Inside the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh (Joseph Galanakis/NurPhoto via Getty Images) In the Nineveh Plains cities destroyed by ISIS, the devil lies in the details. In Qaraqosh, the largest such town, ISIS militants left behind cooking pots and vacuum cleaners wired with explosives. Piles of rubble concealed pressure plates made of metal tape measures, wired to detonate when even a child stepped on them. The destruction also is comprehensive. One photo, or two or three, can’t fully capture the wrecking ball that was Islamic State occupation over the last two years, especially in areas where Christians historically have lived. Every street, every doorway, every wall in some way is marred or destroyed. A run of metal fencing, even, stands twisted, deformed, melted. Militants tunneled passageways running 30 feet deep beneath houses, leaving the dirt piled high inside bedrooms, where it reached above the curtains. They punched large doorways through houses so they could pass house to house undetected by U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. Piles of rubble replace furniture, and debris substitutes for artwork and signage, anything that made everyday life beautiful and meaningful. In a church cemetery in Bartella, militants uncovered and desecrated nearly every gravesite, even prying open caskets, then leaving bodies exposed but still wrapped inside. At first look the upheaval appears chaotic, as though an earthquake has struck. But on closer examination the destruction proves to be grimly systematic, the work of a sick but highly organized bureaucracy—a manquake. The Islamic State “perpetrated crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes against Christian, Yezidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandaean, and Kaka’i people in [Nineveh] province between June and August 2014,” declared the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in a 2015 report. What you see along the streets of Qaraqosh—and dozens of other towns—is evidence of those war crimes and more. Besides forcing those people groups from their homes en masse, looting or destroying all their possessions, killing and enslaving thousands of them, ISIS made its daily vocation over a two-year period to desecrate or reduce to rubble their residences, shops, and churches. They brought in earthmovers and bulldozers to do what chisels and explosives could not. Their goal, in short, was to eliminate for these non-Muslims their past, present, and perhaps their future. As fighting against ISIS enters a fifth grueling month in Iraq, centered just 20 miles from Qaraqosh in Mosul, the Islamic State’s brand of war crimes hasn’t ended. ISIS in recent weeks began using armed drones, dropping grenades and homemade explosives on civilian and military targets in Mosul. The jihadists, too, aren’t entirely vanquished from liberated areas. In recent weeks a jihadist emerged from the tunnel system ISIS built beneath Qaraqosh. Army members shot and killed the fighter, then discovered he was a 13-year-old boy. THE AIR WAS COLD but the sun shone bright on the recent February morning when I walked through devastated Qaraqosh. The last time I visited the city, also called Hamdaniyah, was in 2008, when a boisterous parade of Christians, mostly Assyrians and Chaldeans, filled the streets to protest an election law. A noisy crowd carried banners, local TV crews followed, men stood on corners chain-smoking, and delicious aromas rose from open-air bakeries churning out flatbread and kebab stands sizzling with lamb and beef. Afterward my driver bought a whole roasted chicken cooked with onions and peppers, and we ate it, picnic-style, in the open sunshine. This time the same streets were silent as graves. Once a city of more than 60,000 residents, a near-empty Qaraqosh was liberated last November. ISIS cut electricity and running water, and that along with the ongoing dangers—IEDs, tunneling, and stray Islamic State fighters—was still keeping residents away. Occasionally a car passed, former residents touring the damage. A soldier bicycled by, almost noiselessly. The only real sound was my own feet crunching into rubble outside St. George’s Church. St. George’s faces a roundabout in a once-busy market area. The shops across the street where soda, cigarettes, and children’s clothing had once been sold were now black holes. Metal doors had been twisted from their hinges and the walls spray-painted with black ISIS inscriptions. The acrid odor of burnt metal, oil fumes, and decomposing flesh lingered. Dead electrical lines lay across sidewalks, but glass, all blown from upper story windows, had been swept away. Beneath the soaring entryway leading into the church were three guards, all soldiers from Qaraqosh attached to the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, a Christian militia incorporated into Iraqi army regiments at the start of the campaign that began last October to liberate Iraq from ISIS. “ISIS adores death,” said Martin Bassam from the militia. “Anything they did not burn was only because they used it.” Unlike other churches I saw, where militants sprayed walls with oil then torched them until they charred black, St. George’s sanctuary was intact: ISIS had used it as a cache to store missiles. In a classroom building across a rubble-filled courtyard, ISIS had set up a bomb-making factory. Much of it still remained as ISIS left it, because church leaders and local officials awaited some official inquiry. After all, these were the scenes of war crimes. Sacks of open fertilizer and barrels of sugar sat on the floor alongside makeshift detonators. On a table were strewn kitchen scales, mixing bowls, and a measuring scoop, along with a coil of wire and a notebook on concocting lethal IEDs. In a corner was a pile of screws and empty shell casings used to pack suicide vests. The army caught some of the bomb-makers inside tunnels beneath the church, Bassam said. But months now of holding the city can’t erase years of violence. When ISIS, also known as Daesh, seized Iraqi territory in 2014, the extremists gave Christians four options—leave, convert to Islam, pay a jizya tax, or be killed. Nearly all the Christians, an estimated 120,000, fled. Those left behind were tortured and subjected to sexual abuse and forced conversion. At least a dozen Christian women and girls disappeared from Qaraqosh, all believed enslaved by ISIS fighters. Esam, a refugee living in Jordan, said ISIS crucified his brother-in-law in Qaraqosh: “He was crucified and tortured in front of his wife and children, who were forced to watch,” he told World Watch Monitor. “They told him that if he loved Jesus that much, he would die like Jesus.” “There were killings and horrible things happening in the church courtyards,” said Bassam. His own family members were forced out and are living in Iraqi Kurdistan about 30 miles away. His brother, a monk at Mar Behnam Monastery about 10 miles south, barely escaped execution when ISIS took over the site, a fourth-century monastery built by Assyrian King Sencharib. ISIS blew up and destroyed parts of the site in March 2015. Such catastrophic losses haven’t dimmed Bassam’s family’s hopes of returning. “They will all be coming back for sure,” he said. Not everyone is optimistic Christians will be allowed to return to their homes or will want to. “Security is the most critical need we have,” Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda told Catholic News Service. “We want to first build houses for our people so they can live with dignity, and we need infrastructure in the villages. But all this is only possible if we can have security.” Emanuel Youkhana, an Assyrian Church of the East priest who heads Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, said he’s no longer sure there is a future for Christians in Mosul. Besides destroying Christian landmarks and homes, ISIS eliminated public records, making legal claims over contested property difficult. When Youkhana visited Mosul in late January, he visited two damaged churches used as warehouses by ISIS. Already one of them had been turned over to a contractor, who was dismantling the building until the Iraqi army intervened. “We will hear nice statements, but it will be impossible to get some of this property restored,” said Youkhana. “On the ground Daesh is defeated, but we are the losers.” Complicating the situation are the competing armed forces currently fighting ISIS in and around Mosul. Besides the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led coalition supporting it, Kurdish peshmerga hold territory east of Mosul toward the semiautonomous Kurdistan region, separate Kurdish militias from Syria and Turkey hold territory in the west, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias fight alongside the Iraqi army in Mosul. They also control some of the territory in Nineveh, including once-Christian towns like Bartella. For Christians hoping to return, knowing who will control their hometowns and whether they can be trusted is the challenge. “I notice discouragement most with Christians. They are finished,” said Darrell Yoder of Christian Aid Mission (CAM), a Virginia-based nonprofit. “They have seen Saddam; they have seen ISIS; they have seen enough.” YODER, WHO HAS DIRECTED CAM AID PROJECTS in Iraq for a decade, is among a number of Christian workers not running from the challenges of the ISIS conflict. Remarkably, as fighting has intensified and Iraq again has become a war zone, some aid groups are pressing toward the front lines. CAM has been partnering with other organizations to provide food, blankets, kerosene, and necessities to residents who’ve been surviving ISIS occupation, particularly in Mosul. At casualty collection points run by military commanders during fighting, CAM provided blankets and water under armed escort. Yoder, a Mennonite, avoids using weapons himself but isn’t averse to the danger. “It’s been our opportunity to be in the middle of the difficulty, because that’s where we see the gap.” One of the partner groups Yoder has helped supply is Free Burma Rangers (FBR), an American-led aid group with 20 years’ experience providing help to war victims—though thousands of miles from Mosul in Burma. Director David Eubank, a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer, got a call to help in Iraq and Syria in 2015, and by November 2016 he was handing out badly needed supplies to civilians caught in combat. “Over and over we’d hear this part of Mosul was clear of civilians, nobody was living there, and when the bullets stopped flying people would pop up from their houses by the hundreds. They were desperate for help,” said Eubank. Besides material help, FBR also offers spiritual teaching and neighborly kindness. Eubank’s team—which includes his wife Karen and three children—hosts “Good Neighbor Clubs” in the areas where they work. These include mornings of singing and storytelling, usually featuring Bible stories, plus games and T-shirts for school-age children. Mortar rounds and gunfire sounded from West Mosul as the FBR team led children in a round of “duck, duck, goose” in East Mosul in February. The approximately 1,000 people living in the suburb of Shahrazad, mostly Muslims and Turkmen, survived two years of ISIS control plus its fight with the Iraqi army in December. ISIS dug mortar pits in the school playground where FBR held its program, and surrounding buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes. Earthen berms surround the area. As children played on playground equipment erected by FBR, Haiman Abdulkadem said Mosul residents were just glad to be outdoors: “We had to burn our furniture to cook and stay warm during ISIS occupation.” He himself was held for seven days by ISIS, he said, tortured alongside Yazidi and Christian prisoners in central Mosul. “We need the love and forgiveness of Jesus. What’s wrong with my people is we love chaos. In chaos we can do as we want.” Eubank has been caught in the crossfire. His team was pinned down alongside Iraq’s 36th Brigade during several days’ fighting at Al-Salam Hospital, one of Mosul’s largest medical facilities. Soldiers advanced quickly into the area then became surrounded by ISIS fighters, who called for reinforcements from throughout the city. ISIS deployed suicide bombers, destroying half a dozen tanks and killing about 20 soldiers, before U.S. airstrikes successfully targeted the ISIS positions. The airstrikes left the hospital in ruin, but three weeks after the battle the surrounding area was coming back to life. Merchants opened shops displaying mannequins dressed in colorful gowns—all forbidden under ISIS. Taxis again were running, and children walked debris-strewn streets. “We’re no longer needed here,” said Eubank, who only weeks before had ferried battle casualties across the same roads. “Our main purpose is helping the people in greatest need, and that means continuing to the next front alongside the army.” THE MOST PROMINENT U.S.-led aid work at the battlefront with ISIS is the newly constructed emergency field hospital set up by North Carolina–based Samaritan’s Purse in January. The hospital sits on a heavily fortified 5-acre plot across the highway from Bartella, the devastated Christian town 10 miles east of Mosul. The 54-bed unit has two operating rooms beneath tents, plus its own blood bank and pharmacy. It sits on cleared ground behind two rings of blast walls, with both internal security and a cordon of protection provided by the Iraqi army. The facility treats only trauma victims, who include civilian casualties from bombings and combat, Iraqi military personnel, and those treated as enemy combatants, such as ISIS fighters. Nearly all arrive from Mosul, where bombed-out bridges and medical facilities make on-site trauma care impossible. In its first month of operation, medical personnel at the field hospital performed more than 260 surgeries. On the day I visited, the women and children’s ward had 11 patients in recovery, including a 10-month-old girl who had lost both feet in an IED explosion. A boy of about 10 years old was exiting surgery, having had a rod inserted in his leg following shrapnel injuries. To keep pace with the steady stream of urgent care, the hospital has a steady rotation of mostly American trauma veterans. And each day begins with group devotions. Edwin Carns, hospital director, likes to say he’s “not a surgeon,” but the 77-year-old emergency physician spent most of his career in the U.S. Army and earned a Distinguished Service Medal in Vietnam. More recently he’s managed crisis care in Haiti and in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak. “It’s either calm or chaos, there’s no middle ground here, and the largest influx of casualties usually stacks up at the end of the day,” said Carns. “There’s also a palpable sense of God’s presence, and everyone pitches in. It’s not unusual to see the IT guy holding a kid who is dying.” Trauma surgeon Warren Cooper has worked in Sudan and now is based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I’m always in a place that’s in chronic disaster,” he said. For many of the professionals here, it’s their first exposure to mass casualties that include many children. Cooper said “a lot of emotion comes” with trying to treat whole families of wounded. The field hospital seemingly came into being overnight, much of the facility flown here aboard a DC-8 jet as part of joint effort with the World Health Organization and Iraqi officials. But it’s also the fruit of two decades of work in Iraq providing emergency relief and housing, said Samaritan’s Purse vice president of programs Ken Isaacs: “This is the same dynamic we have used before, getting right behind the front line and helping to address acute needs, but it’s not possible without contacts and experience on the ground.” Isaacs resists “a growing movement for political actors to put humanitarian pressure on political problems. It’s not going to work. If people want to talk about durable solutions in Iraq, let’s start by treating the people where they are and helping them to live, period. As followers of Christ we have that obligation.” The presence of a clean, up-to-date hospital in so littered a scene of destruction suggests at least the possibility of restoration and a future for war-ravaged Iraqis. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 World Magazine

“It is probably the worst kind of habitat a human can live in.” When she was 11, Hasina Begum was shot in the back. She had found herself in the crossfire between Rohingya protesters and the police force at the Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Bangladesh where she was housed. Things didn’t get better. Three years later, in 2007, the Rohingya girl was gang raped by three Bangladeshi men and later sold to a man as a sex slave for the equivalent of about $10. She escaped, and became a prostitute. Now 24, Begum is one of about 93,000 Muslim Rohingya living in Bangladesh who have fled attacks by government forces, radical Buddhist groups and militias in neighboring Myanmar. Its stories like hers that inspired Bangladeshi photographer Saiful Huq Omi to document the difficult lives of Rohingya refugees living in his country. Hasina Begum, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh, has been shot, raped and sold as a sex slave before escaping and working as a prostitute. (Saiful Huq Omi) “I felt that this Rohingya story needs a storyteller,” he says, in a phone interview with Global Journalist. “I then began to follow the refugees around the camps because I felt that it is the most untold and unknown story that people should know. It is just too heartbreaking. And I decided to be their storyteller.” Bangladesh’s Rohingya population hail from Myanmar’s neighboring Rakhine state, where the Muslim minority group has long been treated as unwanted by the country’s mainly Buddhist government. A 1982 law in what was then called Burma stripped the Rohingya of citizenship, taking away rights to voting and public services. Now the world’s largest group of stateless people, more than 60,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since October after a campaign of arson, rape and killing by Myanmarese security forces that human rights groups say is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Yet as Begum’s story shows, life as a refugee in Bangladesh is hardly secure. Omi shared his pictures and spoke with Global Journalist’s Dewey Sim about photographing a forgotten people. GJ: Describe the living conditions at the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Omi: It is horrible and nothing could be worse. In Bangladesh, especially, refugees are deprived of basic needs such as food, shelter, education and access to healthcare. It is probably the worst kind of habitat a human can live in. A group of 10 refugees would often share a house which measured 10 feet by 10 feet. The houses are made of leaves and polyethlene. These refugees are also not allowed to work. This means that they are denied access to economic independence and are not able to afford food. It is not surprising that the rate of malnutrition is high. In other places like Malaysia, refugees might be in a better situation, but they are still unhappy. They feel that they will never be part of society. When I interviewed a few refugees, they said that even though their lives are saved from the violence in Myanmar, some of their loved ones remain behind, and there will always be something in Myanmar that they deeply miss. GJ: What is one photograph you took that gave you the most reflection? Omi: I took one photograph that I think tells the story best — it is the one with a man pointing at the horizon and there are three broken boats below him. That’s a photograph that is particularly close to my heart. Abu Kalam, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh, points across the Naf River to Myanmar where his mother lives. (Saiful Huq Omi) He is Abu Kalam, a friend of mine who is also my guide in Bangladesh. On that day, , I was tired and exhausted after a full day of work. We decided to take a walk by the Naf River. All of a sudden, he started pointing at the other side of the river. He asked me: “Omi, can you see that?” He was pointing towards Myanmar. I replied: “Yes, of course I see it. It’s just two miles away from here.” Then he said something that I would always remember. He said: “For you, it may be just two miles. For me, that’s where my mother lives. It’s 2 million miles that I will never be able to cross to visit my mother.” GJ: Your photographs of Rohingyas are mostly monochrome. Why? Omi: When I started listening to stories of the Rohingyas, I felt that these stories can be better told through black and white work. Instead of using color as a medium, I wanted to use the absence of color instead to take the audience directly to the story. Sometimes, colors can be quite distracting. Especially when a story like this is so captivating. GJ: What do you think about the international news coverage of the Rohingya? Omi: Until 2012, there was hardly any coverage of the Rohingya issue. Recently, there have been greater coverage by mainstream media outlets. But it’s also sad to know how long it took for the world to be exposed to the growing problem of genocide in Myanmar. Now, at least, more attention is paid. However, I feel what is deeply missing from the narrative is that people have not investigated enough to understand the problem. These published stories are more about the suffering of the people and it are not in-depth. They do not speak about the root cause of the problem and have failed enormously to make [Myanmar state counselor and Nobel laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi liable for a large part of the problem. Because of the policing and governmental control of the media, media outlets are nervous about saying the truth. GJ: What role do you think photojournalists can play to help the Rohingya? Omi: This is a shared problem that needs us to work together to be resolved, and one tiny part lies with the photographer. Photography is an extremely powerful medium because it creates evidence. It points you to the evidence that you cannot ignore. If it is in words, people might not be convinced when they read it. Photography allows us to create enough evidence. As for me, I hope that my photographs can play a role by letting the world know what is happening. I hope that my photographs will push for [an end] in violence and persecution against the Rohingyas. I also hope that ultimately, the people responsible for the serious crimes against humanity will be put behind bars and justice will be served. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Global Journalist

There has been a dramatic shift in media coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi since 2012, when she travelled to Oslo to pick up her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize as an icon of human rights of almost mythic stature. In her acceptance speech, she spoke of her Buddhist commitment to nonviolence, of solidarity with those suffering injustice, of the corrupting influence of fear in standing against repression and the power of human kindness. It was quite a performance – so stirring, that as she continued travelling in Europe and the US to pick up other human rights awards, few thought to ask her about the genocidal violence against Rohingya Muslims going on at the same time in Myanmar. News about the apartheid conditions and squalid concentration camps in Arakan for the Rohingya displaced by the 2012 violence began to snap many out of their adulation to ask why Suu Kyi, the exemplar of human rights compassion and courage, was as silent as a block of cement about the persecution of the Rohingya. When asked about it, Suu Kyi would speak in evasive abstractions about the “rule of law” to suggest lawless rampaging among Rohingya. She more often dropped the Buddhist shtick to make clear that she rejected the notion of persecution and violence against Rohingya; she portrayed it as a communal conflict between Buddhists and Muslims with guilt on both sides and suggested strongly that the Rohingya had brought it on themselves, especially with their higher birth-rate which made Buddhists feel threatened: the classic fear-mongering of ethnic cleansing used everywhere. Rohingya have been ruthlessly persecuted for decades stemming from British colonialism but the 2012 wave of violence against them and the refugee crisis in the Andaman Sea finally made the world notice. In May 2015, at least 25,000 Rohingya fled persecution in Myanmar on unsound boats. The world watched in disbelief and horror as thousands drowned (and no one knows how many) because no government would rescue them or allow them to land and no human rights agency has ever tried to make an accounting of those who drowned – as if their lives had no value. As evidence of genocide became more public and outrage grew, many were still asking why Suu Kyi remained silent but many more understood that her silence had the distinct malodour of collusion. After becoming Myanmar head of state in March 2016, Suu Kyi dumped the equivocations entirely. It was more than evident the military was still running the country but with the human rights and democratic facade she cynically provided, especially through setting up phoney investigative commissions like the Kofi Annan whitewash commission. Suu Kyi has shown her hand by fronting for the 2016 offensive against Rohingya which has caused nearly 70,000 to flee to Bangladesh with gruesome reports of soldiers torching homes, extrajudicial executions, mass rapes and torture, forced disappearance, and mass incarceration. Incredulity about her silence has finally turned to a chorus of accusations of collusion with the military. Her glory days are over. It’s all downhill from here. So who is Aung San Suu Kyi? How did such a human rights icon hit the skids from such Olympian heights to denying a genocide even acknowledged by the political lowbrows of the US Congress? A genocide denounced by Pope Francis, seven Nobel Peace Laureates, the UN, EU, human rights organisations, the Dalai Lama and prestigious university researchers? How does she think she can pull off denial in the face of irrefutable evidence and international opposition? How can she travel the world to shill up investment in Myanmar while the military is carrying out a genocide? The truth of the matter is, “there isn’t much there-there” to Suu Kyi’s human rights credentials. Her prestige is mostly fabrications, family lineage, and knowing the right people. She had been out of the country for schooling and work since the age of 15 in 1960, first living in India with her widowed mother who was a diplomat for the military junta, then to the US for schooling and work, to England where she married and had two sons, to Bhutan where her husband tutored the feudal rulers, and then back to England. In 1988, at the age of 43, after living away for 28 years, she incidentally returned to Myanmar to care for her ailing mother and got involved in the 8888 Uprising, not as an organiser but as a rally speaker. The 8888 Uprising was a national democracy movement against military rule involving millions from every part of the country in protests and general strikes. The uprising began in March and was ended in September 1988 when the military regained control by massacring an estimated 10,000 activists; thousands fled the country to avoid the same fate. It requires explanation how Suu Kyi went from living an apolitical domestic life outside the country to leading a revolutionary movement in a matter of weeks without serving any political apprenticeship. Her father Aung San, a leading political figure opposing British colonialism, is considered an architect of Burmese independence, and founded the Myanmar Armed Forces. He was assassinated in 1947 when Suu Kyi was only two. That pedigree seems to be the substance of her political credentials and must be what got her placed at the centre of Burmese politics. She was recruited to help found the National League for Democracy (NLD) in September 1988 after the 8888 Uprising was crushed. The founding officers of the NLD were former high-level generals in the military, some of whom were involved in bloody crackdowns on student demonstrators in the 1960s and 70s, and none of whom were politically progressive. This makes the NLD’s political agenda and her involvement with it questionable, to say the least. But they positioned themselves as the political opposition to military dictatorship. While thousands of activists in the 8888 Uprising were forced to flee to other countries to avoid being executed, disappeared, or jailed, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for 15 of the next 20 years. She was a political prisoner, but her detention is hardly comparable to the gulag most dissidents faced. She lived in her family mansion on a lake in the most exclusive residential district of Yangon, attended to by servants. What convinced her to leave her husband and 13 and 17-year-old sons in England to live housebound for nearly two decades? She received the first of her now nearly 150 awards and honorary degrees in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. For what? Outside of some speeches at 8888 movement rallies, signing on to the formation of the NLD, and running once for office, there isn’t a single recorded instance of Suu Kyi sticking her neck out for human rights. What she had, through both parents and several other relatives, was deep connections to the military. This is not to imply it was some kind of bizarre conspiracy to keep her housebound for several years so she could eventually serve as a front office for the junta. But there are some unanswered questions. And of course, her connections are what kept her alive rather than suffer the fate of thousands of other dissidents with substantial and legitimate human rights credentials who were either jailed, killed, or in exile. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Pakistan Today

The Nineveh Plain Safe Zone would promote security, foster local governance, and revitalize the area’s economy. It’s time to put it in place. President Trump has garnered reams of coverage and criticism for his executive order on refugees, but so far the press has shown little interest in the Administration’s professed desire to create safe zones in the Middle East to protect vulnerable civilians from the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. That’s a shame, for there is some merit to the idea. In Iraq, in particular, the Administration ought to consider the creation of a safe zone in Nineveh Province’s Tal Afar, Sinjar, and Nineveh Plain regions to protect the area’s Turkmen, Yazidi, and Christian populations. These three communities have generally lived together in peace but have endured brutal violence in recent years—first at the hands of Saddam’s oppressive regime and then from ISIS. They have never had an opportunity to build the stable, self-governing local communities that we take for granted in the United States. A safe zone would give them that opportunity. Last year, Chris Seiple, Robert Nicholson, and Andrew Doran wrote that decentralized governance, to include the creation of a province for vulnerable minorities in Iraq, could offer a model for stability in Iraq and possibly Syria. Whether one calls it a province, safe haven, safe zone, or protected area, the concept remains the same: decentralized, local governance based on the principle of equal citizenship that protects the interests and integrity of the distinct communities from which it was formed. A federated model is especially necessary where competing sectarian interests and the principles of centralization and pluralism are in conflict, where the idea of the common good doesn’t exist, and where sectarian violence is the norm. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi in 2015 put simply what is on the mind of many in the region: “If we don’t decentralize, the country will disintegrate.” Disintegration is indeed often the result where decentralization does not occur, particularly where states are cobbled together without a sense of national identity. It can happen peacefully, as it did in Czechoslovakia, or amid much bloodshed, as it did in the former Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia, where we can find examples of both failure and success. We believe Bosnia, in fact, provides a model for Iraq, and perhaps Syria and Yemen. In the Bosnian case, several years of NATO and UN inaction (1992–95) culminated in the summer of 1995 in a bloody massacre at Srebrenica. Even though Srebrenica had been declared a “safe haven” by international peacekeepers, they had no mandate to use force. The peacekeepers therefore could do nothing as Bosnian Serbs moved on the city, slaughtering thousands of civilians, most of them Muslim men and boys. The term “safe haven” was rightly besmirched in the aftermath of Srebrenica, but the tragedy also became a catalyst for the Dayton Peace Accords (1995), which brought representatives from the warring parties or their proxies to the table (Slobodan Milosevic stood in for Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic). An international implementation force (IFOR) then intervened to create zones of separation along sectarian lines. The “peacekeeping” mandate was replaced with “peace-enforcing.” The operation quickly pacified and stabilized Bosnia. The peace there has held for more than two decades. Iraqi Kurdistan provides another instance in which international intervention in the 1990s succeeded in protecting a distinct group that had suffered genocide and war crimes at the hands of an oppressive regime. Operation Provide Comfort (known as Operation Haven by the British) in Iraqi Kurdistan involved the deployment of only a few thousand British soldiers to northern Iraq. Security was followed by humanitarian assistance. In the quarter century since, Iraqi Kurdistan has developed into a reliable U.S. ally and an autonomous region with independent elections and greater press freedoms than are enjoyed in surrounding areas. Bosnia and Kurdistan constitute perhaps the two most successful international interventions since the end of the Cold War. Both ended conflict, protected local populations, and brought stability. Safe zones in the Middle East can achieve these same objectives. It is likely that several will be needed. Like Bosnia and Kurdistan, some combination of boots on the ground and no-fly zones will likely be necessary. Nowhere is the U.S. (and its allies) better situated to create such a safe zone than in northern Iraq—specifically, the Tal Afar, Sinjar, and Nineveh Plain regions of Nineveh Province. The indigenous inhabitants of this geographically contiguous area—Yazidis, Christians, and Turkmen—have been designated as having suffered genocide at the hands of ISIS by the U.S. government. Not only do these communities yearn for local security, self-governance, and economic self-sufficiency; they are also natural allies. And it’s worth noting that no U.S. troops have ever been attacked by Christians or Yazidis in northern Iraq. Like Bosnia, it is likely that U.S. and allied forces would endure few casualties. Casualties, more than cost, are the greatest deterrent to military intervention, whether that intervention’s aim is to advance national security, humanitarian objectives, or both. U.S. troops have been deployed in Europe and Asia since the end of World War II, yet this has caused little in the way of fatigue. Why? Because the cost in blood has been minimal, so the cost in treasure has been overlooked. This proposal for a safe haven in Nineveh Province would likely result in few casualties. It is even possible that it could be undertaken with a token force and few, if any, U.S. troops. The region’s Christians, Turkmen, and Yazidis—like the Kurds—have been reliable allies for the United States in the region and against ISIS in particular, and they are keen to provide for their own security. An international force, supported by close air support (in the unlikely event of an ISIS counter-attack against the area surrounding Mosul), would secure the region, after which it would need humanitarian aid for economic revitalization. Funds have already been allocated in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for “military and other security forces of or associated with the Government of Iraq, including Kurdish and tribal security forces, with a national mission, to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to December 31, 2019.” The NDAA also calls for “a detailed blueprint on how humanitarian, reconstruction, and stabilization assistance will be provided to support a follow on governance structure,” and to support “local security forces that are committed to protecting highly vulnerable ethnic and religious communities, such as Yazidi, Christian, Assyrian, and Turkoman communities, against the ISIL threat.” The indigenous inhabitants of the proposed Nineveh Safe Zone must ultimately provide for their own security. The core contingent of these forces is already constituted for the most part. How would these communities, whose homes and infrastructure were largely destroyed during the ISIS occupation, revitalize their economies? There are billions of barrels of oil and natural gas in the proposed area. Foreign security and oil firms are eager to extract these resources, and the revenue derived from them, when placed in a transparent and equitably shared sovereign wealth fund could be used to help returning genocide victims rebuild communities and livelihoods. The Trump Administration has already demonstrated a commitment to private sector growth domestically. The communities of northern Iraq would benefit greatly from this approach. This would require a resurrection of aid models that were abandoned several years ago, such as the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), which initially met with success in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was much resistance to this private sector approach within the foreign policy bureaucracy (particularly at State and USAID). Aid for the communities in the Nineveh Plain Safe Zone should be structured in the form of economic investment, including microfinance, from firms in North America, Europe, the Gulf States, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The Administration’s executive agencies would facilitate economic revitalization and energy extraction to offset the cost of stabilizing the region, relying where possible on private security firms to protect infrastructure, train local security forces (with the oversight of a token international force and civilian advisors), and generally oversee stability and growth. In addition to traditional U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, and Germany, the United States could work to expand membership in the Coalition Against ISIS to include other regional partners such as Georgia and Armenia. (Armenia in particular may be looking to redefine its role in the region in order to build alliances with the West and get out from under Russia’s thumb.) The Gulf States, which were apparently receptive to President Trump’s overtures on safe zones for Syria’s predominantly Sunni refugees may also be open to the creation of safe zones in which Muslims enjoy the benefits of equal citizenship, as a means of promoting stability in neighboring Iraq. The ideal time to create the Nineveh Plain Safe Zone is now. In fact, it needs to be incorporated into the larger strategic plan to defeat ISIS and stabilize the Mosul region. Mosul needn’t be completely pacified for a safe zone to be established. Ramadi and Fallujah haven’t been stable for any meaningful stretch of time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, yet stabilization efforts there continue (as they should). As international, national, and regional forces push ISIS out of Nineveh Province, planning the transition from combat to reconstruction must be a priority. The NDAA already contains a mandate to plan for the rebuilding and pacification of Mosul, and planners would be foolish to ignore the minorities displaced from these newly liberated districts, who will comprise the human foundation for any post-conflict order. One question looms large in considerations for any such safe zone: Will Baghdad agree to the plan? Decentralization and stability are ultimately in Baghdad’s best interests, so it seems likely that Baghdad would follow American leadership if the United States government were to make it clear that this is an American priority, and that goodwill between countries depends upon it. Al-Abadi and other leaders, including the Iraqi Cabinet of Ministers, have acknowledged the need for decentralization for Iraq’s minority communities. Any remaining concerns about infringement of Iraqi sovereignty are offset by the fact that there is already an overt military presence to which Baghdad has consented. The U.S. government is already coordinating with the Iraqi government to defeat ISIS, and ongoing U.S. security and economic assistance is not something Iraq can afford to lose. The Nineveh Plain Safe Zone would promote security, foster local (decentralized) governance by the principle of equal citizenship, and revitalize the area’s economy. For the United States, this would, we believe, advance not only humanitarian but also strategic interests in the region. The U.S.-led and supported interventions in Bosnia and Kurdistan in the 1990s ended conflicts targeting minorities, eliminated or reduced conditions favorable to terrorist recruitment, and built security and stability on decentralized, local governance structures in which minorities thrived. This model could work in Nineveh Province. The lessons learned there will provide important insights into the creation of similar (albeit likely more complicated) safe zones in Syria and Yemen. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 The American Intrest

Aung San Suu Kyi planting a tree during the opening ceremony of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center in January in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Hopes were high after Myanmar’s parliamentary elections on 8 November 2015. After decades of repressive military dictatorship, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a majority. A new era was supposed to begin. Today, however, the democratic transformation leaves much to be desired, and ongoing conflicts have actually intensified. Before the election, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the NLD and internationally celebrated democratic icon, campaigned for a new, democratic and just Myanmar and promised her government would listen to all citizens. In particular, she wanted to promote national reconciliation and the establishment of a federal democratic union. The new government took office on 1 April 2016. Suu Kyi was appointed “state counsellor” which makes her Myanmar’s de facto head of state. The military continues to hold a quarter of all parliamentary seats, however. Its blocking minority gives it tremendous influence on policymaking. Nevertheless, hope and optimism were strong initially that a real democratic transformation would take place. Increasingly, dissatisfaction and disappointment are becoming evident, however. The year 2016 saw old conflicts intensify. Armed conflicts between ethnic groups and the national army intensified. In particular, tensions escalated in Rakhine State. The peace process between Myanmar’s government and ethnic groups is stalling. The Panglong Conference, which was initiated by Suu Kyi, was supposed to become a milestone – but it hasn’t made much of a difference. Contrary to government promises, some parties to the conflict were not invited to attend, and there was virtually no space for open discussion and exchange of views. The price that ethnic militias must pay for getting a seat at the negotiating table is high. The military demands that they disarm and demobilise. Doing so is risky, however, given numerous government military assaults on ethnic groups. Without prior government concessions, not much will change in this regard in the foreseeable future. Recently, new skirmishes occurred, mainly in northern Kachin and Shan States, where a new alliance of ethnic militias has formed. It calls itself the Northern Alliance-Burma. The fighting has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people in the past few weeks. Many people have fled across the Chinese border, and the authorities are hampering the supply of humanitarian aid in the conflict zones. The military appears to want to put on a show of strength to boost its negotiating position. These events, however, have been overshadowed by the dramatic developments in Rakhine State which have attracted international media attention (see article in D+C/E+Z e-Paper 2017/02). State security forces have perpetrated numerous human-rights abuses after attacks on Myanmar’s border posts in October 2016, which have been blamed on an Islamist movement among the Rohingya minority. To date, some 70,000 people have fled to Bangladesh. The UN considers it likely that crimes against humanity were committed, including rape and extrajudicial killings. The government has so far denied all accusations. There has been little improvement in regard to civil rights and political liberty. Some progress has been made. The so-called Emergency Provisions Act, which served to suppress dissidents, has been lifted, and first steps have been taken towards ending impunity. However, under Suu Kyi’s leadership, civil-society actors and journalists have come under pressure on numerous occasions. One must bear in mind, moreover, that the political power structures have hardly changed in Myanmar. According to the constitution, the military is not only beyond of the government’s control but is even in charge of the three most important ministries: home affairs, defence and border affairs. Suu Kyi and the NLD have very little room for manoeuvre. The government should make every effort to steer the country on a path of democratic reform. It could bring about decisive progress by forming alliances with civil society this year. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Development and Coopertion

World’s Humanitarian & Human Rights Organizations, Myanmar Refugee Activists and Academics to Establish People’s Tribunal on Myanmar and Hold its Inaugural Sessions in London on 6 and 7 March MEDIA ADVISORY March 3, 2017 LONDON: Rome-Based Secretariat of the Permanent People’s Tribunal has taken up the cause of Rohingya and Kachin victims who have been subjected to numerous international crimes at the hands of Myanmar government. In his message to the opening ceremony to be held at the International State Crimes Initiative at Queen Mary University of London, the Dalai Lama has repeated his appeal to Myanmar Buddhists, including Aung San Suu Kyi and her Buddhist supporters, to end violence against Muslims. Among the grassroots organizers of the Tribunal are UK-based Kachin, Rohingya and Burmese human rights campaigners who have been displaced and/or forced into exile by the Myanmar government. The representatives of Kachin and Rohingya victim communities will bring forth the charges before the jury panel that the Myanmar government is committing crimes under international law, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against ethnic and religious minorities, in particular Rohingya and Kachin communities in their respective ancestral homes in the Western and Northern regions of the country. The inaugural session in London will be hosted at, and webcast live from, the International State Crime Initiative of Queen Mary University of London on 6 March (1000 GMT to 1800 GMT) and 7 March (1000 GMT – 1300 GMT). The opening session will end with a press conference at Noon GMT. Subsequent sessions are envisaged for New York City and Kuala Lumpur before the final verdict is issued. (For the venue address, see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/permanent-peoples-tribunal-myanmar-state-crimes-against-rohingya-and-other-ethnic-minorities-tickets-31967250908?aff=es2) The tribunal sessions which are open to public, can be viewed live at http://tribunalonmyanmar.org/ and followed on twitter @MyanmarTribunal Notes to Editors. The People’s Tribunal on Myanmar has been endorsed by over 20 Rohingya, Kachin and Burmese organizations worldwide, International State Crime Initiative of Queen Mary University of London, S. Africa’s Protect the Rohingya Campaign, Genocide Watch, Burma Task Force USA, Malaysian human rights networks such as the International Movement for a Just World and Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra), and individual genocide prevention campaigners including Youk Chhang of Cambodia. The tribunal has also received a moral boost from the Dalai Lama, who has sent a written statement of appeal to Burmese Buddhists to end to Rohingya persecution, which will be read and webcast live during the opening session of the international people’s tribunal on Myanmar. The world renowned Tibetan Buddhist leader writes, “All the world’s major religions convey a message of peace and compassion, so it is especially saddening when we hear of the violence being used in the name of religion like the very unfortunate events concerning the Muslim community in Burma”, in reference to the predominantly Buddhist country’s persecution of Rohingya minority in Western Burmese state of Northern Rakhine. The Dalai Lama speaks of his personal appeal to the fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,” … I have made public appeal and also privately communicated to (her) to use her influence to bring about a peaceful resolution to this problem.” Similar appeals to Aung San Suu Kyi have been made, to no avail, by her long-time supporters and/or friends including former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevi, veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu, Professor Amartya Sen and George Soros among others. Both Suu Kyi and her senior colleagues in the ruling National League for Democracy party – not just the powerful military – have denied vehemently any allegations of international crimes committed against Rohingya communities by the government. In the country’s mountainous Northern and Eastern regions, the Burmese army has been waging a ferocious military campaign against the Kachin, using fighter-jets and gunship helicopters since the bilateral written ceasefire of 17 years broke down 6 years ago. The war has displaced an estimated 100,000 Kachin and other residents. Ms Suu Kyi has accused Kachin leaders (and other ethnic groups) of ‘lacking (the) moral courage’ to sign the ceasefire agreement, which does not address the fundamental political issues such as federalist power-sharing. Meanwhile, she has maintained complete silence over Myanmar troops and its alleged war crimes against the Kachin. During a press conference in the Burmese capital Naypyidaw on 1 March, General Mya Tun Oo, Chief of the General Staff and former Chief of Military Intelligence, dismissed the allegations as “reckless”, while the senior aide to Aung San Suu Kyi, ex-Captain Win Htein, lashed out at the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar Professor Yanghee Lee who is writing a report for the UN Human Rights Council as “biased”. Win Htein told AFP, “we do not care about this kind of unfair report. Because we do not care, we do not worry.” Yanghee Lee is scheduled to present her findings of her weeks-long investigation in Myanmar and Bangladesh to the UN in Geneva on 13 March, and is pressing the UN body to mandate a Commission of Inquiry into the ‘very likely’ crimes against humanity. UN Human Rights Commissioner’s office has issued a 43-page Flash Report, detailing patterns of sexual violence, summary execution, arson, destruction of communities, wanton killing of babies, burning elderly people alive in Rohingya region of Western Burma. According to a Reuter’s report, Keith Harper, former U.S. President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to the Human Rights Council, backs the call for the Commission of Inquiry, which he calls “heavy medicine reserved for the most horrendous human rights cases”. Harper stresses that “even accepting that Suu Kyi does not sufficiently control the military, she has utterly failed to utilize her considerable bully pulpit which would undoubtedly be impactful” on the situation of Rohingya. The inaugural sessions of the people’s tribunal come in the midst of international allegations and Myanmar’s denials. The Jury will hear the videotaped testimonies of Rohingya rape victims of Myanmar army and other human rights crimes, and testimonies by Kachin eyewitnesses to the war crimes committed by Myanmar troops in Northern and Eastern border regions of Myanmar. Among the representatives of Kachin and Rohingya victim communities who will provide testimonies are Hkanhpa Sadan, the General Secretary of the Kachin National Organization (KNO), and his colleagues Kai Htang Lashi and Ring Du Lachyung; Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Association UK, Ronnie of the Arakan Rohingya National Organization and Ro Nay San Lwin of the Rohingya Blogger. A long-time Burmese activist and scholar on Myanmar politics Dr Maung Zarni will join Professor Penny Green, who directs International State Crimes Initiative at Queen Mary University of London and Dr Mandy Sadan, a leading expert on Kachin, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and author of Being & Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Border worlds of Burma (Oxford University Press, 2013). Videotaped presentations on Rohingya identity and persecution by SOAS Professor Michael Charney and Professor Amartya Sen of Harvard University will also be webcast live. A 6-member team of Malaysian human rights lawyers led by Azril Mohd Amin, Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra) will travel to London to offer their expert testimonies based on their interviews with 30 Rohingya victims of Myanmar’s human rights crimes. The Rome-based Secretariat for the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) is providing Myanmar campaigners with the professional leadership in setting up the tribunal on Myanmar, which is modelled after the renowned Sartre-Russell tribunal of the anti-Vietnam war era, which tried the United States Government on allegations of war crimes in Vietnam. PPT has a long history as an effective means of transforming communities marred by state sponsored crimes. It has convened forty-three times to deliver judgements that have guided societies through such struggles as post-colonialism, globalization, war, and economic injustice. It is well-known for its rigorous selection criteria for its jury members. Supported by grassroots activists, in kind and in cash, the Tribunal on Myanmar is wholly independent in its proceedings and pronouncements free from any unwelcome editorial or political interferences by governments and INGOs alike. The PPT Secretariat sent official invitations to both Myanmar Government to make a representation at the proceedings in London and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is chairing the Rakhine Commission at Suu Kyi’s request. Annan’s office replied that “Mr Annan appreciates the invitation. However, it is with great regret that he is unable to accept owning to his prior commitments in Africa at the time.” Myanmar Government did not respond to the invitation. Contact: Info@MyanmarTribunal.org Dr Gianni Tognoni, Permanent People’s Tribunal, Rome, Italy at +39 (0) 3471824914 Dr Thomas McManus, International State Crimes Initiative, Queen Mary U. of London +44 (0) 795 806 99 27 Ms Kai Htang Lashi, (Kachin National Organization) at +44 (0)79 20 82 66 94 Tun Khin, Burmese Rohingya Organization UK at +44 (0) 78 88 71 48 66 Dr Malik Mujahid, Burma Task Force (Justice For All), Chicago, USA at 312-750-1178 Azril Mohd Amin, Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at +60123037110 Dr Maung Zarni (UK) at +44 (0)77 10 47 33 22 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 Peoples Tribunal On Myanmar

The Dalai Lama has joined Pope Francis in calling for Myanmar Buddhists to end violence against Rohingya Muslims in what the United Nations says amounts to ethnic cleansing and possibly crimes against humanity. The Tibetan Buddhist leader revealed he has privately communicated with Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi “to use her influence to bring about a peaceful resolution to this problem”. The Dalai Lama is keen to meet US President-elect Donald Trump. Photo: AP The Dalai Lama made the appeal in written comments that will be read at the first hearing of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Myanmar at London’s Queen Mary University on March 6 and 7. “All the world’s major religions convey a message of peace and compassion, so it is especially saddening when we hear of violence being used in the name of religion like the very unfortunate events concerning the Muslim community in Burma [Myanmar],” he wrote, referring to the plight of more than 1 million Rohingya living in Rakhine state on Myanmar’s western coast. Myanmar is a Buddhist majority nation. In February, Pope Francis issued a stinging rebuke of Myanmar following a United Nations report detailing atrocities against Rohingya that included mass rapes, murders, beatings and families locked in houses and burnt alive. Among the atrocities was the slitting of a baby’s throat while his mother was being gang raped. The Rome-based Permanent People’s Tribunal has convened 43 times to deliver judgments on societies facing state-sponsored crimes. Pope Francis criticised Myanmar after a UN report detailed atrocities against the Rohingya. Photo: AP The tribunal on Myanmar, which is expected to sit in London, New York and Kuala Lumpur, was established in response to requests made from Rohingya and Kachin, both ethnic minorities which claim they have suffered crimes at the hands of Myanmar government troops. Public figures will sit on the tribunal that will hear testimonies from victims and genocide scholars before reaching a verdict later this year. Displaced Rohingya women and children in a refugee camp south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo: AP Ms Suu Kyi, who was kept under house arrest for 15 years for standing up to Myanmar’s military, appears now to hold little sway over powerful generals, despite leading her National League for Democracy to a landslide victory at historic elections in late 2015. The military has denied any atrocities have taken place while Ms Suu Kyi’s government has accused the media of publishing fake news about the plight of Rohingya, despite the displacement of 90,000 from their homes since October, when attacks on police border posts prompted a brutal military crackdown. Almost 70,000 fled across the border to camps in Bangladesh. A group called the Harakah al-Yaqin or Faith Movement, which has links to Rohingya living in Saudia Arabia, claimed responsibility for the attacks, sparking fears of a new wave of terrorism in the region. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Sydney Morning Herald

On 23 February, the Syrian government and opposition delegations gathered in Geneva to launch the fourth round of UN-sponsored intra-Syrian peace talks, led by the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. The discussions are aimed at finding a stable and viable political solution to a conflict which has already claimed the lives of more than 450,000 people within the last six years. The Geneva peace process, which takes place on the heels of the Russian, Turkish and Iranian co-sponsored multilateral meetings held in the Kazakh capital of Astana, resumes after three unsuccessful diplomatic attempts that failed to end the Syrian crisis in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Moreover, renewed disputes over the agenda and long-standing disagreements between the warring parties have pushed de Mistura to downplay expectations for any major progress. Difficulties in reaching a comprehensive solution also stem from the differences in political weight that the parties bear in the current diplomatic process. While sitting at the same table for the first time in six years, the opposition delegations could not be more distant from one another across a broad range of topics. The Assad delegation, headed by Syria’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Bashar Al-Jaafari, has gained a considerable military and political advantage following significant victories on the ground in 2016, namely the recapture of rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo. On the other hand, the opposition, bitterly divided by infighting, has continuously failed in presenting a united front in Geneva. However, both parties purportedly decided to add two fundamental issues to the agenda: the Syrian political transition, proposed by the opposition, and the fight against terrorism, proposed by President Bashar al-Assad’s negotiators. In the meantime, on Tuesday, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at imposing sanctions on the Syrian government over the alleged use of chemical weapons, claiming that it contradicted “the fundamental principle of presumption of innocence before the investigation is over”. It is the seventh veto Russia has put up against UNSC resolutions in the past five years in an effort to save its Syrian ally. China has also joined Moscow in vetoing six resolutions on Syria since the war began. The following day, a UN Commission of Inquiry released a report accusing the Syrian government and its Russian ally of systematic destruction of healthcare facilities in east Aleppo, between July and December 2016. Moreover, the report held both the regime and opposition accountable for “war crimes of forced displacement,” due to the imposed the evacuation of the city for “strategic reasons” and “not for the security of civilians”. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, approximately 876 civilians were killed in Syria in February alone. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 RtoP Weekly

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, raises concerns in May 2016 about the rights of Native Americans after visiting North Dakota in the wake of months of protests over the Dakota Access pipeline. (Bebeto Matthews/AP) A United Nations human rights official criticized the U.S. government’s handling of the Dakota Access pipeline project in a special report on Friday, saying it disregard treaties and ignored the interests of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a U.N. special rapporteur examining issues related to Native American tribes in the United States, said in an interview that she was struck by the ineffective communication between tribes and federal and local governments across the country, particularly when it came to development and energy projects on or adjacent to Indian reservations. In her report, she said the federal government has shown a “lack of good faith involvement” of Native tribes in reviewing such projects. While she acknowledged that there has been progress in the relationship between the federal government and tribal governments, Tauli-Corpuz said there has been widespread failure to adequately communicate and consult with indigenous peoples on issues “affecting their land, territory and resources.” Tauli-Corpuz concluded her 10-day mission to the United States on Friday in Washington where she delivered a preliminary report on her visit to State Department officials. The trip took her to meetings with tribes, politicians and government officials in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. She also traveled to North Dakota, where she visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, site of a year-long protest by Indians and environmentalists against the Dakota Access pipeline project. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has opposed the pipeline because it crosses the Missouri River a mile north of their reservation and, they say, poses a threat to their drinking water. The tribe has argued that it was not adequately consulted about the pipeline route — which it says crosses sacred burial grounds — and not given a chance to participate meaningfully in discussions about the project with the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal government representatives. In an interview, Tauli-Corpuz said she was invited to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation by its chairman, David Archambault II, whom she met when he visited the U.N. in Geneva last year to speak about the tribe’s plight. “In a show of disregard for treaties and the federal trust responsibility, the Army Corps approved a draft environmental assessment regarding the pipeline that ignored the interests of the tribe,” she wrote in her report. “Maps in the draft environmental assessment omitted the reservation, and the draft made no mention of proximity to the reservation or the fact that the pipeline would cross historic treaty lands of a number of tribal nations. In doing so, the draft environmental assessment treated the tribe’s interests as non-existent, demonstrating the flawed current process.” According to Tauli-Corpuz, the experience of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is shared by many other indigenous communities in the United States. She wrote, “From my conversations with people throughout Indian Country, I have learned that many of the complex issues that Native Americans face in the energy development context today are rooted in a long history of land and resource dispossession.” She urged the government “to undertake meaningful consultations with the indigenous people before any project is brought to their communities.” Tauli-Corpuz will soon return to Geneva and put together a full report that will contain findings, observations and recommendations that she will present at a September session of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. “I hope that the United States government will at least look at the report and take into account the recommendations that I have done and see how they can implement them,” she said. “And I hope that the indigenous people will also use the recommendations to push the government to implement them.” __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Washington Post

Iran Giusti, Victoria, André and Rodrigo outside Casa 1, in Sao Paulo, 7 February 2017 (photo courtesy of Mathilde Dorcadie) Helping young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) people in conflict with their families is the task that journalist and activist Iran Giusti has set himself, by opening the doors of Casa 1, a shelter and dialogue centre in downtown São Paulo. With no public funding, but with the support of his network and the financial contributions of over a thousand donors, the young man plans to set up a project to support individuals and raise awareness in the community. Brazil holds the unenviable record of having the highest number of homophobic and transphobic murders in the world. In 2016, according to Grupo Gay da Bahia (The Gay Group of Bahia, or GGB), there were 343 homophobic murders, nearly one a day. Rede Trans Brasil (the Trans Brazil Network) says 144 transsexuals were murdered in the same year, not to mention the countless attacks meted out daily against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, which often begin within the family circle. “One day my mother’s boyfriend hit me, and I had to leave to stop the situation getting worse, to protect my mother, brothers and sisters,” says 21-year-old Rodrigo, who came to live at Casa 1 just a few days before his interview with Equal Times. Thousands of young people are in an insecure situation, says Iran, thrown out of their family home with no-one to turn to. When they are minors, they can be taken care of by children’s social care services. The authorities only intervene when cases become extreme, once people are really destitute, on the streets, and even being exploited. And often they only deal with the symptoms, such as drug dependency or psychiatric illnesses. According to Marcos Vieira Garci, a social psychology researcher at the University of São Carlos in Brazil, between 20 and 30 per cent of the world’s homeless people have been thrown out of their homes after being rejected by their families because of their sexual orientation. It is to avoid these extremes that the project was created. It was the result of Iran’s own experience: “I sheltered a young gay man for a few days, and I talked to him a lot about my personal experience and my activism. Later he wrote to me to say that it had helped restore his confidence. So then I offered my sofa to other young people in difficulty, by putting an ad on Facebook. I got more than 50 requests in two hours. I have been an activist for LGBT rights for ten years, so I was aware of the problem, but not the extent of it.” After a few months, Iran’s apartment was not enough to meet demand. “My mother thinks I am a evil person” Casa 1 opened in January and can take up to ten people, for a renewable three month period. In a large communal room, two rows of beds have been set up, and there is a small living room with a television and wifi. “All the furniture has been given to us, there was a huge wave of solidarity. We have all the necessary comforts, with a kitchen, laundry room and bathroom,” says André. Dani is standing in the middle of a pile of clothes, sorting out the donations. This transsexual woman, who has lived on the streets for a long time, was taken on as a ‘nanny’. “She’s a bit like a mum to us. She organises the shopping and teaches us lots of things, like cooking. And Iran’s our dad” jokes André. As well as providing shelter, it is a place for mutual support. Each housemate is closely followed by the team of volunteers. They help them to prepare their curriculum vitae, with the administrative steps for applying to the university, and with applying for grants, giving support on a case by case basis. Twenty four year old Wesley has begun hormone treatment to change gender. “It’s incredible, I get so much support here. Everyone already calls me Victoria. My mother has disowned me. She is a practising evangelist and thinks I’m an evil person.” Victoria, who speaks several foreign languages, dreams of studying international relations. Before launching into the project, the organisers thought about creating a viable economic model. To achieve this, they began a participatory fund-raising drive and managed to collect a total of 112,000 reals (US$ 36,000) to pay one year’s rent and have something put by. “But our aim is to set up a cultural centre on the ground floor, to generate our own resources so that the house can be run independently. We want to show that it can work and inspire other initiatives elsewhere in Brazil,” explains Iran. The project has only just begun, but its creators are already looking ahead to greater things. “We called it Casa 1 because we hope to open a Casa 2, perhaps for women at risk,” confides Iran. In the neighbourhood, the house’s bright colours and its offices that open out onto the street are very welcoming. Passersby who used to avoid this old building that housed a bar, a squat, and was used for drug trafficking, now stop to take a look at the display of art work, see friends in the house, or check out the library. “We wanted to bring some colour to the neighbourhood, and to win the confidence of the neighbours and local traders,” enthuses Iran. “We are going to organise activities with them, such as crochet courses for the elderly. It is important to engage in dialogue and encourage diversity. We mustn’t hide. The shelters run by the local authorities are always in isolated spots, out of sight from society.” Iran believes that being open is one way to help combat homophobia. “It is at least as important as helping a young gay or transsexual person. What would be the point in taking pains to develop their professional skills if the local traders don’t want to hire them out of prejudice?” This story has been translated from French. (c) Equal Times 2017

(Manila) – Philippine police are falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings in a “war on drugs” that has caused more than 7,000 deaths, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. President Rodrigo Duterte and other senior officials have instigated and incited killings of mostly urban poor in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity. Philippine police are falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings in a “war on drugs” that has caused more than 7,000 deaths. The United Nations should urgently create an independent, international investigation into the killings to determine responsibility, and ensure mechanisms for accountability, Human Rights Watch said. Philippine police are falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings in a “war on drugs” that has caused more than 7,000 deaths. “Our investigations into the Philippine ‘drug war’ found that police routinely kill drug suspects in cold blood and then cover up their crime by planting drugs and guns at the scene,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “President Duterte’s role in these killings makes him ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands.” The 117-page report, “‘License to Kill’: Philippine Police Killings in Duterte’s ‘War on Drugs,’” found that the Philippine National Police have repeatedly carried out extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, and then falsely claimed self-defense. They plant guns, spent ammunition, and drug packets on their victims’ bodies to implicate them in drug activities. Masked gunmen taking part in killings appeared to be working closely with the police, casting doubt on government claims that the majority of killings have been committed by vigilantes or rival drug gangs. In several instances that Human Rights Watch investigated, suspects in police custody were later found dead and classified by police as “found bodies” or “deaths under investigation.” No one has been meaningfully investigated, let alone prosecuted, for any of the “drug war” killings. The report draws heavily on interviews in the Metro Manila area with 28 family members of victims and witnesses to police killings, as well as journalists and human rights activists. It also references initial police reports of killings, which Human Rights Watch field research consistently contradicted. Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Duterte and other senior officials have been outspoken in support of a nationwide campaign to kill drug dealers and users, while denying or downplaying the illegality of police actions. For instance, on August 6, Duterte warned drug dealers: “My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights, you better believe me.” He praised the soaring body count of victims of police killings as proof of the “success” of his “war on drugs.”​ Human Rights Watch documented 24 incidents that resulted in the deaths of 32 people. They typically occurred late at night either on the streets or inside informal shacks of urban slum areas. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the armed assailants operated in small groups. They typically wore black civilian clothes and shielded their faces with balaclava-style headgear or other masks, and baseball caps or helmets. The assailants would bang on doors and barge into rooms, but would not identify themselves or provide warrants. Family members reported hearing beatings and their loved ones begging for their lives. The shooting could happen immediately, behind closed doors or on the street; or the gunmen might take the suspect away, where minutes later, shots would ring out and local residents would find the body; or the body would be dumped elsewhere later, sometimes with​​ hands tied or the head wrapped in plastic. Local residents often said they saw uniformed police on the outskirts of the incident, securing the perimeter, and even if not visible before a shooting, special crime scene investigators would arrive within minutes. “Under the veneer of anti-drug operations, the Philippine police at Duterte’s urging have killed thousands of Filipinos,” Bouckaert said. “Many killings of drug suspects followed the same deadly routine and indicate a pattern of police abuse.” Duterte has frequently characterized his “war on drugs” as targeting “drug lords” and “drug pushers.” However, in the cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, the victims of drug-related killings were all poor, except for one case of mistaken identity, and many were suspected drug users, not dealers. Almost all were either unemployed or worked menial jobs, including as rickshaw drivers or porters, and lived in slum neighborhoods or informal settlements. Philippine authorities have failed to seriously investigate drug war killings by either the police or “unidentified gunmen,” Human Rights Watch said. Although the Philippine National Police has classified a total of 922 killings as “cases where investigation has concluded,” there is no evidence that those probes have resulted in the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators.​ On January 30, the government announced a temporary suspension of police anti-drug operations following revelations of the brutal killing of a South Korean businessman by alleged anti-drug police. The following day, Duterte ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines to fill the gap created by the suspended police operations by taking a frontline role in the anti-drug campaign. Duterte has publicly vowed to continue his anti-drug campaign until his presidential term ends in 2022. Duterte and his chief subordinates could be held criminally liable in the Philippines or by a court abroad for their role in these killings, Human Rights Watch said. No evidence thus far shows that Duterte planned or ordered specific extrajudicial killings, but his repeated calls for killings as part of his anti-drug campaign could constitute acts instigating law enforcement to commit murder. His statements encouraging the general population to commit vigilante violence against suspected drug users could be criminal incitement. Duterte, senior officials, and others implicated in unlawful killings could also be held liable for crimes against humanity, which are serious offenses committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. The numerous and seemingly organized deadly attacks on the publicly targeted group of drug suspects could amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by the International Criminal Court, of which the Philippines is a member. As president, Duterte has a legal responsibility to publicly direct state security forces to end their campaign of extrajudicial executions of suspected drug dealers and users. The National Bureau of Investigation and the Ombudsman’s Office should impartially investigate the killings and seek prosecutions of all those responsible. The Philippine Congress should hold extensive hearings on the issue and adopt measures to prevent further killings. Donor countries to the Philippines should end all assistance to the Philippine National Police until the killings cease and meaningful investigations are undertaken, and they should consider redirecting that assistance to community-based harm reduction programs that are appropriate and effective. “Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ could more aptly be described as crimes against humanity targeting the urban poor,” Bouckaert said. “Whether local outrage, global pressure, or an international inquiry brings these killings to an end, someday they will stop and those responsible will be brought to justice.” Selected Accounts from the Report On the afternoon of October 14, 2016, four masked gunmen stormed the Manila home of Paquito Mejos, a 53-year-old father of five who worked as an electrician on construction sites. An occasional user of shabu, a methamphetamine, Mejos had turned himself in to local authorities two days earlier after learning he was on a “watch list” of drug suspects. The gunmen asked for Mejos, who was napping upstairs. “When I saw them with their handguns going upstairs,” a relative said, “I told them, ‘But he has already surrendered to the authorities!’ They told me to shut up, or I would be next.” Two gunshots rang out. Police investigators arrived moments later and were assisted by the gunmen. In their report, the police referred to Mejos as “a suspected drug pusher” who “pointed his gun [at the police] but the police officers were able to shoot him first hitting him on the body causing his instantaneous death.” They said a shabu packet was found along with a handgun. “But Paquito never had a gun,” said his relative. “And he did not have any shabu that day.” A barangay (neighborhood) official told Rogie Sebastian, 32, to surrender to the police because he was on the “watch list” as a drug user. He had given up drug use months earlier, so did not go. Two weeks later, three armed masked men wearing bulletproof vests arrived at his home in Manila and handcuffed him. “I could hear Rogie begging for his life from outside the room,” a relative said. “We were crying and the other armed man threatened to kill us as well.” A neighbor said: “I heard the gunshots. There were also uniformed cops outside, they did not go inside the house. But the three killers in civilian clothes came and went on a motorcycle without any interference from the uniformed cops.” Five masked, armed men broke into a house in Bulacan province where Oliver Dela Cruz, 43, was playing cards. A relative said: “[W]e could see him kneeling in a surrendering position. The men grabbed him and slammed him into a concrete wall several times, and then they threw him … outside. We saw the shooting, we were just there. Oliver’s face was bleeding from being hit, and he was begging them for mercy when he was shot.” Police crime scene investigators under Jones Bridge in Binondo, Manila after police shot dead suspected drug dealers Cyril Raymundo, Eduardo Aquino, and Edgar Cumbis in a “buy-bust” operation. December 5, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch After the shooting of Ogie Sumangue, 19, in Manila, uniformed police showed Sumangue’s relatives his body in the house, and a .45-caliber handgun next to his body. Family members said that Sumangue could not afford and did not possess a gun and therefore could not possibly have attempted to shoot at the police. “He cannot even pay the rent,” a relative said. “His sister paid the rent for him.” Six masked armed men burst into a Manila home where a small group, including several teenagers, were watching television. The men arrested and beat drug suspects Aljon Mesa and Jimboy Bolasa, and then took them away on motorcycles. A half-hour later, after hearing from a uniformed policeman, relatives rushed to a nearby bridge to find Aljon and Bolasa’s bodies, both with gunshot wounds to the head, their hands tied with cloth. The gunmen were still at the scene, while uniformed police cordoned off the area. The police report, headed “Found Bodies,” claims that a “concerned citizen” alerted the police to the presence of two dead bodies. Jayson Asuncion, 37, surrendered to police after admitting his use of shabu, or methamphetamine, for several years, September 15, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch A week after Aljon Mesa’s killing, 10 police officers, some in civilian clothes, arrested his brother Danilo Mesa and took him to the local barangay office. That evening, masked, armed men abducted him from the barangay office; shortly afterwards, his body was found under a bridge a block away. His relatives said that his entire head had been wrapped in packing tape, and his hands had been tied behind his back. He had been shot execution-style through the mouth. Relatives of Edward Sentorias, 34, a jobless father of three killed by the police in Manila, said they had no hope for an investigation of the police: “I saw one of the police go inside with an aluminum briefcase.… [He took] out the gun and some [shabu] sachets, and placed them there [by Sentorias’ body]. I went back to where I was, and was totally shocked. I couldn’t even complain. If we go complain, what is our chance against the authorities?” (C) 2017 Humans Rights Watch

A demonstrator is detained by security forces on July 10, 2017, during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Caracas, Venezuela. People have been demonstrating in the streets in opposition to the government almost daily since March. Scores have died in clashes with security forces. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) The end of the commodities boom is having a devastating impact on the Venezuelan economy. The drop in international oil prices that began toward the end of 2014 has also been accompanied by inadequate social planning, expanding state control of the economy, and skyrocketing levels of corruption and mismanagement among governmental officials and the military. As a result, the Venezuelan economy is in shambles, corruption and violence are rampant, and the Chavismo revolutionary project launched by then-President Hugo Chávez is floundering, while the economic, political, and humanitarian crises continue to grow. As political unrest and violence escalate in Venezuela, the health system is deteriorating, food scarcity is growing, and national institutions continue to fail to support adequate basic living conditions. According to a 2016 survey, Encuesta Sobre Condiciones de Vida en Venezuela (Survey on Living Conditions in Venezuela), poverty increased by 34 percent from 2014 to 2016, while extreme poverty increased from 24 percent in 2014 to 52 percent in 2016. The latest figures from 2017 are staggering, indicating that 82 percent of Venezuelans are living under the poverty line, the highest rate in its history and making the country one of the poorest in the region. The survey also reported roughly three in four Venezuelans have lost weight involuntarily, averaging 19 pounds per person. (See “Resources” at end.) As people turn to the streets to protest, they are violently repressed by police, the armed forces, and paramilitary groups. Since March 2017, over 100 people have died as a result of state-led repression and hundreds of others have been imprisoned for exercising their constitutional rights, while opposition leadership is actively persecuted and imprisoned by security and paramilitary forces and intelligence services. Furthermore, human rights violations have become widespread when citizens are detained, and intelligence services have set up clandestine detention centers such as “La Tumba” (The Grave) where political dissidents are illegally kept without informing the judiciary and then isolated from any outside contact for days or weeks while being physically and psychologically tortured. Other detained civilians are subjected to speedy military trials and imprisoned in military installations. On the streets, state-led violence is not limited to repression of violent protest, but also includes generalized targeting of entire neighborhoods considered “opposition neighborhoods.” The Venezuelan government seems not only unable but also unwilling to provide peaceful solutions to the crisis, which in turn escalates national-level tensions among a diversity of actors, including many within Chavismo ranks. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks on July 15, 2017, during a ceremony at the National Pantheon in Caracas. Maduro, the successor to the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, has refused calls for a recall referendum and regional elections. He also wants to rewrite the nation’s constitution. (Miraflores Palace photo via Reuters) Worries surrounding the situation in Venezuela are not only linked to these dire circumstances but also to the language and discourse used by the Venezuelan government. While historically Chavismo has waved the flag of equality and inclusion, its discourse toward the opposition has been one of polarization, exclusion, and discrimination. In the context of escalating political, social, and economic conflict, the existence of entrenched discrimination based on the use of exclusionary ideology that constructs identities in terms of “us” and “them” is an alarming indicator for the international community. The risk of further repression and human rights violations is exacerbated with the common use of pejorative and discriminatory language and the deliberate tagging of opposition groups as terrorist and/or subversive organizations that are seeking to overthrow the government. If Latin American history in the 20th century can teach us an important lesson it is that when authoritarian regimes categorize opposition in broad terms such as “terrorists,” it is a precursor step toward the escalation of violence, increased repression, and likely justification of state-led atrocities. Furthermore, Chavismo has been very effective in coopting state institutions, and those it cannot exert control over it has tried to outlaw, as was the case with the National Assembly in early 2017. This legislative branch of the government has been controlled by the opposition majority since January 2016, when parties opposing Chavismo won legislative elections by a landslide. Since then, the executive and judicial powers have systematically attempted to annul the National Assembly, overrule its decisions, and reduce its overall power. A volunteer of the Make the Difference (Haz La Diferencia) charity initiative gives a cup of soup and an arepa to a homeless child on March 5, 2017, in Caracas. As political unrest and violence continue in Venezuela, food scarcity is growing and the number of people in poverty is increasing. (Marco Bello/Reuters) In the meantime, President Nicolas Maduro, who carried forward his predecessor’s policies and ideology, has refused to hold a recall referendum to consult the population on whether he should continue in office, although the opposition has fulfilled all the steps required to call that referendum. He has also postponed regional elections, arguing that the dire economic situation makes it financially inviable. While he has proposed that a National Constituent Assembly draft a new constitution, the process has been handled in such a way that participants in the assembly are those sympathetic with Maduro’s government. It would also create a supraconstitutional power that would allow Chavismo politicians to fully concentrate power and overrule all opposition actions, which would contradict the 1999 Constitution. Dozens of members of the Venezuelan Warao indigenous community pass the time outside a shelter in Boa Vista, Brazil, on February 11, 2017. The community fled Venezuela because of lack of food as well as growing lawlessness. The influx of Venezuelans into the Brazilian state of Roraima, where Boa Vista is located, has been so great that the local health system has been unable to cope. (Cesar Munoz Acebes/Human Rights Watch)The analysis of the Venezuelan crisis cannot be reduced to incidents inside the borders of the Caribbean state: its deepening humanitarian crisis is overflowing its borders as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans leave, seeking better living conditions in neighboring countries. The main flow of emigrants has been toward Colombia, reversing the trend that lasted for decades of Colombians escaping their internal conflict and seeking refuge in Venezuela.In the north of Brazil, the influx of Venezuelans has also increased exponentially, as people escape not only the severe shortages of food and medication but also the lawlessness of one of Venezuela’s most remote areas. A sanitary emergency has been declared in the Brazilian state of Roraima because the local health system is unable to cope with the massive arrival of Venezuelans. Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Aloysio Nunes has visited the expanding Venezuelan camps, and in February of this year, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders visited Aruba and Curacao and said those islands must remain “very alert” when it comes to the situation in neighboring Venezuela. In April he discussed preparing for increasing numbers of Venezuelan immigrants, including drafting a crisis plan that draws in contacts with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the same time, governmental concerns regarding the flow of Venezuelan refugees are rising in Panama and in Trinidad and Tobago off the coast.The regional repercussions of the crisis are not only humanitarian but also commercial and political. Countries with deep-rooted economic ties to Venezuela are suffering the consequences of the acute recession there, reducing their exports and, in many cases, the import of cheap Venezuelan oil previously provided by Petrocaribe to maintain Venezuela´s regional network of political support. This network extended throughout the Caribbean and Central America, and it continues to be useful in stalling efforts by the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Venezuela. Other regional organizations such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States have proven unwilling or unable to bring about solutions, many times as a result of their support for the Venezuelan regime, which has molded their dialogue proposals into actions that have been interpreted by the Venezuelan opposition as lifelines for a dying regime.While the regional community has been actively denouncing human rights violations and attempting to pass resolutions in the context of the OAS, these actions have had little to no impact on the decisions of the Venezuelan government.The attempt by the Vatican to support a dialogue initiative by three former presidents within the institutional context of UNASUR also failed to yield any results in late 2016. The regional and international strategy toward Venezuela may need to shift from purely “name and shame” to one aimed at exerting pressure on international actors that support the continuation of the Venezuelan regime, in addition to creating new spaces for domestic dialogue through a mechanism like a group of friends and using quiet diplomacy to engage Venezuelan officials and facilitate a process of democratic transition.These diplomatic measures are particularly difficult tasks because of the existing political polarization and the reluctance of the Venezuelan government to accept any conditions to promote dialogue or a joint solution with the opposition. The fragility (or complete lack) of adequate institutional mechanisms to foster dialogue and compromise make it extremely difficult for any attempt to sort out the situation by identifying transitional forms of government that could lead to the reestablishment of governance or by identifying policies that can improve the situation for Venezuelan citizens. Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, observes the voting process at a polling station during a symbolic Venezuelan plebiscite on July 16, 2017, in Caracas. The opposition alliance’s unofficial plebiscite sought to challenge the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution. After Fox left the country, Maduro’s government said he was no longer welcome to visit in yet another sign that third parties that could help broker a solution to the crisis in Venezuela are mistrusted. (Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Third parties that could act as facilitators or honest brokers in the process are mistrusted by both sides. As a result, it seems that if there is no possibility of developing some sort of dialogue with the most rational sectors of the parties in conflict, inevitably, some sort of external intervention will be required to stop the escalation of violence and the eventual bloodshed of a civil war. The pending question is: Are the international community in general and the United Nations in particular—after the previous failed attempts—willing to assume or capable of assuming responsibility and addressing the growing domestic crisis in Venezuela and its regional impact? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Stanley Foundation