Tag Archives: Violence

U.S. weighs calling Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis ‘ethnic cleansing’

U.S. weighs calling Myanmar's Rohingya crisis 'ethnic cleansing'

By Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department is considering formally declaring the crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims to be ethnic cleansing, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, as lawmakers called for sanctions against the Southeast Asian country’s military.

Pressure has mounted for a tougher U.S. response to the Rohingya crisis ahead of President Donald Trump’s maiden visit to Asia next month when he will attend a summit of Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, in Manila.

U.S. officials are preparing a recommendation for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that would define the military-led campaign against the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, which could spur new sanctions, the U.S. government sources said.

The proposal – part of an overall review of Myanmar policy – could be sent to Tillerson as early as this week, and he would then decide whether to adopt it, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, since security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a crackdown. The United Nations has already denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing.

Three U.S. officials testifying at a Senate hearing on Tuesday declined to say whether the treatment of the Rohingya was ethnic cleansing, but listed new measures including targeted sanctions that Washington is considering.

Those steps, however, stopped short of the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration.

“I’m not in a position … to characterize it today, but to me this very closely resembles some of the worst kind of atrocities that I’ve seen during a long career,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mark Storella said when pressed to say whether he viewed the situation as ethnic cleansing.

Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he considered the treatment of the Rohingya “genocide” and is working on bipartisan legislation that could spell out whether additional sanctions are needed.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, insists that action was needed to combat “terrorists.”

The recommendation to Tillerson – first reported by the Associated Press – is not expected to include a determination on whether “crimes against humanity” have been committed, as this would require further legal deliberations, one U.S. official said.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some U.S. lawmakers criticized Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar’s civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate once hugely popular in Washington, for failing to do more.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the committee, chided Suu Kyi for what he called “dismissiveness” toward the plight of the Rohingya and said it might be time for a “policy adjustment” toward Myanmar.

At the hearing, Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian And Pacific Affairs, said additional sanctions were being considered, but cautioned that doing so could lessen Washington’s ability to influence Myanmar.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott and Jason Szep; editing by Susan Thomas)

U.S. says it is considering sanctions over Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya

U.S. says it is considering sanctions over Myanmar's treatment of Rohingya

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is taking steps and considering a range of further actions over Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority, including targeted sanctions under its Global Magnitsky law, the State Department said on Monday.

“We express our gravest concern with recent events in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,” it said in a statement.

It added: “It is imperative that any individuals or entities responsible for atrocities, including non-state actors and vigilantes, be held accountable.”

Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in large numbers since late August when Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of arson, killings and rape.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday the United States held Myanmar’s military leadership responsible for its crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Tillerson stopped short of saying whether the United States would take any action against Myanmar’s military leaders over an offensive that has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims out of the country, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh.

The State Department made the announcement ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s maiden visit to the region early next month when he will attend a summit of ASEAN countries, including Myanmar, in Manila.

It marked the strongest U.S. response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but came short of applying the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration.

Critics have accused the Trump administration of acting too slowly and timidly in response to the Rohingya crisis.

The State Department said on Monday: “We are exploring accountability mechanisms available under U.S. law, including Global Magnitsky targeted sanctions.”

Measures already taken include ending travel waivers for current and former members of the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and barring units and officers in northern Rakhine state from U.S. assistance, it said.

“We have rescinded invitations for senior Burmese security forces to attend U.S.-sponsored events; we are working with international partners to urge that Burma enables unhindered access to relevant areas for the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, international humanitarian organizations, and media,” the statement said.

In addition, Washington is “consulting with allies and partners on accountability options at the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, and other appropriate venues,” it said.

AIMED AT TOP GENERALS?

Interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and government officials based in Washington, Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, and Europe have revealed that punitive measures aimed specifically at top generals were among a range of options being discussed in response to the Rohingya crisis.

Such measures could include the possibility of imposing asset freezes and prohibiting American citizens from doing business with them.

Washington has worked hard to establish close ties with Myanmar’s civilian-led government led by Nobel laureate and former dissident Aung San Suu Kyi in the face of competition from strategic rival China.

Forty-three U.S. lawmakers urged the Trump administration to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for the crackdown.

The Magnitsky Act, originally passed in 2012, imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the 2009 death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian whistleblower. It has since been expanded to become the Global Magnitsky Act, which could be used against the generals in Myanmar.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)

German police rule out terrorism in Munich knife attack

A German police officer guards the site where earlier a man injured several people in a knife attack in Munich, Germany, October 21, 2017. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

By Ayhan Uyanik

MUNICH (Reuters) – German police ruled out a political or religious motive behind a knife attack in the city of Munich on Saturday and said a detained man suspected of injuring eight people had mental health problems.

The arrest of the suspect in his 30s brought calm back to the streets of the Bavarian capital after a tense morning. Police had asked residents to stay home until they find the attacker who had fled on a bicycle.

Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae told a news conference that eight people have been lightly injured in the attack and that the suspect was known to police from previous offences, including burglary.

“We have no indication of a terrorist, political, or religious motive,” Andrae said. “I assume it is to do with a psychological disorder of the perpetrator.”

Police had earlier said they believe the man, who attacked people at several different locations, acted alone.

His victims include a 12-year-old boy and a woman.

(Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Malawi arrests 140 in clampdown after ‘vampirism’ killings

LILONGWE (Reuters) – Police in Malawi said they arrested 140 suspected members of vigilante mobs that have targeted people accused of vampirism, clamping down after a wave of attacks in which at least nine have been lynched.

The mob attacks began in mid-September in four districts in southern Malawi, where belief in witchcraft is widespread.

This week they spread to Blantyre, the country’s second-biggest city, where mobs torched one person and stoned another to death on Wednesday.

“We have so far arrested 140 people we suspect are behind the mob killings in Blantyre and other districts and the investigations are still going on,” Lexon Kachama, inspector general of Malawi Police, told reporters.

Police were doing everything possible to contain the situation and ensure the violence did not spread to other cities and townships, he said.

Information minister Nicholaus Dausi told Reuters that the government will put soldiers on the streets to stem the vampire rumours that have resulted in nine deaths.

“We are deploying the army in townships and districts affected to help police calm down the situation and save lives,” Dausi said.

President Peter Mutharika has also been visiting parts of the country affected by the violence.

The United Nations and U.S. embassy have blacklisted several districts in Malawi as dangerous zones for staffers and nationals. Earlier this month the UN pulled staff out of two areas in southern Malawi.

(Reporting by Mabvuto Banda; Editing by John Stonestreet and Hugh Lawson)

Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh in dire state: UNICEF

Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh in dire state: UNICEF

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 340,000 Rohingya children are living in squalid conditions in Bangladesh camps where they lack enough food, clean water and health care, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

Up to 12,000 more children join them every week, fleeing violence or hunger in Myanmar, often still traumatized by atrocities they witnessed, it said in a report “Outcast and Desperate”.

In all, almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have left northern Rakhine state since Aug. 25 when the U.N. says the Myanmar army began a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” following insurgent attacks.

“This isn’t going to be a short-term, it isn’t going to end anytime soon,” Simon Ingram, the report’s author and a UNICEF official, told a news briefing.

“So it is absolutely critical that the borders remain open and that protection for children is given and equally that children born in Bangladesh have their birth registered.”

Most Rohingya are stateless in Myanmar and many fled without papers, he said, adding of the newborns in Bangladesh: “Without an identity they have no chance of ever assimilating into any society effectively.”

Safe drinking water and toilets are in “desperately short supply” in the chaotic, teeming camps and settlements, Ingram said after spending two weeks in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

“In a sense it’s no surprise that they must truly see this place as a hell on earth,” he said.

One in five Rohingya children under the age of five is estimated to be acutely malnourished, requiring medical attention, he said.

“There is a very, very severe risk of outbreaks of water-borne diseases, diarrhea and quite conceivably cholera in the longer-term,” he added.

UNICEF is providing clean water and toilets, and has helped vaccinate children against measles and cholera, which can be deadly, he said.

The agency is seeking $76 million under a $434 million U.N. appeal for Rohingya refugees for six months, but is only 7 percent funded, he said, speaking ahead of a pledging conference in Geneva on Monday.

U.N. agencies are still demanding access to northern Rakhine, where an unknown number of Rohingya remain despite U.N. reports that many villages and food stocks have been burned.

“We repeat the call for the need for protection of all children in Rakhine state, this is an absolute fundamental requirement. The atrocities against children and civilians must end,” Ingram said.

“We just must keep putting it on the record, we cannot keep silent.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Suspect in Maryland shooting that killed three arrested in Delaware

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – An employee of a Maryland kitchen countertop company suspected of fatally shooting three co-workers and critically wounding two others on Wednesday was arrested in neighboring Delaware, a Maryland county sheriff said.

The suspected gunman, Radee Prince, 37, was apprehended by U.S. agents and others, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter, without providing further details. Prince was also being sought for a shooting in Delaware that took place after the Maryland shooting.

Prince entered Advanced Granite Solutions in Edgewood, Maryland, just before 9 a.m. and fired multiple shots from a handgun, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters.

Three people died at the company’s premises in a business park northeast of Baltimore. Two people were taken to a hospital, one of whom had come out of surgery, he said.

Those killed were identified as Jose Romero, 34; Enis Mrvoljak; and Bayarsaikhan Tudev, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Two other people shot in the attack were in critical condition at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, it said.

Gahler called the shooting a “targeted attack.” Asked about the gunman’s possible motive, he said: “We believe he’s tied into a relationship here at work.”

Prince had worked for Advanced Granite Solutions for the past four months and had been scheduled to work on Wednesday, the sheriff said. The suspect fled in a black GMC Acadia with Delaware license plates.

Police in Wilmington, Delaware, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Edgewood, said Prince was also being sought for a shooting there at 10:46 a.m. that injured a man.

Wilmington police spokeswoman Stephanie Castellani said the victim identified the shooter as Prince, who fled in the same vehicle. Prince had been arrested 42 times in Delaware and had 15 felony convictions, she said.

“He is a dangerous individual,” said Castellani, adding that the motive was not yet known but that Prince was associated with all six victims. “We do not know if there is a beef going on between the victims and the suspect.”

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Chris Kenning in Chicago, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)

U.N. says still determining if Myanmar crisis is genocide

U.N. says still determining if Myanmar crisis is genocide

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations has yet to determine whether violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar meets the legal definition of genocide, Jyoti Sanghera, Asia Pacific chief at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has called the situation “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, but he has not used the word genocide.

“We are yet looking at the legal boundaries of that,” Sanghera said. “It could meet the boundaries, but we haven’t yet made that legal determination at OHCHR.”

A U.N. team took witness statements from Rohingya refugees last month, and another human rights mission is currently on the ground, gathering evidence from some of the 582,000 Rohingya who have fled into Bangladesh in the last two months.

“The testimony gathered by the team referred to unspeakable horrors,” Sanghera told an audience at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “Even as I speak this evening the world is witnessing a horrific spectacle of massive forced displacement and suffering.”

A few hundred thousand Rohingya are thought to remain in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, she said.

The refugees described massive detention and systematic rape by Myanmar security forces, deliberate destruction of Rohingya villages so that people could not return, and deliberate targeting of cultural and religious leaders that aimed to “diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge”, she said.

Imams had their beards shaved or burnt off, and women and girls were raped inside mosques. Some refugees said their non-Rohingya neighbors had been given weapons and uniforms and worked in concert with the security forces.

“Unsettled post-colonial questions and tensions fueled by colonial powers of the past have been exploited by the military junta in Myanmar to keep ethnic rivalries simmering,” Sanghera said.

“Systematic and acute discrimination of the Rohingya Muslims continues to be kept alive by the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, to a point referred to recently by the High Commissioner for Human Rights as ‘ethnic cleansing’ of an entire people.”

Designating the Rohingya as victims of genocide under a 1948 U.N. convention would increase pressure on the international community to take action to protect them, and could expose Myanmar officials to a greater threat of international justice.

The U.N. convention, passed in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, requires countries to act to prevent and punish genocide, which it defines as any of a number of acts committed with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

It is one of four categories of crimes subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graff)

Somalis defy police to protest against massive truck bombings

Protesters chant slogans while demonstrating against last weekend's explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district in Mogadishu, Somalia October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Thousands of Somalis demonstrated on Wednesday against those behind bombings that killed more than 300 people at the weekend, defying police who opened fire to keep them away from where their loved-ones perished.

The twin blasts at busy junctions in the heart of Mogadishu on Saturday injured another more than 400 in what were the country’s deadliest truck bombings.

Police initially opened fire to prevent people from accessing the rubble-strewn scene of the attack, injuring at least two people, the emergency response service said.

But eventually they had to let thousands of the demonstrators gather there after they were overwhelmed by the numbers. Residents said they had never seen such a big protest in the city.

“We are demonstrating against the terrorists that massacred our people. We entered the road by force,” said Halima Abdullahi, a mother who lost six of her relatives in the attacks.

The Islamist militant group al Shabaab, which began an insurgency in 2007, has not claimed responsibility, but the method and type of attack – a large truck bomb – is increasingly used by the al Qaeda-linked organization.

Mohamed Ali, a police captain at the scene, said it was fine for the demonstrators to access the scene to express their grief.

“For some who could not see their relatives alive or dead, the only chance they have is to at least see the spot where their beloved were killed,” he told Reuters.

The government buried at least 160 of those who were killed because they could not be identified after the blast.

Masked security officers kept an eye on the protest on foot and on motorbikes. Some of the protesters sat on police trucks waving sticks and chanting: “We do not want al Shabaab”.

The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory.

But they retain the capacity to mount large bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs.

In the central town of Dusamareb, residents also marched for several hours to protest against the bombings in Mogadishu and clerics called for the war against the militants to be stepped up.

Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of Aamin Ambulances, said one pregnant demonstrator was evacuated from the Mogadishu protest after she developed complications.

“The other two were also demonstrating. They were injured by bullets which the police fired to disperse the demonstrators who wanted to enter the blast scene by force,” he said.

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Alison Williams)

Taliban attacks kill at least 69 across Afghanistan

Smoke rises from police headquarters while Afghan security forces keep watch after a suicide car bomber and gunmen attacked the provincial police headquarters in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Afghanistan October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban militants struck government targets in many provinces of Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people, including a senior police commander, and wounding scores of others.

The deadliest attack hit a police training centre attached to the police headquarters in Gardez, main city of Paktia province.

Two Taliban suicide car bombers paved the way for a number of gunmen to attack the compound, officials and militants said. At least 21 police officers were killed, including the Paktia provincial police chief, with 48 others wounded, according to government officials.

The attack also left at least 20 civilians dead and 110 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces killed at least five attackers.

Dozens of dead and wounded were taken to the city hospital, even as many more lay where they fell during the fighting, deputy public health director Hedayatullah Hameedi said.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster by U.S.-led forces, claimed responsibility.

The militant group also attacked a district centre in neighbouring Ghazni province on Tuesday, detonating an armoured Humvee vehicles packed with explosives near the provincial governor’s office.

Provincial officials said at least 15 government security forces were killed and 12 wounded in the Ghazni attacks, with 13 civilians killed and seven wounded.

The Taliban said they had killed 31 security forces and wounded 21 in those clashes.

Fighting was also reported near local government centres in Farah and Kandahar provinces.

 

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

Florida governor declares emergency before white nationalist’s speech

FILE PHOTO: Richard Spencer, a leader and spokesperson for the so-called alt-right movement, speaks to the media at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

(Reuters) – Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Monday ahead of a speech by a white nationalist leader later this week at the University of Florida, in order to free up resources to prepare for possible violence.

Rallies by neo-Nazis and white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August led to violent street clashes with counter-protesters. After the melee, as counter-protesters were dispersing, a 20-year-old man who is said by law enforcement to have harbored Nazi sympathies smashed his car into the crowd, killing a 32-year-old woman.

“This executive order is an additional step to ensure that the University of Florida and the entire community is prepared so everyone can stay safe,” Scott said in a statement.

Scott said in the order there was a need to implement a coordinated security plan among local and state agencies before the speech by Richard Spencer on Thursday in Gainesville.

Spencer heads a white nationalist group

University of Florida officials were not immediately available for comment. Local media reports said the school was threatened with a lawsuit if it tried to block Spencer.

The Orlando Sentinel newspaper quoted Spencer as saying the emergency declaration was “flattering” but “most likely overkill.”

In a video message this week, University of Florida President Kent Fuchs told students to stay away, deny Spencer attention and ignore his “message of hate.”

“The values of our universities are not shared by Mr. Spencer. Our campuses are places where people from all races, origins and religions are welcome and treated with love,” he said, adding he was required by law to allow him speak.

“We refuse to be defined by this event. We will overcome this external threat to our campus and our values,” Fuchs said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney)