genocide

Iran

Trump and Soleimani: clash of barbarisms

Donald Trump and the man he executed in a targeted assassination, Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, mirror each other as war criminals who treat the people of Iraq and the greater region as pawns in their power game. In fact, they were long de facto allies—Soleimani had been overseeing a “dirty war” in Iraq against Sunni militants and suspected ISIS sympathizers. His allied paramilitary forces have serially massacred anti-government protesters in Baghdad. In less explicit alignment with Washington, Soleimani provided similar services on a far greater scale to the Bashar Assad dictatorship in Syria. This is why all the media talk (echoing Trump) about how he “killed Americans” reeks of racism and imperial narcissism. However many US troops Soleimani may have been responsible for killing, this was the least of his massive crimes. Similarly, calling him a “terrorist,” implying he was responsible for attacks on Westerners (always the connotation of that label in mainstream Western discourse), is a vast understatement. He was worse than a terrorist: he was a war criminal. And so is Trump—in his destruction of ISIS-held Raqqa and Mosul (which could only have cheered Soleimani), in his targeted-assassination drone strikes, and now in his threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites. (Photo: Iran Briefing)

Syria

Syria: thousands flee intensified Idlib offensive

More than 235,000 people have fled from their homes in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province over the past days, as the Assad regime and Russia escalate their campaign of aerial bombardment. A report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs states that Ma’arrat An Nu’man and other towns in the province are now “almost empty,” while internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in the extreme northwest of the province are rapidly swelling. “Displacement during winter is further exacerbating the vulnerability of those affected,” the report states. Perversely, the renewed offensive comes days after Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have extended cross-border aid convoys into Idlib from Turkey for another year—essentially condemning many of those not directly killed by the bombs to death by starvation and exposure. (Photo: UNHCR)

Africa

Sudan to investigate Darfur war crimes

The state prosecutor of Sudan, Tagelsir al-Heber, announced the launch of an investigation into the crimes committed in the Darfur region under former President Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir has already been arrested by the Sudanese government for corruption and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and grave rights violations committed in the Darfur region of Sudan as early as 2002. (Photo: Dabanga)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: against the global detention state

In Episode 45 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes with alarm the rapid consolidation of a global detention state, extending across borders and rival power blocs. In the United States, Trump moves toward indefinite detention of undocumented migrants, with horrific rights abuses widespread in the fast-expanding camp system. In China, up to a million Uighurs have been detained in “re-education camps,” and are facing such abuses as forced sterilization. As India hypocritically protests China’s treatment of the Uighurs, it is also preparing mass detention of its own Muslim population. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is similarly preparing mass detention of the Crimean Tatars. In Syria, the Bashar Assad regime has detained hundreds of thousands, and is carrying out a mass extermination of prisoners, almost certainly amounting to genocide. In Libya, countless thousands of desperate migrants have been detained, often by completely unaccountable militias, and an actual slave trade in captured Black African migrants has emerged. Yet Trump exploits the mass internment of the Uighurs to score propaganda points against imperial rival China—and some “leftists” (sic) in the US are so confused as to actually defend China’s detention state. International solidarity is urgently needed at this desperate moment to repudiate such divide-and-rule stratagems. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon. (Photo of Homeland Security’s Otay Mesa Detention Center from BBC World Service via Flickr)

South Asia

Protests sweep India over citizenship law

India’s northeastern state of Assam has exploded into protest over the passage of a new national citizenship law. The army has been deployed, a curfew imposed in state capital Guwahati, and internet access cut off. At least five people have been killed as security forces fired on demonstrators. The new law allows religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship. This means it effectively excludes Muslims, and mostly apples to Hindus and Sikhs. Critics of the ruling Hindu-nationalist government say it therefore violates India’s founding secular principles. But while secularists and Muslims are protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act on this basis elsewhere in India, the biggest protests have been in Assam—motivated by fear that the state will be overrun by an influx from Bangladesh, threatening its cultural and linguistic identity. (Image: Sowmya Reddy)

The Amazon

ICC receives request to investigate Bolsonaro

Groups including Brazil’s Human Rights Advocacy Collective (CADHu) and the Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for Human Rights (Comissão Arns) submitted a written recommendation to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), reporting the need for a preliminary examination into genocide and systematic attacks against indigenous people by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. (Photo: pixundfertig/Pixabay via Jurist)

Africa

Congo warlord gets life for crimes against humanity

A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced Frederic Masudi Alimasi to life in prison after a two-month trial. Alimasi, AKA Kokodikoko, was head of the Raia Mutomboki, one of the most powerful militias operating in the Eastern DRC. He was arrested in April on multiple charges including murder, rape and enslavement committed against the civilian populations of two villages in 2018. The case saw the use of mobile courts, conducting hearings where the victims live. This relieved them of the burden of travel, and enabled victims who had not been able to take part in the initial investigation to appear and have their testimony entered into the record. (Photo: JusticeInfo.net)

Southeast Asia

Aung San Suu Kyi to face genocide charges

Human rights groups, together with the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, filed a criminal lawsuit in Argentina, alleging that the government and military of Burma, including State Counsellor (and de facto leader) Aung San Suu Kyi, have committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya minority. The complaint includes numerous accounts of mass killings, rapes and torture committed by government forces. The suit was filed with the Argentine federal courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that any country can prosecute for certain grave crimes regardless of whether the crimes were committed within that country’s territory. (Photo: VOA via Jurist)

South Asia

India: high court rules for Hindus in Ayodhya dispute

The Supreme Court of India issued a unanimous ruling in the decades-long Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land case, finding for the Hindus. A small plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, has traditionally been believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of the god Ram. The location is also venerated by Muslims because it was the site of the Babri Masjid, a mosque built in the sixteenth century by the first Mughal emperor Babur. Both religious communities have fought over the site, and the ruling was issued with India’s security forces on high alert. (Photo: रूही via Wikimedia)

Iraq

Iraq: Turkish jets attack Yazidi villages

The Yazidi village of Bara in northern Iraq was struck by Turkish warplanes for the second time in two days, injuring at least three. There were also strikes on the nearby village of Khanasor, targeting a base of the Shingal Protection Units (YBS), a Yazidi militia operating in the area. The YBS played a key role in liberating the area from ISIS after the Islamic State’s genocide against the Yazidis in 2014. Turkey calls the YBS an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and justifies its strikes by claiming the area is host to PKK positions. (Photo: Provisional Government of Ezidikhan)

The Amazon

‘Forest Guardian’ assassinated in Brazilian Amazon

A young indigenous Guajajara leader was murdered in the Brazilian Amazon, raising concerns about escalating violence against forest protectors under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was shot in the head and killed in an ambush in the Araribóia Indigenous Reserve, in the northeast state of Maranhão. Paulo was a member of “Guardians of the Forest,” a group of 120 indigenous Guajajara that organize volunteer patrols to fight illegal logging in the Araribóia reserve, one of the country’s most threatened indigenous territories. (Photo of Paulo Paulino Guajajara via Mongabay)

The Andes

‘Genocide’ charges follow Colombia massacre

Indigenous leaders in Colombia are raising accusations of “genocide” following the latest massacre, in which five members of the Nasa people were killed in southwestern Cauca department. Cristina Bautista, a Nasa traditional authority, or neehwesx, was killed along with four members of the Indigenous Guard, an unarmed community self-defense patrol, when they tried to stop a car of gunmen at a checkpoint. Indigenous peoples have been particularly targeted in the ongoing wave of deadly attacks on social leaders across Colombia. The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) names President Ivan Duque as complicit, for his refusal to talk to indigenous authorities, and his opposition to implementation of the peace deal with the FARC rebels. (Photo: Colombia Reports)