Month: March 2024

Rising Violence, Human Rights Violations Threaten Peace in South Sudan

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GENEVA — U.N. investigators warn an alarming rise in violence and human rights violations threatens prospects for a durable peace in South Sudan and risks impeding free and fair elections in December, the first since the country gained its independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011.

Members of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, which submitted its latest report Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, expressed hope that the government would live up to the commitments of the 2020 revitalized peace agreement.

The outlook is not promising. Commission members agree that much remains to be done before elections can go ahead later this year. While South Sudan is coming to the end of a political process, the commission notes that the drafting of a new, permanent constitution has not yet started.

Commission member Barney Afako told the council that entrenched impunity in South Sudan was fueling armed conflict, repression, corruption and human rights violations, including sexual violence. That, he noted, was hardly an environment in which free and fair elections could take place.

“Last April, we named senior officials responsible for serious crimes, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and sexual violence,” he said. All of them retain their positions, including the governor of Unity State (Joseph Monytuil) and the Koch County commissioner (Gordon Koang). These two individuals enjoy impunity and have continued to instigate serious violence and violations.”

The commission report paints a stark picture of a society where killings, sexual and gender-based crimes, and gross human rights violations against the civilian population go unpunished.

It says children are recruited into the army, and militias and armed cattle keepers encroach upon and grab the land of farmers, inflicting sexual violence and mass abductions on women and children.

The commission has documented cases of young girls and women who have been abducted and held as sexual slaves. Afako said many of the victims have testified to being regularly beaten, continuously raped and threatened with death.

“The scale, severity and violence associated with abductions is worsening. These attacks are well-planned,” he said. “Although authorities were often well aware of them, they claimed to be powerless to stop them. Instead, authorities have negotiated ransoms and encouraged families to pay off abductors. We believe this can only incentivize further abductions.”

He said impunity and lack of justice, accountability and protection institutions are root causes of violations, “including targeted killings, repression, torture and sexual violence against women and girls.”

The commission calls on South Sudan’s government to urgently establish transitional justice institutions and allow the country’s political process to operate meaningfully and legitimately.

Ruben Madol Arol, the South Sudanese minister of justice and constitutional affairs, called the commission report deplorable. He said the report does not consider the actions the government has taken to implement the renewable agreement and improve security in the country.

He bristled at the report’s description of widespread sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in South Sudan, saying it “is misleading and meant to tarnish the image of the country.”

Christian Salazar Volkmann, the director of the field operations and technical cooperation division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the council that the government has made some “concrete progress on institutional electoral preparations.”

While some signs of openness with civil society were emerging, he said, they were insufficient to “create the necessary conducive environment” for the South Sudanese to fully exercise their democratic right to vote.

“Currently, the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly, and association all remain severely restricted,” he said.

“Censorship, harassment, arbitrary arrests, and detention of journalists and dissenting voices continue in South Sudan. This impedes genuine public engagement in the electoral process,” he said.

Justice Minister Arol did not take all that criticism lightly. He threatened to end the mandate of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in South Sudan unless it accepts new conditions.

He said the commission must “share evidence and names of the individuals and entities accused of human rights violations” to the government.

He said the commission also must agree “to monitor and report human rights situations” and let the government handle all investigations.

“If these positions are accepted, the government will accept the extension of [the] mandate of the commission for a period of one year only,” he said.

Ninety-five nongovernmental and human rights organizations sent a letter early last week to council members and observer states urging the council to renew the commission’s mandate. They expressed concern about South Sudan’s human rights situation in view of the upcoming elections.

They noted that the commission’s critical role in that it “is the only mechanism tasked with collecting and preserving evidence of violations on international humanitarian and human rights law with a view to ensuring accountability.
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Taliban Warns of Ban on Female Media Appearance Without Dress Code Compliance

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ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have reportedly warned of barring female journalists and women at large from media platforms unless they comply with a dress code requiring that only their eyes be visible.   

The Afghanistan Journalists Center, or AFJC, a press freedom organization, said the warning was issued Tuesday by Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, head of the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry, meeting with journalists in Kabul.

In a statement on its website, the AFJC quoted ministry spokesman Abdul Ghaffar Farooq as recommending at the meeting that they “adhere to a modest dress code, showing images of women in black attire and veils with their faces mostly covered, leaving only their eyes visible.”  

Farooq also suggested that television news channels avoid interviewing women “who do not adhere to the hijab or fully cover their faces,” the organization said.

“Hanafi warned that failure to comply with these guidelines may lead to a potential prohibition of women working in the media” by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, the statement said.

Ministry officials have not yet commented on the reported meeting or its details.

The media watchdog said it was “deeply concerned” about the state of Afghan media and “the potential repercussions of banning women from working in the media, who already face significant restrictions in their work.”  

It said Hanafi’s warning could ultimately eliminate women from the media in Afghanistan, where the Taliban already have placed sweeping restrictions on most women’s access to education and work or public life at large.

The AFJC said in its statement that local media professionals in the country have dealt with stringent work conditions requiring them to strictly follow a set of media guidelines the Taliban introduced after reclaiming power in 2021. 

Some of the existing directives prevent women from working in national radio and television stations, enforce “gender-based segregation” in workplaces, and prohibit broadcasting female voices and phone calls in certain provinces, the center said.

The AFJC moved its office out of Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover but says it has workers on the ground and coordinates with local media outlets.

The Taliban have banned television dramas that include female performers, and female news presenters must wear an officially prescribed “Islamic hijab” on air.  

‘Gender Apartheid’

The Taliban have prohibited teenage girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade, female aid workers are banned from working for nongovernmental humanitarian groups, including the United Nations, except in the health sector, and females are not allowed to visit public parks, gyms, and bathhouses.

A U.N. expert warned in a report issued Thursday that the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan had “deteriorated immensely” and caused “unacceptable suffering” since the Taliban takeover.  

Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, urged action by the Taliban and the outside world “to halt this downward spiral and give hope” to Afghans.

“Women and girls are being erased from public life, peaceful dissent is not tolerated, violence and the threat of violence are used with impunity to control and instill fear in the population,” Bennett said. He said he is “deeply concerned” about the bans on girls’ education and female aid workers.  

He denounced the Taliban-ordered public executions and floggings of Afghans, including women, convicted of crimes, including murder and adultery.

The report found that “the institutionalized, systematic and widespread nature of gender-based discrimination was unparalleled, rising to the level of gender persecution and justifying being characterized as ‘gender apartheid.’”

Just hours before the report was issued Thursday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that Bennett and other Western critics should stop “misusing” the issue of Afghan human rights and instead focus on and stop rights abuses elsewhere in the world.

The Taliban have rejected criticism of their governance, saying it is aligned with the Islamic law of Sharia and Afghan culture. 
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UN Experts: Sudan’s Paramilitary Forces May Have Committed War Crimes

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UNITED NATIONS — Paramilitary forces and their allied militias fighting to take power in Sudan carried out widespread ethnic killings and rapes while taking control of much of western Darfur that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, United Nations experts said in a new report.

The report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, paints a horrifying picture of the brutality of the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces against Africans in Darfur. It also details how the RSF succeeded in gaining control of four out of Darfur’s five states, including through complex financial networks that involve dozens of companies.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum.

Fighting spread to other parts of the country, but in Sudan’s Darfur region it took on a different form: brutal attacks by the RSF on African civilians, especially the ethnic Masalit.

Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias against populations that identify as Central or East African. It seems that legacy has returned, with the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan saying in late January there are grounds to believe both sides are committing possible war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Darfur.

The panel of experts said Darfur is experiencing “its worst violence since 2005.”

The ongoing conflict has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis and displaced approximately 6.8 million people — 5.4 million within Sudan and 1.4 million who have fled to other countries, including approximately 555,000 to neighboring Chad, the experts said.

The RSF and rival Sudanese government forces have both used heavy artillery and shelling in highly populated areas, causing widespread destruction of critical water, sanitation, education and health care facilities.

In their 47-page report, the experts said the RSF and its militias targeted sites in Darfur where displaced people had found shelter, civilian neighborhoods and medical facilities.

According to intelligence sources, the panel said, in just one city — Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state near the Chad border — between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed.

The experts said sexual violence by the RSF and its allied militia was widespread.

The panel said that, according to reliable sources from Geneina, women and girls as young as 14 years old were raped by RSF elements in a U.N. World Food Program storage facility that the paramilitary force controlled, in their homes, or when returning home to collect belongings after being displaced by the violence. Additionally, 16 girls were reportedly kidnapped by RSF soldiers and raped in an RSF house.

“Racial slurs toward the Masalit and non-Arab community formed part of the attacks,” the panel said. “Neighborhoods and homes were continuously attacked, looted, burned and destroyed,” especially those where Masalit and other African communities lived, and their people were harassed, assaulted, sexually abused, and at times executed.

The experts said prominent Masalit community members were singled out by the RSF, which had a list, and the group’s leaders were harassed and some executed. At least two lawyers, three prominent doctors and seven staff members, and human rights activists monitoring and reporting on the events were also killed, they said.

The RSF and its allied militias looted and destroyed all hospitals and medical storage facilities, which resulted in the collapse of health services and the deaths of 37 women with childbirth complications and 200 patients needing kidney dialysis, the panel said.

After the killing of the wali, or governor, of West Darfur in June, the report said, Masalit and African communities decided to seek protection at Ardamata, just outside Geneina. A convoy of thousands moved out at midnight but as they reached a bridge, RSF and allied militias indiscriminately opened fire, and survivors reported that an estimated 1,000 people were killed, they said.

The panel stressed that disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians — including torture, rapes and killings as well as destruction of critical civilian infrastructure — constitute war crimes under the 1949 Geneva conventions.

The RSF was formed out of Janjaweed fighters by Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades, was overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019, and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

According to the panel, the “RSF’s takeover of Darfur relied on three lines of support: the Arab allied communities, dynamic and complex financial networks, and new military supply lines running through Chad, Libya and South Sudan.”

While both the Sudanese military and RSF engaged in widespread recruitment drives across Darfur from late 2022, the RSF was more successful, the experts said. And it “invested large proceeds from its pre-war gold business in several industries, creating a network of as many as 50 companies.”

The RSF’s complex financial networks “enabled it to acquire weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups,” the experts said.

United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who visited Chad in September, called the report’s findings “horrific” and expressed “deep disappointment” that the U.N. Security Council and the international community have paid such little attention to the allegations.

“The people of Sudan feel that they have been forgotten,” she said.

In light of the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan and the broader region, Thomas-Greenfield demanded that the Sudanese military lift its prohibition on cross-border assistance from Chad and facilitate cross-line assistance from the east. She also demanded in a statement Wednesday that the RSF halt the looting of humanitarian warehouses and that both parties stop harassing humanitarian aid workers.

“The council must act urgently to alleviate human suffering, hold perpetrators to account, and bring the conflict in Sudan to an end,” the U.S. ambassador said. “Time is running out.”
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For China, North Korea Is ‘Card to Play’ in Competition With US, Experts Say

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washington — Beijing is unlikely to help Washington disrupt military cooperation between North Korea and Russia because China sees that move as undermining itself while bolstering U.S. goals in Europe and Asia, analysts said.

“Given U.S. policy in Asia and Washington’s ongoing effort to contain Chinese power in the region, Beijing has no reason to assist the U.S., even indirectly, on one of its most top foreign policy priorities – a Russian defeat in Ukraine,” said Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities.

“For China, North Korea is not a problem to be solved but rather a card to play in its competition with Washington,” continued DePetris in an email to VOA on Tuesday.

The U.S. has turned to China to help rein in North Korea’s threatening missile activities that have now extended beyond East Asia into Europe, where Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on for the third year.

North Korean missiles have killed and injured civilians in the Ukrainian cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Donetsk and Kharkiv since December, the Security Service of Ukraine said on February 22.

The following day, the State Department announced that its senior official for North Korea, Jung Pak, held talks with China’s special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs, Liu Xiaoming.

The two discussed North Korea’s “increasing destabilizing and escalatory behavior and its deepening military cooperation with Russia” on February 21 via videoconferencing, said the U.S. statement.

The U.S. said North Korea has sent more than 10,000 containers of weapons to Russia since September as it announced a sanctions package targeting Moscow on February 23.

The Pak-Xiaoming talks followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s discussion of North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 16.

In response to last week’s talks, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Wednesday via email that “China has no intention to interfere with the cooperation between two sovereign countries” of North Korea and Russia. He called the two nations “China’s friendly neighbors.”

Pengyu continued, “We hope the U.S. will play a positive and constructive role in maintaining peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea seemingly has been accelerating arms transfers to replenish weapons that Russia needs to fight Ukraine since its leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. Kim, in return, was seeking Russia’s technology to enhance his weapons.

Susan Thornton, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Center who served as acting assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the Trump administration, said Beijing might be willing to persuade Moscow to break its ties with Pyongyang once the war in Ukraine is over.

But even then, “China will not be eager to help” if its “relations with the U.S. are still deteriorating,” she said via email on Tuesday.

China views North Korea, which straddles its border, as a buffer zone countering the U.S. and its military bases with 28,500 troops in South Korea. Beijing prefers that Pyongyang maintain stability to continue serving that role.

China has been providing economic aid to sustain heavily sanctioned and isolated North Korea since the 1990s.

Although Beijing is “very uncomfortable” losing leverage over Pyongyang as Moscow now provides alternative sources of food and fuel, that apparent loss is offset by benefits Beijing gains from Moscow’s reliance on China’s economy, said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Project.

Russia has faced heavy sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“China has been an economic life raft for Russia, boosting its energy ties, filling Russian markets with its autos and consumer goods,” said Manning. Beijing will not change its stance on Pyongyang-Moscow ties as it generally continues “to coordinate much of its foreign policy with Russia where it opposes U.S. policy,” he said via email on Wednesday.

However, Michael Swaine, senior research fellow at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said, “Working strenuously with Moscow and Pyongyang to oppose the U.S. poses certain risks for Beijing.”

Swaine said via email on Wednesday that “Right now, it wants to maintain workable relations with Washington, not worsen them. Beijing faces serious domestic problems that demand a relatively stable external environment.”
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