Her face once inspired hope in the downtrodden – but as Aung San Suu Kyi’s drawn features appeared on screen, the refugee camp erupted in fury. “Liar! Liar! Shame!” rose up the cries from the squalid, Bangladeshi settlement. Half a world away, the protesters’ compatriots—assembled outside the UN’s highest court in the Hague—echoed the message with vigor. 

Suu Kyi: What Genocide?

Myanmar’s leader won’t have heard them, nor the hundreds of her supporters also on the street. With laser-like focus, the one-time champion of democracy systematically denied charges of genocide against the Rohingya people being brought against her nation in the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). Myanmar’s bloody suppression of its Muslim minority was an internal security matter, she maintained—but few, it seems, are convinced.   

Background On Myanmar’s Campaign Against The Rohingya

It was, in 2017, the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. Upwards of 700,000 people forced from their homes amid a military campaign of systemic destruction and murder. Most ended up in neighboring Bangladesh’s engorged and under-resourced refugee camps. It was a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” the UN later concluded—one that had occurred on Aung San Suu Kyi’s watch. Horrified by the apparent act of genocide, which is said to be unfolding still, Gambia has brought World Court charges against the southeast Asian state.  

Suu Kyi Defends Myanmar Army’s Actions: Lawful Counter-Terror Operation

Electing to represent her nation in person, Suu Kyi is the first national leader to answer a charge of genocide while the crime is allegedly ongoing. Her defence has been unwavering. Yes, hundreds of villages have been destroyed, and yes, disproportionate force may at times have been used, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate conceded, but Suu Kyi has maintained throughout the proceedings that the army’s operation was a lawful counter-terror operation.

Regarding the allegations of systematic sexual violence and rape as a tactic of war, detailed in three agonizing hours of witness testimony, Suu Kyi remained silent. Instead, she used her time to attack the ICJ’s supposed overreach, assailing its judges for meddling in what she claimed is an internal security affair.

Reaction To Suu Kyi’s Defense Against The Charges

Suu Kyi’s spirited defense of the military was well received back home; but for the opposing side, it’s a desperate race against time. Gambia’s legal team are not at this stage seeking official recognition of the genocide, but rather the imposition of “provisional measures” to protect Myanmar’s remaining Rohingya community.

Roughly half a million Rohingya individuals still reside in the country’s westerly Rakhine State. Where once their ancestral villages stood, the court heard that new security bases and government offices have been built. It is a cynical effort to destroy evidence of mass murder, said the Gambian lawyers, who worry the military’s genocidal intentions may actually have strengthened in recent months.   

Suu Kyi disputes this charge, claiming that Myanmar’s generals remain firmly under her control. Her government “actively investigates, prosecutes and punishes soldiers and officers that are accused of wrongdoing,” she told the court, pointing to the conviction of seven servicemen in 2017. The group had massacred ten Rohingya villagers, a crime exposed by two Reuters reporters. For their reporting of the killing, the journalists languished in jail for more than 16 months, significantly longer than the murderous soldiers, who were released only one year into their 10-year sentences. The affair is indicative of Myanmar’s inability to self-police, critics argue.      

“Aung San Suu Kyi says Myanmar is investigating its own crimes… Once atrocities are systematically committed as policy, you lose the credibility to investigate them yourself,” said Mark Kersten of the Wayamo Foundation, an international justice group. “We’d never accept the Nazis investigating the Holocaust, or Milosevic’s Serbs investigating Srebrenica.”

Proving Genocide And Holding Myanmar Responsible

In the cases of the Holocaust and other horrors, genocide’s high benchmark—acting with the “intent to destroy in whole or in part” a community—was proven. With the weight of evidence at their disposal, Gambia’s legal team will be hopeful of a similar verdict against Myanmar. But even if Myanmar is eventually found guilty, the ICJ has no way of enforcing its decisions. Neither the country’s civilian leader nor its military commanders would necessarily be arrested or put on trial.

Foreign sanctions would, however, be a likely consequence—as would severe reputational damage. However, for those suffering in ramshackle Bangladeshi camps or encircled Rakhine homesteads, that means very little. Myanmar’s much-feted leader must be made to call off the dogs, critics say. But whether she will—or even can—is far from clear.  

L'articolo Aung San Suu Kyi Denies Myanmar’s Alleged Rohingya Genocide proviene da InsideOver.

On Oct. 29, the US House of Representative voted in favour of a resolution to recognise the murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish government as a genocide.

Senator Robert Menendez, who has co-authored resolutions to recognise the genocide since 2006, told other senators that “the United States Congress cannot stand idly by and let the truth of genocide be silenced.”

“We must commit ourselves to learning the painful history of the Armenians as we seek to build a better world for our own and future generations.”

President Erdogan of Turkey, who had earlier met with President Trump in part to discuss the resolution, objected and blocked the request. He said that senators shouldn’t “sugarcoat history or try to rewrite it”.

The Turkish government claims that their actions were not a genocide. They assert that their murder of the Armenians was not systematic. Rather, they say, World War One killed many people from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, including Turkish Muslims.

Representative Adam B. Schiff, declared that the vote in favour of the resolution was largely due to Turkey’s present involvement in another form of ethnic cleansing.

“Given that the Turks are once again involved in an ethnic cleansing of the population – this time the Kurds who live along the Turkish-Syrian border – it seemed all the more appropriate to bring up a resolution about the Ottoman efforts to annihilate an entire people in the Armenian genocide,” he said.

Like the United Kingdom, the United States of America has, for decades, circumvented pronouncing Turkey’s systematic slaughter, massacre and deportation of the Armenians between 1915-1923 a genocide.

In a House of Lord’s written answer in February 2008, Lord Malloch-Brown, speaking on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, wrote:

“The position of the government on this issue is longstanding. The government acknowledges the strength of feeling about this terrible episode of history and recognises the massacres of 1915-1916 as a tragedy.

“However neither this government nor previous governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide, as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide.”

Article II of the UN Convention on Genocide defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

This definition includes: “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The Turkish government’s current treatment of the Kurds give us a look into the nation’s collective identity.

A country that participates in the ethnic cleansing of its minorities –  under a leader who criticises democracy and promotes a highly hierarchical radical Islamist leadership – will simply not admit its actions to be undemocratic or illegal.

Narcissistic national identities are built on the hate of minorities. The Nazis hated the Jews, the English hated the Scots and Irish, and the Americans, the African Americans. Yet, this hate is always birthed from an insecurity in the very national identity proclaimed to be great.

As Armenian’s in Turkey grew economically and socially successful, despite policies designed to keep them destitute, the Turks became jealous, as their national greatness was increasingly challenged on their soil.

Psychologically, admittance of the Armenian genocide is a death for Turkish arrogance. Without this arrogance, Turkey cannot survive politically, as nations driven on ego refuse to end their persecution of minorities until they are defeated by an outside force.

Politically, should the Turkish government admit to the genocide, Turkey could become liable to consequences from the international community under the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide.

“Importantly,” it reads, “the Convention establishes on State Parties the obligation to take measures to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide, including by enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators, “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” (Article IV).

Even more worrying for this gateway nation between Europe and the Middle East is the precedent the Armenian genocide will set for Turkey’s decades-long persecution and massacre of the Kurds. Presently, President Erdogan has received no measures from the international community to prevent or punish his ethnic cleansing of the Kurds. By declaring that it did not violate international law, Turkey avoids facing a myriad of consequences for its crimes against humanity, both present and past.

It cannot be escaped, however, that the international community’s century-long reluctance on the matter of the case of the Armenian genocide has further emboldened Turkey to continue the violent and systematic oppression of its minorities.

L'articolo Why Turkey Refuses to Politically Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide proviene da InsideOver.

As Trump’s retreat from Syria was fueling the mankind’s next potential act of ethnic cleansing and Germany bringing closure to a near century-long hunt for justice with, what could be, the final Holocaust trial, the pursuit of justice for another, almost forgotten atrocity, begins in Brussels. On Monday, November 5, judicial proceedings began for a high-ranking former Rwandan official, Fabien Neretse, who after decades, is standing in judgment for the crime of genocide stemming from the 1994 barbarism in the African nation of Rwanda which resulted in the manslaughter of nearly one-million lives.

Though this is Belgium’s fifth case to prosecute those responsible for the Rwanda genocide, it’s a judicial watershed regarding the 1994 atrocity as it is the first to include genocide as an actual criminal offence. Pursuant to a 1993 law, universal jurisdiction for the prosecution of genocide, regardless of where it occurred, lies with Belgium. The crime of genocide specifically alleges the attempt to exterminate an entire population of human lives, and the case against Neretse, now 71, centres around 13 murders committed between April and July in 1994 in his pursuit to accomplish that macabre goal.

Claire Beckers is one of several Belgiums killed during the four-month-long massacre which claimed hundreds-of-thousands of lives. Beckers, along with her Rwandan husband, and their 18-year old daughter, were killed in the initial wave of murders following the April 6, 1994 assassination of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.

Claire’s family was part of a group of friends who were killed as they fled for safety to a UN compound after the carnage began. The only survivors of the group’s mass murder were two children, then aged 11 and 15. After the hate-saturated brutality which necessitated them to leave their homes and flee for their lives; as adults, they will face the man responsible for terminating their escape for sanctuary on that April night a quarter of a century ago. They are both scheduled as witnesses in the trial.

The case against Neretse, who maintains his innocence and was Claire’s neighbour, intends to establish the fact that he was the individual who informed the nearby Hutu murder squads of the group’s whereabouts, thus he is responsible for their murders. Neretse himself, the case alleges, ran his Hutu death squad whose murders included a prominent but moderate Hutu politician, Joseph Mpendwanzi. His son, Jacques Rwegenza, now a resident of Belgium will also testify at the trial.

Though Neretse did not appear in the courtroom during the first few days of the proceedings, Claire’s relatives, along with those for many others who have been lost to history, were. Martine Beckers, Claire’s sister, was in attendance to witness the proceedings which she was instrumental in putting into motion. It was Martine who lodged an official complaint against Neretse for the murders of her sister, brother-in-law, and niece which resulted in prosecutors identifying him as the individual who, essentially, sent the death squad to engage and murder the group.

The events which led up to the April 9, 1994 murders of Claire’s family and their friends are streaked with far more guilt than that which lies on the hands of Neretse however. Prior to Claire exposing her family and friends to potential death by going out into the night without any means of protection, she first made all the proper attempts at saving them. Claire called both the Belgium Embassy and the United Nations requesting evacuation. They were all denied assistance and left to fend for themselves.

Thus, Claire, her family, and friends decided to navigate the 500 meters to the safety of the UN compound on their own. They never made it farther than their vehicle. As the group of 13 was loading into the only vehicle they had that spring evening, the Hutu death squad appeared. The death squad led the group into a garden at the rear of the house and gunned them down. The two children survived by acting as if they were dead.

Neretse’s attorney, Jean-Pierre Jacques, believes that the case against Neretse, and specifically the genocide charge, is a difficult case to prove. There is some validity to that assertion. The fact that the crime is decades-old renders material and physical evidence nearly non-existent. Thus, the case hinges upon witness testimony, though many of the pertinent witnesses are dead. However, the witness list includes well over a hundred individuals, spanning from Belgium to a Rwandan prison.

Proving the case against Neretse regarding the group’s murder is one thing, proving that he attempted to exterminate the entire Tutsi population, which the genocide charge requires, is a completely different legal challenge.

The Convention criminalizing genocide establishes both a psychological and tangible element to the crime. The prosecution must establish that Neretse possessed the deliberate “intent to destroy” specifically, the Tutsi population in Rwanda, along with evidence that his intention manifested in actual means and methods through which to accomplish that goal. The law extends to those who fostered and nurtured the conditions for the genocide to occur.

The crime of genocide originates from the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a result of the Nazi Holocaust and was signed in Paris. Ironically, Neretse was found and arrested in France in 2011. Though the purpose of the 1948 Convention was that genocide would ‘never happen again’, according to the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy there have been 18 acts of genocide between the signing of the Convention and 1994.

The 1994 genocide was the second act of genocide against the Tutsi people in Rwanda. The first occurred in 1962-63 following the end of Belgium’s colonial rule over the country. Though that incident is officially called the Rwandan Revolution, it was little more than likes of the 1994 genocide; a Hutu purge of the Tutsi people.

Significance of the Rwanda genocide

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is a landmark in both humanity and international governance for various reasons. It represents the most heinous and quickest act of genocide in our history. In only four months, from April to July 1994, nearly one million people were viciously murdered with nothing more than machetes or simplistic methods of mass murder, such as forcing Tutsi people into a house which the Hutu then burned to the ground.

While the Convention which criminalized genocide was signed in 1948, the first conviction for genocide was not until 50 years later regarding Rwanda. On 2 September 1998, Jean-Paul Akayesu, a former mayor in Rwanda, following a trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) became the first person in history to be convicted of genocide.

Rwanda also marks the failure of the Free World to identify and acknowledge that the rights of the people outweigh the authority of any government and or the sovereignty of any nation. The 1994 genocide was not a spontaneous act but was a planned and coordinated engagement that had historical foundations in the 1962-63 revolution.

The commander of the UN force in Rwanda (UNAMIR), Romeo Dallaire, uncovered the impending atrocity in January 1994 and reported it to the United Nations. In Dallaire’s own words: “Nobody was interested.” During the course of the genocide, the CIA not only sat back and watched the entire atrocity unfold from the US Embassy in Uganda, but on April 15, as the genocide was underway, the US argued for a full UN removal from Rwanda “as soon as possible” stating “there is insufficient justification to retain a UN Peacekeeping presence in Rwanda”.

The US along with the international community made the conscious decision to characterize the events in Rwanda as a civil war and not as genocide, thus it was an internal domestic issue. The US stated in April 1994: “The Rwandan armed parties must bear full responsibility for the tragic situation, and continued violence and instability, in their country.”

The international community’s systemic failure to prevent and or stop the Rwandan genocide, as well as the ethnic cleansing carried out in the Balkans by Serbia at the same time, were clear convictions that established that world governments believed “humanitarian intervention [wa]s, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty,”.

As a direct result of Rwanda and the Serbian atrocities, in 2005 the United Nations adopted the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, R2P. The R2P doctrine, it is hoped, will support and strengthen the principles of the 1948 Convention by, in theory, and a limited set of circumstances, eliminate the barrier of sovereignty which had been invoked as an excuse to allow the genocide in Rwanda and the Serbian engagement of ethnic cleansing to occur.

Whether international governance will ever have the genuine determination to eliminate genocide has yet to be realized. Likewise, whether the global population will ever take the necessary actions to manifest the same is also unknown. To date, only a fraction of the more than 100,000 individuals believed to be responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide have been brought to justice. The international parties, which bear equal responsibility, will never be. The ICTR terminated in December 2015. Many believe that Fabien Neretse not only symbolizes the slow process of justice for those in Rwanda but also the endemic problem of those like him, living freely as fugitives from justice on European soil.

L'articolo Why Rwanda Matters: The Trial of Fabien Neretse proviene da InsideOver.

West Papua is still recovering from the last wave of violence that hit the region between August and early September, leaving several dead, buildings burned, dozens of activists arrested and again showing the discontent of the local population with the Indonesian central government.

The largely Melanesian Christian population of West Papua (comprising the Indonesian administrative divisions of Papua and West Papua) differs greatly from the Muslim-majority Indonesians, yet they have been under the control of Indonesia since the 1960’s when, in 1962, the country signed a deal with The Netherlands – the New York Agreement – placing then West New Guinea, a Dutch colony, under UN Temporary Executive Authority until a referendum calling for West Papuans to vote for their independence (or to join Indonesia) could be organised.

The Act of Free Choice stated that all adult West Papuans had the right to vote and decide the destiny of their country, yet in 1967 Indonesia and the US signed a deal giving gold and copper mining company Freeport-McMoran a 30-year lease in the region. That deal sealed the fate of West Papuans who had been suffering from human rights violations since at least 1963, when it was annexed by Indonesia. Not that things could have been different, the New York Agreement was part of a US plan to steer Indonesia from the Soviet area of influence, so in a sense, the result was expected, even planned.

Australia, who had backed the West Papuan bid for independence soon changed its mind inside the Cold War logic of an external enemy to be defeated.

Two years later, in 1969, instead of all West Papuans, whose population at the time was estimated in around 800,000 people, a small number of men, just over a thousand tribal leaders, were handpicked to vote by the Indonesian military – voting unanimously in favour of a union with Indonesia.

The Act of No Choice, as it became known, is still contested by separatist leaders in the now Indonesian territory – even though the UN General Assembly through resolution 2504 (XXIV) recognised the result of the fraudulent referendum.

The recent wave of protests is yet another attempt from West Papuans to show their dissatisfaction with their situation. As well as the result of decades of human rights abuses that range from illegal arrests, extrajudicial killings and even lack of basic health care for children punctuated by internet blackouts and crackdown on freedom of speech.

West Papuan activists even consider the Indonesian repression of the region as genocide.

Protests for independence are commonplace in the region, yet this last wave of protests was different from previous ones as it drew the largest crowds ever seen to the streets, with public buildings being torched by angry protestors and, even more unusual, it also found support among Indonesians.

Not to mention that unlike previous protests often called by the many separatist groups in exile (that have also exerted control over local guerrilla groups), this particular wave seems to have erupted from within local West Papua civil society.

Journalist and activist Juke Carolina Rumuat explained at Global Voices Online that “[o]n 16 August 2019, around 15 soldiers reportedly barged into a student dormitory in Surabaya and accused Papuan students of disrespecting the Indonesian flag. The soldiers’ actions were reportedly triggered by a photo shared on WhatsApp by a youth civil organisation, of an Indonesian flag lying in a gutter ahead of the country’s independence celebrations on August 17. The soldiers allegedly hurled racist comments at the students, calling them ‘monkeys’. Around 42 students were taken to police headquarters the following day for questioning, but were released later in the afternoon.”

Papuans are frequently the targets of racism in Indonesia and the case has sparked outrage all over Indonesia, leading to a riot in Manokwari, the capital of West Papua province, spreading fast throughout the region – reaching even Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, and other cities outside West Papua.

Along with racism, the action of Indonesian Islamist and nationalist groups against West Papuans with threats and intimidation has intensified, particularly following the unification of several separatist groups under one umbrella, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP),  in 2014 – that has recently urged the United Nations to act and prevent a greater bloodshed. Leaders of several Pacific Islands also urged the UN to step in.

Also, the number of settlers in the region grew exponentially since the 1969 referendum, with local Melanesians making up roughly half of the region’s population, increasing tensions.

At the beginning of September, with the sending of thousands of police and military officers to the region who, among other measures, opened fire on demonstrators killing between 6 and 8 people, the situation began to calm down – or at least the dissenting voices began to be hunted down and silenced with also the help of an internet blackout.

The tense peace achieved by force in West Papua will hardly last long in a region already accustomed to suffering human rights abuses and who remain firm in its goal for independence.

L'articolo War and No Peace for West Papua Hit By Violent Protests proviene da InsideOver.

Over the past weeks, protests have erupted across West Papua and Indonesia with over 200,000 people joining the march. Fuelled by the alleged racist attack of three Papuan students who were shot in their dorms by militia groups, along with video footage of Indonesian police firing at campaigners – in which six were killed – tensions have rapidly escalated.

Yet, this uprising is not something new. Over the years, many massacres have occurred. It has been estimated that over 500,000 civilians have been killed and thousands more raped, tortured, and imprisoned since Indonesian rule began over 50 years ago. One of the most poignant bloodbaths being the infamous “Biak Massacre” back in 1998, where numerous people were shot following protests. More than 200 – including women and children – were then frogmarched onto Indonesian vessels by the military, taken out to sea, and thrown in to drown.

As a result of the on-going political unrest, there are now over 6,000 Indonesian military and police on the streets of Papuan Towns and cities. To date, the country remains the poorest province in Indonesia according to the 2016 Human Development Index, with 40 per cent living below the poverty line. Furthermore, Papuans have the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the country; the highest rates of illiteracy; and the lowest life expectancy. Many have argued this is evidence of the government turning a blind eye to the growing injustices and struggles the people of West Papua face.

Naomi Sosa, Director of Papua Partners UK, an organisation that provides support to the indigenous Papuan community, explained, “Papuans experience direct violence in terms of widespread human rights abuses by the state but they also experience deep structural violence. Many more Papuans die by structural violence than by direct violence. This is seen played out in the crisis in Asmat Regency of Papua where a measles and malnutrition crisis killed at least 72 people – who were mostly children – in early 2018. Other epidemics and famines over the last 40 years, due to lack of immunisation and no presence or negligence of the state, have most likely killed tens of thousands.”

Most Papuans live in a perpetual state of fear, aware that they could face a catalogue of violence at any given point. Apart from physical abuse, rural villages have been burnt to the ground, and agriculture and livestock destroyed, subjecting the inhabitants to illnesses and starvation.

Furthermore, the creation of new districts has allowed local elites to have access to funds and control with little accountability. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people continue to be denied the services and finances that they need, which contributed to more violence and deaths.

“There cannot be peace in the land of Papua until there is real justice for the Papuan people,” Sosa added. “Until then, any peace achieved only by stopping direct violence, blocking of protests, silencing of journalists and activists, is a false and unsustainable peace and will never be acceptable to the majority of Papuan people.”

Since the rights to freedom of expression are also largely denied in West Papua, many find themselves to be victims of persecution or imprisonment should they object to Indonesian rule or express being in favour of independence. At present, hundreds of political prisoners are being held with lengthy jail sentences for protesting peacefully.

In a damning report, Amnesty International said that “the people of Papua have been subject to severe human rights violations at the hands of the Indonesian authorities. Their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are heavily curtailed, and many are imprisoned simply for having taken part in non-violent demonstrations, or having expressed their opinions.”

Today, the police arrested a leading West Papuan activist. Buchtar Tabuni, who is the deputy head of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) was suspected as an instigator in the recent riots and pro-independence protests.

Tempo reported that Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo in South Jakarta said that Tabuni has been charged with articles on treason and others, and Papua Regional Police HQ are still examining him. Dedi, however, did not disclose the role of Buchtar and his alleged association with Benny Wenda – another Papuan activist accused of orchestrating the insurgences.

The province of West Papua, which lies far east of Indonesia, was originally inhabited by Melanesian people until it was colonised in 1898 by the Dutch. It was temporarily transferred to the United Nations before being given to Indonesia in 1963. By 1969, following a referendum, which many claimed to be fraudulent, it came under Indonesian rule – a move that has since been hugely contested by most Papuans over the decades.

L'articolo Indonesia’s Secret Genocide On West Papua proviene da InsideOver.

L'articolo The women of Rwanda today, 25 years after the Tutsi genocide (Part 2) proviene da InsideOver.

L'articolo The women of Rwanda today, 25 years after the Tutsi genocide (Part 1) proviene da InsideOver.