Featured Image: President of the Court, Judge Peter Tomka (centre) during the verdict on genocide claims brought up by Croatia against Serbia, at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, The Netherlands, 3 February 2015. Copyright: EPA The International Court of Justice has rejected claims of genocide by Serbia and Croatia against each other during the Croatian war of secession from Yugoslavia. The Croatian government had alleged that Serbia committed genocide in the town of Vukovar and elsewhere in 1991. Serbia later filed a counter-claim over the expulsion of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia. About 20,000 people died during the 1991-1995 war, mostly Croatians. The Croatian town of Vukovar was devastated when it was occupied by Serbs for three months in 1991. Tens of thousands of ethnic Croats were displaced, and about 260 Croat men were detained and killed. Four years later, the Croatian military’s Operation Storm bombarded the majority ethnic-Serb Krajina area, forcing about 200,000 people from their homes. Speaking in court on Tuesday, Judge Peter Tomka dismissed both the Croatian claim and the Serbian counter-claim. Forces on both sides had carried out violent acts during the war, Judge Tomka said. However, neither side had provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the “specific intent required for acts of genocide”. Croatia filed its initial case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the top UN court – in 1999, accusing Serbs, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, of targeting ethnic Croats during the conflict. It wanted Serbia to pay compensation for damages “to persons and properties as well as to the Croatian economy and environment”. In 2010, Serbia responded to Croatia’s case with a countersuit, saying that ethnics Serbs were expelled when Croatia launched its 1995 operation to retake territory captured by Serbs. The BBC’s Anna Holligan in The Hague says although genocide is the most serious of international crimes, it is also the hardest to prove. “What is generally called ethnic cleansing does not constitute genocide,” Judge Tomka said in his ruling against Serbia’s claim. “Acts of ethnic cleansing may be part of a genocidal plan but only if there is an intention to physically destroy the target group.” Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic earlier described the verdict as “one of perhaps the most important events for our bilateral relations with Croatia”. “It will probably be the end of a process that has lasted for 15-20 years [and] will put an end to both sides’ fight to prove who the worst criminal is,” he told reporters on Sunday. Croatian Justice Minister Orsat Miljenic previously said the government’s main goal was to “present what happened in the war and that was aggression against Croatia”. Relations between the two countries have improved in recent years but in 2012 Serbia was outraged when Operation Storm commander Ante Gotovina was cleared on appeal by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Last week, ahead of the verdict, Vukovar resident Kata Lozancic told Reuters news agency she believed genocide had taken place in her town. “Everything from cultural and natural sites, to people, everything was destroyed,” she said. A refugee in Serbia, identified only as Dragica, expressed unhappiness at the Croatian government’s claims. “They expelled us Serbs, and now they [claim they] are not criminals, and we are,” she told Reuters. Former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after World War Two. It consisted of six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The federation began falling apart in the early 1990s. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia declared independence, sparking conflicts with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. All four countries were eventually recognised as independent by the UN. In 2006, Montenegro also emerged as a sovereign state after a referendum for independence, ending the former Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main judicial body of the United Nations, today rejected claims made by Croatia and Serbia accusing each other of committing genocide during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, a decision that is “without appeal” and binding. It its judgment, the ICJ rejected (by 15 votes to 2) Croatia's claim and Serbia's counter-claim unanimously (by 17 votes to 0). The Court also rejected (by 11 votes to 6), the second jurisdictional objection raised by Serbia and to follow on that, found that its jurisdiction to entertain Croatia's claims extends prior to 27 April 1992. In the proceedings under review, Croatia contended that Serbia was responsible for breaches of the Genocide Convention committed in Croatia between 1991 and 1995. In its counter-claim, Serbia contended that Croatia was itself responsible for breaches of the Convention committed in 1995 in the “Republika Srpska Krajina.” On July 2, 1999, Croatia filed an application instituting proceedings against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in respect of a dispute concerning alleged violations of the Genocide Convention committed between 1991 and 1995. On 18 November 2008, the Court delivered a Judgment partially rejecting the preliminary objections raised by the respondent (which had then become Serbia). Serbia subsequently filed a counter-claim. The Hague-based ICJ in its examination first looked at Croatia's claim against Serbia and found that theactus reus (or: “material acts perpetrated”) of genocide has been established. But the Court also found that the intentional element of genocide was lacking. The absence of intent rejects Croatia's claim in its entirety. The Court then examined Serbia's counter-claim against Croatia and found that the actus reus of genocide was established. But again the intention element was lacking, therefore like Croatia's claim, the Court rejected Serbia's counter-claim in its entirety. According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide , genocide contains two constituent elements: the physical element or what the Court calls, actus reus, and the mental element. The “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such” is the essential characteristic of genocide, which it distinguishes from other crimes. It is regarded as a dolus specialis, meaning specific intent, which must be present to establish genocide. In its decision, the Court noted a raft of crimes committed during the time period in question, included widespread attacks against civilian populations and infrastructure, and reiterated its request to both parties to continue their cooperation with a view to settling as soon as possible the issue of the fate of missing persons. The ICJ also encouraged the parties to continue their cooperation with a view to offering appropriate reparation to the victims of such violations, thus consolidating peace and stability in the region. Established in 1945 under the UN Charter, the ICJ – widely referred to as the 'World Court' – settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory opinions on legal questions that have been referred to it by authorized UN organs or specialized agencies. ICJ Judgments are final and binding on the Parties involved in the legal disputes submitted to the Court.

2014 was another productive year for Genocide Watch. • Genocide Watch does not spend much money because it has had no paid employees, but what it does spend is absolutely necessary to carry on its work. Interns who do much of the work of Genocide Watch receive academic credit at their home universities. The President has never received a salary because he has earned his living as a university professor. All honoraria he receives for speaking and royalties for his publications go directly into the Genocide Watch budget. • In 2014 Genocide Watch interns designed and launched a new website, http://www.genocidewatch.net. It is the most widely read anti-genocide website on the internet, and is read daily by many policy makers because it is succinct and kept up to date daily. Our archive website, http://www.genocidewatch.org , is the most heavily consulted website on genocide on the internet, with over 55 million hits since 2000. • Genocide Watch maintains close relationships with key US and UN policy makers, including the Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning crisis situations such as those in Syria, Iraq, the Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Myanmar. • Genocide Watch has actively participated in US and global anti-genocide coalitions, including the Protection and Prevention Working Group, the Genocide Prevention Advisory Group, the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect, the International Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. • Genocide Watch has conducted classes on genocide prevention at the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department and at the Pentagon. • The President of Genocide Watch gave keynote addresses at the 20th anniversary commemorations of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda in Washington, DC and in Kigali, Rwanda, and has also spoken at many other conferences on genocide prevention. • Genocide Watch has drafted an Optional Protocol to the Genocide Convention that has been embraced by the Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide, who intends to work it through the UN system and get it ratified by States-Parties to the Genocide Convention to make it part of international law. The Special Advisor believes it will be the one of the most significant contributions to international law since the Genocide Convention itself. The Optional Protocol will revitalize the preventive aspects of the Convention by reasserting the roles of the UN General Assembly and Regional Organizations in preventing and stopping genocide. • Genocide Watch established an official affiliation with George Mason University. Genocide Watch’s university affiliation has strengthened its fund-raising credentials and organizational base. George Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) provides a home for Genocide Watch. It provides Genocide Watch with office space, communications connectivity, computer equipment, and space for meetings and conferences. S-CAR’s faculty includes twenty-six experts on conflict in all parts of the world. • Genocide Watch will continue to expand the International Alliance to End Genocide and to develop strong relationships with the Alliance’s fifty other members. The Alliance will remain loose, since each organization will develop its own programs and raise its own funds. The International Crisis Group is the largest member of the Alliance with over one hundred employees in more than thirty countries. Genocide Watch relies on its reports, making it unnecessary to send our own fact-finders into the field. Other members with which Genocide Watch works closely are the Aegis Trust, Survival International and the Minority Rights Group, located in the UK; and Act for Sudan in the US. • Prof. Stanton is writing a short basic textbook for secondary school students, The Ten Stages of Genocide. It is much needed in the many states that now require students to take a unit on genocide during their secondary school careers. There is currently no basic textbook for these courses. He plans to publish the textbook as both an e-book and as a printed text at low cost, so it can be adopted by school districts in the US, Canada, the UK, and other English speaking countries. The genocide prevention programs in both Cambodia and Rwanda have already promised to translate it into Khmer and into Kinyarwanda for use in their secondary schools. The translations will be published online free. • Genocide Watch has a Board of Advisors with most of the prominent genocide experts in the world. Prof. Stanton will remain Chair of the Board of Directors of Genocide Watch. Genocide Watch plans to strengthen its Board of Directors to make the Board a bipartisan, international working Board to govern Genocide Watch, assist Genocide Watch in making contacts with key governments that can take action to prevent genocide, and build the International Alliance to End Genocide’s program of genocide education around the world. Genocide Watch also plans to recruit a Board of Trustees to help Genocide Watch raise money and oversee Genocide Watch’s financial future. December 17, 2014 Respectfully submitted, Dr. Gregory Stanton Founding President Genocide Watch, Inc.

Refugees at the Kadei River, which marks the CAR’s border with Cameroon. © 2014 Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Human Rights Watch Aboubakar Goton, 40, used to be wealthy and influential. Just over a year ago, Goton, a Muslim, was the mayor of Bossemptélé, a trading center of 22,000 residents in the Central African Republic (CAR). He owned one of the town’s biggest shops and had a large herd of cattle, a traditional sign of wealth in the mostly rural country. Today, none of that remains. I met Goton in the sprawling Gado refugee camp in Cameroon, home to some 18,000 people. He showed me the tiny tent he shares with a fellow refugee he barely knows and the handful of belongings he still owns. He sleeps on a mat on the floor. Every day, he looks for work digging holes for tent frames for newly arrived refugees. He tries to get by on two meals a day, to save enough money to keep his kids in school nearby. Only the pride of his former status remains: As he walks through the camp, people come up to greet him as “Monsieur Le Maire,” or Mr. Mayor, occasionally joking that he’s lost a lot of weight since those glory days. A disaster has befallen the Muslim population of the CAR after horrific violence destroyed most of their communities in the western part of the country. The bloodshed was committed by animist and Christian anti-balaka militias, who rose up in fury against mostly Muslim Seleka rebels, a group that in March 2013 overthrew the government of President Francois Bozizé. The Seleka ruled viciously, indiscriminately killing civilians and burning down countless villages in an attempt to stamp out any opposition. Faced with mounting international outrage against their brutality, however, the Seleka retreated — and, in the case of top leadership, left the country — last January. Muslim civilians then faced the full wrath of the anti-balaka, whose fighters often wield machetes. In just a few months in early 2014, the anti-balaka forced most Muslims out of the western part of the country, including the capital, Bangui. (Some of the anti-balaka also turned on their own communities, attacking, looting, and even committing sexual violence in hopes of gaining power, money, and other resources.) In April and May, I traveled throughout western CAR to survey the aftermath of the devastation. In town after town, all the Muslims were gone. On several occasions, local residents led macabre tours of their villages, pointing out the human remains of their Muslim neighbors in destroyed neighborhoods. Some Muslims do remain, but only in only a few pockets of the west. And they are heavily guarded by international peacekeepers, because they are still at risk of anti-balaka attacks every time they leave their enclaves. (In the eastern part of the country, which is still under the control of the Seleka, many Muslims remain — but the conflict continues to creep in that direction.) Between December 2013 and October 2014, 187,000 people fled the CAR to seek shelter in neighboring Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). All told, some 850,000 people, or about 20 percent of the country’s population, have been displaced either internally or as refugees. Cameroon hosts the bulk of the refugees — more than 135,000, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). Those who have fled to Cameroon mostly arrive in desperate circumstances, suffering from malnutrition, disease, and untreated wounds. “They were in such a pitiful, dreadful condition when they began arriving, and they kept arriving in such great numbers,” a senior humanitarian official told me. “At first, we could do little more than try to save as many lives as possible, but it was a real struggle.” The refugee camps are in the most remote regions of Cameroon, many hours’ hard driving from the nearest towns. In October, on another trip, I drove through seemingly endless forests before suddenly finding myself amid white plastic tents stretching to the horizon. I was in one of a dozen or so large camps, the ethnic profiles of which provide perhaps the starkest evidence of just how sharply targeted the anti-balaka’s brutal campaign has been. The Muslim Peuhl, an ethnic minority who traditionally live as nomads, were estimated before the current conflict to number only 300,000 in the CAR, out of a total population of 4.5 million — or less than 10 percent. (The entire Muslim population comprised less than 15 percent of the total.) But in almost all of the refugee camps in Cameroon, they make up over 90 percent of the population. At the Timangolo camp, according to UNHCR, Peuhl make up 98 percent of a population of 6,200. At the Mbile camp, home to more than 9,500 refugees, 93 percent are Peuhl. Almost all others people in the camps are Muslim traders of Arab origin. At the Gbiti camp, I met 33-year-old Mamadou Bouba, a Peuhl cattle herder from Bossemptélé. His body bears the scars of his encounters with the anti-balaka: a deep gash across his skull and several more across his back. His thumb was slashed off as he tried to protect himself from machete blows, he said. He told me he fled Bossemptélé with his 50 cows in January in a group of about 100 people, after the anti-balaka first attacked the town and killed about 80 of his neighbors. During their flight through the bush, the group was repeatedly attacked, but most of them managed to make it to the Kadei River, which marks the CAR’s border with Cameroon. It was at the river crossing, however, that they found themselves surrounded in a final ambush. They were forced to hand over all of their belongings as well as the rudimentary knives and bows and arrows they had used to defend themselves. As Bouba sat disarmed, a group of 10 anti-balaka fighters began attacking him with their machetes, he recalled, leaving him bloody and badly injured on the ground. The attackers left, abducting his wife and children and taking his cattle. He spent two weeks alone, trying to recover from his wounds and regain the strength to walk on, before other fleeing Muslims found him. He was ultimately reunited with his family, who managed to escape their captors. When asked if he could ever imagine returning home, Bouba shuddered and then chuckled quietly at the bizarre suggestion. “Never,” he responded. “I can’t even think about returning. I’ve escaped from that nightmare. I will not return to it.” The Kadei River is just a few hundred meters from where I met Bouba. As we approached it one day, refugees pointed to a man in a red T-shirt across the water, and we noted the homemade shotgun slung across his shoulder. A few moments later, his commander, whom the refugees identified, came to take a look at the foreigners across the river. The two sides stood watching each other — refugees on one side, anti-balaka on the other. “I was born among the cows, and the cows represented everything in my life,” Al-Hadji Abakar Abdullai Druj, a Peuhl elder from the village of Boboua in southwestern CAR, told me after we rediscovered each other in the Gado refugee camp in Cameroon. A few months earlier, in May, I had met Abakar among some 500 Peuhl trapped on a hilltop in the CAR town of Yaloké, where they had sought safety after a hellish three months fleeing the anti-balaka. Indeed, I knew why they were there: I had visited Boboua in April, just days after the anti-balaka slaughtered the village’s Muslim mayor, his son, and another elder in front of the population. Muslims and Christians in Boboua had wanted to live together, but the event shattered their coexistence. A group, including Abakar, left the village with at least 7,000 head of cattle; after repeated ambushes by militia fighters, none were left. In Yaloké, they came under the “protection” of African peacekeepers. Abakar and his fellow Peuhl had told me in no uncertain terms that they did not want to remain stuck on a hilltop, unable to move outside the camp. But the peacekeepers refused to allow them to board commercial trucks heading to Cameroon. In front of me, in fact, the commander of the troops told the Peuhl that he would shoot them if they tried to board the vehicles, pointing his finger at them and making a popping sound to make sure they understood. For the interim government of the CAR and its international supporters, the plight of Muslims remaining in the country presents a quandary. Many Muslims want to flee, but government authorities are equally desperate to prevent them from doing so, lest the anti-balaka achieve their odious goal of a country cleansed of Muslims. In fact, when U.N. humanitarian agencies, together with a French military intervention force and African peacekeepers, finally agreed in April to evacuate the besieged Muslim community of PK12, a district in Bangui, following heavy international pressure, interim officials were enraged; they said the evacuation had not been approved. They insisted — and still insist — that there should be no further evacuations. Abakar eventually found his way to Cameroon. When I asked him how he had managed to escape, he shook his head in disgust. “Those African troops, they demanded money for us to get on the trucks. The first time, I gave them all I had, and they promised to let me go, but when the trucks were leaving the next morning, they told me to get back to the camp,” he said. “I had to borrow money to bribe them again, but so many [other Peuhl] remain.” Abakar’s scars include one across his face, a deep slash from a machete, delivered at the outskirts of Yaloké, when the anti-balaka took the last cattle he had managed to save. “All my life, I was taught that our cattle represented our wealth, and our safety,” he said wearily. “Whenever we had any problem or need, we would sell a cow or two, and they gave us milk and meat. Our lives were calm; we lived out in the bush looking after our cows. There were no complications.” His eyes teared up as he continued: “But then, when we came to be attacked, I learned it was a lot more difficult to run away with a herd of cattle than with your money in your pocket. I was a wealthy man, but my mistake was to put all my faith in my cattle.” The reason why the anti-balaka have focused their violence on Muslims, and particularly the Peuhl, resides partly in the brutality with which the Seleka ruled the CAR: burning villages to the ground, perpetrating massacres, forcing people to flee. This unleashed furious backlash against Muslim communities when the Seleka movement collapsed and its fighters began to retreat. But the roots of the conflict lie deeper still. The Peuhl are a very distinct and insular minority, set apart by their distinctive features, dress, language, and nomadic lifestyle. Other communities in the CAR see them as “foreigners” who do not belong. It is not uncommon to hear Christian and other communities in the CAR say that “the Muslims should just go back home.” This deep-seated discrimination, together with endemic corruption and an underrepresentation of Muslims in the government, contributed to the grievances that led to the Seleka rebellion in the first place. Additionally, the Peuhl’s nomadic lifestyle puts them at odds with the more sedentary farming communities that dominate the CAR. For generations, Peuhl nomads have migrated through countries such as Chad, Sudan, Cameroon, and the CAR searching for space where their cattle can graze; today, many are relatively settled, living in cattle camps and moving more locally. But the combined effects of population increase, land scarcity, and desertification have brought them further south and into ever-greater conflict with farmers, and authorities have been unable to adequately monitor and police the Peuhl’s movements. The migrating cattle damage crops and tensions quickly rise, aggravated in more recent times by the availability of automatic weapons — which are used by both sides. Indeed, guns have made conflicts between the Peuhl and sedentary communities much more deadly. Sometimes Peuhl men have been the aggressors, leading to counterattacks by farmers. Peuhl from Chad, known as the Ouda or Mbarara, who often are heavily armed and have hostile relationships with local communities, are particularly feared and reviled by some farmers. As an anti-balaka leader in southwestern CAR told me, “The Peuhl never forget. If they get attacked by us on the way down [in their migration], they will come on their return and burn the village.” Some armed Peuhl have joined the remaining Seleka fighters in attacking villages, seeking revenge for violence committed against Peuhl camps. It is a dispiriting and seemingly endless cycle of tit-for-tat killings born out of the government’s failures to better regulate the Peuhl’s migration and also resolve tensions with farmers well before the current conflict. Strife between nomadic cattle herders and sedentary communities is not unique to the CAR, but other countries in the region, such as Chad, have taken measures to regulate the movement of nomads in order to mitigate violence. With the support of the international community, other governments have secured cattle migration paths, enforced a pastoral code of conduct, protected fields, and mediated conflicts to allow communities to coexist. Similar efforts are essential to halting the CAR’s violence, in which civilians — Peuhl and non-Peuhl alike — make up the vast majority of victims. Although their persecution by the anti-balaka has been particularly severe, the Peuhl are not the only Muslims that militias have targeted. The CAR is also home to a significant Muslim population whose primary language is Arabic and who specialize in commerce. Some belong to Arab tribes indigenous to the country, like the Gula, an ethnicity particularly identified with Seleka leadership, while others descend from migrants who came from Chad, Mali, Sudan, and other African countries. Many Muslim Arab businessmen were extorted by Seleka to provide financial support for fighters, while others welcomed and supported Seleka as fellow Muslims. The wealth of the Muslim Arabs as traders, as well as their relative control over the CAR’s lucrative gold and diamond trade — much of it illegal — caused resentment in desperately poor communities. Muslims were criticized for the dangerous working conditions and low wages in mines. When anti-balaka violence began in earnest, their wealth and association with the Seleka made them immediate targets. The crisis in the CAR is quickly falling off the international agenda, as the world’s attention turns to the tensions in Ukraine, the brutality of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the devastating Ebola crisis in West Africa. The country briefly grabbed international attention when Muslims were being lynched in Bangui in early 2014, but there appears to be little appetite at a global level to address the fundamental causes of the conflict, or to deal with the consequences. This even following the decision to deploy a 12,000-member U.N. peacekeeping mission. For Peuhl refugees, the future looks discouraging. They have lost their livelihoods, and the prospects of returning to their traditional lifestyle are bleak, as their vast and irreplaceable cattle herds have been slaughtered. Their prospects of simply crossing back into the CAR are no better: In most of the western part of the country, vast areas remain no-go zones for Muslims, given the still-strong presence of the anti-balaka. Indeed, the day when U.N. peacekeepers will re-establish security seems very far away. Humanitarian groups, underfunded and overstretched, are doing a commendable job trying to make the refugees’ lives as dignified and comfortable as possible. Camps are laid out and organized carefully in an effort to ensure security; endeavoring to prevent gender-based violence, for instance, requires safe sanitation facilities, safe spaces for women and children, and the incorporation of female representatives into camp management decisions. But the challenges left untackled are immense. The vast majority of Peuhl are illiterate and uneducated, so trying to put their children — many of them teenagers — into school for the first time is a difficult process. There are deep concerns among humanitarian groups that child marriage rates, already an endemic problem in the CAR, will explode in the camps. Humanitarian aid providers also face the difficult job of ensuring co-existence between refugees and the already-deprived communities that host them, to prevent conflicts over a host of basic resources. Most importantly, though, there remains a pressing need to create conditions that will enable the refugees to return home safely and voluntarily. For that to happen, violence in the CAR must be brought under control. The U.N. peacekeeping mission, supported by French and European Union forces, will need to act forcefully to protect civilians, standing their ground when the Seleka or anti-balaka threaten civilians. They face a difficult task, with almost no local security forces with which to work. Former soldiers of the national army and local gendarmes have left their posts; many have joined the anti-balaka, whose top leadership is almost completely made up of former army and police commanders. But reorganizing and rearming the army is considered too risky a solution at the moment. Many Seleka soldiers want to join a newly constituted army, but their own horrific record of abuse and the hostility they are likely to face from the population means that integrating them will be difficult. Any effort to establish a new security force in the country, essential as it is, would require vetting and excluding people who have committed crimes. In a similar vein, a return to normality in CAR requires justice both for the crimes committed over the last two years and for historical crimes. For decades, corruption and human rights abuses have marred the country. In 2004, the government referred the situation surrounding a 2002 coup to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Today, the ICC is trying the former vice president of neighboring Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose troops were called in 2002 to assist the then-president of the CAR and who committed grave crimes, including widespread sexual violence, against civilians. Aside from this ongoing prosecution, however, there has been complete impunity for those responsible for wrongs committed in the CAR over more than a decade. CAR Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza referred the current conflict to the ICC in May, which was followed by the ICC prosecutor’s announcement in September that her office will open an investigation in the country for grave crimes committed since August 2012. This is one of the best hopes for victims of the conflict, but given the limited capacity of the ICC — which has active cases from seven other countries, can only handle so many cases at a time, and has recently struggled with pressure and criticism surrounding its handling of 2007 violence in Kenya — it cannot be the only answer. National prosecutions will be essential. The national justice system needs to be restarted and strengthened with international experts to try war crimes and crimes against humanity — which requires a long-term commitment. The interim government, along with international partners, should take the necessary steps to ensure that the justice system can investigate crimes committed by all parties in an impartial, effective, independent, and secure manner. This will have the secondary effect of rebuilding trust in the rule of law and national institutions, which the people of the CAR lost. Realistically, it will take years to heal the scars of the brutal violence the people of the CAR have suffered over the last 18 months, and to bring about a semblance of stability that will allow for the safe return of refugees. In the meantime, in Cameroon, refugees are still coming to grips with the horrific violence they have survived in the past year. Many are still in disbelief that they made it out alive. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Foreign Policy

Uganda’s government programme for the social and economic reintegration of some 27,000 amnesty-granted former armed rebels has stalled, leaving thousands with few options to earn a living. After ex-Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighter Bosko Akena was captured by Ugandan troops in the Central African Republic last December, he was demobilized. He received an amnesty certificate and a reinsertion package of 263,000 shillings ($120), along with a mattress, blanket, hoe, basin, jerrycan, cups, plates and five kilograms of maize and bean seeds. But almost a year on, his package is proving insufficient to sustain a living. He resides in a slum on the outskirts of Gulu town, doing odd jobs. “We are struggling to fend for ourselves and families with no proper means. We were just reinserted into the community without any basic trainings and funds to start income-generating activities,” Akena told IJT. According to figures recently announced by Uganda’s Amnesty Commission, which runs the official reintegration programme, just 7,170 out of 26,932 ex-combatants from 29 armed groups and tribal attackers who renounced their former alliances have been reintegrated in their communities. The programme, launched in July 2009, has helped some ex-combatants and victims in learning skills like carpentry, bricklaying, motor vehicle and bicycle repair, hairdressing, tailoring, metalwork, planting trees and entrepreneurship, as well as providing them psychosocial and financial support and seeds and seedlings. “A lot of the ex-combatants are very frustrated with their reintegration process,” says Stephen Oola, a transitional justice and governance expert at Makerere University’s Refugee Law Project, because they’ve missed out. “Many have simply been reinserted into the poor communities without alternative livelihoods or skills sets. Psychologically, their minds are still at war and many continue to suffer various forms of PTSD,” he told IJT. Underfunding The Amnesty Commission cites underfunding. “We are constrained. One of the bottlenecks to the reintegration programme is lack of financial resources,” Moses Draku, the commission’s principal public relations officer, told IJT. He dismissed the 1.8 billion shillings that the Ugandan finance minister allocated to the commission in her 2013-2014 national budget as “a drop in the ocean”. According to Draku, “The commission needs about 16 billion shillings to effectively reintegrate the remaining [ex-combatants].” In an interview with IJT, Uganda’s minister in charge of political mobilization, Richard Twodong, said: “The government is aware of the challenges faced by ex-combatants and trying to address them. However, we are currently constrained with the limited resources.” Still, critics charge that not enough is being done. “These people [ex-combatants have been neglected, abandoned and marginalized. The government hasn’t provided them with livelihood programmes to cope up after the bush life,” said MP Lilly Adong. She thinks current policies focus on state authority and reconstruction, but “emphasis should be put on social economic transformation, empowerment, peace-building and reconciliation, so that these people can’t easily think of re-offending and going back to commit rebellion”. Over half the programme’s beneficiaries are from the LRA, the rebel group led by Joseph Kony, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and still at large. But the former rebels’ presence in Acholi sub-region, the epicentre of the two-decade insurgency, is increasingly seen as impeding local recovery and sustainable peace-building and heightening insecurity. Police report of individuals turning to crime to make ends meet. “Some of the former combatants are involved in criminal activities, land wrangles and violence in the region,” said Jimmy Patrick Okema of the Acholi regional police. Problem runs deeper Makerere University’s Oola believes the problem runs deeper. “A combination of factors accounts for the failure of the reintegration in northern Uganda: the failure of the Juba peace process to completely end the LRA rebellion, lack of sufficient resources, improper planning, mistrust of the government by the combatants and uncoordinated strategies,” he said. Kampala human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo is sceptical. “From the very start, the government of Uganda viewed amnesty as an end in itself,” he said. “The government has never been committed to full reintegration of former combatants. It has focused more on reintegrating the displaced communities over and above ex-combatants.” Meanwhile, Akena, the ex-LRA soldier living in a Gulu slum, said that since surrendering, he feels stigmatized. “The community members use rude language and call us all sorts of names. They still see us as rebels, killers, looters and abductors who tortured and tormented them.” https://www.justicetribune.com/articles/ugandas-ex-combatants-struggle-reintegrate (c) 2018 International Justice Tribune

Both government forces and Maoist combatants raped and sexually harassed women and girls during Nepal’s decade-long armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a report published today. The 78-page report, “Silenced and Forgotten: Survivors of Nepal’s Conflict-Era Sexual Violence,” documents sexual violence by both government forces and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) combatants during the conflict, which ended with a peace agreement in 2006. Many of these crimes remain unreported, with survivors isolated and unable to find ways to access justice and redress. The Nepali government should take immediate measures to encourage women to report these crimes and seek justice, and develop a reparation program to address critical needs of survivors of sexual violence and torture, including long term health care and livelihood support. “For more than 10 years already, these women have suffered in silence and fear while the perpetrators have walked free,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “Justice and reparations for women who suffered sexual assault is long overdue unfinished business from the civil war.” Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 50 women with the assistance of Advocacy Forum, a Nepali nongovernmental organization, to document experiences of sexual assault during the conflict between 1996 and 2006. The women described the tense situation at that time, when civilians were caught between Maoists who demanded support, including food and shelter, and government forces that punished Nepalis who provided such assistance. Some of the women described how members of the security forces raped female combatants after arrest and targeted female relatives or supporters of Maoist suspects. Other women said Maoist combatants raped women who refused to support them or women they forcibly recruited to help their insurgency. Some of the women were still children, under age 18, when they were sexually assaulted. The report says that a combination of immense social stigma attached to sexual assault and fear of retaliation prevented many women from reporting these crimes during the conflict, and that it still inhibits many others from speaking of the assaults. There is a glaring need for psycho-social and medical support for these women. “It’s hard to describe how helpless I felt,” said one of the women. “No amount of crying or screaming or begging helped. Everything they did was against my will.” The victims interviewed live in isolated villages where there is often no government presence, let alone adequate access to health care and other services. Though the war is over, many victims feel deep insecurity, and their fear further impedes their ability to report and receive redress for what happened to them. Many of the women described domestic violence as a result of the conflict-era rapes. Although the government and political parties have made public commitments to provide justice and accountability for the many victims of the conflict, no provisions have been made for victims of sexual violence. The government has not included them in an interim compensation program to provide for family members of those killed or disappeared during the war. The government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act specifically says that those responsible for sexual violence are not eligible for amnesty. But the authorities are yet to ensure meaningful investigations and prosecutions of perpetrators or an effective reparations program for the victims. “If the government is serious about addressing conflict-era sexual violence and its fallout, it needs to include survivors of sexual violence as part of its compensation package,” Ganguly said. “The complete silence on providing interim relief, combined with the rampant culture of impunity, drives these victims further into invisibility.” In addition, Nepal’s 35-day statute of limitations on reporting sexual violence is an unacceptable and illogical additional hurdle to reporting rape. Several victims said they were told that they could not lodge complaints with the police as they were barred by the statute of limitations. The Nepali government should ensure that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or any other independent commission has a mandate to investigate allegations of conflict-related rape and other forms of sexual violence. The government should develop, in consultation with local women’s rights groups and women from conflict-affected communities, a reparations program that meets international standards. The government should also make legislative, policy, and programmatic changes as part of the larger framework to remove barriers and address gaps that prevented conflict-era rape survivors from seeking justice. The government should also guarantee women a role in the peace process, including in any truth commissions, and ensure that the commissions comply with international standards. “Sexual violence is a particularly difficult crime for victims to report, due to the stigma associated with it,” Ganguly said. “The government of Nepal needs to remove the hurdles it places along the way for victims, and make the system for reporting sexual assault both feasible and accessible.” Selected statements from survivors of sexual assault (pseudonyms used to protect victims against possible retaliation): “They kicked me as if I was a football from here to there. When the first person raped me, I was conscious. But there were four or five people inside the shed, and I don’t know how many others raped me.” – Madhavi was raped by soldiers in 2004 because her husband supported the Maoists. “I had long hair and they grabbed me and dragged me around. Then they threw me on the ground and kicked me. I saw that my earring was stuck on the boot of one of the men when he kicked me in the head…. They started tearing off my clothes, even my inner garments.” – Nandita, who was raped in 2001 because her husband was a Maoist combatant. “I don’t know if any of these men were ever punished. There was no commander as such of the group of Maoists who held me captive…. It’s hard to describe how helpless I felt. No amount of crying or screaming or begging helped. Everything they did was against my will.” – Meena was abducted and raped by Maoists in 2004 for refusing to join their programs. “It was during the Emergency. There was so much fear. We did not dare say anything to anyone, police, doctors, no one. I just took care of her. She was in a terrible state, sometimes angry, sometimes weeping. For two months, I looked after her. Her body was full of bruises. She was very weak. I took her to hospital, and they gave her three bottles of glucose. But we did not say anything about the rape.” – Husband of Bipasha, who was gang-raped by security forces in 2002. “Sometimes when he (her husband) gets very angry he brings it up and says I am a loose woman and I should get out of the house. His behavior towards me changed after this happened. We were happy before this. But after this everything changed. I feel worthless.” – Santoshi, who was raped by Maoists in 2006. Copyright 2014, Arantxa Cedillo for Human Rights Watch.

A hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-ization of resistance. It will be easy to twist what I’m about to say into an indictment of all NGOs. That would be a falsehood. In the murky waters of fake NGOs set up or to siphon off grant money or as tax dodges (in states like Bihar, they are given as dowry), of course, there are NGOs doing valuable work. But it’s important to consider the NGO phenomenon in a broader political context. In India, for instance, the funded NGO boom began in the late 1980s and 1990s. It coincided with the opening of India’s markets to neoliberalism. At the time, the Indian state, in keeping with the requirements of structural adjustment, was withdrawing funding from rural development, agriculture, energy, transport and public health. As the state abdicated its traditional role, NGOs moved in to work in these very areas. The difference, of course, is that the funds available to them are a minuscule fraction of the actual cut in public spending. Most large-funded NGOs are financed and patronized by aid and development agencies, which are, in turn, funded by Western governments, the World Bank, the UN and some multinational corporations. Though they may not be the very same agencies, they are certainly part of the same loose, political formation that oversees the neoliberal project and demands the slash in government spending in the first place. Why should these agencies fund NGOs? Could it be just old-fashioned missionary zeal? Guilt? It’s a little more than that. NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but in a materially inconsequential way. Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between the sarkar and public. Between Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators. In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among. They’re what botanists would call an indicator species. It’s almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs. Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the U.S. preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation. In order make sure their funding is not jeopardized and that the governments of the countries they work in will allow them to function, NGOs have to present their work in a shallow framework, more or less shorn of a political or historical context. At any rate, an inconvenient historical or political context. Apolitical (and therefore, actually, extremely political) distress reports from poor countries and war zones eventually make the (dark) people of those (dark) countries seem like pathological victims. Another malnourished Indian, another starving Ethiopian, another Afghan refugee camp, another maimed Sudanese…in need of the white man’s help. They unwittingly reinforce racist stereotypes and reaffirm the achievements, the comforts and the compassion (the tough love) of Western civilization. They’re the secular missionaries of the modern world. Eventually–on a smaller scale, but more insidiously–the capital available to NGOs plays the same role in alternative politics as the speculative capital that flows in and out of the economies of poor countries. It begins to dictate the agenda. It turns confrontation into negotiation. It depoliticizes resistance. It interferes with local peoples’ movements that have traditionally been self-reliant. NGOs have funds that can employ local people who might otherwise be activists in resistance movements, but now can feel they are doing some immediate, creative good (and earning a living while they’re at it). Real political resistance offers no such short cuts. The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Toward Freedom

Many news outlets, including the New York Times, are reporting that — since Israel launched its military operation against Hamas on June 8 — there have been alarming spikes in incidents of anti-Semitism across Europe. This is true. But there’s an even scarier truth: Europe has had a growing anti-Semitism problem for years now. There’s good reason to be worried about all this. Europe has a rich history of fascism and Nazism, and of mass murdering Jews. The governments in Germany, France, and Italy were all so collectively freaked out about recent upticks in vitriol directed at Jews that they issued a joint statement on July 22: “Anti-Semitic rhetoric and hostility against Jews, attacks on people of Jewish belief and synagogues have no place in our societies,” they said, in glorious unison. In the United Kingdom alone, there were 130 anti-Semitic incidents in the month of July. That was the highest monthly total since February 2009. It’s hard to imagine that’s a coincidence. And most European countries have had at least one or two isolated anti-Semitic incidents since the start of the Gaza conflict. Many of them were connected to pro-Palestinian protests, which would suggest that the acts were direct responses to the conflict itself. During protests in France and Germany, for example, fringe extremists have attacked Jews, synagogues, and Jewish-owned businesses. Elsewhere around the world, protests against Israel’s operation in Gaza have turned ugly, with anti-Semitic signs, chants, and incidents of harassment, suggesting that people really are converting their anger about Gaza into anti-Semitic behavior. Some of the more isolated anti-Semitic incidents were obvious responses to the current conflict. On July 30, for example, a doctor in Antwerp, Belgium rejected a Jewish patient, telling the woman’s son, “send her to Gaza a few hours, then she’ll get rid of her pain.” Others are more subtle but are still hard to view outside the context of the conflict. On July 18, someone threw a brick through a synagogue window in Belfast, Northern Ireland. On July 31, someone vandalized the main synagogue in Malmo, Sweden and then, on Aug. 2, assailants yelling “fucking Jews” attacked a rabbi, again in Malmo. On July 26, vandals graffitied walls in Rome’s historic Jewish quarter with anti-Semitic messages, including swastikas and the phrase “Anne Frank Storyteller,” which we can assume is a very thinly veiled claim that the Holocaust never happened. The Anti-Defamation League maintains a list of these incidents, and most of the countries it tracks have made the ADL’s list at least once since July 8. So it’s clear the conflict is having an effect. But these are only the latest incidents in a long-developing trend. Europe has had a growing anti-Semitism problem for years now. It’s just clearer to see these days under the bright media lights of the Gaza conflict. In 2013, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights published a troubling report about the prevalence of anti-Semitism in eight EU nations: Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. After interviewing nearly 6,000 self-identified European Jews, the FRA found that 66 percent considered anti-Semitism to be either a “very big problem” or a “fairly big problem” in Europe. France got the worst marks. Fifty-two percent of respondents said it was a “very big problem” and 33 percent a “fairly big problem.” Do the math and you’ve got 85 percent of French Jews considering anti-Semitism a problem in their country. Perhaps even more troubling: 76 percent of all European respondents thought the problem had worsened in the past five years. And if you return to the ADL’s incident reports, and look back farther than July 8, you’ll find plenty to be concerned about. France has had several incidents since the start of the conflict, but there were also multiple incidents in the months leading up to it. Anti-Semitism has been a growing issue in most of the countries monitored by the ADL. On March 10, someone in Stockholm vandalized a high school where Jewish students were taking classes. They painted a swastika as well as the phrases “Jewish swine” and “disgusting Jews.” In Italy, on Jan. 25, you’ll find a seemingly coordinated series of anti-Semitic acts in Rome. Someone mailed pigs’ heads to Rome’s main synagogue, the Jewish museum, and the Israeli Embassy. Elsewhere in Rome, someone painted anti-Semitic graffiti, including — again — swastikas and the phrase “Hanna [sic] Frank is a big liar.” Experts give a range of explanations for the increase in anti-Jewish rhetoric, vandalism and attacks. They range from changing patterns of immigration (more immigrants coming from countries and regions with histories of virulent anti-Semitism), to the return of extreme right-wing political parties, to the ongoing, socially destabilizing recession that has stoked all sorts of toxic ideologies and xenophobia, including anti-Semitism. For now, one thing is certain: Europe has an anti-Semitism problem. Copyright 2014 Global Post

Late last week, Uganda’s constitutional court struck down the country’s anti-homosexuality act, a law that mandates severe sentences—including, in some cases, life imprisonment—for homosexual behavior. On Friday, at the court house in Kampala, a swell of press and lawyers and activists from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania awaited the judgment. Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor and prominent supporter of the law, prayed out loud in the courtroom, quoting Bible verses as he denounced homosexuality. Frank Mugisha, a gay-rights activist whom I wrote about for the magazine, in 2012, was optimistic; to him, the case against the law seemed clear cut. When the decision was read, Mugisha and his allies celebrated inside the courtroom. Outside they were met with insults and death threats. Anti-gay demonstrators with large placards yelled that the fight wasn’t over. The protestors were right. In Uganda, justice for the L.G.B.T. population has been rare, with small victories (such as a 2010 court injunction to force a tabloid to stop outing gays, and the country’s first gay-pride parade, two years later) often followed by harsh repression (the murder of an activist in 2011, and the jailing and blackmail of others). The anti-homosexuality bill was first proposed to parliament in 2009, and its provisions were fiercely debated in Uganda and abroad. By 2013, fervor for the bill seemed to have died down, and many gay activists returned to their work defending L.G.B.T. Ugandans from discrimination and police harassment. In December, however, the legislation was taken up again by parliament, and it quickly passed. Activists were stunned by the speed of the bill’s passage; at the time, Mugisha told me that he was afraid for his friends, who were panicking. The anti-homosexuality act was signed into law in February by Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, over the objections of Ugandan civil-society organizations, international human-rights groups, and foreign governments, including the United States. Mugisha and other activists filed suit against the law immediately, arguing, among other things, that the act was discriminatory, that it was overly broad and ambiguous, and that it placed undue restrictions on the rights of free association and expression. In Friday’s judgment, the constitutional court overturned the law on the grounds that there was not a quorum in Parliament at the time of the vote, a ruling that leaves open the possibility that another version of the bill could again pass into law. The court’s decision reminded me of Devine, a flamboyant, self-assured general manager for a local company, whom I met two years ago. We had a drink one evening in downtown Kampala, at a neon-lit lounge staffed by a waiter who Devine gleefully told me liked to hit on him. “In Uganda, in Africa, if you’re gay, every day you have to watch out,” Devine told me. “You can’t be comfortable putting on your high heels and dancing at a club. At one point, you’re like, I wish wasn’t gay, but there’s nothing you can do.” Devine, who was twenty-six at the time, lived with his family in Mukono, a nearby town where the crime rate was one of the highest in central Uganda. He wore cologne and sleek spectacles, and teasingly showed off what he called his “flash,” a shiny watch and bracelet. Growing up in a Christian family, he said, he was expected to settle down, get married, have kids. His father had recently told him that, if he would just bring home a girl, it could prove he was a real man. Devine, for his part, told his relatives that his boyfriend was only a friend, and they had all pretended to believe it. For Devine, that was enough. “The word ‘gay’ wasn’t even mentioned five years back. Now people acknowledge that we are here. It has gotten better these days,” Devine said. He explained to some of his friends that he was gay, and, after their initial surprise, they accepted it. He and his friends could now go to Mulago, a public hospital, to get free H.I.V. testing and counselling. When he went to a clinic with a transgender friend, the doctor recorded the friend’s gender as male, even though he is biologically female. “That’s how far we’ve come,” Devine told me. At the same time, he said, “You wonder who’s watching you, and you have to pretend you’re not gay.” Despite all the progress, he was still worried about being followed, about motorcycle-taxi drivers hurling slurs at him, and about the prospect of hostility from someone he happened to gaze at. Those problems undoubtedly continue to exist; homophobia is prevalent in Uganda, and certain statutes passed during the British colonial period still criminalize homosexuality. But perhaps Devine feels a bit freer than he did last Thursday. Over the weekend, Nicholas Opiyo, one of the lead lawyers in the suit against the anti-homosexuality act, told me that the court’s ruling was a “missed opportunity to resolve this issue” definitively. “What this has done is postpone the debate to another day,” he said. Nevertheless, he insisted that Friday’s ruling was important. Civil-society organizations that had been raided or suspended by the police for “promoting homosexuality,” an offense under the law, can now resume their programs. Lawmakers, including Museveni, will have a chance to reconsider their views, though it is still unclear whether the President has had a change of heart. Opiyo said that the most important effect of Friday’s ruling was that “the many people who were arrested or who were being investigated by police on charges under this law have now gained their freedom. The very basis for which they were being charged is now unlawful.” Copyright 2014 The New Yorker

Ironically, the same Ugandan police forces expressing willingness to help male victims of rape overcome stigma have been accused as perpetrators of assault against LGBT Ugandans. Men of Hope Refugee Association in Uganda (MOHRAU) is a program of Makerere University Law School’s Refugee Law Project that helps men and boys who have been victims of sexual violence to cope and move forward with their lives. But, a report released by project organizers earlier this year says the program’s effectiveness is threatened by Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which was signed into law earlier this year by President Yoweri Museveni. “The Anti-Homosexuality [Act has] posed a threat to the members of the group who have proposed suspending community activities for fear of being viewed and labeled as homosexuals,” the report’s authors write. “The…AHA [has] not only reinforced homophobia but also heightened xenophobia.” The report, titled “Male Survivors of Sexual Violence in Kampala Demand for Better Services,” notes the program has flourished since its inception in 2011 by creating and fostering self-help projects for group members, most of whom are refugees from other countries and not necessarily gay, bi or transgender. Among the programs created under the MOHRAU umbrella are dozens of community-awareness efforts, “sensitization” campaigns, advocacy groups, projects aimed at documenting acts of sexual violence against refugee men and boys, and survivor-led discussion groups. There have even been efforts to educate and enlist police officers to help male refugee victims inside Uganda survive and overcome the stigma of rape. “Survivors called upon the inspector general of police to [affect] the operation of the special unit to handle cases of domestic violence against men and boys,” according to the report. Noting that if Uganda’s inspector general of police does indeed follow through on a promise to establish a special unit for cases of sexual and domestic violence against men and boys, it would be the first time any African nation has created such a program for male victims of rape. MOHRAU’s work with Uganda’s police community stands in drastic contrast to reports of human rights groups in Kenya, which claim that hundreds of Ugandan LGBTs have escaped torment, torture and violence committed sometimes, they say, by Ugandan police officers emboldened and incited by Uganda’s brutal antigay law. That law includes penalties of up to life in prison for “aggravated homosexuality” as well as sentences of up to seven years in prison for landlords who fail to evict LGBT tenants and for family members who don’t turn them in.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Tomás Ojéa Quintana has said “There are elements of genocide in Rakhine with respect to Rohingya.” Speaking at the London Conference on Decades of State-Sponsored Destruction of Myanmar’s Rohingya, Ojéa added “It is crimes against humanity. The possibility of a genocide needs to be discussed. This conference is very important as it does just that.” The conference marked the first time top legal experts, academics and activists have met at the London School Of Economics And Political Science (LSE) and initiated the public debate on whether the persecution of the Rohingya by Myanmar should be considered genocide under international law. Other speakers included Professor Daniel Feierstein, President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; and Professor Gianni Tognoni, General Secretary, Permanent People’s Tribunal, Rome. International legal experts presented definitions of genocide, mechanisms and models for justice. Leading human rights researchers and academics as well as Rohingya refugees offered evidence of decades of systematic persecution of Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar. Dr Zarni, chair of the conference and visiting fellow at the LSE, made a case for what he called “the slow burning genocide” of Myanmar’s Rohingya since 1978 based on three years of extensive archival research and interviews with military officers and Rohingya victims. The conference concluded with a call for the immediate end to Myanmar’s persecution of Rohingya, which it says amounts to genocide. The message is supported by dozens of concerned individuals and organisations including: Prudentienne Seward, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide against Tutsis and Founder of PAX (Peace for the African Great Lakes), Professor Noam Chomsky of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University Professor Gayatria Chakravoty Spivak, Oxford University Professor Emeritus and founder of Refugee Studies Barbara Harrell-Bond, London School of Economics Professor Mary Kaldor and Executive Director Youk Chhang of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. The call notes, “Every aspect of their (Rohingya) lives, including marriage, childbirth and ability to work, is severely restricted. Their right to identity and citizenship is officially denied; in other words, they are not recognized as humans before the law… Rohingya are profoundly vulnerable to all forms of oppression and atrocities.” It points out that alone of all the country’s more than 130 ethnic groups, only Rohingya are subjected to a policy of forced population control. By denying the Rohingya legal existence, designing extensive structures of discrimination and depriving a large segment of Rohingya population even basic humanitarian services such as provision of water, food and medicine the Myanmar government and people are destroying an entire people. “Our people have been subject to a national policy of discrimination, persecution and eventual destruction at the hands of security forces and local extremists for the past nearly 40 years. I appeal to the world not to let another Rwanda repeat for Rohingya,” said Tun Khin, President of BROUK, which sponsors legislation at the US Congress calling for the end to persecution of Rohingya. “The United Nations has taken 20 years to apologise for its failure to recognise and prevent the Rwandan genocide; the international community should not repeat the same mistake in Myanmar,” said Prudentienne Seward. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2014 Burma Partnership

"Interreligious dialogue would be the best solution to solve the Rohingya issue . Serious dialogue among religious leaders would have more weight than any political decision", says Msgr . Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon , commenting on an issue of major tension in Myanmar after the military dictatorship . The situation is very delicate and at the center of a vast debate. In particular, after the call by the United Nations in a resolution on20 November urging Naypyidaw to grant citizenship to the Muslim minority. A call immediately rejected by the Burmese authorities , who believe the Rohingyas are " illegal immigrants " from Bangladesh , an opinion shared by the rest of the main opposition party , the National League for Democracy ( NLD) lead by Aung San Suu Kyi. People should refrain from making rash statements, reflects the prelate , because in these cases "silence is golden" . At the same time it is necessary to promote a "serious reflection - he warns - to figure out which roads to travel to resolve the issue ." The escalation of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine has exacerbated the tensions between the different ethnic groups and religious denominations that characterize Myanmar, the theater last year of a bloody fight between Arakanese and Rohingya Muslims. The rape and murder in May 2012 of a young Buddhist woman sparked a spiral of terror , which caused hundreds of deaths and destroyed homes with at least 160 thousand displaced people who have sought refuge abroad , to escape attacks by the extremists Buddhist group 969. "The situation of the Rohingya is very delicate and at the center of a vast debate " says Msgr . Bo , that " it's unlikely that the United Nations can exert real pressure on Myanmar." It is true that Muslims are "victims and subject to persecution more in Myanmar " rather than in other parts of the world , he says, but what can we say about " non-Muslims in Islamic countries ? ! And this is the question that the Buddhist monks here in Myanmar always pose. " The Archbishop of Yangon explains that "Rohingya means the Rakhine population : they are defined the population of Rakhine State , however, there are no Rohingyas but only Bangali " . "The point is that, long ago, a hundred years ago, they came to Myanmar. They - Msgr . Bo added - have the right to citizenship and the restrictions against them should be removed. At the same time , there is a large number who only recently moved to Rakhine State ... a few years ago. Citizenship must be assessed case by case . Certainly it can not be generalized". The prelate believes " the good will of all" is needed: " The fear that citizens have of Muslims - he said - is in some ways understandable. And the international Muslim community must strive to understand the situation. Having said that , I feel compassion for the Muslims of the country. They live in situations of constant concern and threat to their safety. They a subject to constant attacks". The solution ? The Archbishop of Yangon says it is based on inter-religious dialogue . "The Buddhist, Muslim and Christian leadership should meet more often and show more understanding. Where there is dialogue, hate speech and misunderstandings give way to solidarity and empathy ." For this he asks that schools teach religion so that pupils ' can learn about the positive aspects of other faiths . " And even the Buddhist monks, Msgr . Bo, should learn "how much beauty there is in Christianity and Islam ." According to United Nations estimates there are at least 800 thousand Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2013 Asia News