genocide

Southeast Asia

Malaysia: calls to end mass detention of refugees

Rights groups in Malaysia are calling for the release of thousands of detained refugees and asylum-seekers, after a deadly incident in the northern state of Penang. Six Rohingya refugees were struck by vehicles and killed when hundreds fled a detention center after breaking through barriers and attempted to escape across an adjacent highway. “There is no discernible reason as to why so many of them were cramped into a makeshift depot in the first place,” stated advocacy group Lawyers for Liberty. Malaysia has long been a destinationfor Rohingya fleeing persecution in Burma, but the government has cracked down on asylum-seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: Hasnoor Hussain/TNH)

Africa

CAR war crimes trial delayed —again

A court created seven years ago to prosecute war crimes in the Central African Republic was due to open its first trial this month. But a no-show by defense lawyers means victims’ associations and others pushing for justice will have to wait a little longer. The Bangui-based Special Criminal Court (SCC) is a hybrid tribunal composed of national and international jurists tasked with prosecuting war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. It took time to become operational because of staff recruitment challenges, insecurity, and limited resources. Arrest warrants have also not been executed, and the government has released high-profile suspects without SCC authorization. Its inaugural trial—set to resume in April—concerns three members of the 3R rebel group accused of involvement in a 2019 massacre. Rebel groups remain active across the CAR, which has one of the highest per capita humanitarian caseloads in the world. (Map via Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

Africa

Sudan: 150 killed in new Darfur massacre

At least 150 were killed as paramilitary troops attacked a village in Sudan’s conflicted Darfur region. Fighters from the Rapid Support Forces, many riding motorbikes or driving vehicles mounted with machine-guns, swept in on the village of Kereinik, torching houses and shops and firing on residents. More than 80,000 families fled their homes to seek refuge at the army headquarters in the village center. Hostilities between the Arab-dominated RSF and Masalit villagers began days earlier, after two Arab herders were reportedly killed by former rebel fighters. The fighting has since spread to the nearby town of Geneina, capital of West Darfur state. Sudan’s central government is said to be sending in military reinforcements and warplanes to contain the situation. (Photo: Sudan Tribune)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: against Chomsky’s genocide complicity

In Episode 120 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg invites the enmity of his comrades on the left with a long-overdue deconstruction of the increasingly sinister, genocide-abetting politics of Noam Chomsky. In relentless sycophantic interviews, Chomsky inevitably opposes a no-fly zone for Ukraine, war crimes charges against Putin, or even sanctions against Russia, on the basis that such moves would lead to nuclear war. He offers no acknowledgment of how capitulating to Putin’s nuclear threats incentivizes such threats, and the stockpiling of missiles and warheads to back them up. This is part of a long pattern with Chomsky. He has repeatedly engaged in baseless “false flag” theorizing about the Syria chemical attacks, leading activists in the Arab world to accuse him of “regime whitewashing.” He similarly abetted Bosnia genocide revisionism, and denial of the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia. All this can be traced to the analytical and ultimately moral distortions of the so-called “Chomsky rule“—the notion that we are only allowed to criticize crimes committed by “our” side. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image via social media)

Europe

Ukraine formally accuses Russia of ‘genocide’

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted a resolution formally recognizing the actions of the Russian armed forces in the country as genocide of the Ukrainian people. The resolution calls upon the UN, the European Parliament, the OSCE and NATO to similarly designate Russia’s actions as genocide. These bodies do appear to be weighing such a determination. An investigation by the Organization for Security & Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found that Russian forces have committed “violations concerning even the most fundamental human rights” in Ukraine. International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan told reporters during his visit to Bucha, the Kyiv suburb where a massacre was carried out last month, that “Ukraine is a crime scene.” The ICC opened an investigation into possible war crimes after 39 state parties referred the situation in Ukraine to the Court. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Podcast: Antifa and the Azov Battalion

In Episode 119 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the intellectual challenge posed to Western anti-fascists by Putin’s ultra-cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Russian state media have issued a “blueprint for genocide” in Ukraine—in the perversely paradoxical name of “de-nazification.” With much of the American “left” rallying around Putinand repeating his line that the Ukrainians are Nazis, some of the once-stalwart antifas (themselves coming under attack from domestic fascism) are in danger of being coopted by fascism. Of course there are actual far-right elements on the Ukrainian side—which Ukrainian anti-fascists have been actively resisting. But in an atmosphere of totalizing propaganda, it is critical that we do not rely exclusively on pro-Putin sources for information on elements such as the notorious Azov Battalion, but get outside the confirmation-bias bubble. It is even more critical that we ruthlessly reject double standards, and acknowledge that the fascist element is far more hegemonic on the Russian side—and that Putin’s new Russo-fascism is aligned with Trumpism. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Azov Battalion website)

Europe

Ukraine: Russian chemical attack on Mariupol claimed

Ukrainian officials are accusing Russian forces of having used chemical weapons on the besieged Azov Sea port city of Mariupol, causing troops and civilians alike to develop respiratory symptoms. The claim first emerged from the Azov Battalion, a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard involved in the defense of the city, which said a substance believed to be sarin gas was sprayed from a drone. The fact that this report emerges from the Azov Battalion, with its notorious far-right proclivities, will doubtless provide an excuse for those predisposed in favor of Russia to dismiss the claims. However, that same day, a far-right militia commander on the Russian side had openly threatened to use chemical weapons on defenders of Mariupol. Immediately dismissing an atrocity claim at Mariupol—or assuming it was a “false flag” by Ukrainian forces against their own people—amid the destruction of the city by Russia’s war machine is perverse and dishonest on its face. (Photo via Twitter)

The Andes

Peru: protests over pending pardon for ex-dictator

Protests broke out in Lima, Cuzco and other cities in Peru after the country’s Constitutional Tribunal overruled a lower court annulment of a pardon for former dictator Alberto Fujimori, and ordered his release from prison. Days later, however, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the Peruvian state must refrain from executing the release order while the IACHR weighs provisional measures requested by representatives of the victims of the 1991 Barrios Altos and 1992 Cantuta massacres, for which Fujimori was convicted and sentenced in 2009. Fujimori has also been facing a judicial process over accusations of mass forced sterilizations under his government. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Ukraine: thousands of Russian war crimes reported

Across Ukraine, prosecutors are collecting evidence of potential war crimes by Russian forces in the weeks since the invasion was launched, and now say they are investigating some 5,000cases. But it was images of the bodies in Bucha–revealed after Russian troops withdrew from areas outside the Ukrainian capital last week–that captured global attention. Authorities say at least 320 civilians were slain in the small city northwest of Kyiv. Between 150 and 300bodies were buried in a mass grave, while others were left scattered along a street for weeks. Hundreds more were killed in other Kyiv satellite towns, such as Borodyanka and Hostomel. In a rare move, the UN General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council, citing reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” and “violations of international humanitarian law.” (Photo: damaged statue of Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko in Borodyanka. Via Euromaidan Press)

Europe

Ukraine: hundreds of Russian war crimes reported

Rights organizations and monitors in Ukraine are collecting evidence of Russian war crimes to turn over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and say they have documented hundreds of atrocities. Gyunguz Mamedov, the former head of the “War Department” in the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office, which was formed after the eruption of the Donbas conflict in 2014, reported that the coalition Ukraine5AM has documented 388 war crimes committed by Russian armed forces in Ukraine. The coalition is made up of 23 human rights organizations and scores of independent investigators. Mamedov mentioned the shelling of civilian buildings and intentonal targeting of civilians; attacks on hospitals and medical staff; as well as abductions of officials and other civilians. (Photo: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group)

Europe

Podcast: against Putin’s Big Lie

In Episode 115 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect Vladimir Putin’s ultra-cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Putin presides over Nuremberg-type mass rallies celebrating war and conquest, spews overtly genocidal rhetoric, and prepares concentration camps for the Crimean Tatars. Alexander Dugin, “Putin’s Rasputin” and the intellectual mastermind of his revanchist imperial project, has openly called for “genocide” of the Ukrainians. In areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia, a forced mass deportation of the populace is reported. Putin is clearly approaching a genocidal threshold in Ukraine—while imposting a totalizing police state within Russia. Yet, with unimaginable perversity, all this is done in the name of a campaign to “denazify” Ukraine. The painting of Ukraine as a “Nazi” state on dubious basis of a few ugly right-wing paramilitaries on the Ukrainian side is vigorously repudiated by the leadership of Ukraine’s Jewish community. Yet this “Big Lie” is credulously (or cynically) echoed by elements of the “left” as well as far right in the United States—who arrogantly refuse to listen to Ukrainians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Africa

ICC takes CAR war crimes suspect into custody

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that former militia leader Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom Gawaka, who is suspected to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic, was surrendered by the Republic of Chad. A warrant for Mokom’s arrest was issued in December 2018, when the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber II determined that Mokom was the “National Coordinator of Operations” for the Anti-Balaka militia. In this capacity, he is believed to have committed murder, deportation, imprisonment, torture, persecution and other crimes against humanity. He also allegedly committed war crimes by targeting Muslim civilians. (Map via Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)