Tag: Genocide

Mideast conflict looms over US presidential race as Harris, Trump jostle for an edge

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WASHINGTON — Two weeks out from Election Day, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House, with one candidate struggling to find just the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents and the other making bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Former President Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.

Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Harris over the weekend alternately drew praise and criticism over her comments about a pro-Palestinian protester that were captured on a widely shared video. Some took Harris’ remark that the protester’s concerns were “real” to be an expression of agreement with his description of Israel’s conduct as “genocide.” That drew sharp condemnation from Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren.

But Harris’ campaign said that while the vice president was agreeing more generally about the plight of civilians in Gaza, she was not and would not accuse Israel of genocide.

A day earlier, the dynamics were reversed when Harris told reporters that the “first and most tragic story” of the conflict was the Oct. 7 Hamas attack last year that killed about 1,200 Israelis. That was triggering to those who feel she is not giving proper weight to the deaths of the more than 41,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza.

Trump, meanwhile, in recent days has participated in interviews with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and Lebanese outlet MTV, where he promised to bring about peace and said “things will turn out very well” in Lebanon.

In a post on his social media platform Monday, he predicted a Harris presidency would only make matters in the Mideast worse.

“If Kamala gets four more years, the Middle East will spend the next four decades going up in flames, and your kids will be going off to War, maybe even a Third World War, something that will never happen with President Donald J. Trump in charge,” Trump posted. “For our Country’s sake, and for your kids, Vote Trump for PEACE!”

Harris’ position is particularly awkward because as vice president she is tethered to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions even as she’s tried to strike a more empathetic tone to all parties. But Harris aides and allies also are frustrated with what they see as Trump largely getting a pass on some of his unpredictable foreign policy statements.

“It’s the very thoughtful, very careful school versus the showboat,” said James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, who has endorsed Harris. “That does become a handicap in these late stages when he’s making all these overtures. When the bill comes due they’re going to walk away empty-handed, but by then it’ll be too late.”

The political divisions on the campaign trail augur potentially significant implications after Election Day as powers in the region, particularly Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, closely eye the outcome and the potential for any shifts to U.S. foreign policy.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that neither Trump nor Harris has a clear political advantage on the situation in the Middle East. About 4 in 10 registered voters say Trump would do a better job, and a similar share say that about Harris. Roughly 2 in 10 say neither candidate would do a better job.

There are some signs of weakness on the issue for Harris within her own party, however. Only about two-thirds of Democratic voters say Harris would be the better candidate to handle the situation in the Middle East. Among Republicans, about 8 in 10 say Trump would be better.

In Michigan, which has the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, the Israel-Hamas war has profound and personal impacts on the community. In addition to many community members having family in both Lebanon and Gaza, Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a metro Detroit resident, was killed while trying to deliver aid to his hometown in southern Lebanon.

The war’s direct impact on the community has fueled outrage and calls for the U.S. to demand an unconditional cease-fire and impose a weapons embargo on Israel.

Although both parties have largely supported Israel, much of the outrage and blame has been directed at Biden. When Harris entered the race, many Arab American leaders initially felt a renewed sense of optimism, citing her past comments and the early outreach efforts of her campaign.

However, that optimism quickly faded as the community perceived that she had not sufficiently distanced her policies from those of Biden.

“To say to Arab Americans, ‘Trump is going to be worse’ — what is worse than having members of your family killed?” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities. “That’s what people are saying when they’re asked the question, ‘Isn’t Trump going to be worse?’ It can’t be worse than what’s happening to us right now.”

Future Coalition PAC, a super PAC backed by billionaire Elon Musk, is running ads in Arab American communities in Michigan focused on Harris’ support for Israel, complete with a photo of her and her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish. The same group is sending the opposite message to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, attacking her support for the withholding of some weapons from Israel — a Biden administration move to pressure the longtime U.S. ally to limit civilian casualties.

Harris spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein cast Trump’s approach toward the Middle East as part of a broader sign that “an unchecked, unhinged Trump is simply too dangerous — he would bring us right back to the chaotic, go-it-alone approach that made the world less safe and he would weaken America.”

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Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

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October 22, 2024
Cal State L.A. encampment is shut down days after takeover of building with administrators inside

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Dozens of officers in riot gear from multiple agencies descended Monday afternoon on a pro-Palestinian encampment at Cal State L.A. to dismantle the camp and force protesters to leave after tensions escalated last week.

About 1:20 p.m., police issued a dispersal order in English and Spanish, and the remaining protesters in the encampment, a group of about 10, left voluntarily, said university spokesperson Erik Frost Hollins.

It was the last major pro-Palestinian protest encampment at a Los Angeles college.

Officers, who included those from the LAPD, California Highway Patrol and multiple Cal State campus police departments, did not use any weapons to remove protesters and made no arrests, Hollins said. Campus security and police blocked all road entrances to campus, although exits were open, and the campus was accessible by foot.

Using forklifts and large dumpsters, crews took down the painted and graffitied wooden boards that encircled the encampment and hauled them away. Many were painted in the red, green, white and black colors of the Palestinian flag and bore phrases including “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and “Google LASD gangs.”

Students launched the camp on May 1 to demand that Cal State L.A. and the California State University system disclose its investments, “divest from companies that financially and materially support genocide, defend the Palestinian people’s rights of resistance and return, and declare that the genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine is illegal under international law,” according to a statement from the Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State L.A.

Hollins said that, since the encampment launched, Cal State L.A. President Berenecea Johnson Eanes had visited it twice and held several conversations with protesters.

While other universities, including USC and UCLA, moved in relatively quickly to shut down pro-Palestinian encampments over the spring, the one at Cal State L.A. was tolerated for many weeks. For the most part, it hasn’t been a site of heated controversy or clashes involving students, campus officials or police.

But the nature of the relationship between the university and protesters changed Wednesday, Hollins said, when several dozen protesters barricaded themselves inside the student services building, with some administrators inside, for more than nine hours. The Students for Justice in Palestine group said that administrators were free to leave, with escorts, whenever they desired. The group said it communicated that message directly and via Instagram. About 60 staffers were in the building for roughly two hours before exiting. Around a dozen, including Eanes and Hollins, voluntarily remained behind.

Hollins said there was no specific event on Monday that spurred the university to call in police but said officials had been talking about taking the encampment down since the building occupation.

On Monday afternoon, Eanes said in a campus-wide email that “those associated with the encampment engaged in unlawful acts that put staff and students” at risk during the building occupation, “including assault, vandalism, destruction of property, and looting.”

“The only acceptable option for the safety of the entire campus community was for the encampment to disband and disperse. We will not negotiate with those who would use destruction and intimidation to meet their goals,” she wrote. “It does not escape me that public employees serving a public mission at a public university in one of the region’s most under-resourced communities have been victimized by those claiming to protest injustice.”

Eanes said the campus, where classes have been virtual since the middle of last week, would continue virtually on Tuesday. The university is in its summer session, which ends Aug. 10.

On Monday, the Cal State L.A. chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine said it had remained concerned for weeks that the peaceful encampment might be compromised as negotiations stalled and frustrations mounted.

“While the protest of June 12th produced a turning point for the encampment, we propose that timely, good faith negotiations with the students over their divestment demands is the best route to a resolution,” the group said in a letter posted on Instagram. “We also recommend that you communicate more clearly with the encampment students about a timeline and process for decampment, rather than resort to an unannounced possible sweep that is likely to produce trauma, harm, and violence as it has at other universities.”

An Instagram post by Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State L.A. showed a video of what appeared to be activists talking to police in riot gear who were gathered outside the camp’s barricades. “We have to do whatever they say,” a voice from the camp says in the background. “Can we leave?” an activist says to police as the activist looks out at law enforcement. “Yes!” several officers say in unison. “I want you to go,” an officer says. “I want less of you in there.”

The encampment was nearly dismantled by 5:30 p.m. Its removal revealed graffiti covering the wall below the “Olympic Fantasy” tile mural near the heart of campus, with slogans such as “Gaza lives” and “Stop funding genocide.”

The student services building, the site of last week’s occupation, remained closed off with police tape. Tables and chairs were turned over on its patio, and graffiti remained across its ground-level windows.

A campus security worker not authorized to speak to media said officials would clean up the building area after the camp materials were fully removed. They said they weren’t sure whether that would happen Monday.

Onlookers, including students and neighborhood residents, expressed surprise at the encampment’s removal and the police presence Monday.

“I did not agree with what the camp stood for, but I walked by it many times,” said James Wheeler, who walked over to the encampment area — cordoned off with yellow police tape — while a helicopter flew above.

“These were mostly peaceful students,” Wheeler said, “and their protest was nothing like the conflict or controversy you have seen at other colleges, aside from the one time they went to occupy the building.”

A student who said she knew members of the encampment said the police response was “way overblown” considering it was about 10 activists who voluntarily left the scene. “They sent in all these police cars, these riot police, blocked off the streets, all for nothing. It’s out of control,” said the student, who declined to share her name.

In her letter Monday, Eanes said the university would “need to confront the aftermath of sheltering inside [the student services building], the anger at the destruction of student spaces they worked so hard to create, and the grief of feeling less safe on a campus we all cherish.”

Hollins said, during the sit-in, one employee had “something thrown at their head,” while another was pushed into the door and then out of the way as protesters forced their way into the building.

Protesters vandalized the building heavily, Hollins said, and the university is still investigating to determine whether there should be arrests. Protesters covered their faces and took other steps to hide their identities, which complicates the investigation, they said.

Activists defended their actions.

“The defense of the sit-in and the Solidarity Encampment will continue despite heavy police pressure from the University Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department until CSULA ends its financial and material support for genocide,” the group said in a statement last week.

Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report.

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Jaweed Kaleem, Jaclyn Cosgrove

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June 17, 2024
Disruptions at University of Chicago graduation as school withholds 4 diplomas

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CHICAGO — Dozens of students protesting the war in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “Stop Genocide.” A crowd of students walked out between speeches, and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags, while others donned traditional kaffiyeh, black and white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

Four graduating seniors, including Youssef Haweh, were informed by email in recent days that their degrees would be withheld pending a disciplinary process related to complaints about the encampment, according to student group UChicago United for Palestine.

“My diploma doesn’t matter when there are people in Palestine and in Gaza that will never walk a stage again, who will never receive a diploma. What about them? Who’s going to fight for them?” Haweh said in a Saturday statement.

University officials acknowledged the walkout, saying the school is “committed to upholding the rights of students to express a wide range of views,” according to a statement.

Students have walked out of commencements at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others as protest camps have sprung up across the U.S. and in Europe in recent weeks. Students have demanded their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support its war in Gaza. Organizers seek to amplify calls to end Israel’s war with Hamas, which they describe as a genocide against the Palestinians.

A small demonstration after the commencement, where protesters tried to access a closed street, resulted in the arrest of one person not affiliated with the school, university officials said in a statement.

The University of Chicago encampment was cleared May 7. Administrators had initially adopted a permissive approach, but later said the protest had crossed a line and caused growing concerns about safety. One group temporarily took over a building on the school’s campus.

University officials have said the demonstrations prompted formal complaints including for “disruptive conduct,” and would require further review. The students were still able to participate in graduation, and can receive their degrees if they are later cleared after the university inquiry into alleged violations of campus policy. The university didn’t have comment Saturday about the diplomas.

Thousands of students and faculty members have signed a petition calling for the university to grant the degrees, while more than a dozen Chicago City Council members have penned a letter asking for the same.

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June 1, 2024
Spain’s prime minister says Cabinet to recognize a Palestinian state

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BARCELONA, Spain — Spain and Norway moved to formally recognize a Palestinian state with Ireland to follow suit on Tuesday in a coordinated effort by the three western European nations. Israel slammed the diplomatic move that will have no immediate impact on its grinding war in Gaza but adds to international pressure on Tel Aviv to soften its devastating response to last year’s Hamas-led attack.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the Spanish Cabinet will recognize a Palestinian state at its Tuesday morning meeting.

“This is a historic decision that has a single goal, and that is to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace,” Sánchez, standing at the gates of the prime minister’s palace in Madrid, said during a televised speech.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz lashed out at Spain on X, saying Sánchez’s government was “being complicit in inciting genocide against Jews and war crimes.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement that “for more than 30 years, Norway has been one of the strongest advocates for a Palestinian state. Today, when Norway officially recognizes Palestine as a state, is a milestone in the relationship between Norway and Palestine.”

While dozens of countries have recognized a Palestinian state, none of the major Western powers has done so. Still, the adherence of three European countries to the group represents a victory for Palestinian efforts in the world of public opinion.

Relations between the EU and Israel have nosedived with the diplomatic recognitions by two EU members, and Madrid insisting on Monday that the EU should take measures against Israel for its continued deadly attacks in southern Gaza’s city of Rafah.

After Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said “for the first time at an EU meeting, in a real way, I have seen a significant discussion on sanctions” for Israel.

Norway, which is not an EU member but often aligns its foreign policy with the bloc, handed diplomatic papers to the Palestinian government over the weekend ahead of its formal recognition.

At the same time, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell threw his weight behind the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, including leaders of the Hamas militant group.

The formal declaration and resulting diplomatic dispute come over seven months into a grinding war waged by Israel against Hamas in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in which militants stormed across the Gaza border into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage. Israel’s air and land attacks have killed 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Last week’s joint announcement by Spain, Ireland and Norway triggered an angry response from Israeli authorities, which summoned the countries’ ambassadors in Tel Aviv to the Foreign Ministry, where they were filmed while being shown videos of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and abductions.

Some 140 countries — more than two-thirds of the United Nations — recognize a Palestinian state. The addition of three western European countries to that group will likely put pressure on EU heavyweights France and Germany to rethink their position.

Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob said Monday his government will decide on the recognition of a Palestinian state on Thursday and forward its decision to parliament for final approval.

The United States and Britain, among others, back the idea of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel but say it should come as part of a negotiated settlement. Netanyahu’s government says the conflict can only be resolved through direct negotiations.

In his speech on Tuesday, Sánchez said that the recognition of a Palestinian state was “a decision that we do not adopt against anyone, least of all against Israel, a friendly people whom we respect, whom we appreciate and with whom we want to have the best possible relationship.”

The Socialist leader, who announced his country’s decision before parliament last week, has spent months touring European and Middle Eastern countries, including stops in Oslo and Dublin, to garner support for the recognition of a Palestinian state and a cease-fire in Gaza.

He called for a permanent cease-fire, for stepping up humanitarian aid into Gaza and for the release of hostages that Hamas has held since the Oct. 7 attack that triggered Israel’s response.

Sánchez said that the move was to back the beleaguered Palestinian Authority, which lost effective political control of Gaza to Hamas. He laid out his vision for a state ruled by the Palestinian Authority that must connect the West Bank and Gaza via a corridor with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Norway’s Barth Eide added that “it is regrettable that the Israeli government shows no signs of engaging constructively.

“The recognition is a strong expression of support for moderate forces in both countries,” Norway’s top diplomat said.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, cooperates with Israel on security matters and favors a negotiated two-state solution. Its forces were driven out of Gaza by Hamas when the militants seized power there in 2007.

The Palestinians have long sought an independent state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The idea of a land corridor linking Gaza and the West Bank through Israel was discussed in previous rounds of peace talks, but no serious or substantive peace negotiations have been held in over 15 years.

“We will not recognize changes in the 1967 border lines other than those agreed to by the parties,” Sánchez added.

“Furthermore, this decision reflects our absolute rejection of Hamas, a terrorist organization who is against the two-state solution,” Sánchez said. “From the outset, Spain has strongly condemned the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7. This clear condemnation is the resounding expression of our steadfast commitment in the fight against terrorism. I would like to underline that starting tomorrow we would focus all our efforts to implement the two state solution and make it a reality.”

Israel is also under pressure from the International Criminal Court after its chief prosecutor said he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister. The ICJ is also considering allegations of genocide that Israel has strenuously denied.

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Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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May 28, 2024
UN resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia sparks opposition from Serbs

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UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. resolution sponsored by Germany and Rwanda to establish an annual day to commemorate the 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs has sparked protests and a strong lobbying campaign against its adoption by Serbia’s president and the Bosnian Serb leadership.

The U.N. General Assembly has scheduled a debate on the resolution on the morning of May 23 to be followed by a vote in the 193-member world body.

The final draft of the resolution would designate July 11 as the “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenca,” to be observed annually starting in two months. The massacres started on July 11, 1995.

The draft asks the United Nations to prepare an outreach program and invites countries, organizations, civil society and others to observe the day with special observances and activities in memory and honor of the victims as well as “appropriate education and public awareness-raising activities.”

The Srebrenica killings were the bloody crescendo of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, which came after the breakup of Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that set Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a U.N.-protected safe area in Srebrenica. They separated at least 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters and slaughtered them. Those who tried to escape were chased through the woods and over the mountains around the ill-fated town.

The International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest tribunal, determined in 2007 that the acts committed in Srebrenica constituted genocide, and the court’s determination is included in the draft resolution. It was Europe’s first genocide since the Nazi Holocaust in World War II, which killed an estimated 6 million Jews and people from other minorities.

Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic as well as the Bosnian Serb leadership have vehemently opposed the adoption of the Srebrenica resolution, saying it brands all Serbs as a “genocidal nation” although the draft does not mention Serbs as culprits.

Vucic and his government have been campaigning both at the U.N. and among developing countries to win support for a “No” vote. They say they have already gained a majority against the resolution. Approval requires a majority of those voting.

Vucic as well as Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik have mentioned several times the possibility of having to pay war damages if the resolution is adopted. Local analysts say Serb leaders, including Vukic, also fear they could be put on trial for active participation in the bloodshed.

The draft resolution condemns “without reservation any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event.” It also “condemns without reservation actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by international courts, including those responsible for the Srebrenica genocide.”

Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, were both convicted of genocide in Srebrenica by a special U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. In all, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced close to 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to lengthy prison terms.

However, most Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials still celebrate Karadzic and Mladic as national heroes. They continue to downplay or even deny the Srebrenica killings, which has deeply offended relatives of the massacre victims and survivors.

At a meeting with Dodik in Budapest on Wednesday, Hungary Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said his country will vote against the resolution. He called the genocide the “Srebrenica tragedy” and said the resolution “intentionally or unintentionally would demonize the entire Serbian nation” and inflame tensions in the surrounding region.

The upcoming vote was also raised at a regular U.N. Security Council meeting on political and economic developments in Bosnia on Wednesday.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said, “Dodik’s dangerous actions and secessionist rhetoric threaten peace and stability in the region” and “genocide denial also prevents reconciliation.”

“Commemorating historical truths and accepting facts is important and moves the region forward on a path towards reconciliation,” Wood said. ”And honoring the victims of genocide reinforces the values reflected in the U.N. Charter.”

But Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, whose country has strong ties to Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs, said the introduction of the resolution without the consent of all Bosnian parties was a violation of the country’s constitution and the 1995 Dayton peace agreement which ended the war.

“We view this provocative text as a threat to peace and security in the country and in the region as a whole,” he said, accusing Germany and Rwanda of sparking protests instead of promoting reconciliation.

Chinese Deputy U.N. Ambassador Geng Shuang reiterated Beijing’s call for the sponsors to engage with key parties and member states to reach consensus on the draft resolution. He said there are still “major differences” and “forcing it through is inconsistent with the spirit of promoting reconciliation” within Bosnia and among countries in the region.

Germany and Rwanda have said they would seriously consider proposals by Serbia to change the text.

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Associated Press writers Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.

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May 16, 2024
Gaza’s seventh mass grave discovered at al-Shifa Hospital

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NewsFeed

A new mass grave has been discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza where Palestinian officials have been investigating allegations of killings of patients and staff by Israeli forces during their occupation of the site.

Published On 9 May 2024

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May 9, 2024
Genocide Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at genocide, the attempted or intentional destruction of a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, whether in wartime or peace.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations after World War II.

Article II of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

1932-1933 – Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union inflict a famine upon Ukraine after people rebel against the imposed system of land management known as “collectivization,” which seizes privately owned farmlands and puts people to work in collectives. An estimated 25,000-33,000 people die every day. There are an estimated six million to 10 million deaths.

December 1937-January 1938 – The Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanking, China, and kills an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers. Tens of thousands are raped before they are murdered.

1938-1945 – Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, deems the Jewish population racially inferior and a threat, and kills six million Jewish people in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union and other areas around Europe during World War II.

1944 – The term “genocide” is coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

December 9, 1948 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

January 12, 1951 – The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force. It is eventually ratified by 142 nations.

1975-1979 – Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s attempt to turn Cambodia into a Communist peasant farming society leads to the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, forced labor and executions.

1988 – The Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein attacks civilians who have remained in “prohibited” areas. The attacks include the use of mustard gas and nerve agents and result in the death of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi Kurds.

1992-1995 – Yugoslavia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, attacks Bosnia after it declares its independence. Approximately 100,000 people – the majority of whom are Muslims, or Bosniaks, – are killed in the conflict. There are mass executions of “battle-age” men and mass rape of women.

1995 – Ratko Mladic, former leader of the Bosnian Serb army, is indicted by the UN-established International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes and atrocities. In 2011, Mladic is arrested in Serbia. On November 22, 2017, Mladic is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

1994 – In Rwanda, an estimated 800,000 civilians, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group, are killed over a period of three months.

July 17, 1998 – The Rome Statute, to establish a permanent international criminal court, is adopted.

1998 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) establishes the precedent that rape during warfare is a crime of genocide. In Rwanda, HIV-infected men participated in the mass rape of Tutsi women.

1998 – The first genocide conviction occurs at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Jean Paul Akayesu, the Hutu mayor of the town, Taba, is convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.

July 1, 2002 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) opens at The Hague, Netherlands, as the first permanent war crimes tribunal, with jurisdiction to try perpetrators of genocide. Previously, the UN Security Council created ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

2003-2004 – In the Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been killed. In July 2004, the US House of Representatives and the Senate pass resolutions declaring the crisis in Darfur to be genocide.

2008 – Fugitive Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is arrested. He is charged with genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. On March 24, 2016, Karadzic is found guilty of 10 of the 11 charges against him, including one count of genocide. He is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Three years later, the sentence is changed to life in prison by appeal judges at a UN court in the Hague, Netherlands.

March 4, 2009 – The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

June 4, 2013 – The ICTR unseals a 2012 updated indictment against Ladislas Ntaganzwa. The former mayor of a town in south Rwanda is indicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations of international humanitarian law during the 1994 killings in Rwanda.

August 2014 – ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious minority group called the Yazidis. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of thirst and women are being sold into slavery.

December 9, 2015 – The arrest of Ntaganzwa is announced. On May 28, 2020, Ntaganzwa is convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by the High Court Chamber for International Crimes in Rwanda. He is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

January 2016 – According to a 2016 United Nations report, ISIS is believed to be holding 3,500 people as slaves, most of which are women and children from the Yazidi community and other minority groups. On March 17, 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry announces that the United States has determined that ISIS’ action against the Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitutes genocide.

September 18, 2018 – In its “Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar,” the United Nations finds that “there is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials” on charges of genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

November 2018 – Two Khmer Rouge senior surviving leaders are found guilty of genocide and other charges against Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, now 92 and 87, are sentenced to life in prison by an international tribunal in Cambodia.

January 23, 2020 – The UN’s top court orders Myanmar to prevent acts of genocide against the country’s persecuted Rohingya minority and to stop destroying evidence, in a landmark case at The Hague. The case was brought to the International Court of Justice by the tiny West African nation of The Gambia, which in November alleged that Myanmar committed “genocidal acts.”

May 16, 2020 – Félicien Kabuga, one of the last key suspects in the Rwandan genocide, is captured in Asnières-Sur-Seine, a Paris suburb. Indicted in 1997 on seven counts including genocide, he has been a fugitive for more than 20 years. Kabuga is transferred to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) October 26. In an order published June 6, 2023, the IRMCT rules that Kabuga is no longer capable of “meaningful participation” in his trial.

March 21, 2022 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces that the United States has determined that the military of Myanmar committed genocide against the country’s Rohingya population in 2016 and 2017.

December 29, 2023 – According to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa has filed an application at the court to begin proceedings over allegations of genocide against Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza. In a hearing on January 26, 2024, the ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza but stopped short of calling for Israel to suspend its military campaign in Gaza, as South Africa had requested.

February 2, 2024 – The ICJ says that it will move forward with a 2022 case brought by Ukraine over Russia’s justification of its February 2022 invasion. Kyiv had asked the court to declare it did not commit genocide in eastern Ukraine – a claim made by Russia as a pretext for launching its attack.

Remembering the Rwanda genocide, 25 years on

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April 24, 2024
Rwanda’s leader is concerned over perceived US ambiguity about victims of the 1994 genocide

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KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Monday he was concerned by what he saw as a U.S. failure to characterize the 1994 massacres as a genocide against the country’s minority Tutsis.

Kagame told reporters that the issue was an “element of discussion” in talks with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who led the American delegation to a ceremony Sunday commemorating the 30th anniversary of the genocide in which Hutu extremists slaughtered about 800,000 people, most of them Tutsis, in a government-orchestrated campaign.

Many Rwandans criticized U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for failing to specify that the genocide targeted the Tutsis when he wrote late Sunday: “We mourn the many thousands of Tutsis, Hutus, Twas, and others whose lives were lost during 100 days of unspeakable violence.”

Responding to a journalist’s question about Blinken’s post on the social platform X, Kagame said he believed he had reached an agreement with U.S. authorities a decade ago for them not to voice any criticism on the genocide anniversary.

“Give us that day,” he said, adding that criticism over “everything we are thought not to have at all” is unwanted on the genocide anniversary.

Rwandan authorities insist any ambiguity on who the genocide victims were is an attempt to distort history and disrespects the memory of the victims.

U.S. officials did not comment on Monday. President Joe Biden issued a statement Sunday, saying, “We will never forget the horrors of those 100 days, the pain and loss suffered by the people of Rwanda, or the shared humanity that connects us all, which hate can never overcome.”

“In the 100 days that followed, more than 800,000 women, men, and children were murdered. Most were ethnic Tutsis; some were Hutus and Twa people. It was a methodical mass extermination, turning neighbor against neighbor, and decades later, its repercussions are still felt across Rwanda and around the world,” Biden wrote.

“We honor the victims who died senselessly and the survivors who courageously rebuilt their lives. And we commend all Rwandans who have contributed to reconciliation and justice efforts, striving to help their nation bind its wounds, heal its trauma, and build a foundation of peace and unity. Those efforts continue to this day.”

The question of how to memorialize the genocide stems from allegations that the Rwandan Patriotic Front — the rebel group that stopped the massacres and has ruled Rwanda unchallenged since 1994 — carried out its own revenge killings during and after the genocide.

Kagame has previously said that his forces showed restraint. He said in a speech Sunday that Rwandans are disgusted by what he described as the hypocrisy of Western nations that failed to stop the genocide.

The genocide was ignited when a plane carrying then-President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over Kigali on April 6, 1994. The Tutsis were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president, and became targets in massacres led by Hutu extremists that lasted over 100 days. Some moderate Hutus who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also killed.

As part of weeklong commemorations, flags flew at half-staff and public places across Rwanda were told to keep entertainment quiet.

Rwandan authorities also face questions over how to present commemoration activities in a way that acknowledges the efforts of some Hutus to protect their Tutsi neighbors.

“You see, those who are denying the genocide are saying, ’Ah, to commemorate? It’s a big serious barrier to unity. We have to move forward, to forget about commemoration,'” said Naphtal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of a prominent group of genocide survivors in Kigali. “Those are wrong. They have genocide ideology. They don’t want to remember what happened.”

The government has long blamed the international community for ignoring warnings about the killings, and some Western leaders have expressed regret.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that France and its allies could have stopped the genocide but lacked the will to do so. Macron’s declaration came three years after he acknowledged the “overwhelming responsibility” of France — Rwanda’s closest European ally in 1994 — for failing to stop Rwanda’s slide into the slaughter.

Although Kagame is a U.S. ally and has friendly relations with many Western leaders, he is under growing pressure over Rwanda’s military involvement in eastern Congo, where tensions have flared recently as the two countries’ leaders accuse one another of supporting armed groups. In February, the U.S. urged Rwanda to withdrawal its troops and missile systems from eastern Congo, for the first time describing the M23 as a Rwanda-backed rebel group.

U.N. experts have said they had “solid evidence” that members of Rwanda’s armed forces were conducting operations there in support of M23, whose rebellion has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Congo’s North Kivu’s province.

Kagame said Monday that the M23 are fighting for the rights of Congolese Tutsis, with at least 100,000 of them now seeking shelter in Rwanda after fleeing attacks in eastern Congo.

Rwandan authorities say they want to deter rebels, including Hutu extremists responsible for the genocide, who fled to eastern Congo.

Rwanda’s ethnic composition remains largely unchanged since 1994, with a Hutu majority. The Tutsis account for 14% and the Twa just 1% of Rwanda’s 14 million people.

Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government has outlawed any form of organization along ethnic lines, as part of efforts to build a uniform Rwandan identity. National ID cards no longer identify citizens by ethnic group, and authorities imposed a tough penal code to prosecute those suspected of denying the genocide or the “ideology” behind it.

But some observers say the law has been used to silence critics who question the government’s policies, including how to build lasting unity and reconciliation.

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April 8, 2024
Top UN court will hold hearings in a case accusing Germany of facilitating Israel’s Gaza conflict

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Preliminary hearings open Monday at the United Nations’ top court in a case that seeks an end of German military and other aid to Israel, based on claims that Berlin is “facilitating” acts of genocide and breaches of international law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Israel strongly denies its military campaign amounts to breaches of the Genocide Convention.

While the case brought by Nicaragua centers on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its toll doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.

“We are calm and we will set out our legal position in court,” German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Fischer said ahead of the hearings.

“We reject Nicaragua’s accusations,” Fischer told reporters in Berlin on Friday. “Germany has breached neither the genocide convention nor international humanitarian law, and we will set this out in detail before the International Court of Justice.”

Nicaragua has asked the court to hand down preliminary orders known as provisional measures, including that Germany “immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention” and international law.

The court will likely take weeks to deliver its preliminary decision and Nicaragua’s case will likely drag on for years.

Monday’s hearing at the world court comes amid growing calls for allies to stop supplying arms to Israel as its six-month campaign continues to lay waste to Gaza.

The offensive has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population. Food is scarce, the U.N. says famine is approaching and few Palestinians have been able to leave the besieged territory.

“The case next week in The Hague will likely further galvanize opposition to any support for Israel,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

On Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel. The United States and Germany opposed the resolution.

Also, hundreds of British jurists, including three retired Supreme Court judges, have called on their government to suspend arms sales to Israel after three U.K. citizens were among seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen killed in Israeli strikes. Israel said the attack on the aid workers was a mistake caused by “misidentification.”

Germany has for decades been a staunch supporter of Israel. Days after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained why: “Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel,” he told lawmakers.

Berlin, however, has gradually shifted its tone as civilian casualties in Gaza have soared, becoming increasingly critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and spoken out against a ground offensive in Rafah.

Nicaragua’s government, which has historical links with Palestinian organizations dating back to their support for the 1979 Sandinista revolution, was itself accused earlier this year by U.N.-backed human rights experts of systematic human rights abuses “tantamount to crimes against humanity.” The government of President Daniel Ortega fiercely rejected the allegations.

In January, the ICJ imposed provisional measures ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and acts of genocide in Gaza. The orders came in a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention.

The court last week ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.

On Friday, Israel said it’s taking steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including reopening a key border crossing into northern Gaza.

Nicaragua argues that by giving Israel political, financial and military support and by defunding the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, UNWRA, “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

Israel strongly denies that its assault amounts to genocidal acts, saying it is acting in self defense. Israeli legal advisor Tal Becker told judges at the court in January that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”

___

Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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April 7, 2024
U2, Genocide, And More: This Week In Breaking News March 9, 2024

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March 9, 2024
Air Force member in critical condition after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in DC

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WASHINGTON — An active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force was critically injured Sunday after setting himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while declaring that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide,” a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The man, whose name wasn’t immediately released, walked up to the embassy shortly before 1 p.m. and began livestreaming on the video streaming platform Twitch, the person said. Law enforcement officials believe the man started a livestream, set his phone down and then doused himself in accelerant and ignited the flames. At one point, he said he “will no longer be complicit in genocide,” the person said. The video was later removed from the platform, but law enforcement officials have obtained and reviewed a copy.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Police did not immediately provide any additional details about the incident.

The incident happened as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking the cabinet approval for a military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah while a temporary cease-fire deal is being negotiated. Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, however, has drawn criticisms, including genocide claims against the Palestinians.

Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations and says it is carrying out operations in accordance with international law in the Israel-Hamas war.

In December, a person self-immolated outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta and used gasoline as an accelerant, according to Atlanta’s fire authorities. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene, and the act was believed to be one of “extreme political protest.”

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington said its officers had responded to the scene outside the Israeli Embassy to assist U.S. Secret Service officers and that its bomb squad had also been called to examine a suspicious vehicle. Police said no hazardous materials were found in the vehicle.

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February 25, 2024
Brazil’s president accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, doubling down after earlier uproar

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Brazil’s president alleged Saturday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, doubling down on harsh rhetoric after stirring controversy a week earlier by comparing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust.

Israel has vehemently pushed back against genocide claims, saying its war is targeting the militant group Hamas, not the Palestinian people. It has held Hamas responsible for civilian deaths, arguing that the group operates from civilian areas.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that the bodies of 92 Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardments were brought to hospitals over the past 24, raising the overall toll in nearly five months of war to 29,606. The total number of wounded rose to nearly 70,000.

The ministry’s death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said two-thirds of those killed were children and women. Israel says its troops have killed more than 10,000 Hamas fighters, but has not provided details.

Israel declared war after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages. More than 100 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza.

The steadily rising civilian death toll and a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza have amplified calls for a cease-fire. Hunger and infectious diseases are spreading and some 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, with about 1.4 million crowded into the southern city of Rafah o n the border with Egypt.

Negotiators from the United States, Israel, Egypt and Qatar were meeting in Paris this weekend to try to reach a deal on pausing the fighting. Egypt and Qatar serve as mediators between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight until “total victory,” but has dispatched a delegation to Paris to seek the release of hostages in exchange for a temporary truce. Negotiators face wide gaps and an unofficial deadline — the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan around March 10.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he would not give up his “dignity for falsehood,” an apparent reference to calls for him to retract comments comparing Israel’s conduct in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews perished during World War II.

“What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide,” he wrote Saturday. “Children and women are being murdered.”

In response to Lula’s initial comments, Israel declared him a persona non grata, summoned Brazil’s ambassador and demanded an apology. In retaliation, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador to Israel for consultations.

Last month, South Africa filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. The court issued a preliminary order in the landmark case two weeks later, ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.

Israel, created in part as a refuge for survivors of the Holocaust, has accused South Africa of hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his right-wing government drew an angry response from the United States, its closest ally, over plans to build more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu’s fire-brand finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has said the plans came in response to a Palestinian shooting attack earlier in the week that killed one Israeli and wounded five.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that he was “disappointed” to hear of the Israeli announcement. “It’s been long-standing U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace,” he said in Buenos Aires. “They’re also inconsistent with international law.

The Biden administration also restored a U.S. legal finding dating back nearly 50 years that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are “illegitimate” under international law.

Blinken said the U.S. believes settlements are inconsistent with Israel’s obligations, reversing a determination made by his predecessor, Mike Pompeo.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo.

___

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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February 24, 2024
Ratko Mladic Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
—

Here is a look at the life of Ratko Mladic, former leader of the Bosnian Serb army, sentenced to life in prison for genocide and other war crimes.

Birth date: March 12, 1942

Birth place: Kalnovik, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Birth name: Ratko Mladic

Father: Nedja Mladic

Mother: Stana Mladic

Marriage: Bosiljka Mladic

Children: Darko and Ana

1965 – Graduates from a military academy and joins the Communist Party.

1992 – As a commander in the Bosnian Serb army, Mladic leads the siege of Sarajevo.

July 1995 – Mladic spearheads an attack on the town of Srebrenica. Approximately 8,000 Muslim men and boys are killed.

1995 – Mladic is indicted by the UN-established International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes and atrocities.

July 1996 – An international warrant is issued for his arrest.

1996-2001 – He takes refuge in Belgrade with the protection of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

2001 – Mladic goes into hiding after Milosevic is arrested.

October 12, 2007 – Serbian officials offer one million euros for information leading to the capture of Mladic.

May 26, 2011 – Mladic is arrested in Serbia.

July 4, 2011 – Mladic refuses to enter a plea so the presiding judge enters not guilty pleas to all counts against him.

May 16, 2012 – Mladic’s trial begins. He’s charged with two counts of genocide, nine crimes against humanity and war crimes.

January 28, 2014 – He refuses to testify at the genocide trial of former Bosian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic and denounces the ICTY court as “satanic.”

October 23, 2014 – The ICTY announces that the court will hear details about a mass grave investigators believe has ties to Mladic.

December 7, 2016 – During closing arguments, prosecutors recommend a life sentence for Mladic.

December 15, 2016 – Mladic’s trial is adjourned. Three UN judges begin deliberating on his fate. The process could take up to a year.

November 22, 2017 – Mladic is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

March 22, 2018 – Appeals his conviction and sentence.

August 25-26, 2020 – Mladic’s appeal hearing takes place.

June 8, 2021 – A UN court upholds Mladic’s conviction and life sentence.

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February 23, 2024
American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC) Calls for an End to State of Emergency in Amhara, Ethiopia

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WASHINGTON, February 7, 2024 (Newswire.com)
–
In the face of ongoing and lethal human rights violations perpetrated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmad’s regime, coupled with an escalating famine, the American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC) unequivocally denounces the Ethiopian government’s decision on Friday to extend the State of Emergency in the Amhara region.

The severity of the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia has been underscored by disturbing reports of a merciless and deadly massacre conducted by government forces in the village of Merawi, located approximately 35 kilometers from Bahir Dar City, the seat of the regional government in the Amhara region. As detailed by the BBC, which conducted interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, security forces carried out door-to-door raids on Jan. 28, 2024, resulting in the tragic deaths of up to 85 civilians, an act of genocide, with some of the victims brutally shot on sidewalks.

The massacre of innocent villagers unfolded in the aftermath of a deadly clash between Ethiopian government soldiers and the widely supported regional militia known as Fano. This incident represents a disturbing escalation within the ongoing crisis in Amhara in which government drone-strikes have killed civilians and destroyed religious shrines and other landmarks while soldiers have engaged in reprehensible acts of rape and burning homes and local food supplies.

In the aftermath of the Merawi massacre, the BBC reported confirmation from a regional office of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EthioHRC) regarding the assault on innocent civilians. Eyewitnesses who spoke to the BBC described a nightmarish scene in which Ethiopian defense forces entered the village at 5 a.m. — after members of Fano had departed — and rounded up residents.

One man recounted to the British news service that government troops took his brother along with 12 others from their homes, marched them to a paved area, and executed them. Another villager grimly reported, “They killed a child with five bullets and dumped him on the cobbles in our neighborhood.”

Merely four days after the harrowing events on Feb. 2, the Ethiopian Parliament voted to prolong the State of Emergency in Amhara for an additional six months. This extension grants the government authority to enforce curfews, restrict individuals’ movement, and prohibit public gatherings. After the vote, Daniel Bekele, head of EthioHRC, posted that he was “gravely concerned” about the devastating impact that extending the State of Emergency would have on the region’s accelerating humanitarian crises.

The grim reality is that the extension of the State of Emergency will enable the Abiy regime to persist in its brutal suppression of the region, and violence that has already claimed thousands of lives and has been linked to a litany of crimes against humanity. In addition to the mounting death toll caused by violent actions, including house-to-house raids and missile strikes from drones supplied by external actors like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, Amhara is also part of a wider swath of northern Ethiopia grappling with an intensifying famine.

Last Friday, a top United Nations official warned that northern Ethiopia is threatened by “severe water shortages, dried pastures, and reduced harvests,” which are “impacting millions of lives of human beings and livestock, with reports of food insecurity and rising malnutrition.” Officials report that almost 400 people have already lost their lives in Amhara and the neighboring Tigray region. The prevailing consensus among experts is that the persistent conflict has been the primary catalyst for the hunger crisis, though the area is additionally grappling with the devastating effects of a severe drought.

AEPAC, grounded in the mission of promoting pro-Ethiopia policies and fortifying the enduring ties between the United States and Ethiopia, calls upon the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. Agency for International Development to use all available diplomatic, development, and legal tools to pressure the Abiy Ahmed government to end the State of Emergency in Amhara, cease its oppressive measures in Amhara and other parts of Ethiopia, and prioritize the immediate delivery of essential humanitarian aid. Ending the unnecessary State of Emergency in Amhara and withdrawing its forces is a critical first step to restore peace to the region and the nation.

AEPAC also urges the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan panel established by the U.S. Congress, to urgently convene hearings and draw attention to a rapidly intensifying large-scale humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, a country of 120 million people. This crisis in Ethiopia, regrettably, has been grievously overlooked by a global community collectively focused on conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It is imperative that the commission vigorously amplifies awareness and advocates for decisive action to address this pressing issue.

The American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee’s (AEPAC) core mission is to strengthen and enhance the century-old relationship between the United States and the people of Ethiopia. In the face of the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia, AEPAC stands as a staunch advocate for peace, justice, and the welfare of the Ethiopian people. AEPAC remains dedicated to amplifying the voices of the Ethiopian people and promoting a positive and cooperative relationship between the United States and the people of Ethiopia, based on our shared values of democracy, justice, and human rights.

Source: American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee

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February 7, 2024
EU Commission changes social media post about Auschwitz after protests from Poland

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WARSAW, Poland — Poland on Sunday asked the European Commission to fix a social media post about the Holocaust, saying it wrongly linked the Auschwitz death camp to Poland, rather than Nazi Germany.

In a video posted Saturday on the X platform by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, she and other commissioners read the names of Holocaust victims while video captions noted their places of birth and death.

Several victims were listed as “Murdered in Auschwitz, Poland,” without noting that the notorious extermination camp was built and run by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X: “When referring to the Nazi extermination camp in Auschwitz, it should be noted that it was established under German occupation.” He added that “information posted on the European Commission’s social media will be clarified.”

Later Sunday, the captions in the video were changed to “Auschwitz, German Nazi extermination camp.”

The European Commission didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

The speaker of the Polish parliament, Szymon Holownia, welcomed the change saying: “The Auschwitz camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established in the areas occupied by Germany in 1939. This is the only truth.”

Poles are highly sensitive to any description of Auschwitz that fails to mention that the camp was built by Nazi Germany after it invaded Poland.

On Saturday, a group of Holocaust survivors and state officials held a modest ceremony at the memorial and museum site of Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark the 79th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by the Soviet troops on Jan. 17, 1945. The day is now dedicated to Holocaust remembrance.

Germany invaded neighboring Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, starting World War II. Beginning in 1940, the Nazis used old Austrian military barracks in the southern town of Oswiecim, which they renamed Auschwitz, as a concentration and death camp for Polish resistance members. In 1942 they added the nearby Birkenau part, with gas chambers and crematoria, as a mass extermination site, mostly for Jews.

An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau until its liberation. During that time, Poland was under brutal German occupation and lost some 6 million citizens, half of them Jews.

Polish law penalizes anyone wrongly blaming Poles for Nazi Germany’s crimes on Polish soil.

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January 28, 2024
Mass. marijuana shops pay towns hefty fees. Why that might change. – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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… Monday.
Under current state law, marijuana establishments must pay a community … the costs imposed by the marijuana establishment.
“Reasonably related” means there … offset the operation of a marijuana establishment. Those costs could include …

Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

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January 28, 2024
Airstrike kills 3 Palestinians in southern Gaza as Israel presses on with its war against Hamas

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RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Two women and a man were killed early Saturday in what witnesses said was an Israeli airstrike on a home in the southernmost part of Gaza, as Israel pursued its military offensive against the Palestinian enclave.

The strike came less than a day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. As part of its binding ruling, the top United Nations court asked Israel for a compliance report in a month, meaning the military’s conduct will be under increasing scrutiny.

The court stopped short of ordering a cease-fire, but the orders its judges issued were in part a stinging rebuke of the army’s conduct so far in Israel’s nearly 4-month-long war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Friday’s decision came in a case brought by South Africa, which alleged Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian territory’s people, a charge Israel vehemently denies.

The war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85% of a population of 2.3 million people. It was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.

The overall Palestinian death toll in the war rose to 26,257 as of Saturday, with 174 deaths over the past day, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count, but has said about two-thirds are women and children. It said the total number of wounded surpassed 64,000.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the militants embed themselves in buildings used by civilians. Israel says its air and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 9,000 militants.

Bilal al-Siksik, who lost his wife, a son and a daughter in Saturday’s strike in Rafah, a town on Gaza’s border with Egypt, said the decision by the world court meant little since it did not stop the war.

“No one can speak in front of them (Israel). America with all its greatness and strength can do nothing,” he said as he stood beside the pile or rubble and twisted metal that was once his home. “What can people do, who have no power or anything?” He said his family was asleep when their residence was struck.

Rafah and its surrounding areas are crammed with more than 1 million people after the Israeli military ordered civilians to seek refuge there from the fighting elsewhere in the territory. Despite those orders, the designated evacuation areas have repeatedly come under airstrikes, with Israel saying it would go after militants as needed.

Some Gaza residents expressed dismay that the U.N. court based in The Hague, Netherlands, did not order an immediate end to the fighting as South Africa had requested.

“The court’s decisions were disappointing to us,” Yahya Saadat, who was displaced from the northern city of Beit Hanoun and now lives in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said late Friday. “We were waiting for the International Court of Justice to issue stricter decisions than that, such as a cease-fire, our return to our homes in the north, and stopping the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip.”

Others saw Friday’s rulings from a 17-judge panel as a significant, if symbolic, step.

“The measures approved by the court are mostly in the interest of the Palestinian people regarding human suffering, violation of international law, and many other issues,” said Mazen Muhaisen, who also was sheltering in Deir al-Balah.

The court ruled that Israel must refrain from harming or killing Palestinian civilians while doing all it can to prevent genocide, including punishing anyone who incites others to support the destruction of Gaza’s people. The judges also ordered Israel to urgently get basic aid to Gaza.

The interim orders did not address the substance of the case — the genocide allegations — and a final ruling is expected to take years.

Although the provisional measures issued Friday are legally binding, it is unclear if Israel will comply. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to move ahead with the war, saying the fact that the court did throw out the genocide charges was a “mark of shame that will not be erased for generations.”

The Israeli military said Saturday it had conducted several “targeted raids on terror targets” in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing “numerous terrorists.” It did not mention Rafah.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has strongly supported the offensive but has increasingly called for restraint and for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.

Almost four months after the Hamas attack in southern Israel, dozens of hostages remain captive in Gaza. More than a 100 were released in a swap for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long cease-fire in November, and an unspecified number of the remaining 136 hostages are believed to have been killed.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with his Egyptian and Qatari counterparts Friday ahead of a trip by his CIA director that is intended to seek progress toward a deal to secure the release of more hostages in exchange for a pause in the fighting.

CIA Director Bill Burns is slated to meet in Europe soon with the head of the intelligence agencies of Israel and Egypt and with the the prime minister of Qatar, according to three people familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

Hamas has said it will only release the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller contributed from Washington and Elena Becatoros contributed from Athens, Greece.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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January 27, 2024
Nazi death camp survivors mark 79th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation on Holocaust Remembrance Day

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WARSAW, Poland — A group of survivors of Nazi death camps will mark the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II in a modest ceremony Saturday in southern Poland.

Some 20 survivors from various camps set up by Nazi Germany around Europe were to lay wreaths at the Death Wall in Auschwitz and hold prayers at the monument in Birkenau. They will memorialize some 1.1 million camp victims, mostly Jews. The attentively preserved memorial site and museum are located near the city of Oswiecim.

Nearly 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II.

Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the survivors are to be accompanied by Polish Senate Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz and Israeli ambassador Yacov Livne.

The theme of the observances is the human being, symbolized in simple, hand-drawn portraits. They are meant to stress that the horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau lies in the suffering of people held and killed there.

A memorial ceremony with prayers was held Friday in Warsaw at the foot of the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, who fell fighting the Nazis in 1943.

Earlier in the week, the countries of the former Yugoslavia signed an agreement in Paris to jointly renovate Block 17 in the red-brick Auschwitz camp and install a permanent exhibition there in memory of some 20,000 people who were deported from their territories and brought to the block. Participating in the project will be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Preserving the camp, a notorious symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust, with its cruelly misleading “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes One Free”) gate, requires constant effort by historians and experts, and substantial funds.

The Nazis, who occupied Poland from 1939-1945, at first used old Austrian military barracks at Auschwitz as a concentration and death camp for Poland’s resistance fighters. In 1942, the wooden barracks, gas chambers and crematoria of Birkenau were added for the extermination of Europe’s Jews, Roma and other nationals, as well as Russian prisoners of war.

Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 27, 1945, with some 7,000 prisoners there. The Germans had evacuated tens of thousands of other inmates on foot days earlier in what is now called the Death March, because many inmates died of exhaustion and cold in the sub-freezing temperatures.

Since 1979, the Auschwitz-Birkenau site has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage.

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January 26, 2024
Top U.N. court won’t dismiss Israel genocide case but stops short of ordering Gaza cease-fire
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In an interim judgment, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice on Friday ruled that Israel must take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, but it stopped short of ordering an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s war with Hamas. The ICJ ruled that it has jurisdiction to consider the landmark case brought by South Africa against Israel, and it rejected Israel’s request for the case to be dismissed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement issued quickly after the court’s ruling, slammed the genocide allegation against his country as “not only false, it’s outrageous.”

South Africa alleges that “acts and omissions” committed by Israel as part of its offensive in Gaza “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

The court’s president Joan E. Donoghue said Friday in the court at The Hague, Netherlands, that, based on an initial assessment of Israel’s actions and remarks from Israeli leaders, it would not accept Israel’s request to dismiss the case as there were plausible claims of possible genocidal acts. The ICJ did not order an immediate cease-fire, but it did order Israel to take some provisional measures.

First, the court said Israel must “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the (Genocide) convention” and “ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described” in the above measure. It said Israel must do everything it can to ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of genocide.

How laws of war apply to fighting between Israel and Hamas

11:06

The court also said Israel must “take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza strip,” and “take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions” facing Palestinians in Gaza.

Finally, the court ordered Israel to submit a report to it “on all measures taken to give effect to this order” within a month.

South Africa filed its case at the ICJ in December, seeking an interim order by the court for Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Gaza.

Such an order would have been surprising, however, according to Cathy Powell, a professor of public law at the University of Cape Town, “because no one has denied we are dealing with an armed conflict,” and the lopsided nature of that conflict between a nation and a widely-recognized terror group.

She said South Africa’s legal team had done an “excellent job making their case,” but “what it didn’t do was look at the relationship between two parties in armed conflict, where you tie one party’s hands, who are signed to the genocide convention, when you have no say over the other, non-signatory party, Hamas.”

The ICJ is the U.N.’s top court and its rulings are binding, but it has no power to enforce them.

Israel reacts to the ICJ ruling

Israel has staunchly rejected the accusation of genocide and earlier this month it formally sought the case’s dismissal.

Israeli leaders have insisted since the beginning of the war that the country is acting within its right to self-defense. Netanyahu previously accused South Africa of “brazen gall” in bringing the case, which he dismissed as a “false and baseless” defense of Hamas.

“Israel’s commitment to international law is unwavering. Equally unwavering is our sacred commitment to continue to defend our country and defend our people,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said Friday in response to the interim ruling.

“The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it,” Netanyahu said. “Our war is against Hamas terrorists, not against Palestinian civilians. We will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance, and to do our utmost to keep civilians out of harm’s way, even as Hamas uses civilians as human shields. We will continue to do what is necessary to defend our country and defend our people.”

Israel has said its military takes a number of measures to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, including dropping flyers warning of upcoming attacks, calling civilians on the phone to urge them to leave buildings that will be targeted, and canceling some strikes if civilians are in the way.

Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said in a statement that Israel “does not need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza,” adding that “those who seek justice, will not find it on the leather chairs of the court chambers in The Hague.”

“The IDF and security agencies will continue operating to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization, and to return the hostages to their homes,” Gallant said.

The Palestinians and South Africa react

“ICJ judges assessed the facts and the law, ruled in favor of humanity and international law,” Riyad Al-Maliki, the Foreign Minister for the Palestinian Authority, said in response to the interim ruling, according to the Reuters news agency.

South Africa’s Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor said, despite the lack of a cease-fire order, that the interim ruling would necessitate a pause in fighting in Gaza.

“How do you provide aid and water without a cease-fire? If you read the order, by implication a cease-fire must happen,” Pandor said outside the court.

The Israel-Hamas war

Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping about 240 others. Israel immediately launched a counter-offensive against the group in Gaza, with the stated goal of destroying it. That offensive has killed over 26,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. Hamas, long designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, has ruled over Gaza since the 1990s.

In its ruling on Friday, the ICJ said it was “gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.”

In its application to the court, South Africa accuses Israel of “killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” It also says Israel “is continuing to violate its other fundamental obligations under the Genocide Convention, including by failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others.”

The ICJ and the crime of genocide

The United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention in 1948 after the Holocaust. In it, “genocide” is defined as any one of a series of acts, “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Those acts include:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
The ICJ is a civil court and generally rules on disputes between U.N. member states. Though its decisions are binding, the fact that it has no means to enforce its rulings means countries can get away with ignoring them, such as in the case of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022, the ICJ ruled that Russia must “immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine,” after the Ukrainian government brought a case alleging that Russia’s military was also committing genocide. The fighting in Ukraine is ongoing.

Michal Ben-Gal in Tel Aviv, Anhelina Shamlii in London, and Pamela Falk at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Israel & Hamas At War

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Haley Ott

Haley Ott is cbsnews.com’s foreign reporter, based in the CBS News London bureau. Haley joined the cbsnews.com team in 2018, prior to which she worked for outlets including Al Jazeera, Monocle, and Vice News.
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January 26, 2024
U.N. stops short of ordering Gaza cease-fire

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U.N. stops short of ordering Gaza cease-fire – CBS News

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The United Nations’ International Court of Justice ruled Friday that Israel must do more to prevent genocide in Gaza as Israel continues its fight against Hamas, but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire.

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January 26, 2024