genocide

The Amazon

Podcast: indigenous survival and the crisis in Peru

In Episode 73 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Thomas Moore, anthropologist, advocate for indigenous cultural survival, and author of the newly released book, Madre de Dios: Refugio de Pueblos Originarios. The remote rainforest region of Madre de Dios in Peru’s southern Amazon is a last refuge for isolated indigenous peoples, but is now massively threatened by mining, timber and other resource interests that operate in a semi-legal gray zone in a nexus with criminal networks. Peru has made some progress in complying with international norms on protection of isolated peoples, but these advances stand to be dramatically reversed if far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori comes to power in the pending run-off election. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Amarakaeri)

The Andes

Peru: mass mobilization against neo-fujimorismo

Under the slogans “Fujimori nunca más” and “Keiko No Va,” many thousands of Peruvians filled the streets of Lima and cities across the country to repudiate the presidential candidacy of Keiko Fujimori, contender of the far-right Fuerza Popular party and daughter of imprisoned ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori. The lead contingent in the rally that filled downtown Lima’s Plaza San Martín was composed of survivors of the reign of terror during the 1992-2000 Fujimori dictatorship. Large mobilizations were also held in Arequipa, Cuzco, Huancayo, Ayacucho, Huánuco, Tacna, and other cities. Two weeks ahead of a run-off vote, despite far greater campaign and media resources, Fujimori is trailing her rival Pedro Castillo of Perú Libre, a left-populist former teacher and union leader from a rural area of northern Cajamarca region—far from the center of power in Lima. (Photo via Twitter)

Palestine

Gaza bombardment displaces 58,000 Palestinians

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reports that the Israeli bombardment has resulted in over 58,000 Palestinians being displaced from their homes in the Gaza Strip. Of these, 47,000 are currently seeking shelter in facilities run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. The bombardment has also led to the destruction of health infrastructure such as COVID-19 testing labs and clinics. The destruction exacerbates privation imposed by the ongoing blockade of the Strip. (Photo: Maan News)

Inner Asia

‘Genocide’ seen in PRC Uighur birth-control policy

An Australian think-tank released a report on the declining birth rates among the Uighur population in China’s western Xinjiang province, concluding that birth-control policies imposed on the Uighurs by the People’s Republic of China may constitute genocide. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyzed the publicly-available data on birthrates in China from 2011 to 2019, and found that birth rates among the Uighur ethnic minority dropped precipitously starting in 2017. The birth rate fell by almost half in the predominately Uighur province of Xinjiang, where a campaign to eliminate “illegal births” is being carried out. (Photo of Uighur women in Xinjiang: mikepryan via Wikimedia)

Palestine

Podcast: Gaza and genocide

In Episode 72 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg repudiates the propaganda line that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” exposing this as justification of war crimes, and obfuscation of the reality of apartheid both sides of the Green Line. He also examines the United Nations definition of “genocide” to ask whether Israel’s war on Gaza may now be crossing the “genocidal threshold” that Israeli society has long been approaching, in both rhetoric and action that dehumanize the Palestinians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Ma’an News Agency)

Iraq

‘Clear and convincing’ evidence of Yazidi genocide

The head of a UN team investigating the atrocities by the Islamic State in Iraq & the Levant (ISIL), Special Advisor Karim Khan, reported to the UN Security Council that the team has established “clear and convincing” evidence of genocide against the Yazidi religious minority. The UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) has finalized preliminary case briefs on two key priorities: the attacks against the Yazidi community in the Sinjar region of Iraq starting in June 2014, and the mass killing that month of predominantly Shia unarmed cadets and military personnel at Iraq’s Tikrit Air Academy. (Photo via Ezidikhan Public Information Bureau)

The Caucasus

Armenia-Azerbaijan border stand-off —over water

Armenia’s Security Council held an emergency meeting in response to a reported border incursion by Azerbaijan. Local authorities in southern Syunik province issued urgent reports that Azerbaijan’s forces had crossed the border and completely surrounded Lake Sev. The glacial lake, which provides water for irrigation in the area, is bisected by the frontier between the two countries, with its northern third lying within Azerbaijan. But the territory on the Azerbaijan side had been held by Armenia between the 1991-4 war and last November’s ceasefire, under which it was ceded back. The two sides remain at odds on the precise demarcation of the line, which had not been formalized in Soviet times. (Photo: Albero/Wikimedia Commons via Armenian Weekly)

Palestine

Palestine: ICC prosecutor warns of ‘war crimes’

Individuals involved in the new outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting may be targeted by an International Criminal Court investigation now underway into possible war crimes in earlier eruptions of the conflict, top prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in an interview with Reuters. Bensouda said she would press ahead with her inquiry even without the cooperation of Israel, which rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction. “These are events that we are looking at very seriously,” Bensouda stated. “We are monitoring very closely and I remind that an investigation has opened…” She also warned in a tweet of the “possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statue.” (Photo: Maan News)

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: schoolgirls massacred amid ‘peace’ talks

An attack on a high school in Afghanistan’s capital killed at least 50 and wounded dozens more—most of them girls who were leaving class. The school is in Kabul’s western Dasht-e-Barchi district, where many residents are of the Hazara ethnic minority, who were subject to genocide under Taliban rule in the 1990s. The students appear to have been doubly targeted as both girls and Hazaras—raising further questions for the status and security of women and ethnic minorities as the power-brokers race to declare “peace” in Afghanistan. (Photo of girls from the targeted school: HRW via Twitter)

Africa

Podcast: solidarity with Tigray

In Episode 70 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Daniel Woldu, US representative of Omna Tigray, an international network calling for action to halt the genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Woldu discusses the abrogation of Tigray’s self-rule under the Ethiopian regime of Abiy Ahmed, atrocities that have taken place under cover of an information blockade, the ongoing plunder and weaponization of humanitarian aid, why Eritrea has intervened on the side of the Ethiopian central government, and the urgent need for accountability and an independent investigation into war crimes and genocide. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Omna Tigray via Twitter)

Palestine

HRW accuses Israel of ‘apartheid and persecution’

Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing Israeli authorities of crimes against humanity, specifically those of apartheid and persecution, targeting the Palestinian people. The report charges that there is “an overarching Israeli government policy” to mitigate what authorities have openly described as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians. The 213-page report, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, cites definitions in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (Image: HRW)

Syria

Podcast: humanitarian intervention reconsidered

In Episode 69 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reviews The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria: Mass Atrocities, Human Protection, and International Law by Syrian American legal scholar Yasmine Nahlawi. While Noam Chomsky’s critique of “humanitarian intervention” has merit, those who parrot it act as if it simply ends the conversation—and, worse, engage in post-truth revisionism to deny mass atrocities entirely. The Nation magazine has repeatedly run lying propaganda that merely turns the realities of the Syrian war on their head, portraying the victims as aggressors. And contrary to the unseemly gloating about the chaos in Libya since the fall of Qaddafi, there is a good case that the situation there would be worse, not better, if there had not been a “regime change” war. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Destruction of Aleppo, via 7ee6an)