Tag Archives: human rights abuses

U.S. sanctions Cuban security minister, special forces unit over protest crackdown

By Matt Spetalnick and Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Cuban security minister and an interior ministry special forces unit for alleged human rights abuses in a crackdown on anti-government protests earlier this month.

The move marked the first concrete steps by President Joe Biden’s administration to apply pressure on Cuba’s Communist government as it faces calls from U.S. lawmakers and the Cuban-American community to show greater support for the biggest protests to hit the island in decades.

The speed with which the administration has crafted new sanctions further signals Biden is highly unlikely to soften the U.S. approach to Cuba any time soon after his predecessor, Donald Trump, rolled back a historic Obama-era détente with Havana.

“This is just the beginning,” Biden said in a statement, expressing condemnation for “mass detentions and sham trials.”

“The United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people,” he said.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, in a message on Twitter, rejected the sanctions as “unfounded and slanderous” and urged the United States to apply such measures to its own record of “daily repression and policy brutality.”

The Treasury Department said the sanctions had been placed on an entire Interior Ministry security unit and on General Alvaro Lopez Miera, minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, describing him as leader of an entity “whose members have engaged in serious human rights abuse.”

Thousands of Cubans staged protests a week ago to demonstrate against an economic crisis that has brought shortages of basic goods and power outages. They were also protesting the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and curbs on civil liberties. Hundreds of activists were detained.

Biden had promised during the 2020 campaign to reverse some of Trump’s Cuba policies, but Thursday’s announcement suggests little appetite for a return to rapprochement.

At the same time, the administration is still seeking ways to ease the humanitarian plight of the Cuban people.

The White House said on Tuesday that Biden would form a working group to examine remittances to Cuba in the wake of the protests. The aim is to determine how Cuban-Americans can send money to families on the island while keeping the funds out of the hands of the Cuban government.

Trump had imposed tight restrictions on remittances, which are believed to have previously amounted to several billions of dollars annually.

The White House, in a statement, cautioned that the remittances issue was complex and “requires a measured and thoughtful approach in coordination with experts.”

Biden reiterated on Thursday that his administration is looking for ways to help ordinary Cubans regain internet access after Havana restricted access to social media and messaging platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp.

“We will work closely with our partners throughout the region, including the Organization of American States, to pressure the regime,” Biden said.

The Cuban government has blamed the protests mostly on what it calls U.S.-financed “counter-revolutionaries” exploiting economic hardship caused by U.S. sanctions.

GLOBAL MAGNITSKY SANCTIONS

The sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, used to punish human rights violators with U.S. asset freezes and bans on travel to the United States.

But U.S. officials have acknowledged that Cuban officials rarely have U.S. financial dealings and seldom travel to the United States, limiting the practical impact of such measures.

The unrest appears to have injected a new sense of urgency into Biden’s broad Cuba policy review, which began shortly after he took office in January. Until now, Cuba had not been treated as a top agenda item while the administration dealt with the economic recovery and coronavirus pandemic at home and challenges such as China, Russia and Iran abroad.

Cuba, a State Department official told Reuters, is now a “top priority.”

Analysts say conciliatory moves are unlikely in the near term. Complicating matters was Biden’s poorer-than-expected showing with voters in south Florida’s anti-communist Cuban-American community, which backed Trump’s tough policies toward Havana and Caracas and helped him win the battleground state.

Many analysts say Biden may have to tread carefully on Cuba policy ahead of the 2022 congressional elections.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and Daphne Psaledakis, additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank in Havana; Editing by Dan Grebler, Cynthia Osterman and Sonya Hepinstall)

In a first, U.S. warns of dangers of systemic racism in human trafficking report

By Daphne Psaledakis and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An annual U.S. State Department report released on Thursday said discriminatory policies perpetuated human trafficking, drawing a link between the two for the first time.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the Trafficking in Persons report that systemic racism creates inequities, in turn undercutting Washington’s battle against human trafficking.

A State Department official said it was the first time the report drew a connection to systemic racism.

The United States has been re-examining its treatment of African Americans since nationwide protests last year sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer.

U.S. authorities have warned of increased threats from white supremacist groups.

“While U.S. efforts to combat human trafficking have grown in magnitude and sophistication over the years, the United States still struggles with how to address the disparate effects of human trafficking on racial minority communities,” the report said.

It cited the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on human trafficking, as traffickers capitalized on the pandemic and governments diverted resources to fight the health crisis.

The report looked at countries and territories and ranked them into four tiers, downgrading countries such as Ethiopia but upgrading others.

ETHIOPIA

The United States faulted Ethiopia for not demonstrating increased efforts to eliminate trafficking.

The report highlighted the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region that has killed thousands of people, displaced more than 2 million people and pushed hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine.

The report said that since the conflict began in November, international organizations increasingly reported armed actors were responsible for committing human rights abuses and gender-based violence, including potential trafficking crimes.

Ethiopians seeking asylum in Sudan were increasingly vulnerable to trafficking and unaccompanied children in the conflict areas may be vulnerable to recruitment by non-state armed groups, the report also warned.

BELARUS

Belarus was cited for “key achievements” even if, as the report said, resident Alexander Lukashenko’s government did not “fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

The report made no mention of Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on ongoing protests over his claim of victory in a 2020 presidential election widely seen as being rigged.

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, was cited for “making significant efforts” toward eliminating human trafficking, the report said.

However, the government failed to meet minimum standards in a number of areas, including fining, jailing and deporting foreign workers for prostitution or immigration violations even though many may have been trafficking victims, the report said.

ISRAEL

The report said Israel, Washington’s closest Middle Eastern ally, had worked to eliminate human trafficking, but its efforts “were not serious and sustained” compared to the previous reporting period even accounting for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Victim identification policies “sometimes re-traumatized” victims and delayed their access to necessary care, sometimes for years, while the government reduced its overall efforts to investigate, prosecute and convict traffickers, it said.

Official policies toward foreign workers “increased their vulnerability to trafficking,” the report said, while the only police unit officially charged with identifying trafficking victims remained under-staffed for a fifth straight year.

TURKEY

The United States added Turkey to the list of countries implicated in the use of child soldiers over the past year, placing a NATO ally for the first time in such a list, in a move likely to further complicate fraught ties between Ankara and Washington.

MALAYSIA

The State Department downgraded Malaysia to the worst ranking after a string of complaints by rights groups and U.S. authorities over the alleged exploitation of migrant workers in plantations and factories.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Jonathan Landay, Doyinsola Oladipo and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Phil Stewart and Howard Goller)

Biden order bans investment in dozens of Chinese defense and tech firms

By Michael Martina and Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that bans U.S. entities from investing in dozens of Chinese companies with alleged ties to defense or surveillance technology sectors, a move his administration says expands the scope of a legally flawed Trump-era order.

The Treasury Department will enforce and update on a “rolling basis” the new ban list of about 59 companies, which bars buying or selling publicly traded securities in target companies, and replaces an earlier list from the Department of Defense, senior administration officials told reporters.

The order prevents U.S. investment from supporting the Chinese military-industrial complex, as well as military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, Biden said in the order.

“In addition, I find that the use of Chinese surveillance technology outside the PRC and the development or use of Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuse constitute unusual and extraordinary threats,” Biden said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

A White House fact sheet on the order said the policy would take effect for those companies listed on Aug. 2.

Major Chinese firms included on the previous Defense Department list were also placed on the updated list, including Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), China Mobile Communications Group, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd, Huawei Technologies Ltd and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).

SMIC is key to China’s national drive to boost its domestic chip sector.

“We fully expect that in the months ahead … we’ll be adding additional companies to the new executive order’s restrictions,” one of the senior officials said.

A second official told reporters that the inclusion of Chinese surveillance technology companies expanded the scope of the Trump administration’s initial order last year, which the White House argues was carelessly drafted, leaving it open to court challenges.

Biden has been reviewing a number of aspects of U.S. policy toward China, and his administration had extended a deadline for implementation set by former President Donald Trump’s order while it crafted its new policy framework.

The move is part of Biden’s broader series of steps to counter China, including reinforcing U.S. alliances and pursuing large domestic investments to bolster American economic competitiveness, amid increasingly sour relations between the world’s two most powerful countries.

Biden’s Indo-Pacific policy coordinator Kurt Campbell said last month that a period of engagement with China had come to an end and that the dominant paradigm in bilateral ties going forward would be one of competition.

Senior officials said the Treasury Department would give guidance later on what the scope of surveillance technology means, including whether companies are facilitating “repression or serious human rights abuses.”

“We really want to make sure that any future prohibitions are on legally solid ground. So, our first listings really reflect that,” a second senior administration official said.

Investors would have time to “unwind” investments, a third official said.

The new list provided few surprises for investors looking to see if they need to unload even more Chinese stocks and bonds.

But some previously identified companies, such as Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), which is spearheading Chinese efforts to compete with Boeing Co and Airbus, as well as two companies that had challenged the ban in court, Gowin Semiconductor Corp and Luokung Technology Corp, were not included.

In May, a judge signed an order removing the designation on Chinese mobile phone maker Xiaomi, which was among the more high-profile Chinese technology companies that the Trump administration targeted for alleged ties to China’s military.

Stewart Baker, a former Department of Homeland Security official, said the Treasury’s “settled regulatory and legal regime” made it a better place than the Defense Department to enforce the ban.

“This follows in a growing tradition of the Biden administration coming along and saying ‘Trump was right in principle and wrong in execution, and we’ll fix that,'” Baker said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and Karen FreifeldEditing by Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

G7 scolds China and Russia over threats, bullying, rights abuses

By William James, Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) – The Group of Seven scolded both China and Russia on Wednesday, casting the Kremlin as malicious and Beijing as a bully, but beyond words there were few concrete steps aside from expressing support for Taiwan and Ukraine.

Founded in 1975 as a forum for the West’s richest nations to discuss crises such as the OPEC oil embargo, the G7 this week addressed what it perceives as the biggest current threats: China, Russia and the coronavirus pandemic.

G7 foreign ministers, in a 12,400-word communique, said Russia was trying to undermine democracies and threatening Ukraine while China was guilty of human rights abuses and of using its economic clout to bully others.

There was, however, little concrete action mentioned in the communique that would unduly worry either Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The G7 said it would bolster collective efforts to stop China’s “coercive economic policies” and to counter Russian disinformation – part of a move to present the West as a much broader alliance than just the core G7 countries.

“I think (China is) more likely to need to, rather than react in anger, it is more likely going to need to take a look in the mirror and understand that it needs to take into account this growing body of opinion, that thinks these basic international rules have got to be adhered to,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

Russia denies it is meddling beyond its borders and says the West is gripped by anti-Russian hysteria. China says the West is a bully and that its leaders have a post-imperial mindset that makes them feel they can act like global policemen.

China’s spectacular economic and military rise over the past 40 years is among the most significant geopolitical events of recent history, alongside the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War.

XI AND PUTIN

The West, which combined is much bigger than China and Russia economically and militarily, has struggled to come up with an effective response to either China or Russia.

“We will work collectively to foster global economic resilience in the face of arbitrary, coercive economic policies and practices,” the G7 ministers said on China.

They said they supported Taiwan’s participation in World Health Organization forums and the World Health Assembly – and expressed concerns about “any unilateral actions that could escalate tensions” in the Taiwan Strait.

China regards Taiwan as its own territory and opposes any official Taiwanese representation on an international level.

On Russia, the G7 was similarly supportive of Ukraine but offered little beyond words.

“We are deeply concerned that the negative pattern of Russia’s irresponsible and destabilizing behavior continues,” G7 ministers said.

“This includes the large build-up of Russian military forces on Ukraine’s borders and in illegally-annexed Crimea, its malign activities aimed at undermining other countries’ democratic systems, its malicious cyber activity, and (its) use of disinformation.”

VACCINES

On the coronavirus pandemic, the G7 pledged to work with industry to expand the production of affordable COVID-19 vaccines, but stopped short of calling for a waiver of intellectual property rights of major pharma firms.

“We commit to working with  industry  to facilitate expanded manufacturing at scale of affordable COVID-19  vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics and their component parts,” the G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

They said the work would include “promoting partnerships between companies, and  encouraging voluntary licensing and tech transfer agreements on mutually agreed terms”.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. looks into reports of atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is looking into reports of human rights abuses and atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing that the United States is “gravely concerned” about accounts last week by CNN and the BBC of a massacre in the region by Ethiopian forces.

“We are, of course, looking into these reports. We have taken close note of them and we’ll continue to pay close attention,” Price said.

“We strongly condemn the killings, the forced removals, the sexual assaults, the other human rights abuses that multiple organizations have reported,” Price added, declining to say who the United States believed was responsible.

Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry has said a joint investigation with external experts into alleged human rights violations would start soon.

Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, is struggling to control several flashpoints where ethnic rivalries over land, power and resources have ignited ahead of national elections scheduled for June.

Price also welcomed an Ethiopian foreign ministry pledge that Eritrean troops would withdraw from Tigray, calling such a withdrawal an important step forward in de-escalation in the region.

Eritrea and Ethiopia denied the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray for months, despite dozens of eyewitness accounts. G7 countries including the United States called on Friday for a swift, unconditional and verifiable withdrawal of the Eritrean soldiers, followed by a political process acceptable to all Ethiopians.

“The immediate and complete withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray will be an important step forward in de-escalating the conflict and restoring peace and regional stability,” Price told reporters.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Chris Reese and Will Dunham)

U.S. imposes fresh Iran-related sanctions, targets Khamenei-linked foundation

By Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday imposed sweeping new sanctions targeting Iran, blacklisting a foundation controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and taking aim at what Washington called Iran’s human rights abuses a year after a deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.

The sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department, which also targeted Iran’s intelligence minister, marked the latest action to reinforce the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran pursued by President Donald Trump’s administration. They came just over two months before Trump is due to leave office after his Nov. 3 election loss.

The department imposed sanctions on what it described as a key patronage network for Khamenei. It said it blacklisted the Bonyad Mostazafan, or the Foundation of the Oppressed, which is controlled by Khamenei, in the move also targeting 10 individuals and 50 entities associated with the foundation in sectors including energy, mining and financial services.

The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets of the targeted individuals and entities and generally bar Americans from doing business with them.

The charitable foundation – an economic, cultural, and social welfare institution – has amassed vast amounts of wealth to the detriment of the rest of the Iranian economy and controls hundreds of companies and properties confiscated since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Iran’s Supreme Leader uses Bonyad Mostazafan to reward his allies under the pretense of charity,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

“The United States will continue to target key officials and revenue-generating sources that enable the regime’s ongoing repression of its own people,” Mnuchin added.

Trump, who has taken a hard line toward Tehran during his presidency and abandoned an international nuclear agreement with Iran reached by his predecessor Barack Obama, last week asked for options on attacking Iran’s main nuclear site, but ultimately decided against taking the step, a U.S. official said on Monday.

The Treasury Department also slapped sanctions on Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, accusing his ministry of playing a role in serious human rights abuses against Iranians, including during last year’s protests.

VIOLENT CRACKDOWN

The crackdown a year ago may have been the bloodiest repression of protesters in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Reuters reported last year that about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15, 2019. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.

Iran’s Interior Ministry has said around 225 people were killed during the protests, which erupted after state media announced that gas prices would rise by as much as 200% and the revenue would be used to help needy families.

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday also blacklisted two Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials, accusing them of involvement in the killing of nearly 150 people in the city of Mahshahr during last year’s crackdown. The action bars them and their immediate families from traveling to the United States.

Rights groups said they believe Mahshahr had one of the highest protest death tolls, based on information they received from local residents. The State Department said as many as 148 civilians were killed there.

“Nations who believe in supporting the freedoms of expression and association should condemn Iran’s egregious human rights violations, and reaffirm respect for the dignity and human rights and fundamental freedoms of every person by imposing consequences on the regime as we have, today,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a separate statement.

Reuters was the first to report that sanctions on Iranians involved in the crackdown against anti-government demonstrations were expected as early as this week.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have risen since Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the 2015 deal under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for relief from American and other sanctions. Trump restored harsh U.S. economic sanctions designed to force Tehran into a wider negotiation on curbing its nuclear program, development of ballistic missiles and support for regional proxy forces.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, set to take office on Jan. 20, has previously said he would return the United States to the nuclear deal, if Iran resumes compliance.

Some analysts have said that the piling-on of additional U.S. sanctions by Trump’s administration appeared to be aimed at making it harder for Biden to re-engage with Iran after taking office.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Will Dunham)

Pompeo says documents confirm China committing ‘very significant’ Xinjiang abuses

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Recently leaked documents confirm China is committing “very significant” human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims and other minority groups in mass detention, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.

An international group of journalists released classified Chinese government documents on Sunday that described repressive inner workings of detention camps in China’s troubled western region of Xinjiang.

“These reports are consistent with an overwhelming and growing body of evidence that the Chinese Communist Party is committing human rights violations and abuses against individuals in mass detention,” Pompeo told a news conference, calling on Beijing to release all those arbitrarily detained.

He said the information in the documents confirmed that “very significant” human rights abuses were taking place.

“It shows that it’s not random, that it is intentional and that it’s ongoing,” he said.

The publication of the documents by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) followed a Nov. 16 New York Times report based on a cache of secret papers revealing details of China’s clampdown on ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in the region.

United Nations experts and activists say at least 1 million Uighurs and members of other largely Muslim minority groups have been detained in camps in Xinjiang.

The ICIJ said it obtained a 2017 list of guidelines “that effectively serves as a manual for operating the camps,” with instructions on how to prevent escapes, maintain secrecy about the camps’ existence, indoctrinate internees and “when to let detainees see relatives or even use the toilet.”

Other documents it obtained include “intelligence briefings” showing how police have been “guided by a massive data collection and analysis system that uses artificial intelligence to select entire categories of Xinjiang residents for detention.”

Beijing denies any mistreatment of Uighurs or others in Xinjiang, saying it is providing vocational training to help stamp out Islamist extremism and separatism and to teach new skills. It dismissed the latest reports as slander.

The leaks have come amid a rising international outcry over China’s broader human rights record in Xinjiang. The United States has led more than 30 countries in condemning what it called a “horrific campaign of repression.”

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis; Writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Pompeo urges China to release human rights prisoners to mark Tiananmen crackdown

FILE PHOTO: A man stands in front of a convoy of tanks in the Avenue of Eternal Peace in Beijing, China, June 5, 1989. REUTERS/Arthur Tsang/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday called on Beijing to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising this week by releasing all prisoners jailed for fighting human rights abuses in China.

In a statement, Pompeo again urged China to make a full public account of those killed or missing in the 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

“Such a step would begin to demonstrate the Communist Party’s willingness to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms,” Pompeo said.

“We call on China to release all those held for seeking to exercise these rights and freedoms, halt the use of arbitrary detention, and reverse counterproductive policies that conflate terrorism with religious and political expression,” he added.

The Chinese government sent tanks to quell the June 4, 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.

The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China and almost 30 years later it remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus upset China when she referred to the Tiananmen demonstrations as a “full-on massacre of peaceful protesters” during a briefing last week. Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday that the crackdown was the “correct” decision, citing the country’s “stability” since then.

Pompeo said China’s human rights record had not improved despite its rise on the international stage and condemned the treatment of the country’s estimated 1.5 million Uighurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang region.

“China’s one-party state tolerates no dissent and abuses human rights whenever it serves its interests,” said Pompeo. “Today, Chinese citizens have been subjected to a new wave of abuses, especially in Xinjiang, where the Communist Party leadership is methodically attempting to strangle Uighur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith.”

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish)

North Korea condemns U.S. sanctions, warns denuclearization at risk

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects a constructions site of Yangdeok, in this undated photo released on October 31, 2018 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA/via REUTERS.

By Hyunjoo Jin and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea on Sunday condemned the U.S. administration for stepping up sanctions and pressure on the nuclear-armed country, warning of a return to “exchanges of fire” and that disarming Pyongyang could be blocked forever.

The North’s stinging response came after the United States said on Monday it had introduced sanctions on three North Korean officials, including a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for alleged human rights abuses.

Denuclearizing North Korea has made little progress since Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Singapore in June in a historic summit. The two sides have yet to reschedule working-level talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, which were canceled abruptly in November.

While crediting Trump for his “willingness” to improve relations with the North, also known as DPRK, Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being “bent on bringing the DPRK-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire.”

North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Washington had taken “sanctions measures for as many as eight times against the companies, individuals and ships of not only the DPRK but also Russia, China and other third countries…”

If the U.S. administration believed that heightened sanctions and pressure would force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, “it will count as (its) greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever – a result desired by no one,” according to the statement.

The foreign ministry statement was released under the name of the policy research director of the Institute for American Studies.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Josh Smith; Editing by Mark Potter)

How the families of 10 massacred Rohingya fled Myanmar

Rehana Khatun, whose husband Nur Mohammed was among 10 Rohingya men killed by Myanmar security forces and Buddhist villagers on September 2, 2017, poses for a picture with her child at Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 25, 2018. Picture taken March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Andrew R.C. Marshall

KUTUPALONG REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Rehana Khatun dreamed her husband came home. He appeared without warning in their village in western Myanmar, outside their handsome wooden house shaded by mango trees. “He didn’t say anything,” she said. “He was only there for a few seconds, and then he was gone.” Then Rehana Khatun woke up.

She woke up in a shack of ragged tarpaulin on a dusty hillside in Bangladesh. Her husband, Nur Mohammed, is never coming home. He was one of 10 Rohingya Muslim men massacred last September by Myanmar soldiers and Rakhine Buddhists at the coastal village of Inn Din.

Rehana Khatun’s handsome wooden house is gone, too. So is everything in it. The Rohingya homes in Inn Din were burned to the ground, and what was once a close-knit community, with generations of history in Myanmar, is now scattered across the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh.

A Reuters investigation in February revealed what happened to the 10 Rohingya men. On September 1, soldiers snatched them from a large group of Rohingya villagers detained by a beach near Inn Din. The next morning, according to eyewitnesses, the men were shot by the soldiers or hacked to death by their Rakhine Buddhist neighbors. Their bodies were dumped in a shallow grave.

The relatives the 10 men left behind that afternoon wouldn’t learn of the killings for many months – in some cases, not until Reuters reporters tracked them down in the refugee camps and told them what had happened. The survivors waited by the beach with rising anxiety and dread as the sun set and the men didn’t return.

This is their story. Three of them fled Inn Din while heavily pregnant. All trekked north in monsoon rain through forests and fields. Drenched and terrified, they dodged military patrols and saw villages abandoned or burning. Some saw dead bodies. They walked for days with little food or water.

They were not alone. Inn Din’s families joined nearly 700,000 Rohingya escaping a crackdown by the Myanmar military, launched after attacks by Rohingya militants on August 25. The United Nations called it “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” which Myanmar has denied.

On Tuesday, the military said it had sentenced seven soldiers to long prison terms for their role in the Inn Din massacre. Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay told Reuters the move was a “very positive step” that showed the military “won’t give impunity for those who have violated the rules of engagement.” Myanmar, he said, doesn’t allow systematic human rights abuses.

Reuters was able to corroborate many but not all details of the personal accounts in this story.

The Rohingya streamed north until they reached the banks of the Naf River. On its far shore lay Bangladesh, and safety. Many Inn Din women gave boatmen their jewelry to pay for the crossing; others begged and fought their way on board. They made the perilous crossing at night, vomiting with sickness and fear.

Now in Bangladesh, they struggle to piece together their lives without husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. Seven months have passed since the massacre, but the grief of Inn Din’s survivors remains raw. One mother told Reuters her story, then fainted.

Like Rehana Khatun, they all say they dream constantly about the dead. Some dreams are bittersweet – a husband coming home, a son praying in the mosque – and some are nightmares. One woman says she sees her husband clutching a stomach wound, blood oozing through his fingers.

Daytime brings little relief. They all remember, with tormenting clarity, the day the soldiers took their men away.

“ALLAH SAVED ME”

Abdul Amin still wonders why he was spared.

Soldiers had arrived at Inn Din on August 27 and started torching the houses of Rohingya residents with the help of police and Rakhine villagers. Amin, 19, said he and his family sought refuge in a nearby forest with more than a hundred other Rohingya.

Four days later, as Inn Din burned and the sound of gunfire crackled through the trees, they made a dash for the beach, where hundreds of villagers gathered in the hope of escaping the military crackdown. Then the soldiers appeared, said Amin, and ordered them to squat with their heads down.

Amin crouched next to his mother, Nurasha, who threw her scarf over his head. The soldiers ignored Amin, perhaps mistaking him for a woman, but dragged away his brother Shaker Ahmed. “I don’t know why they chose him and not me,” Amin said. “Allah saved me.”

The soldiers, according to Amin and other witnesses, said they were taking the men away for a “meeting.” Their distraught families waited by the beach in vain. As night fell, they returned to the forest where, in the coming days, they made the decision that haunts many of them still: to save themselves and their families by fleeing to Bangladesh – and leaving the captive men behind.

Abdu Shakur waited five days for the soldiers to release his son Rashid Ahmed, 18. By then, most Rohingya had set out for Bangladesh and the forest felt lonely and exposed. Abdu Shakur said he wanted to leave, too, but his wife, Subiya Hatu, refused.

“I won’t go without my son,” she said.

“You must come with me,” he said. “If we stay here, they’ll kill us all.” They had three younger children to bring to safety, he told her. Rashid was their oldest, a bright boy who loved to study; he would surely be released soon and follow them. He didn’t. Rashid was one of the 10 killed in the Inn Din massacre.

“We did the right thing,” says Abdu Shakur today, in a shack in the Kutupalong camp. “I feel terrible, but we had to leave that place.” As he spoke, his wife sat behind him and sobbed into her headscarf.

“DAY OF JUDGMENT”

By now, the northward exodus was gathering pace. The Rohingya walked in large groups, sometimes thousands strong, stretching in ragged columns along the wild Rakhine coastline. At night, the men stood guard while women and children rested beneath scraps of tarpaulin. Rain often made sleep impossible.

Amid this desperate throng was Shaker Ahmed’s wife, Rahama Khatun, who was seven months pregnant, and their eight children, aged one to 18. Like many Rohingya, they had escaped Inn Din with little more than the clothes they wore. “We brought nothing from the house, not even a single plate,” she said.

They survived the journey by drinking from streams and scrounging food from other refugees. Rahama said she heaved herself along slippery paths as quickly as she could. She was scared about the health of her unborn child, but terrified of getting left behind.

Rahama’s legs swelled up so much that she couldn’t walk. “My children carried me on their shoulders. They said, ‘We’ve lost our father. We don’t want to lose you.'” Then they reached the beach at Na Khaung To, and a new ordeal began.

Na Khaung To sits on the Myanmar side of the Naf River. Bangladesh is about 6 km (4 miles) away. For Rohingya from Inn Din and other coastal villages, Na Khaung To was the main crossing point.

It was also a bottleneck. There were many Bangladeshi fishing boats to smuggle Rohingya across the river, but getting on board depended on the money or valuables the refugees could muster and the mercy of the boatmen. Some were stranded at Na Khaung To for weeks.

The beach was teeming with sick, hungry and exhausted people, recalled Nurjan, whose son Nur Mohammed was one of the 10 men killed at Inn Din. “Everyone was desperate,” Nurjan said. “All you could see was heads in every direction. It was like the Day of Judgment.”

CROSSING THE NAF

Bangladesh was perhaps a two-hour ride across calm estuarine waters. But the boatmen wanted to avoid any Bangladesh navy or border guard vessels that might be patrolling the river. So they set off at night, taking a more circuitous route through open ocean. Most boats were overloaded. Some sank in the choppy water, drowning dozens of people.

The boatmen charged about 8,000 taka (about $100) per person. Some women paid with their earrings and nose-rings. Others, like Abdu Shakur, promised to reimburse the boatman upon reaching Bangladesh with money borrowed from relatives there.

He and his wife, Subiya Hatu, who had argued over leaving their oldest son behind at Inn Din, set sail for Bangladesh. Another boat of refugees sailed along nearby. Both vessels were heaving with passengers, many of them children.

In deeper water, Abdu Shakur watched with horror as the other boat began to capsize, spilling its passengers into the waves. “We could hear people crying for help,” he said. “It was impossible to rescue them. Our boat would have sunk, too.”

Abdu Shakur and his family made it safely to Bangladesh. So did the other families bereaved by the Inn Din massacre. During the crossing, some realized they would never see their men again, or Myanmar.

Shuna Khatu wept on the boat. She felt she already knew what the military had done to her husband, Habizu. She was pregnant with their third child. “They killed my husband. They burned my house. They destroyed our village,” she said. “I knew I’d never go back.”

THE ONLY PHOTO

Two months later, in a city-sized refugee camp in Bangladesh, Shuna Khatu gave birth to a boy. She called him Mohammed Sadek.

Rahama Khatun, who fled Myanmar on the shoulders of her older children while seven months pregnant, also had a son. His name is Sadikur Rahman.

The two women were close neighbors in Inn Din. They now live about a mile apart in Kutupalong-Balukhali, a so-called “mega-camp” of about 600,000 souls. Both survive on twice-a-month rations of rice, lentils and cooking oil. They live in flimsy, mud-floored shacks of bamboo and plastic that the coming monsoon could blow or wash away.

It was here, as the families struggled to rebuild their lives, that they learned their men were dead. Some heard the news from Reuters reporters who had tracked them down. Others saw the Reuters investigation of the Inn Din massacre or the photos that accompanied it.

Two of those photos showed the men kneeling with their hands behind their backs or necks. A third showed the men’s bodies in a mass grave. The photos were obtained by Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were arrested in December while investigating the Inn Din massacre. The two face charges, and potentially 14-year jail sentences, under Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act.

Rahama Khatun cropped her husband’s image from one of the photos and laminated it. This image of him kneeling before his captors is the only one she has. Every other family photo was burned along with their home at Inn Din.

For the Rohingya crisis in graphics, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/010051VC46K/index.html

(Reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall. Edited by Peter Hirschberg.)