’Etat, or a quiet but certain decline. The relative success of army integration since 2004 has flowed from the Arusha Agreement. In this context, only guarantees concerning its continued application, or its consensual updating, could reassure officers that their future and that of their institution is secure. The UN, the African Union, the East African Community and the European Union should continue to push for an inclusive dialogue between the government and the exiled opposition, despite the government’s intransigence, which has hindered mediation attempts, and international partners who have supported the army since 2004 should not reinvest in an institution now deeply politicised as long as it remains under the control of an authoritarian and violent regime. The involvement of the Burundian army in peacekeeping operations should continue only under strict vetting conditions of the individuals taking part. The crisis in the army, reflecting that of the country, underlines the continued risk that the situation could deteriorate further. Nairobi/Brussels, 5 April 201 I.Introduction The Burundian crisis, which erupted in April 2015 over disagreement about the legitimacy of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s candidacy for a third term, continues. Since his re-election in July 2015, the government and its opponents have been involved in a low-intensity armed struggle. While demonstrators protested against a third term (April-July 2015), the army made sure it stayed out of the political crisis, observing developments but not taking part in the repression. Unlike the police, the army avoided the use of force. Some soldiers even stepped in to prevent confrontation between demonstrators and police officers, which sometimes led to violence between police or intelligence service officers, and soldiers. However, an attempted coup on 13 May 2015 highlighted dissent within the army. The Arusha Agreement of 2000, which enshrined the principle of ethnic parity in the security forces, and later agreements between the National Council for the Defence of Democracy/Forces for the Defence of Democracy (Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie, CNDD-FDD) and the National Liberation Forces (Forces nationales de libération, FNL), a rebel Hutu group dating from the civil war and the FDD’s great rival, provided for the integration of the rebels into the army, with the support of guarantors of the Arusha Agreement, including the UN and South Africa. In 2004, the rebel groups and an army mainly composed of and led by Tutsis merged to form the National Defence Force (Force de défense nationale, FDN). The former Burundian Armed Forces (ex-FAB) form the old guard of the army, mainly Tutsi, while the former Armed Political Parties and Movements (ex-Partis et mouvements politiques armés, ex-PMPA) are former combatants of mainly Hutu armed groups, including the FDD, which is now in power, and which were integrated into the army after the peace agreements. The attempted overthrow of the government, when President Nkurunziza was in Tanzania for an East African Community (EAC) summit, was led by Godefroid Niyombare, former armed forces chief of staff and a very popular and historic figure in the governing party, and Cyrille Ndayirukiye, former defence minister and member of the former Burundian Armed Forces. It revealed opposition to a third term among some officers and dragged the army right into the middle of the political maelstrom. Ndayirukiye and three other generals were sentenced to life imprisonment and Niyombare went into exile. Political violence then erupted in the army: the government moved against suspects in an attempt to eradicate every pocket of resistance. The army and its dissident factions are far from being the only perpetrators of the violence that has shaken Burundi since 2015. While the army has been reformed in line with the Arusha Agreement, the agreed quotas were not implemented in the police force, where many officers today are ex-PMPA, and were not applied strictly to the National Intelligence Service (Service national de renseignement, SNR). The government has therefore been able to place former civil war allies in these two institutions. They are now largely loyal to the government and their leadership is very politicised. The SNR, very close to the PMPA, and formerly led by a radical member of the government, Adolphe Nshimirimana, has long been the most feared institution in Burundi. The FNL was the last armed group to join the peace talks and the government only started to integrate its combatants into the FDN in 2009. After their political party boycotted the 2010 elections, they suffered fierce repression from the government and some of them who had joined the FDN fled. Some went back to the bush led by Aloys Nzabempema in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The crisis has accelerated these desertions and intensified the repression of FNL militants. However, their historic leader, Agathon Rwasa, remains in Burundi and has sat in parliament since the 2015 elections. II.From a Political to a Military Crisis A.Purges and Reprisals The 2015 campaign against the third term continued into 2016 within the military. A series of tit-for-tat assassinations has created a climate of paranoia and major tensions within the army. Since August 2015, killings of soldiers have continued. The victims’ identity, often officers, indicates that these are mainly targeted killings in reprisal for either support of or opposition to a third term. The assassination of General Adolphe Nshimirimana, former head of the National Intelligence Service, on 2 August 2015 was followed on 15 August by the assassination of Colonel Jean Bikomagu, from the former Burundian Armed Forces (ex-FAB), armed forces chief of staff at the time of the coup against the Hutu President Ndadaye in 1993 and a symbol of the Tutsi military old guard and the rejection of a Hutu government. On 22 March 2016, Lieutenant Colonel Darius Ikurakure, from the former Armed Political Parties and Movements and in charge of repression in the northern neighbourhoods of Bujumbura, and, a few hours later, Major Didier Muhimpundu (ex-FAB), were killed. The armed forces chief of staff, ex-FDD, General Prime Niyongabo, escaped an assassination attempt in September 2015, while General Athanase Kararuza (ex-FAB and military adviser to the first vice president) was killed in an ambush in front of the Saint-Esprit College in Bujumbura on 25 April 2016. Although the ex-FAB (on active service and retired) were the first to come under suspicion from the regime, its violence has not spared the former Armed Political Parties and Movements opposed to the third term, such as Colonel Emmanuel Buzubona, former number two of military intelligence, assassinated on 20 April 2016. When armed groups do not openly claim responsibility, such as the Republican Forces of Burundi (Forces républicaines du Burundi, FOREBU) for the killing of Darius Ikurakure, the modus operandi generally bears the hallmarks of the military (weaponry, knowledge of the routines followed by victims, access to places, etc.). In addition to these tit-for-tat killings, soldiers are responsible for other acts of violence against each other, which the government tries to minimise, being unable to conceal them (one killed on 28 March 2016 at Muzinda camp, several members of the presidential guard killed on 19 June in Bujumbura). Army personnel, both on active service and retired, arrested by the National Intelligence Service (SNR) sometimes disappear. It is impossible to make an exhaustive list of these arrests but some of them attest that the ex-FAB is being targeted. In 2016, some ex-FAB retired personnel were arrested or killed, soldiers arrested in September were found guilty of endangering state security, and an adjutant died on SNR premises on 14 September. After having targeted officers, repression now seems to be focusing on intermediate army levels (non-commissioned officers) as well as on retired personnel. The climate of fear is such that ex-FAB personnel serving in Somalia dread returning to their country when on leave – several of them have been arrested on their return. The authorities deny the seriousness of the crisis. They denounce an external attempt to destabilise the country and claim “there is no unrest in the army”. However, violence carried out with a military modus operandi continued to the end of 2016 and into 2017: attempted assassination of Willy Nyamitwe on 28 November; clashes leaving several victims in the ranks of the National Defence Force in South Kivu, DRC, on 21 December; assassination of the environment minister on 1 January; attack on Mukoni military base in Muyinga province on 23 January, followed by another wave of arrests of military personnel; and a clash between a faction of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) and the army in Gatumba, in the province of Bujumbura Rural, on 7 February. B.Desertions and Attempts to Organise Abroad The fear of being killed has increased the number of desertions from the Burundian army since 2015, as confirmed by the UN. According to Burundian military sources, between 600 and 2,000 soldiers have deserted since the crisis began, including senior officers. These include Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre Mbazumutima, intelligence officer with the 120th brigade, Major Emmanuel Ndayikeza, second-in-command of the support battalion in the first military region, an elite unit based in Bujumbura, and Colonel Edouard Nshimirimana, communications officer, who reportedly deserted, the latter with about 40 soldiers and carrying arms, ammunition and communications equipment. Several desertions took place in the summer of 2016 in Ethiopia, Belgium and from the Higher Institute of Army Officers. Meanwhile, several armed opposition groups have appeared. The Resistance for the Rule of Law in Burundi (Résistance pour un Etat de droit au Burundi, RED-Tabara) and the Republican Forces of Burundi (FOREBU) were formed at the end of 2015/beginning of 2016. A group of National Liberation Forces combatants commanded by Aloys Nzabampema, opposed to the historic leader Agathon Rwasa, has been active on the Congo-Burundi border for several years. The latter group scarcely communicates but the other two groups have expressed their willingness to resort to arms against the government without, however, opposing attempts at mediation.All three probably have contacts inside the country. The RED-Tabara is the armed wing of the Movement for Solidarity and Democracy (MSD) led by Alexis Sinduhidje. FOREBU has been led by Colonel Nshimirimana since the coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare took on a secondary role, at least in terms of media presence. This is the only group to be mainly composed of soldiers who served in the National Defence Force. Its hard core is formed by soldiers involved in the coup of 13 May 2015. As the leaders of RED-Tabara and FOREBU are in exile, like most opponents, the regime has tried to target them abroad. It uses members of the SNR and Imbonerakure to infiltrate refugee camps and opposition circles. Attempts to kill opponents (not necessarily linked to armed groups) have already occurred in Nairobi (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda). III.An End to the Pretence: Undermining Arusha A.Integration without Cohesion: Army Reform Formed in 2004, the National Defence Force is the product of a politico-military agreement. After three decades of mono-ethnic military dictatorship, the signatories of the Arusha Agreement accepted the principle of ethnic parity in the security forces (50 per cent Hutu and 50 per cent Tutsi) and included it in the third protocol. The duration of this ethnic balance remained undecided and has still not been set. In 2003, as part of peace negotiations with the National Council for the Defence of Democracy/Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), this agreement on ethnic composition was completed by an agreement on the political composition of the security forces. The Technical Forces Agreement stated that the CNDD-FDD should occupy 40 per cent of army command posts. To achieve this dual ethnic and political objective, the National Defence Force went through a phase of demobilisation and restructuring. From 2004 to 2008, 41,000 former Burundian armed forces (ex-FAB) members and 15,500 former armed political parties and movements (ex-PMPA) members were demobilised. With the prospect of a 25,00o-strong army, half of which were to be drawn from the Hutu ethnic group, Tutsi soldiers were the most affected. Supported by foreign partners, the operation to demobilise ex-FAB and integrate ex-rebels took place smoothly even though it was considered to be the major challenge facing the new government and the main risk of destabilising the transition. The political pact on power sharing between yesterday’s enemies played a major role in the creation of a new army over a four-year period, considered to be a success by both the Burundian military and foreign partners. However, the process was not without problems. Demobilised combatants kept their arms, which contributed to the rise in crime. As the demobilisation payment for young ex-FAB officers was €300 and three months’ wages, reintegration in civilian life was difficult for many of them. Evaluations of the army reform generally confuse integration and cohesion. Integration, which at the start of the 2000s took the form of disarmament, and later of an integrated armed forces staff and international deployments, allowed former enemies to get to know each other. This could, moreover, explain the alliances between former armed political parties and movements and former Burundian armed forces behind the attempted coup of May 2015. However, the lack of social contact between ex-FAB and ex-FDD indicated the lack of cohesion. For example, the officers’ mess in Bujumbura was not used by ex-FDD officers, who had their own places to socialise, notably General Nishimirimana’s bars. Attempts at fraternisation between the two groups of officers were not viewed kindly in some quarters. Prejudices remained and interaction was limited to daily tasks. Some used pejorative terms to describe each other: the ex-FAB described the PMPA as “bushmen”, while the latter described the ex-FAB as mujeris (little dogs). Moreover, the ex-FAB silently resented the glass ceiling imposed by the political-military readjustment of the officer corps and the ultra-quick promotion of ex-PMPA officers who had neither their military experience nor level of education. Members of the National Liberation Forces who joined the army in small numbers after the 2008 agreement do not seem to have found their place in the institution. Some have even felt discouraged enough to leave it. In addition, unification of command was more theoretical than real. Conscious of being incorporated into an institution they did not control, unlike the police force and the intelligence service, the ex-FDD created a parallel hierarchy. The official military chain of command was short-circuited by their own network, which led up to Adolphe Nshimirimana and the presidency. This posed problems in terms of discipline, promotion and personnel management. Some soldiers that formed part of the parallel system treated the official hierarchy and discipline with disdain, knowing they were covered in high places and confident of their promotion. This situation led to a lack of transparency in management of grades and even to denials of access to training. In addition, it subjected the army to a hierarchy that was unofficial, partisan but known to all. This parallel command structure further politicised officers and harmed team spirit. Before he was killed, General Adolphe Nshimirimana occupied a strategic position at the crossroads of the presidency, the security sector, trafficking networks, the Imbonerakure and veterans of the CNDD/FDD gathered in the Nonoka Association. He was therefore a mainstay of the parallel command system that is at the heart of the government’s current repressive apparatus and that affects all the security forces: the army, the police force and the intelligence service.Repression is currently carried out by special units within the security services, whose chains of command are short and parallel to the official hierarchy. Although integration allowed the formation of a new army, the latter has always suffered from a lack of cohesion and rampant politicisation. The success of integration was wrongly interpreted as a guarantee of reconciliation, unification and fraternisation. Peaceful coexistence of yesterday’s enemies was not synonymous with unification and cohesion of the institution, notably at the command level. B.Clientelism as a Mode of Governance Since 2005, the dual attitude displayed by the government, anxious to continue the integration and reform policies that allowed the army to participate in peacekeeping missions, while also promoting its former colleagues from the guerrilla war and encouraging criminal behaviour, has strongly disrupted the internal functioning of the army. In addition to resorting to traditional clientelism toward the officer corps (promotions, postings abroad, etc.), the government bribes them and plays on their regional divisions. Authorities take care to respect ethnic balance in the military high command as well as within the government, while at the same time ensuring the loyalty of Tutsi appointees, who are considered to be “bit players”. By integrating part of the command into its clientelist network, the presidency has bypassed the power-sharing framework in the army. Several former Burundian armed forces (ex-FAB) officers, driven by regionalism, opportunism or greed, play the government’s game. This politicisation of part of the high command goes against the principle of political neutrality set out in the National Defence Force’s founding document. The failed coup in May 2015 highlighted cases of duplicity and treason within the high command. The pressure of the intelligence service, the latent divisions among soldiers and the use of some as informers led to collective paranoia in military circles. For example, although all Burundians in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) follow the news in their country on social media, self-censorship is required and morale is at a low ebb. The presence of informers in the battalions, confirmed by Burundian blue helmets, provokes fear and suspicion. This results in rumours about senior officers, which confirm or raise questions about their loyalty to the government. The clientelist relations between the high command and the government allows the latter to maintain the appearance of Arusha in the army. The ethnic balance is observed in the AMISOM command and the army general staff. After a parliamentary study on the composition of the army in 2008, the parliament again examined the subject and visited military units from November 2015 to February 2016. There has been no official communication about its conclusions. But power sharing in the army is openly questioned at several levels. The prevailing tacit consensus at the summit of the military hierarchy regarding sharing the command between a minister and chief of staff from different camps was broken by the appointment of the current defence minister after the failed coup in 2015. Although he is a Tutsi, he is from the CNDD-FDD rather than the ranks of the ex-FAB and is a civilian (judge). The government has abandoned the principle of balanced appointments (one ex-FAB and one ex-PMPA) at the highest level of the army. Moreover, the demographic situation works against the ex-FAB, therefore raising questions about the durability of the agreement in the army. Older than the integrated rebels, they are not replaced by other Tutsis when they retire. The ex-FAB are very concerned about this process and have complained about the emergence of an army command that no longer corresponds to the Arusha Agreement and will not be able to correspond to it in the future. The climate of terror and ethnic polarisation that reigns in the security services means that finding Tutsi recruits might become a challenge. Meanwhile, the government decided to replace the 50/50 quota with a 40 (Tutsi) /60 (Hutu) quota for army recruits as from 2016. This historic politicisation of the army (it has always been that way in Burundi), combined with the attempted coup of May 2015, which revealed the soldiers’ loyalties, left a hard core of officers loyal to President Nkurunziza in strategic positions. These old CNDD-FDD colleagues from the armed struggle are now fighting their former, now dissident, colleagues from the bush. C.The Burundian Army’s International Policy in Jeopardy The current crisis has gradually raised questions about the status and advantages acquired by the Burundian army since 2004. Subjected to a massive reduction in manpower at the end of the civil war, the National Defence Force has certainly been pampered by the government but its involvement in peacekeeping missions has been its real lifeline and has turned it into a privileged institution in this poor country. However, the government’s hard-line policies are potentially undermining this stabilising effect. Making the army the showcase of the peace process allowed the government to develop a self-promoting discourse for its international partners, praise the success of Burundi’s approach to consolidating peace and reduce the UN’s presence in the country, perceived as too intrusive.By becoming the best example of the Arusha Agreement, the army improved its image and status and obtained major advantages as a result. But it was especially its participation in peacekeeping missions that brought new advantages: professionalisation, new financial resources for both the military and the government, posts in international agencies, etc. With its participation in AMISOM starting in 2007, the government discovered a strategy to reduce poverty within the army. As with previous governments, those who came to power in 2005 were aware of the need to ensure soldiers’ welfare. Army members received a pay increase in 2006, social benefits (mortgages at preferential rates, installation of basic infrastructure at new properties, free health care, etc.) and generous promotions (inflation of the officer corps) all of which played a key role in the success of integration. However, the government’s lack of financial resources made it impossible to avoid social tension within the armed forces (for example, in 2009, on the issue of housing allocations). From 2007, participation in AMISOM eased the shock of demobilisation/restructuring and reduced social discontent in a poor army. While a new wave of demobilisation was in the offing, the government became involved in Somalia and suspended staff cuts to the armed forces. The Burundian army currently comprises about 25,000 men, including 5,000 (a fifth) deployed in Somalia. This involvement has allowed a substantial increase in wages ($800 per month in Somalia compared to $40 in Burundi). The duration of the mission means that nearly all members of the Burundian army have completed a tour of duty in Somalia (some are even in Somalia for a second time). Moreover, the death in service benefit is $50,000 to the nominated beneficiary. In Gitega, Burundi’s second largest city, AMISOM veterans have built a new residential district. In addition to wage increases for the armed forces, participation in peacekeeping missions opened up new career prospects at the international level. Other benefits have included military training and contributions to the government budget. The Burundian armed forces have received pre-deployment training, mainly, although not only, through the American program African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA); the government gets around $200 from the wages of each soldier involved in the mission to Somalia, in principle to pay for equipment and other military expenditure, a normal procedure for peacekeeping missions. To maximise the return on investment, both political and financial, of participation in peacekeeping, the government offered its services for several missions (Mali, Central African Republic). The Burundian security forces have taken part in the African Union Mission in the Central African Republic (MISCA) and the UN mission that followed (MINUSCA). Participation in peacekeeping operations has become an official policy, as part of the National Defence Force’s missions. The current crisis has led to a withdrawal of international assistance and to strong questioning of the Burundian army’s participation in peacekeeping missions. The emergence of a low-intensity conflict in Burundi contradicts the army’s role as a “peacekeeping force” in other conflicts. From the beginning of the crisis, the main suppliers of military cooperation retired. American authorities suspended the ACOTA training program, which had already been reduced after a significant number of troops and officers benefited from it. Dutch authorities suspended most of their security sector development program, which was the largest bilateral military cooperation program from a financial point of view. While civil society organisations have launched a campaign on social media for the return of Burundian soldiers from peacekeeping missions (bringbackoursoldiers), the UN and the European Union (EU) are contesting Burundi’s participation. The EU funds the wages of AMISOM soldiers, with the AU acting as intermediary. Since January 2016, the EU has paid $800 per month per soldier (previously $1,028), of which the governments of the countries contributing troops have decided the amount paid to their soldiers. The Burundian government paid its troops $800 before January 2016, retaining $200 to cover general costs. The participation of the Burundian army in the mission brought $52 million per year to the armed forces and $13 million to the government budget. In March 2016, the EU decided that Burundi’s failure to comply with the Cotonou agreement, which sets out the principles and modalities for part of European aid, forbad these payments and asked the AU to find a way of paying Burundian soldiers deployed under AMISOM directly without going through the government. After several months of bitter discussions, in a letter to the AU Commission on 8 December, Burundi threatened to withdraw its troops if a satisfactory means of payment could not be found. In January 2017, it seemed that a compromise had been found according to which payments would be paid to soldiers through the intermediary of a commercial bank and not through the government. Burundi’s threats clearly worked, probably because of AMISOM’s importance to the AU and the EU. If the new arrangement is confirmed, it will bring some fresh air to both the Burundian army and government because the latter will still be in a position to deduct a proportion of the wages paid by the EU to AMISOM troops. However, Burundi’s participation in peacekeeping missions is subjected to greater vigilance and thorough examination. Some Burundian personnel have seen their candidacies to posts with AMISOM and MINUSCA rejected and others, already deployed, have been repatriated. This policy was intensified when the entire contingent of Burundian police officers on duty with MINUSCA (280 men) was sent home. IV.The Fate of the Army Dependent on the Future of the Country Before 2015, the Burundian army appeared to symbolise the country’s reconstruction after the civil war and constituted an essential element in the Western powers’ plan to train and fund African armies for peacekeeping operations on the continent. Since April 2015, a largely predictable political crisis has led to desertions, exposed historic divisions within the army and provoked opposition to its participation in international peacekeeping missions. Training on peacekeeping has slightly professionalised an army that includes an old guard and former rebels and its neutrality during the riots in 2015 showed the willingness of some officers to remain outside the political battles. However, this policy of transforming the armed forces has been frustrated by a lack of cohesion, parallel command structures and the clientelism practised by a kleptocratic and violent regime. The resolution of the crisis in the armed forces requires a political settlement to which loyalist and rebel officers should be associated. But so far, all attempts to mediate have failed and there is no dialogue between the opposition and the government, which is hostile to the very idea of negotiations. Therefore, despite several attempts at mediation by Benjamin Mkapa in 2016 and 2017, the government still refuses to meet and negotiate with members of the opposition for whom national arrest warrants have been issued. As the prospects of dialogue between the opposition and government diminish, given the persistence of the political crisis, there is no clear solution to the crisis in the army. Consequently, the question has to be posed as to what will be the long-term impact of this situation on the military institution: could the neutralisation of the government’s opponents in the army destabilise it by provoking a violent reaction or succeed and end in the “quiet decline” of the National Defence Force? In the context of the failed coup of May 2015 and failed mediation, several scenarios are possible for Burundi: a new attempt at destabilisation leading to a relatively rapid change in government, or the disintegration of command structures and a civil war; or the stagnation and deterioration of the armed forces in the same way as the country as a whole. If the idea spreads among the military that Pierre Nkurunziza’s continuance in power and the government’s hard-line attitude are prejudicial to their interests, some of them could be tempted into a new coup. The deterioration of their economic and social situation combined with the fear of physical elimination could push them into taking the plunge, as in May 2015. Some former Armed Political Parties and Movements officers share these concerns and feel that current policies compromise their future. They might also therefore participate in a new coup attempt. The weakening of the political agreement in the security sector is leading to the re-emergence of divisions and resentments that had been put to one side but had certainly not disappeared. Consequently, a mutiny following on from further arrests of ex-Burundian armed force members, another murder of a senior army officer or a conflict with intelligence service agents or police officers cannot be excluded. The spontaneity of such a mutiny, which could only be partial because of the political and ethnic divisions within the army, would pave the way to many scenarios – from surprise victory to defeat due to a lack of a critical mass. The policy of neutralising opponents in the army might also succeed. The combination of targeted eliminations and buying off some officers could reduce opponents to a minority that would have no other choice but to keep quiet or go into exile, like civil society and political opponents of the third term. The wave of defections that is underway could become stronger and the army could be completely purged of its anti-third term elements. The latter could join the networks of resistance abroad but a united and strong force on the borders of the country is currently not on the cards because of the divisions between opposition factions and the lack of external support. The army would then cease to be a pocket of resistance to the power of President Nkurunziza and his circle. The National Defence Force (FDN) would not disintegrate but would enter a phase of decline because of the flight of its most experienced members, the suppression of foreign support, continued politicisation, the reduction of internationalisation and the government’s budgetary constraints. Poor and weak, it would no longer be a danger to the government, which would concentrate the remaining military resources in a few trusty units such as the Special Brigade for Protection of Institutions. The strategic objectives of the FDN and the plan to make it a “loyal, professional, prosperous, modern and republican army” would be no more than a memory.Such an outcome was known to be a risk when national defence policy was being decided and has occurred elsewhere under many authoritarian African governments. Despite the government’s intransigence, political dialogue between the government and the opposition remains indispensable. The army’s divisions make these recommendations urgent, all the more so because the loss of external financial support threatens to accelerate its deterioration. The multilateral organisations that are looking for a solution to the Burundian crisis, including the new president of the African Union Commission and Burundi’s donors must clearly tell the Burundian authorities that their intransigence, repression and violence are unacceptable. As far as possible, it is necessary to encourage the exiled armed groups to continue on the political path and work to unify the opposition. The participation of Burundian forces in peacekeeping missions will probably continue, following the arrangement reached with the AU regarding AMISOM. This entails dangers that are already evident; the risk of including members of militias in the units deployed, and the risk that an army that is increasingly under the government’s control will be involved in the future in human rights abuses, the same way as the police and the intelligence service. All those who support and fund this participation must be vigilant and increase their vetting efforts. They must be ready to replace the Burundian army contingent in international missions if its behaviour continues to deteriorate. All international training should henceforth be conditional on the government’s willingness to democratise and start a dialogue with the opposition in exile. The risk of weakening the army in the long term because of the withdrawal of external support is much less of a problem for the country than the reorganisation of the army in accordance with the government’s authoritarian plans while international partners close their eyes. V.Conclusion The crisis of the Burundian regime has quickly become a crisis of the Burundian army. This fact alone raises questions about the success of the “new Republican Army” project much promoted by the Burundian authorities and praised by their partners. It highlights the limits of training in changing the way institutions operate and in installing democratic governance in the security sector. While the Burundian army changed following the Arusha Agreement of 2000, pernicious links between the government and the army remained. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 International Crisis Group

Jehovah’s Witnesses gathered in a house in the village of Vorokhobino, north of Moscow, where they meet for services. Credit James Hill for The New York Times VOROKHOBINO, Russia — A dedicated pacifist who has never even held a gun, Andrei Sivak discovered that his government considered him a dangerous extremist when he tried to change some money and the teller “suddenly looked up at me with a face full of fear.” His name had popped up on the exchange bureau’s computer system, along with those of members of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other militant groups responsible for shocking acts of violence. The only group the 43-year-old father of three has ever belonged to, however, is Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination committed to the belief that the Bible must be taken literally, particularly its injunction “Thou shalt not kill.” Yet, in a throwback to the days of the Soviet Union, when Jehovah’s Witnesses were hounded as spies and malcontents by the K.G.B., the denomination is at the center of an escalating campaign by the authorities to curtail religious groups that compete with the Russian Orthodox Church and that challenge President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to rally the country behind traditional and often militaristic patriotic values. The Justice Ministry, in a preliminary adminstrative strike last month, put the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, an office complex near St. Petersburg, on a list of the bodies banned “in connection with the carrying out of extremist activities.” Whether it stays there will depend on Russia’s Supreme Court, which is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to hear a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the religious organization and stop its more than 170,000 Russian members from spreading “extremist” texts. Extremism, as defined by a law passed in 2002 but amended and expanded several times since, has become a catchall charge that can be deployed against just about anybody, as it has been against some of those involved in recent anti-corruption protests in Moscow and scores of other cities. Several students who took part in demonstrations in the Siberian city of Tomsk are now being investigated by a special anti-extremism unit, while Leonid Volkov, the senior aide to the jailed protest leader Aleksei A. Navalny, said he himself was detained last week under the extremism law. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the putative extremism seems to derive mostly from the group’s absolute opposition to violence, a stand that infuriated Soviet and now Russian authorities whose legitimacy rests in large part on the celebration of martial triumphs, most notably over Nazi Germany in World War II but also over rebels in Syria. Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of a denomination founded in the United States in the 19th century and active in Russia for more than 100 years, refuse military service, do not vote and view God as the only true leader. They shun the patriotic festivals promoted with gusto by the Kremlin, like the annual celebration of victory in 1945 and recent events to celebrate the annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Mr. Sivak, who says he lost his job as a physical education teacher because of his role as a Jehovah’s Witnesses elder, said he voted for Mr. Putin in 2000, three years before joining the denomination. He added that while he had not voted since, nor had he supported anti-Kremlin activities of the sort that usually attract the attention of Russia’s post-Soviet version of the K.G.B., the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B. “I have absolutely no interest in politics,” he said during a recent Jehovah’s Witnesses Friday service in a wooden country house in Vorokhobino, a snow-covered village north of Moscow. Around 100 worshipers crammed into a long, chilly room under fluorescent lights to listen to readings from the Bible, sing and watch a video advising them to dress for worship as they would for a meeting with the president. “From the Russian state’s perspective, Jehovah’s Witnesses are completely separate,” said Geraldine Fagan, the author of “Believing in Russia — Religious Policy After Communism.” She added, “They don’t get involved in politics, but this is itself seen as a suspicious political deviation.” “The idea of independent and public religious activity that is completely outside the control of — and also indifferent to — the state sets all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the Orthodox Church and the security services,” she said. That the worldwide headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses is in the United States and that its publications are mostly prepared there, Ms. Fagan added, “all adds up to a big conspiracy theory” for the increasingly assertive F.S.B. For Mr. Sivak, it has added up to a long legal nightmare. His troubles began, he said, when undercover security officers posed as worshipers and secretly filmed a service where he was helping to officiate in 2010. Accused of “inciting hatred and disparaging the human dignity of citizens,” he was put on trial for extremism along with a second elder, Vyacheslav Stepanov, 40. The prosecutor’s case, heard by a municipal court in Sergiyev Posad, a center of the Russian Orthodox Church, produced no evidence of extremism and focused instead on the insufficient patriotism of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Their disregard for the state,” a report prepared for the prosecution said, “erodes any sense of civic affiliation and promotes the destruction of national and state security.” In a ruling last year, the court found the two men not guilty, and their ordeal seemed over — until Mr. Sivak tried to change money and was told that he had been placed on a list of “terrorists and extremists.” He and Mr. Stepanov now face new charges of extremism and are to appear before a regional court this month. “There is a big wave of repression breaking,” Mr. Stepanov said. In response to written questions, the Justice Ministry in Moscow said a yearlong review of documents at the Jehovah’s Witnesses “administrative center” near St. Petersburg had uncovered violations of a Russian law banning extremism. As a result, it added, the center should be “liquidated,” along with nearly 400 locally registered branches of the group and other structures. For the denomination’s leaders in Russia, the sharp escalation in a long campaign of harassment, previously driven mostly by local officials, drew horrifying flashbacks to the Soviet era. Vasily Kalin, the chairman of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Russian arm, recalled that his whole family had been deported to Siberia when he was a child. “It is sad and reprehensible that my children and grandchildren should be facing a similar fate,” he said. “Never did I expect that we would again face the threat of religious persecution in modern Russia.” In Russia, as in many countries, the door-to-door proselytizing of Jehovah’s Witnesses often causes irritation, and their theological idiosyncrasies disturb many mainstream Christians. The group has also been widely criticized for saying that the Bible prohibits blood transfusions. But it has never promoted violent or even peaceful political resistance. “I cannot imagine that anyone really thinks they are a threat,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which monitors extremism in Russia. “But they are seen as a good target. They are pacifists, so they cannot be radicalized, no matter what you do to them. They can be used to send a message.” That message, it would seem, is that everyone needs to get with the Putin program — or risk being branded as an extremist for displaying indifference, never mind hostility, to the Kremlin’s drive to make Russia a great power again. “A big reason they are being targeted is simply that they are an easy target,” Ms. Fagan said. “They don’t vote, so nobody is going to lose votes by attacking them.” Attacking Jehovah’s Witnesses also sends a signal that even the mildest deviation from the norm, if proclaimed publicly and insistently, can be punished under the anti-extremism law, which was passed after Russia’s second war in Chechnya and the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Billed as a move by Russia to join a worldwide struggle against terrorism, the law prohibited “incitement of racial, national or religious strife, and social hatred associated with violence or calls for violence.” But the reference to violence was later deleted, opening the way for the authorities to classify as extremist any group claiming to offer a unique, true path to religious or political salvation. Even the Russian Orthodox Church has sometimes fallen afoul of the law: The slogan “Orthodoxy or Death!” — a rallying cry embraced by some hard-line believers — has been banned as an illegal extremist text. To help protect the Orthodox Church and other established religions, Parliament passed a law in 2015 to exempt the Bible and the Quran, as well as Jewish and Buddhist scripture, from charges of extremism based on their claims to offer the only true faith. The main impetus for the current crackdown, however, appears to come from the security services, not the Orthodox Church. Roman Lunkin, director of the Institute of Religion and Law, a Moscow research group, described it as “part of a broad policy of suppressing all nongovernmental organizations” that has gained particular force because of the highly centralized structure of Jehovah’s Witnesses under a worldwide leadership based in the United States. “They are controlled from outside Russia, and this is very suspicious for our secret services,” he said. “They don’t like having an organization that they do not and cannot control.” Artyom Grigoryan, a former Jehovah’s Witness who used to work at the group’s Russian headquarters but who now follows the Orthodox Church, said the organization had “many positive elements,” like its ban on excessive drinking, smoking and other unhealthy habits. All the same, he said it deserved to be treated with suspicion. “Look at it from the view of the state,” he said. “Here is an organization that is run from America, that gets financing from abroad, and whose members don’t serve in the army and don’t vote.” Estranged from his parents, who are still members and view his departure as sinful, he said Jehovah’s Witnesses broke up families and “in the logic of the state, it presents a threat.” He added, “I am not saying this is real or not, but it needs to be checked by objective experts.” Mr. Sivak, now preparing for yet another trial, said that he had always tried to follow the law and that he respected the state, but could not put its interests above the commands of his faith. “They say I am a terrorist,” he said, “but all I ever wanted to do was to get people to pay attention to the Bible.” Correction: April 4, 2017 An earlier version of this article misstated Andrei Sivak’s age. He is 43, not 42. The error was repeated in a picture caption, which also misstated the age of Vyacheslav Stepanov. He is 40, not 39. And because of an editing error, the article also misidentified the person who said he was detained last week under Russia’s extremism law. It was Leonid Volkov, not Aleksei A. Navalny. (c) The New York Times 2017

Impending famine in South Sudan is major news, and has been reported in appropriately urgent fashion, including several recent stories in the New York Times, as well as by a number of other important news organizations. South Sudan has a population of approximately 12 million. Almost entirely unreported are the many locations in Sudan, with a population of almost 40 million, where there are severe food shortages, where malnutrition indicators are skyrocketing, and where famine also threatens in some locations. These food shortages have been deliberately engineered by the governing National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum. This is the same regime that was responsible for major famines in South Sudan during the long civil war (1983 – 2005), including the infamous famine of 1998 (see Human Rights Watch, 1998). Famine in South Sudan, 1998 For over a decade, a grim “genocide by attrition” has been a critical weapon in the broader genocidal counter-insurgency conducted by Khartoum against rebel forces in the Darfur region—once itself a major news story, but now completely unreported by Western news sources, despite extraordinary levels of violence and severe deprivation. In Darfur the regime has consistently obstructed, harassed, and denied access to humanitarian organizations seeking reach to areas of critical need, even for assessment purposes—and continues to do so for much of the region. The regime regards this assault on relief efforts as a way of weakening remaining Darfuri rebel groups, even if it comes at enormous cost in the form of civilian suffering and destruction. Some three million Darfuris remain displaced from their homes—in camps for displaced persons, in host communities, in eastern Chad, or in what the UN calls “Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Gathering Points,” locations of displaced persons without shelter or organized relief (see “Internally Displaced Persons in Darfur: The invisible catastrophe, international complicity,” March 19, 2017 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-21N/). These people are unable to return because of ongoing violence and insecurity orchestrated by Khartoum’s army and its various regular militia forces, most brutally and efficiently by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The number of irregular Arab militias forces—little more than provisionally organized predators—appears to be increasing. Life for some of the 3 million displaced persons in Darfur and eastern Chad The UN uses the same number—three million—in its estimates of the people in need in Darfur, including children suffering from Acute Malnutrition and Severe Acute Malnutrition (Sudan as a whole has a population of 5.8 million in need of humanitarian assistance according to a very recent assessment by the U.S. Agency for International Development) . These people depend on international relief efforts that are gradually collapsing. And the collapse may become precipitous if Khartoum proceeds with its announced plans to dismantle IDP camps and its determination to force the removal of the weak, poorly equipped, and badly demoralized UN/African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID), which provides the minimal security allowing some humanitarian organizations to remain in Darfur. If UNAMID withdraws, so will the remaining international relief organizations. A decision about the future of UNAMID will be made in June by the UN Security Council. The international response to developments in Darfur has been weak, irresolute, and the U.S. role has been one of increasing abandonment. Indeed, in 2011—as violence was again beginning to escalate in the region, the Obama administration explicitly “de-coupled” Darfur from the major bilateral issue between Khartoum and Washington, trading counter-terrorism intelligence from the men who formerly hosted Osama bin Laden for a lifting of U.S. economic sanctions. In the last week of the Obama administration, the deal was consummated and sanctions were lifted. This is provisional, to be sure, but the Obama administration had already given credit to Khartoum for halting major military activities and for effecting what Obama’s UN ambassador Samantha Power called a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan. Such a characterization was a patent falsehood, and acknowledged as such by the U.S. State Department, which nonetheless has offered no public correction. The Obama administration's ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power This falsehood was particularly pernicious, given the massive evidence of Acute and Severe Acute Malnutrition to be found not only in Darfur, but in two large rebel-controlled areas in southern Sudan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile States. In these areas Khartoum continues to impose a total blockade on humanitarian relief to desperately needy civilians. The “Two Areas,” as they are known, have suffered from this blockade since summer 2011; and while we no systematic malnutrition surveys are permitted by the Khartoum regime, numerous reports from the ground and occasional hit-and-run assessments make clear that both Acute and Severe Acute Malnutrition are growing and in some areas approach the levels that are typically designated as “famine.” In two locations in South Kordofan, Warni and Kau-Nyaro, 64 percent of households were reported last year as “acutely malnourished.” Ominously, this year’s harvest has been particularly poor. Food prices are skyrocketing, where it is available—and the traditional “lean season,” or “hunger gap,” has not even begun. What makes Khartoum’s “success” so appalling is that the world has watched and done nothing to compel the regime to relent. In February 2012, half a year after conflict had begun in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the UN, African Union, and Arab League put forward a proposal for humanitarian access to provide relief to civilians in the Two Areas, including the many hundreds of thousands who had already been displaced by Khartoum’s relentless campaign of aerial bombardment of farms and villages. The rebel group, known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-North), readily agreed to the proposal; Khartoum balked. And has continued to balk, renege, obfuscate, and lie through some fifteen subsequent negotiating sessions. Last fall an agreement seemed close, but again Khartoum followed its pattern of either reneging on what had previously been agreed or imposing new conditions it knows will be unacceptable to the SPLM/A-North. Despite this, and despite the regime’s five-year history of finding a way to say no to humanitarian access, U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Khartoum, Steven Koutsis, recently wrote a piece in the influential Sudan Tribune blaming the SPLM/A-N as the holdout. His historical memory is both flawed and remarkably short-term, extending back only to the failed negotiations of fall 2016. He says nothing about the past five years, during which the regime has avowedly done everything possible to prevent the international community from “cloning” Darfur in the Two Areas. U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Khartoum, Steven Koutsis, should keep images like this in mind when indulging in disingenuous characterizations of why humanitarian access for South Kordofan and Blue Nile has not been negotiated since Khartoum first denied a African Union, United Nations, Arab League access proposal in February 2012--over five years ago. Nor does Koutsis answer the most basic question: cui bono? Who benefits from the failure of negotiated humanitarian access? Certainly not the rebel forces or the civilians for whom they legitimately speak. It is Khartoum, having mounted a new “dry season” military offensive every year since fighting began in 2011, that sees a weakened and starving population as beneficial. A telling revelation appears in leaked but fully authenticated minutes from a meeting in August 2014 during which senior military and security officials in Khartoum speak of a plan to destroy the abundant sorghum crop in prospect—the staple food for people of the region. Recent serious divisions within the SPLM-North make resumed negotiations on humanitarian access very unlikely in the near term, even as Khartoum’s humanitarian embargo affects more and more civilian lives. It is critical that the international community shake off its lethargy, its indifference, and its absurd trust in Khartoum as a reliable negotiating partner on the issue of humanitarian access. The UN, the African Union, as well as other international actors of consequence—preeminently the U.S. and the European Union—need to demand full and adequate access for food and medicine to all regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and an end to the abusive obstruction and intimidation of relief operations in Darfur. And there must be serious consequences threatened if Khartoum refuses to yield in allowing humanitarian efforts to save the lives of Sudanese civilians. Famine in South Sudan is an immensely important news subject. But in the absence of a concerted effort to secure from the Khartoum regime full humanitarian access for Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile, unreported and deadly malnutrition in places like Warni and Kau-Nyaro will proceed apace. Starvation is no less real because unreported. The fate of hundreds of thousands of children in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile is in our hands. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

A woman looks at images smuggled out of Syria on display at the United Nations in New York in 2015. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) BEIRUT — One evening in the early days of Syria’s uprising, Mohsen al-Masri’s band of activists slipped through the Damascus streets and waited for the coast to clear. Then they crouched, opened their bags and let out a stream of color. Thousands of ping-pong balls, painted green, pink, blue and yellow, bounced past policemen, who scrambled to stop them. Residents would find balls tucked in nooks and crannies for months. Each was marked with a single word: “Freedom.” The punishment for Masri’s acts of peaceful protest would begin a journey into hell, unusual not because of what he saw, but because he survived. In a series of interviews, he described how he was tortured and interrogated over a two-year period in four detention facilities before arriving in a hospital at the heart of a nationwide system of brutality. The hospital, known as 601, is not the only site of torture in Syria. But after it was seen in a cache of photographs showing thousands of skeletal corpses, it became one of the most notorious. Inside the facility, about a half-mile from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s palace, sick prisoners are tortured as they lie shackled to beds crammed with dying men, according to Masri and former detainees and military personnel who worked there. Corpses have been piled in bathrooms, outhouses and anywhere else they will fit, then meticulously documented and trucked away for mass burial. In interviews across Lebanon, Turkey and Europe, more than a dozen survivors and army defectors described horrors in Syrian military hospitals across the country for which war crimes lawyers say they have struggled to find a modern parallel. The former detainees come from all walks of life. Elite, ­working-class, leftist and Islamist, their only connection to one another was involvement in Syria’s 2011 uprising. Some were its instigators. Others said they had simply commented on the Facebook statuses of friends who supported protests. Investigators say that testimony and documentation from Syria’s military hospitals offer some of the most concrete evidence to date of crimes against humanity that could one day see senior government figures tried in court. “We were swept into a system that was ready for us. Even the hospitals were slaughterhouses,” Masri said in an interview last month. Medicine has been used as a weapon of war since the earliest days of the uprising, when pro-government doctors performed amputations on protesters for minor injuries. Military hospitals across Syria have long set aside wards for prisoners. But since 2011, these have been packed with men left starving and broken by the conditions they have already endured. More than 100,000 people have been arrested or forcibly disappeared in Syria since the country’s revolt began, according to a list compiled by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a monitoring group. During that time, international aid groups have gotten access to only a handful of prisons with the government’s permission, none of which the detainees interviewed by The Washington Post spent time in. Masri’s ordeal began in the spring of 2012 when he was arrested on his way to a conference in Turkey. Repeatedly tortured as he was transferred from jail to jail, he arrived at Sednaya, one of the most feared. In a report published in February, Amnesty International said torture and forced starvation are systematic at the prison. But Masri said that prisoners learned to stay silent when guards asked who needed to go to the hospital. “It didn’t matter what they did to us; we had to pretend we were fine. People rarely came back from those trips,” he said. After months of starvation, Masri’s name was added to the weekly transfer list. As darkness fell on an evening in May 2012, he was chained to another man and taken to trucks outside. Attaching a number to Masri’s body, a guard told him to forget his name. Then he was blindfolded. Everyone gets the “welcome” party, Masri said — a savage beating involving guards and medical staffers wearing white coats over military uniforms. In Hospital 601, the weakest man was pushed to the floor and brutalized first. In the nearby Tishreen Military Hospital, a former technician at the facility, Mohammed al-Hammoud, said he had seen prisoners dragged down steps by the hair. “Everything was about control,” said Somar Mustafa, a physics student from Damascus who was sent to Hospital 601 at the end of 2012. Inside, he saw detainees chained to their beds and packed so tightly that they sat with their knees jutting into their rib cages. Bathroom breaks were so rare that prisoners would defecate where they sat, remaining in the same spot for days. “We were blindfolded with that smell all around us. You can’t shake the memory of it, even when you leave,” Mustafa said. At least five branches of the Syrian security forces have operated wards inside Hospital 601 since 2011, according to the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, a body set up to monitor the conflict. “Detainees, including children, have been beaten, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to torture that exploits preexisting injuries,” it said in a 2013 report. The commission concluded that many patients had been tortured to death inside the facility. The Harasta Military Hospital, also in Damascus, moved its ward from the first floor to the seventh to prevent detainees from escaping, a defector said. “It was the only floor without an elevator, and we knew they couldn’t jump out the window.” Investigators say the abuses could become central pillars in any eventual case for prosecution of the hospitals’ doctors, as well as senior figures in the Syrian government. In 601, Masri and Mustafa said, they saw high-ranking officers from the security branches accompanying doctors on their rounds. Sometimes the teams would pause by a prisoner to discuss his treatment. Other times the men would beat him. The doctors were helped by service staffers in blue uniforms, many of them former supporters of the revolt who had been co-opted by their jailers. “Our best men had been broken by torture. If they didn’t beat us, they risked a worse fate themselves,” Masri said. The guards went by nicknames to avoid identification. Four survivors said the most famous was known as Azrael, or the Angel of Death. They described him as a thickset man from Assad’s coastal stronghold of Latakia who carried a stick laced with razor blades. They said he selected prisoners, most of them deathly ill, for a fate he called “justice.” The detainees called it execution. Masri recalled Azrael taking a lighter to a plastic bag and melting it drop by drop onto a prisoner’s face until he died, apparently of a heart attack. Other prisoners said he used an iron rod to smash their bedmates’ skulls. Many died where they lay, slumped against their bedmates until morning came. For Mustafa in the winter of 2012, that meant sharing a bed until sunrise the next day with three corpses. As the uprising outside morphed into a war, former prisoners say, their interrogators became obsessed with the notion of accomplices, torturing prisoners to extract the names of new suspects to arrest. Documents signed by senior government and security officials acknowledged the upsurge in deaths, at times complaining that the bodies were building up. “It’s impossible to interrogate, torture and kill tens of thousands of detainees without a system in place,” said Scott Gilmore, a staff attorney at the Center for Justice and Accountability. “Before the revolution, the regime was not generating thousands of dead bodies. Then all of a sudden it was. So what did you do with them?” A December 2012 order signed by the head of Syria’s military intelligence department instructed every security branch to send their dead to a military hospital’s morgue. The document, obtained by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, a Europe-based investigative unit, said that each body should be examined and logged. A trove of these photographs was published around the world in 2014, after being smuggled out of Syria by a military police defector known only by his code-name, Caesar. Most were taken inside Hospital 601. Skeletal bodies of children as young as 11 bore signs of torture, with eyes gouged out and limbs drilled through and burned. Following Syrian government protocol, Caesar had methodically documented the deaths of some 11,000 people. “You have to realize that these were just the photographs taken by a single man during a single period, and even then, they were only a fraction of what he’d actually recorded,” said Nadim Houry, who examined the photographs for Human Rights Watch. Assad recently described the images as “fake news,” suggesting they had been doctored to suit the aims of human rights groups. But defectors describe hauling numbered bodies into transparent bags in Hospital 601 and nearby military hospitals in Tishreen and Harasta. Investigators from the United Nations and private law firms have collected similar testimony from the cities of Homs, Aleppo and Daraa. By late 2012, the system had buckled, and the December order berated individual military departments for failing to register their dead on time. Those who survive are funneled back to nearby jails, Masri said. Others, like Mustafa, are released to a Damascus court packed with prisoners and dismissed from custody on the spot, after a judge acknowledges that they had been forced to make false confessions under torture. The young man said he remembers falling into the arms of his sobbing parents. Masri’s discharge from 601 sent him back to Sednaya. Another year of torture followed, with nights spent packed next to other men in the darkness. He felt forgotten. In the winter of 2014, he dreamed he was taking a hot shower, its stream stripping back two years of dirt and leaving him clean. He woke to find a guard in his cell. “He told me it was time to go,” Masri said. “I cannot describe that feeling. It was too much, too big. Indescribable.” Back home in Damascus, he said, he remembers closing the bathroom door to stand alone for a moment, shutting his eyes to finally feel at peace. When he opened them, he saw a sheet-white, rawboned man staring back from the mirror. “I started screaming,” Masri said. He did not recognize himself. Zakaria reported from Istanbul. Heba Habib in Stockholm and Hania Mourtada in Beirut contributed to this report. (C) 2017 The Washington Post