Michael Sharp visited Elizabeth Namavu and children in Mubimbi Camp, home to displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during his time in the country. When he was killed, he was part of a U.N. mission. (Jana Asenbrennerova/Courtesy of MCC) UNITED NATIONS — In a village nestled in clouds in the thickly wooded hills of eastern Congo, Michael Sharp, a slight, bespectacled Mennonite from Kansas, looked perfectly at ease. That is how I remember him from a reporting trip to a village called Kigogo on a Monday in June 2014. He had been in the Democratic Republic of Congo for two years, and he was trying to persuade militia members to put down their guns. He accompanied me into a hut to meet the commander of the notorious Rwandan militia known as the F.D.L.R., blamed for the Rwandan genocide. I suspect the only reason the commander tolerated my questions was that he trusted Mr. Sharp. Two weeks ago, Mr. Sharp vanished, along with a colleague, Zaida Catalan, a Swede, both members of a Group of Experts, appointed by the United NationsSecurity Council, as they went to investigate a relatively new rebellion that is still poorly understood in the Kasai-Central Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Tuesday night, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres,confirmed their deaths, promising an inquiry and nudging the Congolese authorities to “conduct a full investigation into this incident.” Mr. Guterres also urged the government “to continue the search for the four Congolese nationals who accompanied our colleagues.” They were also reported missing on March 12, alongside the two expatriates, whose bodies were found in a shallow grave on Monday. Mr. Sharp and Ms. Catalan were described as professionals with extensive experience in tough places. Mr. Sharp, 34, had been in Congo for five years, with an enviable network of rebel commanders and local leaders, most of whom he had met in church. “Michael told me one time: ‘Rebels go to church. You build a relationship with them there,’” said Rachel Sweet, a researcher who knew him. Ms. Catalan, 36, had worked in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and Kabul, Afghanistan, before taking up the post with the Group of Experts, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had been a Green Party politician in Sweden before that. She was not shy about speaking out. Brian Palmer, a friend who had invited her to speak to his class at Uppsala University, where he teaches, described her as an exuberant person who candidly spoke about the United Nations’ limitations. “She was not at all shy to talk about difficult questions,” he said. “She had come to see the people that she was trying to help as her equals and her friends and had very much loyalty to them.” The two, accompanied by an interpreter and drivers, all Congolese, had gone to a part of Kasai-Central Province in early March to investigate the fighting there, which pitted the Congolese Army against an array of rebel factions. They traveled by motorcycle, the only way to navigate the area. Going with United Nations peacekeepers would not have been a good idea because they are not always trusted by gunmen. “They were doing what we’ve all done,” said Jason Stearns, a former member of the Group of Experts who now runs the Congo Research Group at New York University. “Getting a couple of motorcycle guys, getting an interpreter. And they trekked out to rebel territory, which Michael has done so many times, hundreds of times probably.” The experts are not everyone’s friends. They uncover inconvenient facts about people committing crimes, and higher-ups helping them. In their previous reports, the experts had implicated some military officials in wrongdoing. The part of Kasai-Central Province they had traveled to had lately been littered with suspected mass graves, and the Congolese Army was blamed for some of them. There were reports of children being conscripted to fight. Ms. Catalan was responsible for investigating child soldiers, among other things. Mr. Sharp was the coordinator of the panel. Mr. Stearns said Mr. Sharp was also a gadget nerd. His laptop was secured by an iris scan — his own. His watch tracked his exact location, but did not emit signals for others to locate him. Mr. Sharp was known to be a stickler in his investigations. Mr. Stearns described him as “dispassionately passionate,” devoted to his work but not given to displaying his emotions. And so, like many people who work in conflict zones — doctors who run field clinics, journalists who bounce from one heartbreaking story to another, aid workers who live abroad — Mr. Stearns said he never really asked Mr. Sharp why he did what he did, including all those years when he was working for the Mennonites, for no pay. “He was a very hard-nosed truth seeker and would go the extra mile to nail down the evidence,” said Willet Weeks, a senior adviser on eastern Congo to the State Department. “He had tremendous empathy, even for some of the nastiest people he worked with.” Mr. Sharp’s father, John, said in a telephone interview that his son’s work had been rooted in his faith. “From early on he caught a passion for peacemaking and peace-building in the world.” Ms. Catalan changed her Facebook picture last November. In the photograph, she is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with a red backpack strapped to her shoulders. She is smiling at the camera, from the back of a motorcycle taxi, common throughout Congo. On Tuesday evening, there was a candlelight vigil for the two in Goma, the town in eastern Congo where they were both based. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times

An uphill struggle for Iraq’s Christians IN THEORY, this year should have been a time when the fortunes of Iraq’s Christian community, one of world’s most beleaguered religious minorities, at last changed for the better. Instead, say members of the community and people supporting them, it is proving to be a time of agonizing dilemmas. The number of Christians in Iraq has plunged from perhaps 1.3m before the 2003 war to barely 250,000 now, and the great majority of those who remain are living in the relative safety of the country’s Kurdish-controlled north. At least 100,000 had to flee their homes and seek Kurdish protection in 2014 after Islamic State (IS) swept through their ancestral lands. But last year quite a lot of that territory, including some historically Christian towns, was wrested from IS control. A protracted, bloody struggle for control of Mosul, the regional capital, is grinding on (see article), but hard-pressed religious minorities hope and assume that IS will eventually be driven out. All that creates the possibility at least of a collective return. But to put it mildly, that won’t be easy or cheap. At least 12,000 displaced Christian families are being supported in temporary accommodation by religious charities, mostly in Ainkawa, a Christian district in the city of Erbil. A survey published this week by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity, found that nearly 90% of these displaced people were interested in going back and 40% were keen to return as soon as possible. But the same study, which looked at 12 mainly Christian towns and villages, found that nearly 12,000 homes had been damaged and 700 destroyed completely. The cost of repairing the damage could exceed $200m. Recent images of the once-flourishing Christian town of Qaraqosh, recaptured six months ago, show scenes resembling an uninhabitable ruin. Stephen Rasche, an adviser to the Catholic archdiocese of Erbil, said in London last week that another problem was looming: a real risk of humanitarian assistance to the temporary residents of Erbil running out. If that happens, a long and costly effort to keep some Christians in their ancestral lands, and give them hope of living sustainably, may collapse, triggering a fresh and perhaps final surge of emigration. But Iraqi Christians and their international supporters, including an upwardly mobile and industrious diaspora, are persisting. Bashar Warda, the Catholic archbishop of Erbil, told a visiting journalist earlier this month that among his people there was a strong determination to return and make a viable living in their traditional homelands. The first priority, he said, was ensuring adequate material conditions; fixing places of worship, however culturally important, could come later: The vision we have is this: first houses, proper shelter, public services, and then we will think of churches. If you have nice churches without people, what will you do with those churches? First I think we should have…faithful people, then they will take care of the churches. We don’t have to worry about that [now]…. As an example of a modest success story, the archbishop cited the village of Telskuf were 120 families had returned and were busy renovating their homes with help from the church and other agencies. Anecdotal evidence suggests that prospects for Christians returning look somewhat brighter in localities that were recaptured from IS by Kurdish forces and much less good in settlements where IS was driven out by the Iraqi army in co-operation with often-chaotic mixtures of militias. And that in turn raises an awkward question. Iraq’s Christians, in the north and elsewhere, used to be connected to their Arab Muslim neighbours through a dense and well-established network of relationships. But since the advances of IS in 2014, those relationships of trust have disintegrated, and won’t be easy to reconstitute. By contrast, ties between Christians and their Kurdish protectors have grown closer. Some may conclude that if there is any future at all for Christians in Iraq, it is exclusively under Kurdish administration in the far north. But Martin Manna, director of the Michigan-based Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce and an influential figure in Iraq’s Christian diaspora, says his members won’t give up on Iraq proper. They will continue to lobby for better treatment by Iraq’s central government, even though once-strong Christian communities in Baghdad and Basra have dwindled to near-extinction. In co-operation with Christian groups inside Iraq, the diaspora would support the idea of the Nineveh Plain, the area adjacent to Mosul, becoming a separate province, safe for religious minorities. They would also criticise moves by Baghdad which hurt Christians, such as a law demanding that the children of interfaith marriages be Muslim. But the immediate task, Mr Manna acknowledges, is reconstruction in the north: working with the local churches and humanitarian agencies to fund and rebuild the areas trashed by IS. Given that he speaks for nearly 4,000 Iraqi-American entrepreneurs, from supermarket-owners to real-estate brokers, that doesn’t seem completely unrealistic. Whether they live in Detroit or Erbil, religious communities that have survived for nearly 2,000 years can draw on some powerful reserves of tenacity and energy, and they will need every drop. (C) 2017 The Economist

Buffy Sainte-Marie first burst onto the international music scene in the 1960s, and since then the iconic Cree folk singer has worked tirelessly to spotlight, protect and inspire indigenous people. "Medicine Songs," the 76-year-old's upcoming album, features familiar protest tunes alongside new works like her Tanya Tagaq collaboration "War Racket," as well as a Canadian version of her Native American history lesson, "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying." First performed at the Truth and Reconciliation closing ceremony, the song tackles "the genocide basic to this country's birth" while her inimitable voice sings residential school-inspired lyrics like, "when will we tell of the starvation hell / as the children were herded and raped and converted / and when do we rescue the missing and murdered?" The Saskatchewan-born singer sat down with HuffPost Canada to dissect our country's indigenous past, present and future before this weekend's Junos where she's being honoured with the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Award for her decades of political activism and philanthropy. I've interviewed indigenous people who don't consider Canada 150 something worth celebrating. I know that you're participating in anniversary events in Vancouver. What's your take? Well, my motto is stay calm and decolonize. For me, the celebration of 150 is the perfect opportunity to continue to decolonize. Decolonizing doesn't hurt anybody. It's exactly what everybody needs to do. What is decolonization? People are still under the impression that, and put this in quotes, "our Indians" belong to the colonial administration and that's the way life has been for us. To decolonize you have to get rid of the basic assumption that indigenous people are somehow to be classed with the flora and the fauna. That was actually the case in Australia, and even though we don't say that in Canada, that is sometimes how we have been treated. So you know there's a lot of day-by-day education that people are doing. They are doing it in Idle No More. People are doing it as songwriters like myself. People are doing it when they talk on the phone. Decolonization is not only acts of parliament, it's not only acts of government. Is Canada a racist country? Those words are just too encompassing. Some people in Canada are racists. Some people in the world are racists. Almost everybody in Canada is under-educated, or miseducated, when it comes to aboriginal things, I will say that. And the consequences of that are quite unnecessarily limiting. We don't have to be ignorant anymore. In 1971 Buffy Sainte-Marie was touring Europe and using the proceeds from her concerts and records to put indigenous students through college. (Getty) You've been fighting for indigenous rights for a long time. How has the situation changed? The good news about the bad news is that more people know now. I don't think anybody was using the word genocide in terms of Native America — North, South, Central America — in the '60s. But I was using it in a song called "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying," which is about the North American holocaust. And people didn't get it in those days. They thought maybe I was making this up and all it is is a list of facts, all of which are provable. But now I'm coming out with a Canadian version. Now people can understand it, now people have a reference for it now because of the work of a lot of other people, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It's been a lot of day-by-day, song-by-song and article-by-article work on the part of a lot of people that has resulted in the fact that more people know now. How do we speed up progress on issues like education, housing, suicide and drinking water? You have to keep reminding yourself of the successes. If you are in the grassroots Indian community and you hang out with your relatives and people are laughing at the birth of a new baby and having fun and being nice to each other — or just hanging out and making dinner together — you see a lot of bright spots in individual family life. But so far as actually solving the big dilemmas of colonialism? We've got a long way to go but we mustn't ever, ever forget how far we have come. We've come a long way. There was a time when we weren't citizens, when we didn't have freedom of religion. We have made a lot of progress. So let's be happy about it and continue to make progress and not get discouraged. Europeans were exploiting indigenous people since they first came across them, and things have improved. It's no longer as bad as it was. But there are residuals of all of that stuff that most Canadians don't even know. Do you have any advice for the new generation of young people who are trying to make a difference and take a stand? You don't help anybody when you burn out. So get to know when it's time to have a bath and a nap and a good night's sleep. Don't burn out. That's always my first recommendation. Secondly, there are many, many ways to get a message across. And we need all of the big ways and all of the small ways. You could write a 400-page book or you can write a three-minute song. Another thing that I would offer is you have to be brief and you have to be engaging. The only thing that's important is being effective. You don't necessarily bludgeon people with the information. You make it palatable. "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a rock 'n' roll track for a very good reason. That's because the information is so new and disturbing to most people who have never heard of it before. You want them to be dancing, you want them to be feeling good before they realize they're listening to a protest song. So there are ways to do it and there are ways that are just going to turn your audience off. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

Nationalist leaders are used to dashing liberals’ hopes. In their early periods in power, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping, and even Russia’s Vladimir Putin promised to strike a balance between populism and economic reform and even hinted at moving their countries in a more liberal direction. That didn’t last. And it looks like Narendra Modi is following the same regressive path, after the Indian prime minister appointed rabble-rousing Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath to one of the country’s biggest political jobs. Following a landslide victory this month in elections in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and important state, Modi shocked many of his countrymen by appointing Adityanath as chief minister. The decision makes Adityanath the leader of more than 200 million people — 38 million of them Muslims — and thus one of the most prominent and popular figures in the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which Modi led back to national power in 2014. The appointment has been greeted with barely disguised dismay by Modi’s more implacable opponents, notably liberals, and anyone worried about the health of India’s secular democracy and the fate of its sizable Muslim minority. But it has also dismayed those who voted for Modi in hopes he would focus his energy on making the country’s economy more dynamic, including, in private at least, some moderates within the BJP itself. Adityanath’s appointment was Modi’s decision, and his alone, meaning it is hard to view it as anything other than a step toward a kind of majoritarian populism that puts hard-line Hindu demands above economic development as he gears up to win re-election in two years’ time. Dressed in his trademark saffron robes, the shaven-headed Adityanath moved quickly to describe the BJP’s victory as a rejection of the politics of “Muslim appeasement.” In a frenetic first week in power, he dominated headlines, especially by launching a crackdown on slaughterhouses, a move that is popular among Hindus, who want to see literal sacred cows protected, but which targets businesses that tend to be owned by Muslims. Until this week, Adityanath was a mildly infamous but politically minor figure. A longtime BJP parliamentarian, he was known mostly as a pugnacious preacher and firebrand activist. After renouncing his family for clerical life in his early 20s, he rose rapidly to become the mahant (or chief priest) of a temple in the hardscrabble eastern city of Gorakhpur. From there, he first built a religious following and then a political career, where his take-no-prisoners attitude and bellicose rhetoric endeared him to the BJP’s rank and file. That his politics are extreme is hard to dispute. Although only 44, Adityanath has extensive experience stirring up a mob. Like many politicians in Uttar Pradesh — one of India’s poorest states, and one with a dismal record for intermingling governance and crime — he has a hefty police record, with pending charges that include attempted murder and rioting. Yet it is his talent for fomenting tension between Hindus and Muslims — who make up about four-fifths and one-eighth of India’s population, respectively — that has caused the most alarm. Clips of his incendiary speechmaking circulated widely in India following his appointment. In one, the diminutive monk whips up a crowd with fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric. “If they kill even one Hindu, we will kill—” he calls out, pausing. “100!” the throng eagerly responds. In another, members of a radical youth group he founded in his home city are seen calling, as Adityanath looks on, for Hindu men to rape the corpses of Muslim women. Elsewhere, he spoke warmly of Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, argued that Hindu religious idols should forcibly be placed in mosques, and called for his party to press on with plans to build a controversial Hindu temple in honor of the god Ram on the site of a mosque destroyed by Hindu activists in 1992. Perhaps unsurprisingly he enjoys warm ties with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the hard-line Hindu nationalist organization from which the BJP originated and for which Modi, in his youth, was a longtime activist. I met Adityanath with a group of journalists and academics at his sprawling temple complex one morning this month, as Uttar Pradesh’s monthlong election campaign reached its crescendo. Outside, the scene was peaceful; elderly, bearded sadhus (or holy men) in orange robes sat cross-legged in nearby buildings while the smell of marigolds wafted through the air. Inside, Adityanath talked in Hindi with wiry intensity, sitting alone on a saffron-colored couch in a large windowless meeting room, in front of a huge portrait of his two predecessors as chief priest. His rhetoric that morning was calm but pointed. Gorakhpur is one of India’s most benighted cities, with rubbish-strewn streets and high levels of crime — the result of decades of governance marked by lawlessness and graft. Adityanath claimed that the BJP would curb corruption, but he still blamed much of the area’s own problems on outsiders, variously criticizing a minister in the state’s previous government (who happened to be Muslim), Nepali migrants arriving from over the nearby border, and migrant laborers from nearby Indian states. Asked about economic reforms, he gave only a brief answer about farming. As chief minister, Adityanath must now grapple with two of India’s most dangerous fault lines. On the one hand, the state suffers deep divisions over caste and religion, which often descend into violence, most recently in rioting in 2013. On the other, it is an economic backwater, enjoying little of the prosperity that has reached parts of India over the last decade. Many hoped Modi would pick a chief minister able to downplay cultural tensions and stir up investment. Adityanath seems more likely to do the opposite. The decision is more broadly troubling. Since his election, Modi has styled himself as a champion of development. His RSS background led many liberals to doubt his sincerity, but until now he has generally proved them wrong, heading an administration that has mostly avoided playing politics with religious divisions while also making reasonable economic progress. Now, Adityanath’s arrival has refocused anxieties that Modi will push a far more aggressively nationalistic “Hindutva” agenda that insists India is a Hindu nation that should relegate Muslims and Christians to a status as outsiders. “It is a deeply worrying decision and one that sends all of the wrong signals about Modi and the kind of government he wants to lead,” says Devesh Kapur, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. “[Uttar Pradesh] has more Muslims than Saudi Arabia. What sort of message does it send to appoint a figure who is so blatantly bigoted and prejudiced?” Modi last week offered reassurances that he and his chief ministerial pick remained focused on economic growth as their “sole mission.” Yet his appointment remains peculiar. His previous chief ministerial picks in other states have mostly been fairly moderate, low-profile figures, if for no other reason than they were unlikely to grow into political rivals. Although liberal critics often accuse him of deploying dog-whistle tactics to appeal to hard-line Hindus, the BJP’s recent campaign in Uttar Pradesh was also notable for having relatively few divisive overtones. It may be that the trappings of power will mellow Adityanath and that Modi will keep his focus on job creation and investment. But it seems more likely that a different calculation is at play — namely, that Modi thinks the BJP is most likely to win re-election in 2019 by signaling its support for a more aggressive form of majoritarian Hinduism, at least in heartland states like Uttar Pradesh. Coming after last year’s bold but economically questionable “demonetization” experiment — in which Modi scrapped the two largest-denomination Indian banknotes as part of a quixotic anti-corruption drive — the appointment smacks of a further turn toward populism. Modi has never been, or pretended to be, a liberal leader. But as he contemplates re-election, the risk is that he will learn the lessons of other conservative nationalists before him. In Turkey, for instance, Erdogan rose to power by promising unity and reform but held onto it by becoming ever more hard-line. So far, Modi has proved a more moderate force. But if his appointment in Uttar Pradesh is any indication, that moderation could be about to rapidly disappear. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Foreign Policy

Relatives of the ambushed aid workers wait to collect the bodies of their loved ones. The photo was taken outside the morgue in Juba, South Sudan, on March 27 On Saturday morning a team of six aid workers from the Grassroots Education and Development Organisation in South Sudan decided to get an early start on their day. A grueling 185 mile drive over deeply-rutted roads lay ahead of them. In their Toyota Land Cruiser, the crew were supposed to be part of a convoy of trucks heading from Mongalla just north of the capital to the town of Pibor, in the east of the country near the Ethiopian border. The dirt road skirts Bandingilo National Park and cuts through territory contested by armed militias from both sides of South Sudan's brutal civil war. Before they pulled out of Mongalla, they took on an extra passenger, also headed to Pibor. "They did not leave together with the rest of the trucks. They left earlier. Very early," says Jaffar Mbugua, the program director for GREDO, a small aid group with a staff of just 30, based in Juba. It's funded in part by UNICEF to work on education projects for kids. "And then on the way they were attacked." In the deadliest attack on humanitarian workers in South Sudan since the war broke out in 2013, all six staff members from GREDO, along with their hitchhiker, were killed. In an instant the organization lost a fifth of its staff. It is still unclear who carried out the lethal ambush. The government says rebel soldiers staged the attack. The rebels say government troops were the attackers. The GREDO team was all men ranging in age from their mid-20s to mid-40s. Three were South Sudanese. Three were Kenyans. They were on their way to Pibor to build a youth center. Mbugua says the men were working to make South Sudan a better country. He says they all knew that the drive and their work in a constantly shifting conflict zone were dangerous. "They were taking a risk to work here," says Mbugua. "It was for the sake of humanity that they were trying to make difference in the life of other people." Elisa Yani, Joseph Wanjau and David Wanaina were going to construct the new youth center. Samson Mbuga from Kenya and John Riti from South Sudan were both English teachers. They were going to give language classes and vocational training in leather work and carpentry. Kil Chop was a driver for GREDO and would have been behind the wheel of the Land Cruiser when they were attacked. Back in Juba, Chop's wife had given birth to a baby just before the New Year. In early December Samson Mbuga, the teacher from Kenya, had lost his wife. His children are now orphans. "These were all people who had their own challenges," Jaffar Mbugua says. "They were working here hoping to make things better, hoping that things would be different." Eugene Owusu, the United Nation's Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs in South Sudan, swiftly condemned the attack. "At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is entirely unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed," Owusu said. Other U.N. officials have suggested the slaughter could be a war crime under international law. The U.N. says at least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since the conflict began in December 2013. Twelve of those deaths have occurred in the last three months. In addition, convoys of food supplies have been looted. Humanitarian warehouses have been torched. Earlier this month local employees of Samaritan's Purse, an American Christian charity that's been distributing food, were held captive by gunmen for four days in the town of Mayendit. "For many, many years Afghanistan has been the country with the highest number of attacks on aid workers but in 2015, South Sudan overtook Afghanistan," says Adele Harmer of Humanitarian Outcomes. Her organization analyzes security risks for aid organizations. "I think what makes South Sudan different from other extremely violent contexts for aid workers like Syria, southern Somalia, Afghanistan is the ethnic nature of the conflict," Harmer says. The civil war in South Sudan began in 2013 when vice president Riek Machar, who's ethnically Nuer, took up arms against the president, Salva Kiir, who's from the Dinka tribe. The war has been so ethnically driven that some human rights groups have warned that South Sudan could be on the brink of a genocide. Even refugee camps have become segregated along ethnic lines. The ethnic nature of this conflict has led some people, including some combatants, to question whether aid groups are secretly favoring one tribe over another. Another problem for local aid groups, Harmer says, is that they may not have the resources to keep their employees safe. "The U.N. and big international NGOs operating in South Sudan are doing so with air assets," Harmer says. "They're using fixed wing [planes] and helicopters to move food, staff and other materials in to some of the most vulnerable states." She says around the globe the most dangerous moment for aid workers in conflict zones is "when they're traveling on the road in between locations that are not areas where they work." Which is exactly the situation the staff from GREDO found themselves in ... out on an empty road, alone in their Toyota Land Cruiser. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 NPR

'Ekkatorer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee' President Shahriar Kabir has said that the Pakistan-sponsored 1971 genocide should be linked to the al-Qaida, ISIS massacres to pave the path for global recognition of the Bangladesh Genocide. “If we can show the obvious linkages between Pakistan's political philosophy inspiring the 1971 Genocide with the contemporary genocidal acts of Al Qaida and ISIS, it will be easy to obtain international recognition for the Bangladesh Genocide,” Kabir told a seminar in Dhaka on Tuesday. He cited Prof Ben Kiernan of Yale University, an expert of genocide studies, who observed that the al- Qaida got inspiration from the impunity evident during the Bangladesh genocide. “In one of my documentary, Prof Kiernan explained that those who committed genocide in Bangladesh and enjoyed impunity, particularly the Pakistani army, gradually became pretty influential in power politics of Pakistan and at the end of the day they created the al-Qaida." For the first time this year, Bangladesh nationally observed Mar 25 as Genocide Day commemorating those killed by the Pakistani occupation forces on that night in 1971. Bangladesh is also lobbying in the UN for the global recognition of the Day. On that night in 1971, the Pakistan Army launched 'Operation Searchlight', a brutal and barbaric military assault on an unsuspecting population to crush the Bengali movement for rights and justice that had turned to a fight for freedom in the face of persistent denials. After nine months of the bloody war, Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on the world map on Dec 16. Over three million people were killed and a quarter of a million women and young girls were dishonoured. Commemorating the day, the foreign ministry’s think-tank Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) organised the seminar on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali inaugurating the seminar said that the recognition of the Mar 25 as ‘Genocide Day’ would create “a deterrent effect against genocide and other atrocities throughout the world”. He said the seminar was part of the effort to create “awareness” against such heinous crime. “Unfortunately even after 46 years of independence, we still observe that some vested quarters are trying both domestically and internationally to question the genocide committed against the Bengalees in 1971”. He said it is the “high time we took necessary initiatives to claim recognition of the sacrifice of the people of this country – both nationally and internationally”. He said the massacre and mass killing committed by the Pakistani occupation force had always “thrust us to stand by our commitment to support international efforts to prevent the commission of genocides anywhere around the world, and promote accountability for such crimes”. He said Bangladesh has committed its armed forces and police as peacekeepers to protect people on the ground and “aligned ourselves with the UN’s practical initiatives to address the factors and processes that may lead to the commission of genocide”. Shahriar Kabir highlighted international references where the 1971 genocide was documented and urged Bangladesh diaspora in western countries to raise their voice. They can play a “significant role”, he said, as he believed that to get international recognition and ensure justice to the victims of the Bangladesh genocide, public opinion should be mobilised at home and abroad. “Official recognition of any genocide committed in any part of the world will indeed prevent and frustrate the crime of denial of genocide,” he said, adding “The government will have to launch vigorous diplomatic efforts for achieving recognition of Bangladesh genocide”. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 bd News 24

Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State and Chairman of the National United Front of Cambodia, and Samdech Penn Nouth, Chairman of the Political Bureau of the N.U.F.C. Central Committee and Prime Minister of the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia, on April 21, 1975, went to the Guest House in Pyongyang, North Korea and met with President Kim Il Sung, right, of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. (AP Photo) Cambodia’s relationship with North Korea stems from King Sihanouk’s friendship with the father of North Korea, dictator Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler, Kim Jong Un. Almost two decades ago, South Korea’s president, Kim Dae Jung, asked the Cambodian King to help mediate in talks with the North. Chheang Vun, then the Southeast Asian nation’s ambassador to Seoul, however, recalls King Norodom Sihanouk’s response: knowing the North did not want to engage in talks with the South, he did not reach out to his North Korean contacts. “We can only be the mediator if the two countries agree [to talk],” Vun quotes Sihanouk as saying at the time. Cambodia’s relationship with North Korea stems from King Sihanouk’s friendship with the father of North Korea, dictator Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler, Kim Jong Un. Kim built Sihanouk a winter palace outside Pyongyang in 1974 and provided the king with an elite bodyguard unit. Diplomatic relations continue, as they have done since 1965, and Cambodia remains one of the relatively few countries to host a North Korean embassy. As tensions rise once more on the Korean peninsular, amid fresh nuclear weapons tests by the North, questions have been raise as to whether Cambodia could play a role, as Sihanouk was asked to in the early 2000s. Experts say Cambodia should take a “more active” role in the Korean conflict, but is restrained by its commitment to non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. “In case the two Koreas ask Cambodia to be a mediator or consider Cambodia as a location for peace talks, I think Cambodia could do it,” said Chheang Vannarith, chairman of the Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies. Cambodia should “be more active than before in giving recommendations and launching initiatives in order to ensure stability and regional security,” he added. Cambodia receives significant investment from South Korea, but no known benefits from the North.' “Our benefits with South Korea are larger than North Korea. North Korea is more historical relations and we just keep it until now, but there are no large benefits,” said Vannarith. In 2007, the late North Korean ruler, Kim Jong Il, visited Cambodia to promote bilateral ties. Sok Touch, a researcher at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, said relations with the North had changed since the death of Sihanouk in 2012. He added that with the superpowers, China and the United States, heavily involved in the Korea standoff, it was unlikely that Cambodia would play a role. “North Korea is now China’s tool to strengthen its power against the United States,” he said. However, he added that if there was a future conflict between an Asean member and North Korea, Cambodia would be a prime candidate for mediation. Relations between the South and North have deteriorated since the killing of Kim Jong Nam, Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, in Malaysia in February. Paul Chambers, lecturer in international affairs at Naresuan University, Thailand, said if it was proven that Jong Nam was murdered by the North Korean state, using practice runs in Cambodia, “the Hun Sen government will have to distance itself from North Korea in order to save face.” He added that Cambodia may be able to play a mediating role between the Koreas. “Playing such a role would increase the regional reputation of Hun Sen as an able diplomatic player. The Asean Regional Forum could be used in this context,” he said. “Given that China is close to both Cambodia and North Korea, while the United States increasingly seems distant from Cambodia, then North Korea might think it can trust Cambodia. At this point, I think that the relations between the two countries could be durable enough for Cambodia to someday arbitrate between the two Koreas,” he added. However, Sophal Ear, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said he was unsure whether Asean had the capacity to get involved, pointing to divisions over the South China Sea dispute. Last week, the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson again emphasized the need for a new approach to deal with the growing North Korean nuclear threat that could include more aggressive actions than those taken under former President Barack Obama’s Policy of Strategic Patience. “Let me be very clear the Policy of Strategic Patience has ended. We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures. All options are on the table,” Tillerson said during a recent visit to South Korea. Raoul M. Jennar, who advises the Cambodia government on foreign affairs, said the government had no plans to weigh into the Korean dispute. “We are not specifically involved in this issue. We don’t see any other reasons to try to involve our country in this specific issue,” he said. Chum Sounry, Foreign Ministry spokesman, said while Cambodia maintained strong relations with North Korea, it was against the country’s nuclear weapons program. “Cambodia’s stance is not to take sides. Cambodia’s stance is to see peace, stability and security in the Korean Peninsula,” said Chum Sounry. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 VOA Cambodia

Qaraqosh was ravaged by ISIS, who seized it in June 2014 as they rampaged across parts of northern Iraq. Although the group has been expelled from Qaraqosh in October 2016, life has not returned to its once-vibrant and wealthy neighborhoods. (AFP) In the Iraqi Christian town of Qaraqosh, time stands still. The ISIS group was expelled in October 2016, but life has not returned to its once-vibrant and wealthy neighborhoods. It has a ghostly air: wide avenues silent but for the rattle of an empty tin can nudged by the breeze or dead leaves rustling in front gardens abandoned by residents. The town sits on a main route from the city of Arbil, so cars occasionally speed through, but few people stop any more. AFP reporters visited the town several times in March, speaking to residents earlier in the month and returning to its empty streets in recent days. Qaraqosh was ravaged by ISIS, who seized it in June 2014 as they rampaged across parts of northern Iraq, capturing second city Mosul and swathes of the area known as the Nineveh Plain, home to much of the county’s dwindling Christian minority. The extremists worked to erase any signs of the faith from Qaraqosh. They smashed icons, toppled church bell towers and systematically chiseled out the crucifixes that once adorned each panel of the outer wall of the Mar Bahnam wa Sara church. House after house was torched or blown up, and the Mary al-Tahira church was defaced with the group’s flag and threats. “Without the state of Islam, there will be no safety or peace in either Iraq or Syria,” read graffiti on the mottled marble of one pillar. The church’s courtyard was used for target practice, and hundreds of bullet casings still sit in piles alongside sheet music for hymns. The scene was heartbreaking for Aram Saqt, 24. “My whole life was here and it was a happy life,” he told AFP. House after house in Qaraqosh was torched or blown up, and churches were destroyed or defaced with the ISIS flag and threats (AFP) “My feelings are more than sadness, I can say I’m destroyed,” he added, walking through the scorched main hall of the Mary al-Tahira church and crossing himself at the altar. “I want to cry, honestly. When you remember the life you had, and how it is now, it’s something very sad.” ‘Nowhere like it’ Qaraqosh, also known as Hamdaniya or Bakhdida, was once one of Iraq’s most important Christian towns. But now most people on its streets are, like Saqt, members of the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU), a small Christian militia charged with protecting the town. The fighters have little to do, beyond checking cars at the town’s entrance and exit, as the danger posed by ISIS recedes with the Iraqi government’s offensive against the group in nearby Mosul. But if Qaraqosh is now safe, residents say returning remains impossible, with basic services yet to be restored and no way yet to repair their homes. “Where could we go back to? There should be water, electricity, sewerage, safety,” shouted Imama Behnan, now living in nearby Arbil with her family. Qaraqosh may now be safe but residents say returning remains impossible, with basic services yet to be restored and no way yet to repair their homes (AFP) “We waited for them to liberate it so we could go back, and now this is liberation,” she sighed. When she left her house in 2014, she assumed the exile would be brief. “I cleaned the house... closed it up and left. We thought it would be a day or two and we’d go back. Now it’s been three years,” she said, weeping. Many Qaraqosh residents have given up, emigrating to Europe, the United States or Australia, but Behnan refused to join her daughter in The Netherlands. She and others like her in Arbil receive some assistance from the church, whose leadership moved to the city with its flock. But they still yearn for home. “There was nowhere like Qaraqosh -- even ISIS said they couldn’t believe it,” she laughed. ‘They don’t want us to return’ Qaraqosh’s emptiness reflects the challenge faced by Iraqi authorities in many towns and villages liberated from ISIS, but remain devoid of services and infrastructure and lacking reconstruction funds. But Qaraqosh residents also allege they are trapped in a political dispute between Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region and the country’s federal government. They accuse Kurdish forces of preventing them from going home, and seeking to expand their control over the town. “They don’t want Christians to return here, they want to control these areas,” said Jamil Salaheddin al-Jamil, a Qaraqosh native and NPU member. “They want to take these areas because they’re areas that belong to the Christians and they are strategic areas between Arbil and Mosul.” Such accusations are repeated by others, who accuse Kurdish forces of even preventing burials at the local graveyard. But the deputy interior minister of the Kurdish regional government denied the charges. “We hope that the displaced will return to their homes as soon as possible, and from our side we don’t put any obstacles in the way of their return,” Jalal Karim told AFP. He acknowledged that some displaced could not return because of “bombs and mines laid in the areas”, but insisted that “we are helping (the displaced) and encouraging them to return”. Residents feel they have no one to turn to, and Jamil has decided to emigrate to France, after years of advocating for a Christian presence in Iraq. “I had hope and dreams, all of it, but I’ve had enough. “The Arabs don’t respect me, the Kurds don’t respect me, the government doesn’t respect me,” he said. “Why should love for the nation go in only one direction?” (C) 2017 Al Arabiya English

Law enforcement officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Moscow, Russia March 26, 2017.REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov United Nations human rights experts called on Russia on Wednesday to release peaceful protesters arrested across the country at the weekend and to annul any sentences already handed down. In a joint statement, the independent experts said that Russia had a legal obligation to protect people exercising their right to fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly, opinion and expression. Up to 1,000 demonstrators who took to the streets following allegations of corruption against Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were arrested and a number of them were sentenced to imprisonment and fines, they said. "We call on the authorities to release immediately all protesters still being detained, and to quash the sentences imposed on them," said the U.N. special rapporteurs on the rights of peaceful assembly, opinion and human rights defenders and the chairman of the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention. "Freedom of peaceful assembly is a right, not a privilege, and as such its exercise should not be subject to prior authorization by officials," they said. Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was handed a 15-day jail sentence on Monday for his part in a big anti-government protest in Moscow on Sunday which buoyed the liberal opposition's morale a year before the country's presidential election. Navalny, who will appeal the court's verdict, was found guilty of disobeying a police officer at the Moscow protest. He was also fined for organizing the protest, which the authorities said was illegal. Genuine elections cannot be achieved if fundamental rights to freedoms of peaceful assembly, opinion and expression are curtailed, the U.N. experts said. "The coming elections will be irreparably tainted if individuals are not allowed to exercise these basic rights without fear of harassment or retaliation," they said. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Heneghan) (C) 2017 Reuters

Four women and six youths were kidnapped after the insurgent group staged raids in nearby villages Nigerian soldiers with young men rescued from suspected Boko Haram terrorists after an operation in Borno state, Nigeria, in February. Ten people were kidnapped in the Konduga area of Borno state after weekend raids by Boko Haram, an official reported Tuesday. File Photo by STR/EPA March 29 (UPI) -- Ten people in the Konduga area of Nigeria's Borno state were abducted after weekend raids by the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, a security official said. Ibrahim Abdullah of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps said that four women and six youths were kidnapped after insurgents on motorcycles attacked nearby villages, the newspaper Premium Times reported Wednesday, citing the News Agency of Nigeria. Abdullah added that the abductions are a sign that Boko Haram, which he said has been degraded by the Nigerian military, is attempting to recruit more young people by any means possible. The abductions are the first reported in the area, the former Boko Haram stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, in several months. The Islamist insurgent group has conducted a seven-year battle with Nigerian forces. Although the army has largely contained the group and reclaimed most of the territory lost to Boko Haram control, small-scale raids on the civilian population still occur. Official estimates say about 100,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram attacks since 2009. (c) UPI 2017

Capitol Hill Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Wednesday, April 5, 2017 5:30-6:30pm - Reception 6:30-8:00pm - Program US Capitol Visitor Center North Orientation Theater 1st St. NE and East Capitol St. NE. This solemn annual remembrance, featuring remarks by Members of Congress, is being hosted by the Armenian Caucus, with the participation of the Armenian Embassy, the Office of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, and Armenian American organizations. Transportation: The closest metro stations are Union Station (Red Line), located at First Street, NW, and Massachusetts Avenue; and Capitol South (Blue / Orange), located at First Street between C and D Streets, SE. On-street parking is limited in the area; a public parking lot is located at Washington Ave. and D St., SW. Bus transportation is available from Soorp Khatch Armenian Church (4906 Flint Dr., Bethesda, MD) at 4:00pm and will return to Soorp Khatch at8:30pm. To reserve space on the bus ($5/person), please email getonthebus@anca.org or call Galin Tanashian (240) 274-9302. For more information contact ANCA: 202-775-1918 anca@anca.org | www.anca.org | facebook.com/ancagrassroots ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Distributed by the Armenian National Committee of America

A family climbs out of their destroyed home to flee minutes after an ISIS suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle on the street outside their home in the Al Andalus neighbourhood of Mosul, Iraq. Photo: UNHCR/Ivor Prickett The top United Nations human rights official today deplored the massive loss of civilian lives in the western sections of Iraq’s Mosul city in recent days due to actions by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) terrorists as well as airstrikes by the Government forces. “ISIL’s strategy of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful. It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality. Under international humanitarian law, the use of human shields amounts to a war crime,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in a news release. “The conduct of airstrikes on ISIL locations in such an environment, particularly given the clear indications that ISIL is using large numbers of civilians as human shields at such locations, may potentially have a lethal and disproportionate impact on civilians,” he added. According to information verified by the High Commissioner’s Office (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), at least 307 people were killed and another 273 wounded between 17 February and 22 March. Civilians used as ‘human shields;’ others gunned down by sniper fire The most deadly incident occurred on 17 March, when an airstrike – reportedly targeting ISIL snipers and equipment – hit a house in al-Jadida neighbourhood in western Mosul. Witnesses reported that ISIL had previously forced at least 140 civilians into the house to be used as human shields. They also said that ISIL had booby-trapped the house with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). So far, official figures indicate at least 61 people were killed in this single incident. In another serious incident, on 22 March, an airstrike hit a residential building in Rajm Hadid neighbourhood in western Mosul. ISIL reportedly filled the house with people from the surrounding neighbourhood, including children, and then used the house to launch rocket-propelled grenades against the Iraqi Security Forces. The airstrike killed a seven-year-old girl and trapped eight other children under the rubble, seven of whom were later found and taken to hospital. In addition, between 23 and 26 March, reports were received that at least 95 civilians were killed in Risalah, Nabils, Uruba and Sainaah al-Qadimah neighbourhoods in western Mosul as a result of shelling, vehicle-based and other explosive devices planted by ISIL, as well as by ISIL snipers. The UN human rights chief also called on the Iraqi Government and its partners “to undertake an urgent review of tactics to ensure that the impact on civilians is reduced to an absolute minimum, in full accordance with international humanitarian law.” Abdullah gripped the body bag of five-year-old Sara Alaa, his granddaughter, who was shot by ISIL while their family was trying to escape Mosul, Iraq. Photo: IOM Meanwhile, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 286,020 individuals have been displaced due to the operations in Mosul, including 122,000 over the past month. Cumulatively, more than 350,000 individuals have been displaced since Mosul operations began on 17 October 2016. Thousands of displaced people are losing their lives while fleeing the fighting in Mosul, said IOM, recounting the story of a young girl shot by an ISIL sniper. “When [she] arrived at the field hospital, she was already dead,” explained the surgeon on call. VIDEO: The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has urged civilian protection in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where reports say at least 307 civilians have been killed, and 273 injured since 17 February 2017. Victim after victim, all from Mosul al-Jadida, streamed into the field hospital that morning telling a similar story – that ISIL deliberately shot at them as they tried to escape. They shot to kill, not differentiating between man, woman, child or the elderly. With ISIL using civilians as human shields, even forcing their way into homes where families have gathered for safety and firing mortars from rooftops of houses with civilians in the lower floors, an increase in the number of innocent people being killed has been reported in recent weeks, said IOM. (c) 2017 United Nations