“[ISIS forces] have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yezidi people, which would constitute genocide […] when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye. We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide.”

The actions taken to relieve the Yezidis besieged by ISIS on Mt. Sinjar eventually allowed thousands of men, women and children without food and water to flee the mountain. Their homes had been obliterated and their cultural heritage ransacked by ISIS fighters.  

However, the 2014 campaign against Yezidis was not the first act of genocidal violence perpetrated against the community. The campaign also failed to absolve the US of its role in inadvertently providing an atmosphere conducive to ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence. The combination of Saddam Hussein’s brutality and the dreadful miscalculations made by American and British policymakers and the former dictator intensified the collapse of the Iraqi state. Equally, the neglect of minority communities in Iraq shown by successive administrations, combined with the dysfunctional government set up by Washington in Baghdad in the post-Saddam era, allowed violence to escalate against the Yezidis.

The Yezidi faith, like the Mandaean one, is a religion shrouded in secrecy by its clergy; it is a monotheist religion that incorporates several elements of the Christian, Zoroastrian, and Islamic faiths. To extremists cells such as Al-Qa’ida and ISIS, Yezidis are regarded as “devil worshippers” for their worship of Melek Taus, “the Peacock Angel” sometimes referred to as Shaytan, and which the Qu’ran calls Satan. The Yezidis’ concern with religious purity and honor also created practical problems for their integration in the region. In a region where honor killings and tribal

politics still hold considerable sway, Yezidi taboos and religious rules have come into conflict with other Iraqi communities and other tribes. This conflict was recently exemplified by the honor killing of Du’a where her Yezidi tribe stoned her to death for eloping with a Sunni Muslim. Clearly, honor killings are not a phenomenon purely linked to extremist cells such as ISIS, Al-Qa’ida and regimes such as Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The persecution of the Yezidis is not a recent phenomenon in Iraq. The historian Geraldine Chatelard has argued that most general historical works on modern Iraq fail to mention that “episodes of mass-displacement or forced migration…of political opponents such as the Yezidis is a trend that dates back to the mandate era” and Ottoman Empire. According to British diplomat Gerard Russell, the Yezidis “keep a list of seventy-two persecutions which they have been subjected to over the centuries.”

The Yezidis’ history has been punctuated by persecution at the hands of the Muslim majority in Iraq, while in modern times perpetual war in Iraq has continued to deal the Yezidi people a cruel hand. While Kurds were prioritized in American policymaking narratives during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Yezidis were not mentioned even when entire Yezidi districts were targeted by Saddam’s Arabization programmes in 1965 and between 1973-1975. The Yezidis refused to be incorporated into the Iraqi state as defined by the Ba’athist Party, a state formed along the lines of ethnicity. Resistance against these draconian programmes, violent and non-violent, culminated in genocide against the Kurdish and Yezidi communities during the Al-Anfal campaign in northern Iraq (1986-1989) as Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid pacified the rebellious provinces.

The consequences facing the Yezidis for rejecting the Ba’athist regime’s doctrine were severe. According to Human Rights Watch, these included resettlement, ethnic cleansing, and the en-masse disappearance of Yezidi men who were abducted and executed by military intelligence. As anti-genocide advocate and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers argues, these minorities, like the Kurds, were ignored by both the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. James Baker, the US Secretary of State under Bush, stated that “shifting a policy away from cooperation

towards confrontation is a difficult proposition when support for a “policy of engagement” with Saddam Hussein’s government is fiercely embedded.”

Furthermore, the Iran-Iraq War was a highly profitable enterprise for the West, the Soviet Union, regional powers, and businesses alike. Funnelling armaments, including chemical weapons, into Saddam’s military arsenal to contain the Islamic regime, meant ignoring the appalling genocidal violence being conducted against civilians in Iraq. In the 1980s, US policymakers and journalists treated Saddam’s genocide against the Kurds and Yezidis as a product of war rather than as a genocidal campaign, despite the methodical nature in which villages were collectivized, systematic slaughter was conducted within designated “prohibited zones,” and chemical weapons were used against the Kurds and other minorities, including the Yezidis and Turkmen. In some respects, these actions exceeded the recent violence of ISIS.

This legacy of overlooking the brutalization of Yezidi communities by Saddam escalated after the deposition of the police state by George W. Bush’s administration. Washington and London’s miscalculations during the occupation of Iraq, rather than safeguarding the basic human rights of minorities, exacerbated their plight and exodus from Iraq.

During the occupation, significant intercommunal violence spilled over into open civil war (2006-2007) across Iraq. Several hundred miles to the southeast of the Yezidi communities, the capital of Iraq, Baghdad, was ripped apart by Shi’a and Sunni death squads conducting pogroms against their respective religious sects as American soldiers, supported by Iraqi Security Forces, continued their counterinsurgency operations against Al-Qa’ida in Iraq and affiliated jihadist cells. The Yezidis were eventually drawn into this violence as the impact of Baghdad’s civil war rippled across the shredded Iraqi state.

On April 22, 2007 a bus making its way from Mosul’s Textile Factory to the town of Bashika to drop off factory workers to their homes was ordered to pull over by armed men. They boarded the bus and checked cards for identification. Upon completion, all passengers, with the exception of twenty-three of Yezidi men, were driven deep into the city as the convoy accompanying them pulled over in northern Mosul. Within minutes, they were ordered off the bus, lined up against the wall, and shot. The convoy of gunmen departed, leaving the bodies of the men in the street riddled with bullets and the wall spattered with their blood.

According to the international media, the murders were acts of retribution against the Yezidis after an incident in the town of Bashika twenty-five kilometres north of Mosul weeks earlier. Situated in tranquil hills and surrounded by lush olive groves, the town was a popular destination for Mosul residents to retreat from the bustle of the city for family picnics and to escape from the tumult of the city. Under the American occupation, Bashika had remained relatively stable despite the vicious civil war gripping the rest of the country; there, Yezidi temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches stood in close proximity, presenting a rare image of tolerant coexistence. The town’s quiet nature in many ways epitomized the subtle richness and cultural diversity that came to define Ninewa’s province over centuries of history.

However, the grisly stoning of Du’a  stoked a blood-feud, one fed by the propaganda of the most brutal factions of the Iraq War. As Du’a’s stoning went viral, Islamist extremists smeared the reputation of Bashika, a predominantly Yezidi town, and caught the attention of the international media. By this stage, tit-for-tat killings, executions and kidnappings had become a norm in post-Saddam Iraq. This violence between the Yezidis and Sunnis underscores the sharpening divide between minority groups and Islamist Sunnis and Shiites. These developments were ignored as Petraeus’ decision to secure the streets of Baghdad and to reopen space for political coordination between Iraq’s three main sects (the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds) took priority. This move obscured the urgent threats facing minorities across the country.

With intermittent violence occurring daily alongside a counterinsurgency campaign, the stage was set for a devastating attack. While ISIS operatives were retreating, Sunni insurgents moved to occupy territories in the borderlands between Ninewa in Iraq and the Syrian provinces of Deir ez-Zor and al-Hasakah northwest of Iraq. These locations, ‘strips of the most impoverished and sparsely populated parts of Iraq and Syria,’ were the easiest places to escape US and ISF soldiers.

The territories of thousands of secular and religiously tolerant groups in the province were unprotected. For extremist cells, these groups presented an opportunity to foment sectarian violence and execute attacks against Ninewa’s soft underbelly. As Iraq’s most diverse province, dotted by perceived “devil worshippers,” “heretics,” and “infidels,” the minorities were soft targets for Al-Qa’ida cells. The increasing tensions between Yezidis and hardline Sunni Islamists had created an atmosphere that the terrorist organisation could exploit despite setbacks against the American occupation and Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. The Americans’ withdrawal from the region left minority groups vulnerable to attack, and jihadists were determined to take advantage of the security void left by the Americans.

On August 14, 2007 several trucks, each laced with 27,000 kilograms of explosives, destroyed the Yezidi villages of Kahtaniya and Jazeera. The coordinated suicide attacks killed over 800 men, women, and children, and wounded thousands more. The bombings by Al-Qa’ida in Iraq against the Yezidi communities in Kahtaniya and Jazeera were the second deadliest acts of terrorism in modern history behind the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Still, the acts of terror in Kahtaniya and Jazeera never gained the traction needed to highlight the plight of the Yezidis. The mass slaughter, while initially shocking, did not gain media coverage across the Western world. The massacre blended with news of other attacks as just another bombing in Iraq. Improvised Explosive Devices and Vehicle-Born Improvised Explosive Devices had swiftly become a deadly normality for Coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians. To American policymakers, Kahtaniya and Jazeera was a blip in their “successful” surge. General Petraeus was determined to sell a disastrous war as an unqualified success, stating twenty-four days after the mass slaughter: “To summarize, the security situation in Iraq is improving, and Iraqis elements are slowly taking on more of the responsibility for protecting their citizens.”

In the shattered villages of Kahtaniya and Jazeera, Yezidi communities spoke not of peace, but of impending extermination by extremist cells such Al-Qa’ida in Iraq. “Their aim is to annihilate us, to create trouble and kill all Yezidis because we are not Muslims” explained one villager from Kahtaniya. Another villager stated bluntly: “Another bombing like this and there will be no more Yezidis left.” Their warnings and pleas—wedded to the dissemination of leaflets and the spread of hate speech branding Yezidis as infidels, heretics, and outlaws—were ignored, resulting in dire consequences for the religious community and other minorities in Ninewa. Following the end of the American occupation and withdrawal of soldiers, the Mas‘ud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Peshmerga militia were unable to stop attacks launched against Yezidis living outside of the established security zone by Sunni militants.

Seven years later, Al-Qa’ida in Iraq reemerged in northern Iraq, cutting a swathe through Syria and Iraq as ISIS, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and former leaders of Saddam’s military. The Peshmerga, facing military defeat, fell back, with dire consequences for the Yezidis. ISIS’s project, founded upon the ultra-violent doctrine of Abu Bakr Naji “The Management of Savagery,” sought to “purify” Iraq and cleanse it of “apostates” and “heretics.” Shiites, Yezidis, Christians, and those who refused to pay jizya, a tax historically levied on non-Muslim subjects, faced a brutal ultimatum: leave or die.

ISIS evolved into a vicious regional faction. The factions were strengthened by strong cross-border ties with Sunni tribes in Syria and Iraq, the instability created by the Syrian War, the targeting of Sunni politicians, and the political alienation of the Sunni population by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In this context, Baghdadi and his puritanical fighters decided they would cleanse Ninewa of its ethnic and religious minorities by conducting systematic rape, torture, abduction and harrowing violence against the Yezidis and other minorities.

In August 2014, in the shadow of Mount Sinjar, ISIS militants rounded up and massacred Yezidi men and boys in Sinjar and the surrounding villages of Kocho, Qiniyeh, Jadali, and Jazeera. Yezidis who refused to pledge loyalty to Baghdadi and convert to Islam were executed at roadsides and prison centres. Along the roadsides, those fleeing for Mt. Sinjar were intercepted by ISIS vehicles. Yezidi women and children were abducted in the hundreds as personal prizes for jihadist fighters and subjected to sexual abuse, forced marriages to fighters, or sexual slavery. Others were sold to traffickers whose trade had flourished since the collapse of the Iraqi state in 2003, resulting in increasingly porous borders. In the wake of the cleaning operations, 830,000 people were displaced, the entire Yezidi population in Iraq uprooted, and 40,000-50,000 fled to Mt. Sinjar, historically a place of refuge for the community during conflict.

In a nutshell, the horrific violence between the Yezidi and Sunni communities encapsulates the brutalization of Iraqi society, culture, and politics by decades of ceaseless conflict, external intervention, and brutal authoritarian rule. In equal measure, it perfectly summarizes the grave amnesia of the great powers playing geopolitics in the Middle East, whose illusions of control have stood in contrast to decades of conflict and its impact on the region and its minority communities. The decline of the Yezidi population to less than one million is a microcosm of this appalling tragedy.

—

Matthew C. K. Williams is a British freelance journalist with a MA degree in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Matthew has written for various NGOs and papers including Amnesty International, Strife, Aegis Trust, The Scottish Times and Osservatorio Mashrek. His current work for The Conflict Archives is focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Iraq War, and insurgency across the Greater Middle East.”

While most of the coverage of the recent reshuffle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team has been focused on how it will (or won’t) change his administration’s approach to Syria, the continent most affected by it could turn out to be Africa. President Obama designated U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor — a post with influence on foreign policy potentially on par with the secretary of state — and nominated Samantha Power, a former journalist and longtime member of his administration, as Rice’s successor at the United Nations.

Both women have strong track records as liberal interventionists. Susan Rice was deeply involved in the Clinton administration’s decision to not intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, a role that she has castigated herself for repeatedly and publicly. Perhaps to make good on this lapse of judgment, she has since become a staunch supporter of U.S. interventions in the name of human rights, with the most prominent example being her role as U.N. ambassador ensuring the passage of the Security Council resolution permitting the international intervention that led to the overthrow of Col. Gaddafi in Libya.

Samantha Power, on the other hand, has been a champion of humanitarian interventions her whole career. She started out as a journalist covering the Yugoslav Wars and later worked as a scholar of mass atrocities and the apparent inability of the international community to effectively stop them. She joined the Obama administration in 2008 and later became head of the Atrocities Prevention Board. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide, a study of U.S. foreign policy responses to genocide.

The appointments will strengthen the interventionist faction in the Obama administration; if this results in a shift in actual policy, no continent will be more impacted by it than Africa.

There are currently a whole range of conflicts that could warrant military intervention: Most prominently, the civil wars in Darfur, Somalia, Eastern Congo and Mali — but also low-intensity or developing conflicts in South Sudan, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, the Katanga province of Congo and Zimbabwe. It is likely that Power and Rice will try to use their new positions (as they have used their old ones) to push for greater U.S. engagement in resolving these conflicts, by military means if necessary.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean U.S. boots on the ground. Recent interventions in Somalia, Mali and Eastern Congo are probably more of a prototype for future U.S. military interventions than Libya is: The United States supports African or international forces financially and logistically, with training and intelligence, but otherwise keeps out of the fray. This greatly limits political risks at home while promising to deliver more or less the same results.

The United States is still the 800 pound gorilla in international relations, and U.S. intervention — direct or indirect — can greatly influence the dynamics of a conflict. With the appointment of Power and Rice we are more likely than ever to see more of this, which raises the question of how atrocity-preventing interventions fit into the greater U.S. approach to Africa.

In short: The United States (like other countries) is pretty good at aiding and abetting situations that result in the need for humanitarian intervention in the first place.

The U.S. military has consistently expanded its footprint in Africa over the past decade. The most potent sign of this has been the creation of AFRICOM in 2008, a central command for all U.S. military activities in Africa, based in Stuttgart, Germany. Today the U.S. military runs a number of bases in Africa, some of them used for the deployment of armed and unarmed drones. The Pentagon has spent billions of dollars in Africa, most of it for military aid — that is, weapons — and training.

Most of the renewed interest in Africa comes from the War on Terror. Al Qaida and other guerrilla organizations have gained a foothold in a range of countries; the default response of U.S. foreign and military policy has been to support local authorities in suppressing violent dissent with violent means — even though corrupt local authorities are often causing the grievances underlying these conflicts. The result: Conflicts escalate to a level of violence that can’t be contained by local actors and makes outside intervention — in some form or another — necessary.

Probably the best example for this is Mali. Under the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, more than $500 million in military aid and training was invested in the region, with considerable sums going to the Malian military and government. Nevertheless, terrorist activities and drug trafficking flourished in Mali, while the corrupt political elite skimmed off large amounts of the money. Frustration with the Malian government first led to a Tuareg rebellion and then a military coup in early 2012. The coup leader was a captain of the Malian army, who in the past had visited the United States as part of a training mission.

The Tuareg rebellion was hijacked by fundamentalist groups that implemented a strict version of Islamic law in the regions they controlled. Their treatment of the civilian population — and threats of terrorist attacks abroad — ultimately resulted in a French-led and U.S.-supported intervention.

From Nigeria to Ethiopia, the rest of the continent is rife with examples of U.S. foreign policy functioning as part of the problem, or at least not part of the solution. Many of these conflicts will result in calls for international intervention to safeguard human rights and prevent genocide sooner or later. It remains to be seen whether Obama’s newly strengthened pro-interventionist advisers will start to craft a holistic approach to atrocity prevention, or if U.S. foreign policy will continue to try repairing the damage it has caused with military intervention. The backgrounds of Rice and Powers lead one to suspect the latter.

Yesterday, hundreds of students across the country, and around the world, took time out of their day to call the White House. The students raised their voices to ask for greater U.S. involvement in Congo’s peace process, and specifically, for the appointment of a presidential envoy to coordinate the U.S. government’s response to the conflict in eastern Congo. Since April, the M23 rebellion has wreaked havoc on the eastern Congolese population and displaced over 600,000 people. Recent reports note there is a rise in sexual violence in North Kivu due to the heavy movements and presence of militias.

The action was co-sponsored by the Conflict-free Campus Initiative and STAND. This call-in day builds off of the Vote4Congo campaign in November when students sent in photos holding signs that read “I’m voting for Congo” to show that no matter who was elected as President, the conflict in Congo had to be made a priority. Over 400 photos were collected and made into an Instagram petition that was delivered to the White House earlier this January.

By appointing an envoy, President Obama can help ensure that the peace talks, which lack transparency and the involvement of the international community, include all the appropriate actors and address the short-term needs for peace and long-term systemic drivers of conflict in the region. Additionally, a presidential envoy would ideally be a high-level individual with experience and relationships in the region, and could push for the inclusion of traditionally marginalized communities in eastern Congo, including women, civil society, and youth.

Yesterday’s call-in came after World Pulse and the Enough Project delivered a petition, authored by a group of Congolese women, with over 100,000 signatures to National Security Council officials at the White House that also asked for the appointment of a presidential envoy. In addition, Katy Johnson and Mark Bennett, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,not only called the White House but also, wrote into their student newspaper about the opportunity for students to take action for human rights in Congo and demand an inclusive peace process for Congo.

The growing demand among constituents for greater U.S. involvement in Congo’s conflict can no longer be ignored by the White House. This is President Obama’s chance to show his commitment to the people of Congo and young activists throughout the U.S. Student activists for Congo will continue to push until peace is realized.

As the situation in Syria worsens, STAND is urging President Obama to put the protection of civilians first and foremost. Click here to join us in reminding the president of his responsibility to work with multilateral and regional partners to protect the Syrian people.

Syria

Western officials and military analysts report that the Assad regime’s army is beginning to show serious signs of weakness as the rebels have made several key advances, including in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus. These improvements are seen as both the result of a weakening Syrian army and an influx of financial and military backing from outside investors.  Some of these gains are due to extremist groups, who have received backing from wealthy Arab donors in the Persian Gulf region as well as from Syrian businessmen abroad. One of the most prominent Islamic extremist groups in the rebellion, Jabhat al Nusra, is believed to have ties with Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States and several European governments have began work towards funding and legitimizing the newly formed Syrian opposition group as fears develop that rebel gains are outpacing political transition.

In what has been seen as a response to these key advances, the Syrian military has prepared the use of chemical weapons and is waiting on President Assad’s orders to deploy the weapons, according to U.S. officials. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would constitute a “red line” for the U.S. and that America would “take action if that eventuality were to occur”.

The Syrian civil war has spilled into neighboring Lebanon as gunmen from both sides fought in a northern Lebanese city on Wednesday. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has pledged to remain neutral. Tensions flared in Lebanon last week as it was discovered that Lebanese Sunni fighters who had joined the rebellion against Assad were killed in Syria. Anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians criticized the Lebanese government for a ‘lack of effort’ in retrieving the bodies. The Lebanese government is currently led by the Shiite Hezbollah group, which is pro-Assad.

Meanwhile, NATO has approved the deployment of Patriot missiles along Turkey’s southern border with Syria. NATO officials have continued to stress the defensive nature of these missiles, and say that have approved these missiles due to “repeated violations of Turkey’s territory”.  Control over the Patriot systems is to be delegated to the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, NATO’s top military officer.

Burma

Dozens of villagers and monks have been protesting against a copper mine in northwestern Burma. The protesters of the Letpadaung copper mine claim it has been causing environmental, social, and health problems for the surrounding communities. Last Thursday, government security officials forcibly halted dozens of protesters and injured as many as 70 people in the process. Eight protesters were charged with incitement against the state and demonstrating illegally. The Myanmar government formed a commission, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and MP Aung San Suu Kyi, to investigate the claims of violence against the protesters. There have been additional marches in Burma and Thailand in support of the Letpadaung mine protesters.

A secretive “census-like operation” has been undertaken by Myanmar immigration officials in western Burma to “verify” the citizenship of the Rohingya, according to the Associate Press. The stateless Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group living in western Burma and eastern Bangladesh and have been denied citizenship rights in both countries. In Burma, the Rohingya are viewed as illegal Bengali migrants. Conflict between the Rohingya and Rakhine has so far displaced 110,000 people and resulted in almost 200 deaths.

In other news, Transparency International recently published its 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index in which Burma was ranked as the world’s fifth most corrupt country according to global perceptions. Burma’s ranking improved by two positions from last year’s report, but its score (on which the rankings are made) did not change.

Democratic Republic of Congo

In response to the recent capture of Goma and the flood of international attention that came with it, many international news sources have been working to make sense of the complicated conflict(s) happening in the Congo. The New York Times released a multi-sectored debate in the opinion pages about “How to Stabilize Congo” featuring John Prendergast of the Enough Project and Kambale Musavuli of Friends of the Congo. BBC also released an informative article about “DR Congo’s Rebel Kaleidoscope” that illustrates the different rebel groups that are operating in eastern Congo in addition to the M23.

On Saturday, the M23 fighters, after two weeks of occupation, pulled out of the city of Goma.  They left behind a deserted army headquarters, a city without security, mines, bombs, and bullets. John Mwando, a secondary school teacher, spoke of the existing dangers since the retreat. “Since the M23 left on Saturday the place is not secured at all, and the children have just been free to come here,” he said. The M23 soldiers occupied the hospitals in Goma, freely using both the supplies and doctors that chose to stay behind, leaving a population with an even more limited access to healthcare.  Some 600 Congolese troops are supposed to be on their way back to Goma, but this, for many citizens of Goma, does not translate into security.

International pressure continues to locate Rwanda as complicit in the violence perpetuated by the M23. This past week, a group of experts tasked by the U.N. Security Council has presented new evidence stating that the M23 soldiers received “direct support” from the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) to capture Goma on November 20. Rwanda still adamantly denies these accusations. Last Thursday, the United States Senateunanimously passed an amendment imposing sanctions on those “providing financial, material, or technological support to the M23 rebel group.”  The report released by the Senate specifically mentions Rwanda.

Negotiations and peace talks between the Congolese government and the M23 are expected to take place this week. Two officials from Uganda who have been “brokering” these peace talks stated this past Tuesday that the two sides were expected in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, this week. Rwanda has also remained tentatively involved in the peace talks.

Sudan

There may have been an attempted coup in Sudan on November 22. An unidentified National Intelligence and Security Services source is quoted as saying that the authorities had thwarted a “subversive attempt” planned to be launched at dawn on November 22. The NISS arrested and started investigations with those thought to be connected to the plot. 12 senior military and security officers were arrested, as was Sudan’s former head of intelligence and security. National Congress Party vice-chairman Nafie Ali Nafie said that two of the detainees had contacts with JEM, indicating that the Popular Congress Party may have been behind the coup attempt. The Sahel Blog has an excellent rundown of the actors arrested and reported Islamist involvement.

The Satellite Sentinel Project has released new DigitalGlobe imagery showing government usage of scorched-earth warfare in at least 26 Nuban villages in South Kordofan in November. Check out SSP’s Situation Report here.

South Sudan

According to AllAfrica, “Women and children are increasingly being caught up in attacks related to cattle rustling and inter-communal rivalries.” MSF has recently released a report entitled “South Sudan’s Hidden Crisis,” highlighting the increasing targeting of civilians in Jonglei’s conflict, and calling for all actors to take steps to ensure safety and access to healthcare, respect for health structures, and emergency response capacity for humanitarian organizations. A summary of the report is available here, and the full report is available here.

At least 600 people have died, according to UN estimates, with local officials putting fatalities at over 3,000. An October report by Geneva-based think-tank Small Arms Survey (SAS) weighed up both tallies and estimated 1,000 deaths of “mostly Murle women and children.” According to SAS, the South Sudanese government is manipulating the conflict for personal and political gain.

Journalist Isaiah Abraham was shot and killed yesterday after receiving a death threat by phone last week. Abraham wrote opinion articles for media including the Sudan Tribune, a Paris- based online news site, frequently criticizing the government. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists is calling on South Sudanese authorities to investigate the murder.

High-ranking officials within the Obama administration, up to and including President Obama himself, have issued strong statements against the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. Secretary of State Clinton said such actions would constitute a “red line” that would trigger a strong U.S. response. To date, the administration has not specified what such a “response” would entail.

As the student-led movement to end mass atrocities, STAND is concerned not about “red lines” but about the protection of civilians and the prevention of future atrocities. This is as much the case with regard to Syria as it is with regard to any of our other conflicts of concern. STAND’s action today reiterates that civilian protection must be the paramount consideration in the U.S. government’s approach to the situation in Syria, and particularly its response to any preparation for the use of chemical weapons.

As student advocates without access to the intelligence data that is seen by high-level policymakers, we often lack the information necessary to determine for certain which policy approach will best achieve the goals of civilian protection and atrocities prevention. This is especially true in a situation as complex and rapidly changing as that in Syria. Consequently, today’s action is a statement of principle, not policy: we are reminding the administration of the criteria by which we expect them to make their decisions, but we are not at this stage taking a position on what that decision should be. This is not out of timidity, but rather out of prudence, based on a due recognition of what we as U.S.-based student advocates know and do not know about a very volatile situation.

Many commentators have raised the possibility of U.S. or multilateral military intervention in Syria should chemical weapons be utilized against civilian populations. STAND urges the U.S. and all governments to act with due regard for the very severe consequences that could result from such an action. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which we endorse, does not automatically call for military intervention in every conflict, even a conflict with humanitarian consequences as severe as that in Syria. Indeed, explicitly acknowledging the risk to civilian populations posed by military action, R2P allows such action only as a last resort, and only when a strict set of criteria have been met. STAND’s position is that all governments, in choosing whether to intervene militarily in any conflict, should act on the basis of these criteria. Again, we are not concerned with “red lines,” nor do we support dramatic action for the sake of dramatic action; we are concerned solely with the protection of civilians from harm. We are not at this moment taking a position in favor of or against military intervention in Syria, but these are the principles upon which we expect our leaders to act.

Please take action right now.

Have any questions about the conflicts? Contact us at education@standnow.org.

SYRIA

Over the past two weeks, the Free Syrian Army has made several significant advances. The rebel forces captured the Tishrin Dam, which supplies several areas in Syria with electricity, and briefly captured a regime helicopter base outside Damascus before retreating out of fear of retaliatory airstrikes. According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, the Syrian regime airstrikes wounded and killed several people in the border town of Atmeh on Monday. Rebel-bound aid and arms have been smuggled through Atmeh, and the town has served as a rebel base for those fighting in the south. Airstrikes have been reported in the northern towns of Maaret al-Numan, Kfar Rouma, and Harem. Fighting has also continued in and near Damascus, where an activist reports several children were killed by cluster bombs.

The attack on Atmeh came a day before Turkish and NATO officials were to begin assessing where to station surface-to-air missiles near the Syrian border. The Syrian regime has called Turkey’s move for these Patriot missiles a “new act of provocation.” Russia has also spoken out against the missiles, warning that deployment of the missiles could lead to a regional crisis. Meanwhile, NATO sought to reassure Moscow, saying that the Turkish government will deploy the missiles in a defensive manner only, and will not support a no-fly zone or an offensive operation.

On Friday, leaders from the Syria National Coalition, the newly formed opposition, met with the UK government in London. While Britain welcomed the group’s establishment, UK officials say they will only recognize the opposition if certain conditions are met, such as respecting minority rights, a commitment to ethnic, political, and religious inclusiveness, and a commitment to democracy.

Recent developments with Kurdish populations in Syria also highlight the ethnic and religious complexity of the rebellion. In Derik, Syria, Kurds celebrated as Assad’s overstretched forces retreated, allowing the Kurdish political parties and People’s Defense Units (YPG) to fill the power vacuum. In the town of Ras al-Ayn, rebels and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, reached a peace agreement on Saturday. After Assad’s forces retreated from the region in July, PYD-loyal fighters took over. The PYD forces clashed with rebel forces, which rely heavily on Islamic militants, as they made their way into the region. The opposition in Syria is split on Islamic militants, with some groups strongly opposing their influence.

BURMA

On Monday, November 19, 2012, US President Barack Obama became the first serving US president to visit Burma. Although his visit was short, lasting only six hours, he met with Myanmar President Thein Sein and pro-deomcracy advocate and Myanmar Parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi and also made a speech at the University of Yangon.

This speech (a transcript of which can be found here) extended a “hand of friendship” to the Myanmar government, but also condemned ongoing human rights violations in the country and the Myanmar government’s inactivity in addressing the increasingly devastating conflict in Rakhine State. Obama spoke on, “freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.” He emphasized Burma’s need to listen to the will of its people, erase media censorship, release political prisoners (dozensof which were released later that day), and avoid corruption in both the government and economy. Obama also pressed the Myanmar government to push for peace with the country’s various ethnic nationalities, including halting hostilities in Kachin State and granting citizenship to the Rohingya. Additionally, Obama consistently referred to the potential of economic prosperity between the US and Burma, but only in a Burma that respects human rights and international law.

Myanmar President Thein Sein will receive International Crisis Group’s top honor for overseeing Burma’s recent democratic reforms. He, in conjunction with Aung San Suu Kyi, was also ranked a top global thinker by Foreign Policy magazine for 2012.

In other news, one million Burmese migrant workers in neighboring Thailand may face deportation unless they complete a verification process by December 14. The Myanmar government has asked for an extension to the deadline, but Thai officials are reluctant to do so having already extended the dead twice before.

Myanmar government officials pledged to arrest those inciting violence in Burma’s western Rakhine State, which has seen conflict and mass displacement for much of the past several months between the mostly Buddhist Rakhine and mostly Muslim, and stateless, Rohingya. However, organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have expressed concern about the potential for lack of due process for those arrested.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

The Democratic Republic of Congo has has made front pages of newspapers around the world in the last two weeks. On November 20, M23 captured the provincial capital of North Kivu, Goma, after Congolese soldiers withdrew and U.N. peacekeepers gave up defense of the city. This unprecedented move has placed Congo at the center of many international discussions and debates as articles circulate about M23, the Congolese government, and the involvement of Rwanda and Uganda in the violence unfolding in the east.

The military leader of the M23, Sultani Makenga, traveled to Kampala at the invitation of the head of the Ugandan military this week. Following this meeting on Wednesday, Makenga stated that M23 troops will begin withdrawing from Goma and other captured cities in North Kivu, leaving 100 men stationed at the Goma airport. However, Jean Marie Runiga, M23’s political leader, stated that this pull-out was contingent on a list of demands. These demands, which include the release of political prisoners and the disarmament of Congolese troops in rebel-controlled regions, seem impossible for the Congolese government to meet, according to analysts. DRC analyst Jason Stearns claims that these competing messages could be a sign of serious internal divisions within the M23 movement. “This is a military movement with a political wing created post facto … it’s undermined internal cohesion.” Despite any claims made of the M23 rebels leaving Goma, various sources report that there seems to be no sign on the ground of the M23 rebels leaving the city anytime soon. However, the citizens of Goma have no desire for the Congolese troops to return to the city. About 100 people gathered in the rain on Wednesday to deliver a memo to the U.N. offices protesting the possible return of government troops.

To complicate matters, the Congolese government stated that they would refuse to negotiate with the M23 rebels until they left Goma. On Saturday, at an emergency summit in Kampala, eleven regional heads of state met and issued a demand that the M23 “withdraw from current positions to not less than 20 km from Goma town within two days,” but did not say what the consequences would be if the rebels did not comply.

On Friday, the Congolese health minister declared the Ebola epidemic that broke out in mid-August in the DRC officially over. The epidemic infected 62 people and claimed 34 lives.

Regional Concerns to be Aware of:

Ugandan legislators are poised to pass the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill within the next few days. The bill would increase criminal penalties on homosexual acts and further exclude LGBT individuals from society. It is unclear if the death penalty will still be included in the bill. LGBT rights in Uganda have seen international attention for years. In 2009 a similar bill was proposed, but failed to pass. Discrimination and violence against members in the LGBT community in Uganda has been a common occurrence for years. This violence was epitomized in the devastating murder of David Kato, an “outspoken gay rights activist in Uganda.” Many people trace this government sponsored hatred to the teachings of an American Evangelical pastor. Ironically, the Ugandan government is now claiming that Western countries, including the United States, are pushing Westernized liberal ideals that are “not welcome in Africa” by protesting the law.