Nigeria

"In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 photo, police officers armed with AK-47 rifles stand guard at sandbagged bunkers along a major road in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The radical sect Boko Haram, which in August 2011 bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence." (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

At Least 67 Dead in North Nigeria Sect Attacks
By Jon Gambrell
Associated Press dispatch on Yahoo! News, November 5, 2011
"Residents fearfully left their homes Saturday to bury their dead in northeast Nigeria following a series of coordinated attacks that killed at least 67 people and left a new police headquarters in ruins, government offices burned and symbols of state power destroyed. A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks in Borno and Yobe states, with the worst damage done in and around the city of Damaturu. The group also promised to continue its bloody sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government, with residents nervously moving through empty streets, waiting for the next attack. 'There's that fear that something might possibly happen again,' Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said. In Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, a car bomb exploded Friday afternoon outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks, killing many uniformed security agents, Bulama said. Gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a bank and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there.

Bosnia and Herzegovina / National Tribunals

"A house near the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo burns after being hit by a mortar shell in September1994." (Peter Andrews/PA)

Bosnia Arrests War Crimes Suspect
Reuters dispatch in The Irish Times, November 2, 2011
"Bosnian police today detained a Bosnian Serb ex-police commander suspected of having ordered the murder of 10 Muslim civilians at the start of the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, prosecutors said. Goran Saric (47), was arrested in the northeastern town of Bijeljina, prosecutors' office spokesman Boris Grubesic said. About 11,000 people were killed in the 43-month siege of Sarajevo by separatist Bosnian Serbs, and more than 100,000 in total during the country's war following its secession from Serbian-led federal Yugoslavia. Saric, who was the police commander in the Serb-held part of the capital Sarajevo in June 1992, has been investigated by Bosnian state prosecutors and charged with war crimes. 'Defendant Goran Saric ... is suspected of having ordered the murder of 10 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians in June 1992, and the capture and persecution of a large number of people, mostly Bosniak women and children, from the Sarajevo neighbourhoods of Nahorevo, Poljine and others,' the statement said. Bosnia's war crimes court was launched in 2005 to try lower-ranking cases and ease the burden on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The court is now trying two other Bosnian Serbs for atrocities committed against the non-Serb population in parts of Sarajevo seized by Serb forces opposed to Bosnia's independence backed by its Muslims and Croats."
[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]

Croatia / Ustasha / Jewish Holocaust

Croatia's First Interior Minister Arrested over Accusations of Post-World War II Crimes
Associated Press dispatch in The Washington Post, November 2, 2011
"Croatia's former interior minister was arrested Wednesday over accusations that he ordered mass killings of anti-communists soon after the end of World War II, police said. Josip Boljkovac, 89, and two other former ranking Croatian officials have been under investigation for the alleged murders in 1945 and 1946 of soldiers and sympathizers of Croatia's Ustasha Nazi puppet regime that ruled during the war. Boljkovac, who fought as a member of the Yugoslav communist guerrillas against the occupying German and Italian troops, was a senior officer of the secret service which is accused of going on a revenge shooting spree of the anti-communists after the war ended. Boljkovac is accused of command responsibility in the killing of thousands, including civilians, who were buried in unmarked graves throughout Croatia, his lawyer Anto Nobilo said. A US-based Jewish rights group expressed 'alarm and shock' at the arrest of Boljkovac. Tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies, or Roma people, perished in the Ustasha-run concentration camps in Croatia during the war. 'In view of Croatia's consistent failure to prosecute criminals of the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime in its midst, its action against a fighter who opposed the evil Ustasha forces is hypocritical and unacceptable,' said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

Argentina / National Tribunals

"Former Argentine navy officer Alfredo Astiz, also known as the 'Blond Angel of Death' for his role in the1976-83 dictatorship and sought in France for the murder of French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, appears during a trial in Buenos Aires on Thursday." (Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

Argentina's "Blond Angel of Death" Convicted for Role in Dirty War
By Sam Ferguson
The Christian Science Monitor, October 27, 2011
"Nearly 30 years after the collapse of Argentina's last military dictatorship, the man most identified with perpetrating the 1976-1983 'dirty war' was convicted in a Buenos Aires criminal court on Wednesday night. Alfredo Astiz, known as the 'blond angel of death,' served as a lieutenant at the Naval Mechanics School (ESMA), a torture center where thousands of guerrillas and dissidents were secretly imprisoned and executed. He and 17 other defendants were charged with various cases of kidnapping, torture, and murder relating to 86 victims. 'I'm happy. After so many years, there's finally justice,' said Carlos Muñoz, a survivor from the ESMA. The charges against Astiz centered on his role in infiltrating, kidnapping, and executing 12 human rights activists in 1977. Beginning in middle of that year, Astiz began marching with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women who congregated in Buenos Aires’ central square to protest the disappearance of their children. The Mothers knew him as Gustavo Niño, a young, handsome, well-spoken man who was desperately seeking his missing brother. When Astiz suspected that his cover had been compromised, he helped organize a series of raids around Buenos Aires in December of 1977. Twelve people were kidnapped, including three founding members of the Mothers and two French missionary nuns, Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet. Several were tortured in the Naval Mechanics School, and within days the 12 activists were loaded onto navy airplanes and thrown into the South Atlantic. The ferocity of Astiz's crimes juxtaposed against his good looks and upright demeanor made him an eerie symbol of the repression.

Libya

"Volunteers in Surt removed bodies of people apparently killed in reprisal by anti-Qaddafi militias. Many had their hands bound and had been shot in the head." (Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)

In Libya, Massacre Site Is Cleaned Up, Not Investigated
By Kareem Fahim and Adam Nossiter
The New York Times, October 24, 2011
"In the parched garden of the Mahari Hotel, volunteers on Monday scrubbed signs of a recent massacre. They collected dozens of bodies, apparently of people executed on the hotel grounds several days ago, but left other evidence behind, like the plastic ties that were used to bind the hands of victims and shell casings, scattered on the dead grass in patches of blood. The volunteers said the victims included at least two former Qaddafi government officials, local loyalist fighters and maybe civilians. The killers, they believed, were former rebel fighters, belonging to anti-Qaddafi units that had used the hotel as a base in recent weeks. It appeared to be one of the worst massacres of the eight-month conflict, but days after it occurred, no one from Libya's new government had come to investigate. The interim leaders, who declared the country liberated on Sunday, may simply have their hands full with the responsibilities that come with running a state. But throughout the Libyan conflict, they have also shown themselves to be unwilling or incapable of looking into accusations of atrocities by their fighters, despite repeated pledges not to tolerate abuse.

Libya

"The entrance to the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, where at least 53 persons were apparently executed. At the time of their killing the hotel was apparently controlled by anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata. The red graffiti on the left states 'Tiger Brigade,' the name of a prominent Misrata fighting group." (Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch)

Libya: Apparent Execution of 53 Gaddafi Supporters
By Peter Bouckaert
Human Rights Watch press release, October 24, 2011
"Fifty-three people, apparent Gaddafi supporters, seem to have been executed at a hotel in Sirte last week, Human Rights Watch said today. The hotel is in an area of the city that was under the control of anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata before the killings took place. Human Rights Watch called on Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the apparent mass execution and to bring those responsible to justice. 'We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gaddafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot,' said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who investigated the killings. 'This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible.' Human Rights Watch saw the badly decomposed remains of the 53 people on October 23, 2011, at the Hotel Mahari in District 2 of Sirte. The bodies were clustered together, apparently where they had been killed, on the grass in the sea-view garden of the hotel. Anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata had held that area of Sirte since early October, according to witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch.

Russia / Circassian Genocide

Genocide Claims Muddle Russian Olympics
By Thomas Grove
Reuters dispatch on MSNBC.com, October 13, 2011
"Muhammed Cherkesov remembers his grandparents whispering about the Russian soldiers who drove his forefathers at gunpoint from their mountain homes down to the Black Sea coast in the mid-19th century. The forced migration of the Muslim Circassians into the lowlands in and around Sochi where they were deported beyond the Russian Empire's borders killed about a third of the population through disease, starvation and exposure to the elements. A century and a half later Russia wants to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics in the very same broad valleys and mountain slopes around Sochi that Circassians say hold the bones of their ancestors. 'We're talking about holding the Olympics over a mass grave of Circassians,' said Cherkesov, a leader for the minority in Karachay-Cherkessia province in the North Caucasus, a patchwork of mostly Muslim regions along Russia's southern flank. Many Circassians believe 1.5 million of their predecessors perished as Russian soldiers embarked on a mass expulsion of their people to ease the czar's conquest of the Caucasus region. European and Russian imperial historians say that number may be closer to 300,000. Circassian extremists say they want to turn back the clock and gain independence from Russia. Most stand behind an increasingly vocal campaign to urge Russia to recognize the killings as genocide and to pave the way for the large Circassian diaspora to return to its historic homeland. Russia has said the deaths were among the tragedies of war that both sides suffered as the czar was closing his grip on the Caucasus Mountains region, but denies that amounted to genocide. 'We are not asking for any material compensation from Russia, we want Russia itself to say that unjust actions were taken against the Circassians and that this was the land of Circassians,' said Cherkesov, speaking to Reuters in his spartan office surrounded by pictures of his forefathers dressed in traditional long red coats and high black boots. Of the nearly 8 million Circassians worldwide, only about 700,000 live in Russia. The rest are the descendants of the men and women who refused to bow to Russian rule and were carried off by the ships of the Ottoman Empire, which resettled them in the far-flung stretches of its territories. [...]"

El Salvador / Forced Transfer of Children

"Enma Orellana holds out hope she might one day find her daughter, who was 4 when seized by soldiers during El Salvador's civil war in 1982." (Alex Renderos)

Court Orders El Salvador to Investigate Children's Disappearances
By Ken Ellingwood
The Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2011
"Human rights advocates are hailing an international court decision ordering the government of El Salvador to fully investigate the cases of hundreds of children who disappeared during the nation's civil war three decades ago. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in San Jose, Costa Rica, found rights violations in the cases of six youngsters who vanished after being taken away by soldiers in 1981 and 1982. One of the six children, Gregoria Contreras, 4 years old when she disappeared, was reunited with her family many years later after being tracked down by a Salvadoran group, the Assn. for the Search for Missing Children, also known as Pro-Busqueda. The group's enduring search for children who went missing during the conflict was chronicled earlier this year by The Times here. In its ruling, issued to the parties late last week, the court found what it called a 'systematic pattern of forced disappearances of children' by army personnel battling leftist rebels. Many of the children, seized during raids, were placed into the lucrative international adoption market and raised abroad. Since 1994, Pro Busqueda has received reports of more than 800 children who vanished during the war. The group has located nearly half of them.

Argentina / Forced Transfer of Children

"Victoria Montenegro was abducted as a newborn by a military colonel. She testified last spring in the trial over baby thefts." (Joao Pina/The New York Times)

Daughter of "Dirty War," Raised by Man Who Killed Her Parents
By Alexei Barrionuevo
The New York Times, October 8, 2011
"Victoria Montenegro recalls a childhood filled with chilling dinnertime discussions. Lt. Col. Hernán Tetzlaff, the head of the family, would recount military operations he had taken part in where 'subversives' had been tortured or killed. The discussions often ended with his 'slamming his gun on the table,' she said.The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who lost children during Argentina's military dictatorship, protesting in Buenos Aires in 1977. It took an incessant search by a human rights group, a DNA match and almost a decade of overcoming denial for Ms. Montenegro, 35, to realize that Colonel Tetzlaff was, in fact, not her father -- nor the hero he portrayed himself to be. Instead, he was the man responsible for murdering her real parents and illegally taking her as his own child, she said. He confessed to her what he had done in 2000, Ms. Montenegro said. But it was not until she testified at a trial here last spring that she finally came to grips with her past, shedding once and for all the name that Colonel Tetzlaff and his wife had given her -- María Sol -- after falsifying her birth records.

Germany / Jewish Holocaust / National Tribunals

"Accused former Nazi functionaries of the Treblinka death camp try to hide their faces at the beginning of the Treblinka trial in Dusseldorf, western Germany, on Oct. 12, 1964." (Associated Press file)

Hundreds of Nazi Probes Reopened in Germany
By David Rising
Associated Press dispatch on MSNBC.com, October 5, 2011
"Prosecutors have reopened hundreds of dormant investigations of former Nazi death camp guards and others who might now be charged under a new precedent set by the conviction of retired U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk, The Associated Press has learned. Given the advanced age of all of the suspects -- the youngest are in their 80s -- the head of the German prosecutors' office dedicated to investigating Nazi war crimes told the AP that authorities are not even waiting until the Demjanjuk appeals process is over. 'We don't want to wait too long, so we've already begun our investigations,' prosecutor Kurt Schrimm said. Meantime, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's top Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff, told the AP he would launch a new campaign in the next two months -- a successor to his Operation Last Chance -- to track down the remaining Nazi war criminals. He said the Demjanjuk conviction has opened the door to prosecutions that he had never thought possible in the past. 'It could be a very interesting final chapter,' he said by telephone from Jerusalem. 'This has tremendous implications even at this late date.'

Germany / Namibia / Herero Genocide

"The Namibian delegation attended a service in Berlin." (Associated Press)

Germany Returns Namibian Skulls Taken in Colonial Era
BBC Online, September 30, 2011
"Namibian tribal leaders have visited Berlin to collect the skulls of 20 compatriots who died under Germany's colonial rule in the early 1900s. German scientists took the heads to perform experiments seeking to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans. The skulls were uncovered three years ago in medical archive exhibits. A ceremony was held in the German capital to return the remains as a gesture of reconciliation. But chaotic scenes accompanied the speeches, particularly an address by German Deputy Foreign Minister Cornelia Pieper. A handful of demonstrators shouted 'reparations', 'apology' and 'genocide'. In the 1880s, Germany acquired present-day Namibia, calling it German South-West Africa. In 1904 the Herero, the largest of about 200 ethnic groups, rose up against colonial rule killing more than a 120 civilians. The German response was ruthless. Gen. Lothar von Trotha signed a notorious extermination order against the Herero, defeated them in battle and drove them into the desert, where most died of thirst. Of an estimated 65,000 Herero, only 15,000 survived. It is thought about 10,000 Nama people also died. In 1985, a UN report classified the events as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore the earliest attempted genocide in the 20th Century. In 2004, Germany's ambassador to Namibia expressed regret for what happened. Germany has consistently refused to pay reparations to its former colony, arguing that it has given much development aid to Namibia.

Rwanda / France

Rwandan Request to Extradite Widow from France Fails
By Pierre-Antoine Souchard
The Independent, September 29, 2011
"The widow of Rwanda's former President, wanted in connection with the 1994 genocide, has won her court appeal against extradition from France. Agathe Habyarimana has been sought by the Rwandan state prosecutor since 2009 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. She denies the accusations. The Paris court's reasons for the decision were not immediately available. Rwanda could make a second request, but an extradition now appears unlikely. Rwanda's genocide was triggered when President Juvenal Habyarimana died after his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994. Some 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were massacred by radical Hutus in under 100 days. The massacres ended when Tutsi-led rebels under the current President, Paul Kagame, defeated the Hutu extremists in July 1994. French forces flew Mrs. Habyarimana out of Rwanda shortly after the violence began and she has lived in France for years. The head of the Rwandan government's National Commission for the Fight against Genocide last year claimed Mrs Habyarimana was the 'main architect' of the genocide. French police detained the widow last year, but she was released on condition that she check in regularly with police. At the court, Mrs. Habyarimana said she was 'delighted' with the decision."
[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]

The Vatican / Sexual Crimes / Torture

"Pope Benedict XVI, flanked by bishop Pietro Marini, Master of Liturgical Celebration walks at the end of a Holy Mass in Ancona' s shipyard, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011." (Associated Press)

Vatican Calls "Ludicrous" Attempts by Clergy Sex Abuse Victims to Seek Court Case against Pope
By Mike Corder and Rachel Zoll
Associated Press/Canadian Press dispatches, September 14, 2011
"Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests have turned to the International Criminal Court, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity. The Vatican called the move a 'ludicrous publicity stunt.' The Center for constitutional Rights, a New York-based non-profit legal group, requested the inquiry Tuesday on behalf of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, arguing that the global church has maintained a "long-standing and pervasive system of sexual violence" despite promises to swiftly oust predators The Vatican's US lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, called the complaint a 'ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes' in a statement to The Associated Press. The complaint names Pope Benedict XVI, partly in his former role as leader of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in 2001 explicitly gained responsibility for overseeing abuse cases; Cardinal William Levada, who now leads that office; Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state under Pope John Paul II; and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who now holds that post. Attorneys for the victims say rape, sexual violence and torture are considered a crime against humanity as described in the international treaty that spells out the court's mandate. The complaint also accuses Vatican officials of creating policies that perpetuated the damage, constituting an attack against a civilian population. Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network, said going to the court was a last resort. 'We have tried everything we could think of to get them to stop and they won't,' she told The Associated Press. 'If the pope wanted to, he could take dramatic action at any time that would help protect children today and in the future, and he refuses to take the action.' The odds against the court opening an investigation are enormous. The prosecutor has received nearly 9,000 independent proposals for inquiries since 2002, when the court was created as the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, and has never opened a formal investigation based solely on such a request.

Libya

"Libyan rebels gather on armoured vehicles outside Sirte, one of the last strongholds of the fugitive leader Muammar Gaddafi." (Ciro Fusco/ANSA)

Murder and Torture "Carried Out by Both Sides" of Uprising against Libyan Regime
By David Smith
The Guardian, September 12, 2011
"The civil war that brought down Muammar Gaddafi has been marked by widespread atrocities on both sides, according to Amnesty International. In one of the most comprehensive reports yet on the human cost of the six-month conflict, Amnesty offers harrowing testimony of the war crimes, killings of unarmed protesters and arbitrary detentions by Gaddafi's security forces. But it also lifts the lid on a catalogue of reprisal attacks that have gained less international attention during the revolution. 'Opposition fighters and supporters have abducted, arbitrarily detained, tortured and killed former members of the security forces, suspected Gaddafi loyalists, captured soldiers and foreign nationals wrongly suspected of being mercenaries fighting on behalf of Gaddafi forces,' Amnesty says. 'No independent or credible investigations are known to have been carried out by the NTC [opposition National Transitional Council], nor effective measures taken to hold to account those responsible for these abuses.' One chapter of the report, the Battle for Libya: killings, disappearances and torture, focuses on opposition abuses which, though on a 'smaller scale' than those of the regime, are said to have been often ruthless and deadly. The report says that in the first days of the uprising, groups of protesters killed captured soldiers and suspected mercenaries in al-Bayda, Derna and Benghazi. 'Some were beaten to death, at least three were hanged, and others were shot dead after they had been captured or had surrendered,' the report says. Those who tried to distance themselves from Gaddafi's military apparatus were often shown no mercy, Amnesty's researchers found.

Rwanda / France

"President Sarkozy receives President Kagame at the Élysée Palace- Paris, 12 September 2011." (Flickr)

Rwandan Leader, in Paris, Seeks to Ease Tensions
By Steven Erlanger
The New York Times, September 12, 2011
"President Paul Kagame of Rwanda met President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday in a fence-mending exercise on the Rwandan’s first visit to France since the genocide in his country in 1994. Rwanda and Mr. Kagame have accused the French military of aiding the government, then Hutu-dominated, as it massacred up to 800,000 Rwandans, mainly Tutsi. That government was overthrown by Mr. Kagame, a Tutsi, with help from Uganda. Diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France broke off in 1996 after a French judge implicated Mr. Kagame and his alliesin the 1994 downing of a plane carrying the president at the time, a Hutu, which the government used as a pretext for the genocide. Mr. Sarkozy visited Rwanda last year and said that 'a kind of blindness' had prevented France from seeing the 'genocidal aspect' of the Hutu government. Mr. Sarkozy said he regretted 'mistakes,' but gave no apology. Mr. Kagame said Monday that he would not demand an apology from France and had spoken to Mr. Sarkozy of the future. 'The whole purpose is to find ways of overcoming our differences over the past and going forward with a better relationship,' he told Agence France-Presse in an interview. In an address to the French Institute of Foreign Relations, Mr. Kagame dismissed the complaints of human rights advocates who accused him of jailing opponents and limiting press freedom and said he was emphasizing economic progress and development. His visit coincided with accusations made by Robert Bourgi, a onetime aide to former President Jacques Chirac, that Mr. Chirac and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin received suitcases of cash from the leaders of former French colonies in Africa to finance French election campaigns. Lawyers for both men deny this. [...]"

South Africa / Violence against Whites

Shoot the Boer: "That's How a Genocide Can Start"
The Mail & Guardian, September 12, 2011
"A South African court on Monday ruled that ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema was guilty of hate speech for singing an apartheid-era song that advocated the killing the white farmers. 'I find the words uttered by Malema constitute hate speech,' said Judge Collin Lamont. Malema was ordered to pay court costs in the civil case that did not carry a criminal penalty. The verdict against Malema, a vocal proponent for the nationalisation of mines, comes as he is fighting for his political survival in a separate disciplinary case brought by the African National Congress, which has charged him with bringing the party into disrepute. The 30-year-old Malema, who is seen as a future leader of the ANC, was not present in court. The case was brought to the South Gauteng High Court by the Afrikaner civil rights group AfriForum Youth, which claimed white farmers felt vulnerable because of the song 'dubul' ibhunu', ('shoot the boer'). In his judgment, Lamont said words were powerful weapons that could lead to disastrous actions and even genocide. 'The words of one person inciting others ... that's how a genocide can start,' he said in his judgment. Lamont said in determining the outcome of the case the court had to analyse the meaning of the words in the song and its effect on society. He said single words and a group of words had 'elastic meanings'. The words Malema sang had not been forgotten as they were derogatory and hurtful. He said the response of the public was relevant to analyse the entirety of its context. Genocide was defined as 'the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious, or national group'. [...]"

Austria / Holocaust Denial

"Gerd Honsik, center, sits in the court room in Vienna's main court, in Austria, on Monday, April 20, 2009." (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Austrian Holocaust Denier, Gerd Honsik, Gets Parole
Associated Press dispatch in The Huffington Post, September 8, 2011
"An Austrian court official says a far-right author who has questioned the Holocaust has been paroled after serving three years in prison for glorifying Nazi ideology and backing Nazi-era beliefs. Gerd Honsik was serving concurrent four-year and two-year terms for writing books and in right wing publications that praised the Hitler era and contained anti-Jewish sentiments. He still had over a year left to serve. Court official Gerhard Hinger said Thursday the decision to release the 68-year-old Honsik was reached Monday. He says he does not know when Honsik actually left prison or where he is now. Officials said the parole decision was based on age and the fact that he is well-integrated in Spain, where he lives with his family."
[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]

Iran / Violence against Homosexuals

"Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the United Nations 'we don’t have homosexuals'." (Vahid Salemi/AP)

Iran Executes Three Men on Homosexuality Charges
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan
The Guardian, September 7, 2011
"Three Iranian men have been executed after being found guilty of charges related to homosexuality, according to a semi-official news agency. The men, only identified by their initials, were hanged on Sunday in the south-western city of Ahvaz, the capital of Iran's Khuzestan province. 'The three convicts were sentenced to death based on the articles 108 and 110 of Iran's Islamic penal code, for acts against the sharia law and bad deeds,' the Isna agency quoted a judiciary official in Khuzestan as saying. Iran Human Rights, an independent NGO based in Norway, said the men were charged with 'lavat' -- sexual intercourse between two men. It is not clear whether the three men were homosexuals or merely smeared with homosexualityaccused of being gay. Isna said the men were also convicted of robbery and kidnapping. Three other people were also executed on the same day on charges related to drug-dealing, rape and robbery. It is believed that the execution of the three men is the first time for many years that any Iranians have been given death sentences on the basis of their sexuality. In the past, Iran has executed convicts for homosexuality but they were typically simultaneously convicted of other charges that carried the death sentence, such as male rape. 'The executions for sodomy might be among the rare cases where the Iranian authorities admit to having executed men convicted of homosexual acts ... Iranian authorities normally present such cases as rape, but rape has not been mentioned in this case,' said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a spokesman for IHR.

Srebrenica Massacre / International Tribunals

"Momcilo Perisic, former chief of staff of the Yugoslav army, under guard before hearing his sentence at The Hague." (Peter Dejong/Reuters)

War Crimes Tribunal Jails Former Yugoslav Army Chief for 27 Years
Associated Press dispatch in The Guardian, September 6, 2011
"The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal has sentenced the former chief of the Yugoslav army to 27 years in prison for providing military aid to Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the Srebrenica massacre and for a deadly four-year campaign of shelling and sniping in Sarajevo. The verdict on General Momcilo Perisic is the first time the United Nations court has convicted a civilian or military officer from Yugoslavia of war crimes in Bosnia, and underscores the Yugoslav army's support for the Serb rebels in Bosnia and Croatia who committed the worst atrocities of the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s. The link between the disintegrating Yugoslav federation and Serb forces in the breakaway republics has been a matter of dispute and was the keystone of the trial in The Hague of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. That trial ended without a conclusion when Milosevic died in his cell in 2006 of a heart attack. The former Yugoslavia is now divided into independent states that include Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia. Perisic is a former Milosevic ally who remained Serbia's military chief until 2008 -- three years after the Bosnian and Croatian wars ended. He turned against the dictator after the Bosnian war and warned Milosevic's regime against fomenting conflict in Kosovo, where fighting erupted after he left his post.

Turkey / Restitution

Turkey to Return Confiscated Property
By Suzan Fraser
AP dispatch in The Guardian, August 28, 2011
"Turkey's government is returning hundreds of properties confiscated from the country's Christian and Jewish minorities over the past 75 years in a gesture to religious groups who complain of discrimination that is also likely to thwart possible court rulings against the country. A government decree published Saturday returns assets that once belonged to Greek, Armenian or Jewish trusts and makes provisions for the government to pay compensation for any confiscated property that has since been sold on. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the decision formally later Sunday when he hosts religious leaders and the heads of about 160 minority trusts, at a fast-breaking dinner for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials said. The properties include former hospital, orphanage or school buildings and cemeteries. Their return is a key European Union demand and a series of court cases has also been filed against primarily Muslim Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights. Last year, the court ordered Turkey to return an orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Some properties were seized when they fell into disuse over the years. Others were confiscated after 1974 when Turkey ruled that non-Muslim trusts could not own new property in addition to those that were already registered in their names in 1936. The 1974 decision came around the time of a Turkish invasion of Cyprus that followed a coup attempt by supporters of union with Greece and relations with that country were at an all time low. Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government seeking to promote religious freedoms has pledged to address the problems of the religious minorities. In the past few years, it amended laws to allow for the return of some of the properties, but restrictions remained and the issue on how to resolve properties that were sold on to third parties was left unsolved. The decree overcomes those restrictions and helps scupper further court rulings.

Sudan / South Kordofan

"New recruits for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) train in a secret camp in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan in preparation for what they call a long war against Khartoum." (AFP/Getty)

Satellite Images Reveal Signs of Mass Graves in South Sudan
The Telegraph, August 25, 2011
"A US monitoring group says satellite imagery had revealed the existence of two more mass graves in a contested region of Sudan, bringing the total number of mass graves sited there to eight. The Satellite Sentinel Project, a group backed by actor and Sudan activist George Clooney, said that witnesses told the group that a backhoe was used to dig some of the graves at sites in Kadugli, South Kordofan. Workers with the Sudanese Red Crescent Society were present during some of the burials, the group said. The US group has not made any estimates of the number of bodies it believes have been buried in the graves, saying that onsite research would need to be carried out. South Kordofan lies just across the border from newly independent South Sudan and has been the site of clashes between government troops from Sudan's Arab north and black tribesmen aligned with the south's Sudan People's Liberation Movement. Many inhabitants of South Kordofan fought for the south during the country's two decades-plus civil war against the north and are ethnically linked to the south. A report released this month by the UN human rights office in Geneva said Sudanese security forces allegedly carried out indiscriminate aerial bombardments in South Kordofan that killed civilians in the weeks before South Sudan became independent on July 9. It also alleged that Sudanese forces executed prisoners accused of belonging to the south's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement before burying them in mass graves. 'The evidence against the Sudanese government continues to compound and has now become impossible to dismiss. It is time for the international community to take serious action and execute its responsibility to protect innocent lives in Sudan,' said John Prendergast, co-founder of the activist group the Enough Project. [...]"

France / Auschwitz / Nazi Holocaust

"The hellish entrance at Auschwitz."

The Death Camp Heroines
By Caroline Moorehead
Daily Express, August 21, 2011
"On an icy dawn in January 1943, 230 French women were herded on to four cattle trucks in the station of Compiègne. The eldest was a 68-year-old farmer’s wife, the youngest a 15-year-old schoolgirl. In between were teachers and shopkeepers, factory workers and students.Arrested by French police on the orders of the German occupying forces for resistance activities, acting as liaison officers, hiding weapons or writing anti- German slogans on the walls, they had been selected as a warning to troublemakers. Other resisters arrested like them from all over France were being sent to prison or to labour camps in Germany. This group was going to the death camp of Auschwitz. However, these 230 women had deep bonds of friendship and affection born during the many months they had been held together in the old fort of Romainville on the outskirts of Paris. Though separated by age, class, politics and education, they had listened to each other's stories, comforted those who had left children behind, looked after those who were little more than children themselves. They had shared their meagre rations, fought for better conditions, watched each other's backs.

India / Kashmir

Mass Graves Hold Thousands, Kashmir Inquiry Finds
By Lydia Polgreen
The New York Times August 22, 2011
"Thousands of bullet-riddled bodies are buried in dozens of unmarked graves across Kashmir, a state human rights commission inquiry has concluded, many of them likely to be those of civilians who disappeared more than a decade ago in the brutal insurgency in the troubled region. The inquiry, the result of three years of investigative work by senior police officers working for the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission, brings the first official acknowledgment that civilians might have been buried in mass graves in Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan where insurgents waged a bloody battle for independence in the early 1990s. The report sheds new light on a grim chapter in the history of the troubled province and confirms a 2008 report by a Kashmiri human rights organization that found hundreds of bodies buried in the Kashmir Valley. Tens of thousands of people died in the insurgency, which began in 1989 and was partly fueled by training, weapons and cash from Pakistan. According to the report, the bodies of hundreds of men described as unidentified militants were buried in unmarked graves. But of the more than 2,000 bodies, 574 were identified as local residents. 'There is every probability that these unidentified dead bodies buried in various unmarked graves at 38 places of North Kashmir may contain the dead bodies of enforced disappearances,' the report said.

El Salvador / Spain

"A stone engraved with the names of the six Jesuit priests killed during El Salvador's 1980-92 civil war." (Luis Galdamez/Reuters)

Salvadoran Ex-Soldiers Face Extradition over Murder of Priests
By Stephen Burgen
The Guardian, August 9, 2011
"In one of the worst atrocities of El Salvador's dirty wars, members of the military murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter 22 years ago. Now an extradition battle looms after the defence ministry handed over nine of the 20 accused to the judicial authorities in a move that has surprised many human rights workers. The soldiers, all retired, include two generals. According to the El Salvador daily El Faro, the suspects presented themselves voluntarily so as to avoid being photographed in handcuffs. Five of the murdered priests were Spanish and in 2008 the Spanish Human Rights Association and the San Francisco-based Centre for Justice and Accountability demanded the extradition of the 20 accused. The extradition order was ratified by Spain's highest court. When the case first went to court in El Salvador in 1991, only two officers were found guilty of murder but were freed almost immediately under an amnesty law passed in 1993. Eloy Velasco, the Spanish judge in charge of the case, regards the 1991 trial as a fraud. 'These are crimes under international law,' said Esther Major, of Amnesty International's Central America team. 'We hope the court will pay regard to its international obligations when it rules on the extradition. We would expect them to allow this extradition and for justice to be sought in the Spanish courts, given that the amnesty law is such a huge obstacle to justice.'

Bosnia and Herzegovina / Srebrenica Massacre

"Mevludin Oric, in tears as he recounts the Serb genocide. Captured by the Serbs two days into the Death March, he miraculously survived a brutal mass execution by pretending to be dead."

Death March: The Extraordinary Story of the Bosnians Who Marched 70 Horrific Miles to Escape Genocide
By Charlotte Eagar
Daily Mail, August 6, 2011
"The walkers come marching resolutely down the dusty track from the forests, seven and a half thousand of them in bright hiking gear and T-shirts. They are on their way to Srebrenica, an old silver town set in a bowl of rolling, wooded hills. They call themselves the Mars Mira -- the peace march -- but this is no bunch of weekend revolutionaries. There are women, and girls and boys too young to remember the war, but the real heroes of the Mars Mira are the surviving men of Srebrenica, sweaty in the 100-degree heat, clutching the plastic water bottles they wished they had 16 years ago. They set off three days and almost 70 miles ago from the village of Nezuk in northern Bosnia and you can only imagine what memories assail them as they walked through those woods. For the Mars Mira follows (in reverse) the route of Srebrenica's Death March -- the Put Smrti -- along which these men battled for five days, after their town finally fell to the Serbs on July 11, 1995. Srebrenica's name is now synonymous with the worst single act of genocide in Europe since the Nazi Holocaust, when more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men were murdered by the Serbs; the actual number is still uncertain, but more than 5,000 bodies have been found so far and thousands more are still missing. But less well known is the extraordinary story of the men who tried to escape the massacre. For although 2,000 wounded and old men did give themselves up and were almost immediately killed, the able-bodied men refused to surrender. [...]"
[n.b. Thanks to Jo Jones for bringing this source to my attention.]

Bosnia and Herzegovina / Omarska Concentration Camp

"Kompleks logora Omarska." (BIRN)

Omarska: A Monument to Savagery and Resistance
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, August 6, 2011
"Several hundred former detainees from Prijedor and their families have gathered in Omarska to commemorate August 6th, the day when the disassembly of this camp began 18 years ago. Representatives of victims and families of the killed once more reminded of the initiative to build a Memorial Center in Omarska. According to verdicts of the Hague Tribunal, at the end of May 1992 Serb forces in Prijedor formed the Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps. Omarska camp was placed near the former coal mine in the Omarska village. During its work, more then 3000 detainees were held there, and a third was killed. All three camps were closed at the end of August 1992 under pressure from the International community, and the disassembly of Omarska started on August 6th. The site of the camp, which consisted of hangars, the management building and the so-called white and red houses, is owned today by Mittal Steel mines. The Prijedor residents started an initiative in 2004 to build a Memorial center in the White house. At the commemoration of the 18th anniversary for killings in Prijedor, Fatima Fazlic president of the 'Association of Prijedor women - Izvor' said they will ask for the entire Mittal Steel facility, and all four buildings where Bosniaks and Croats were held, to be turned into a Memorial center.

Sudan / South Kordofan

"Representative Chris Smith (pictured in June), who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, on Friday urged the immediate deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan's war-torn border region of Southern Kordofan, warning of a risk of 'genocide' by government forces." (AFP/File/Jim Watson)

US Lawmaker Seeks Peacekeepers on Sudan "Genocide"
Agence France-Presse dispatch on Yahoo! News, August 5, 2011
"A senior US lawmaker urged the immediate deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan's war-torn border region of Southern Kordofan, warning of a risk of 'genocide' by government forces. South Sudan last month broke away from Sudan to become the world's newest independent nation but violence has persisted in Southern Kordofan, an oil-producing region that remains under Khartoum's rule. Representative Chris Smith, who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, on Friday said there were credible signs of systematic attacks by Sudan's Arab and Muslim forces against the largely Christian Nubian people. 'There has been far too little interest shown and there are no UN peacekeepers to help provide at least some semblance of protection. So the people are just being mowed down,' Smith said in an interview on C-SPAN's 'Newsmakers' program to air on Sunday. 'We have another potential genocide -- certainly mass killing -- because of who they are, their ethnicity and their faith,' Smith said.

Sudan / United Nations

Sudan Needs to Stop Harassing UN Peacekeepers To Death
By Lauren Jenkins
UNDispatch.com, August 5, 2011
"UN peacekeepers had just arrived in Abyei, Sudan earlier this month to monitor the withdrawal of warring northern and southern Sudanese forces when their convoy hit a landmine. One died instantly, ten more were wounded. The UN called for a Medevac helicopter to get the others emergency medical attention, but the government of Sudan refused to allow the airlift. In fact, they threatened to shoot the helicopter down. Negotiations for the airlift took three hours during which time three injured peacekeepers died. Those peacekeepers were part a 4,200 strong peacekeeping force in Abyei called UNISFA.  Their deaths were the latest tragedy in a long series of obstructions, obfuscations and official harassment of UN peacekeeping missions operating in Sudanese territory. Take, for example, the other peacekeeping mission in Sudan, the African Union -United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Last Friday, the UN Security Council renewed the mandate of UNAMID). The one-year extension keeps over 19,000 peacekeepers in Darfur protecting civilians and creating space for humanitarian operations and calls on Sudan to remedy myriad issues -- specifically the deteriorating security situation due to aerial bombardments by the government of Sudan. (Just last week,  Sudanese air strikes on the village of Abu Hamara killed one civilian and forced others to flee the onslaught according to UN peacekeepers there.) Both votes on the two peacekeeping missions were unanimous, 15-0.

Croatia / Operation Storm

"Markac, left, and Gotovina were sentenced in April to prison terms of 18 and 24 years respectively." (EPA/Getty)

Croatian Prime Minister Hails Convicted War Crimes Generals
The Telegraph, August 5, 2011
"Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, has hailed two ex-generals jailed by a UN war crimes court for their role in the offensive that ended the 1991-1995 Croatian war on the operation's anniversary. 'A special greeting I send to all Croatian veterans, all of Croatia's generals and particularly to generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac,' Kosor said in the southern town of Knin at a ceremony marking the anniversary of Operation Storm, broadcast live by national television. 'Without Storm and the commanders that had led it ... we would have not been here today, we would have nothing to celebrate and to be proud of,' Kosor said. Launched on August 4, 1995, Operation Storm was aimed at recapturing part of Croatian territory held by Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs who opposed Croatia's independence from the former Yugoslavia. Hundreds of Serb civilians were killed and tens of thousands fled Croatia during and after the operation.

Rwanda / Genocide Tribunals

"Rwandan president Paul Kagame is accused of ensuring that the so-called gacaca courts did not threaten the existing politcal order." (Reuters)

Genocide Courts Attacked for Failure to Heal Rwanda's Scars
By Daniel Howden
The Independent, August 5, 2011
"Rwanda's widely praised community genocide courts, due to wind up later this year, have done nothing to 'heal ethnic divisions' and have been used to 'bolster government authority', according to a new report by one of the country's leading donors. The unique 'gacaca' courts, which have heard more than one million cases, have been hailed as the centrepiece of the mountain nation's miracle recovery from the 1994 genocide but their reputation has been disputed in a study by the Japanese aid corporation, JICA. The courts were touted as an 'African solution' that would heal the legacy left by a Hutu-led genocide that killed nearly one in ten Rwandese, many from the Tutsi minority. But the gacaca courts are regarded in Rwanda as handing out 'victor's justice', argues researcher Shinichi Takeuch, who says they 'have done nothing to appease underlying ethnic tensions in the country.' Nearly a decade after 800,000 people were murdered in a 100-day killing spree, impoverished Rwanda found itself with 135,000 detainees and only 12 courts to process their cases. The innovative answer was to revive the concept of the customary 'courtyard' or 'gacaca' hearings and 11,000 of these courts were set up. All but the top tier suspects -- the planners and instigators of the genocide, notorious mass murderers and rapists who were sent to a UN tribunal -- went to gacaca courts where witnesses could confront alleged perpetrators.

Bosnia and Herzegovina / Netherlands / Srebrenica Massacre

UN Commander Expects Charges over Srebrenica
By Peter Cluskey
The Irish Times, August 5, 2011
"The military officer who commanded Dutch UN peacekeepers at the time of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 has said he believes he may soon face criminal charges -- 16 years after Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN 'safe haven', killing almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Retired colonel Thomas Karremans -- who was a lieutenant-colonel in 1995 and was promoted to colonel on his return from Bosnia -- said he expects he may be called to account before judges in Arnhem, where members of the military are tried by a special section of the civilian court. That likelihood has been increased by last month's court of appeal ruling that the Dutch state was responsible for the deaths of three Muslim men who were denied protection when they were turned away from the Dutchbat compound in Srebrenica and later killed by the Serbs. Col. Karremans and two other officers -- his former deputy, Maj Rob Franken, and former personnel officer Berend Oosterveen -- are already facing civil actions begun only last year by relatives of those who died in Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since the second World War. Col. Karremans (63) was at the head of the 110 lightly armed Dutch soldiers as the Bosnian Serb troops under the command of Gen Ratko Mladic -- now facing 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity -- advanced on the enclave. The colonel told the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1996 that he called in Nato air strikes, but when they came they were 'too late and too little.' However, as the Dutch pulled out of Srebrenica he accepted gifts from Gen. Mladic, smiled and shook his hand.

Sri Lanka / Switzerland

Rights Groups Ask Swiss to Press War Crimes Case against Sri Lankan Diplomat
Associated Press dispatch in The Washington Post, August 4, 2011
"Two advocacy groups asked Swiss authorities Thursday to pursue war crime charges against a former Sri Lankan army commander now serving as a European diplomat, reflecting still-simmering Western concerns about the South Asian island nations' [sic] human rights record. The Swiss-based groups Society for Threatened Peoples and TRIAL said they filed a confidential complaint with Switzerland's attorney general against Jagath Dias, a former major general in Sri Lanka's final offensive that smashed a 26-year rebellion by ethnic minority Tamils in May 2009. The United Nations estimates between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the civil war. Dias, whose Sri Lankan forces captured some of the rebel Tamil Tigers' last strongholds, became Sri Lanka's deputy ambassador to Germany, Switzerland and the Vatican in September 2009. Dias, reached at his embassy in Berlin, said it's easy to make accusations, but he denied being a war criminal. 'Anybody can accuse anyone of anything. I don't see that any of these allegations are well founded,' he told The Associated Press. 'We did our best to complete the military operation with zero casualties. How could we have released or rescued 300,000 people if we really wanted to destroy them?' About 300,000 Tamil civilians were caught in the climactic battle. The government then carved camps out of the jungles of northern Sri Lanka to hold them and screen out former rebels who could stir up trouble. The Swiss groups' complaint -- based largely on the findings of the United Nations and other international organizations -- says Dias' army division was responsible for massive bombing of civilians and hospitals. The groups said in a statement that 'it is high time that Switzerland gives a clear signal against impunity' by pressing criminal charges against him.

Syria

Death Toll Rises Sharply in Center of Syrian Revolt
By Nada Bakri
The New York Times, August 4, 2011
"The Syrian military forces that rolled into the rebellious city of Hama and occupied its central square have killed more than 100 people over the past 24 hours, according to rights activists in satellite telephone contact with a witness in the city. The ominous new toll raised the rough count of civilian dead there to more than 200 since the military's tanks began shelling Hama over the weekend. The military's assault on the city, a linchpin of the five-month-old uprising against the iron-handed government of President Bashar al-Assad, represents one of the fiercest efforts yet to crush the uprising and a signal of Mr. Assad's defiance in the face of growing international condemnation. Activists say the overall toll since March is more than 1,700. With foreign journalists barred from the country and the government close-mouthed about most aspects of the rebellions, activists have been the main source of information on the crackdowns and casualties. Landlines, cellphones, Internet service, electricity and water remained cut for the second consecutive day in Hama. Satellite connections offered perhaps the only route left to get information out. Activists said they feared the near total media blackout on the city would allow the military to pursue an unrestrained assault. Their fear is only deepened by the painful legacy of Hama, where Mr. Assad's father crushed an uprising in 1982 out of sight of the world, leaving upwards of 10,000 people dead and parts of the city leveled. Other activists spoke of a critical shortage in basic food staples and medical equipment. Hama has been surrounded since Sunday; cars trying to carry food into the city have been attacked, according to reports in recent days. Hundreds of people have been arrested in house-to-house raids. A resident who spoke to Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel said that shelling had been nearly continuous since the day before and that the city was completely disconnected from the outside world and from villages and towns surrounding it. 'The situation is very difficult,' he said, giving his name as Abu Al-Walid. 'The lack of electricity has spoiled food supplies. They are shelling the city around the clock.'

Guatemala / National Tribunals

"A woman celebrates outside the court at the end of a trial in Guatemala City on Tuesday. The court sentenced three former special forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison each for the massacre of more than 200 men, women and children." (Rodrigo Abd/AP)

Soldiers Sentenced to More Than 6,000 Years in Guatemala Massacre
Associated Press dispatch on MSNBC.com, August 3, 2011
"A Guatemalan court has sentenced four former soldiers to more than 6,000 years in prison each for the 1982 massacre of 201 men, women and children during the Central American country's civil war. Three former special forces soldiers received 6,060 years in prison each on Tuesday. The court also sentenced a former army second lieutenant to 6,066 years in prison for the same massacre in the village of Dos Erres in Guatemala's northern Peten region. The length of the sentences is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. The sentences for Manuel Pop Sun, Reyes Collin Gualip and Daniel Martinez include thirty years for each death, plus thirty years for crimes against humanity. The three men are former members the Guatemalan military's elite Kaibil unit. Former 2nd Lt. Carlos Antonio Carias received an extra six years for stealing the victims' belongings, the court said in a statement. Prosecutors say Carias was in charge of a military base near the community of Dos Erres and provided information to the army that led to the massacre. Outside the court, survivors of the massacre cried when the sentences were announced and held red roses.

Syria / United Nations

UN Condemns Syrian Attacks on Civilians
Associated Press dispatch on MSNBC.com, August 3, 2011
"The UN Security Council has condemned Syrian authorities for attacking civilians and committing widespread human rights violations. After more than three months of deadlock and silence on the escalating violence in Syria, the council adopted a presidential statement Wednesday afternoon condemning President Bashar Assad's crackdown on anti-government protesters. The trigger for the council to start negotiations on a text was the intense military assault launched by they Syrian government over the weekend that sent troops and tanks into the besieged city of Hama. Presidential statements require approval from all 15 council members. Lebanon, a neighbor and close ally of Syria, didn't block adoption of the statement, but it invoked a procedure last used 35 years ago and dissociated itself from the text. The White House also hardened its stance against Assad on Wednesday, saying the United States viewed him as the cause of instability in the country. 'We do not want to see him remain in Syria for stability's sake and, rather, we view him as the cause of instability in Syria,' Carney told a news briefing, toughening the US position on the Syrian leader who has launched military assaults against unarmed protesters.

Kenya / United Kingdom / Mau Mau Uprising

"L-R: Ndiku Mutua, Jane Muthoni Mara and Wambugu Wa Nyingi claimed they were tortured."

Mau Mau Kenyans Allowed to Sue UK Government
By Dominic Casciani
BBC Online, July 21, 2011
"Four elderly Kenyans have been told they can sue the Foreign Office for their alleged torture by British colonial authorities 50 years ago. The High Court said the group could seek damages over their treatment during the 1950s and 60s. Mr. Justice McCombe said the claimants had an 'arguable case' and it would be 'dishonourable' to block the action. Ministers say the UK government is not responsible for the actions of the colonial administration. The decision means that the government will have to defend accusations of torture, murder, sexual assault and other alleged abuses at a full damages trial in 2012. The four Kenyans, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, Paulo Muoka Nzili, Wambugu Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara, all in their 70s and 80s, say ministers in London approved systematic abuse in special camps. A fifth claimant has died since the action began. The High Court heard that Mr. Mutua and Mr. Nzili had been castrated, Mr. Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men were clubbed to death, and Mrs. Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual abuse. Mr. Justice McCombe said in his judgement there was 'ample evidence' to show there may have been 'systematic torture of detainees during the Emergency.'

Cambodian Genocide

Cambodia's Muslims Seek Justice for Genocide
By International Justice Tribune
Radio Netherlands Worldwide, July 18, 2011
"Zakaria Bin Ahmad cannot forget the years of horror under the brutal Khmer Rouge when even praying was to risk death for Cambodia's persecuted minority Muslims. Many others in his community did not survive the late 1970s reign of terror by the hardline communist regime, which executed Islamic scholars, destroyed mosques, forced Muslims to eat pork and forbade headscarves. 'People tried all kinds of ways to pray. Sometimes while they were driving an ox cart ... sometimes in the jungle when we asked to use the toilet, and sometimes while we were washing,' the 61-year-old recalled. But mostly, he remembers people disappearing, never to be seen again. 'Many were killed,' he said quietly in his modest home in the shadow of a modern blue-domed mosque, a source of pride for the town of Chraing Chamres, whose earlier place of worship was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. Cambodian Muslims, known as Cham, hope finally to see justice as the most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders stand trial for genocide at Cambodia's UN-backed court over the treatment of the ethnic and religious minority. 'Now we can tell our story,' said Sales Pin Apoutorliep, the religious leader, or hakem, of the Chraing Chamres mosque.

Serbia / Croatia / Genocide Tribunals

"A handout photograph of Serbian war crimes suspect Goran Hadzic being arrested in Fruska Gora national park, west of Belgrade. He was the last remaining fugitive sought by the UN war crimes tribunal." (Politika newspaper)

Goran Hadzic Capture a Milestone for Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal
By Ian Traynor
The Guardian, July 20, 2011
"The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal crowned 18 years of operations on Wednesday with the capture of the last of 161 suspects from the wars of the 1990s when Goran Hadzic, a leader of the Serbian insurgency in Croatia, was arrested by the Serbian authorities. The arrest, two months after Belgrade captured genocide suspect General Ratko Mladic and dispatched him for trial in The Hague, marked a turning point for Serbia in seeking to put a blood-soaked, criminalised past behind it and join the European mainstream. The arrest was also a big moment for the UN tribunal in The Hague. Every one of the 161 main war crimes suspects indicted for atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo has now been apprehended and tried or is awaiting trial. 'This is a precedent of enduring significance, not only for this tribunal, but also for international criminal justice more generally,' said Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. 'A milestone in the tribunal's history,' added Judge O-Gon Kwon, the acting head of the temporary court established in 1993 at the height of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Hadzic, a former warehouse worker from Slavonia, a region in east Croatia, was a political leader of the Serbian rebellion in 1991, armed and sponsored by Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Belgrade. He led ethnic pogroms and armed insurrection against Zagreb, after Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia in June 1991, resulting in partition of the country and the Serbian seizure of a quarter of the territory during the war.

Uganda / Rape of Males in Wartime

"Dying of shame: a Congolese rape victim, currently resident in Uganda. This man's wife has left him, as she was unable to accept what happened. He attempted suicide at the end of last year." (Will Storr/Observer)

The Rape of Men
By Will Storr
The Observer, July 17, 2011
"Of all the secrets of war, there is one that is so well kept that it exists mostly as a rumour. It is usually denied by the perpetrator and his victim. Governments, aid agencies and human rights defenders at the UN barely acknowledge its possibility. Yet every now and then someone gathers the courage to tell of it. This is just what happened on an ordinary afternoon in the office of a kind and careful counsellor in Kampala, Uganda. For four years Eunice Owiny had been employed by Makerere University's Refugee Law Project (RLP) to help displaced people from all over Africa work through their traumas. This particular case, though, was a puzzle. A female client was having marital difficulties. 'My husband can't have sex,' she complained. 'He feels very bad about this. I'm sure there's something he's keeping from me.' Owiny invited the husband in. For a while they got nowhere. Then Owiny asked the wife to leave. The man then murmured cryptically: 'It happened to me.' Owiny frowned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old sanitary pad. 'Mama Eunice,' he said. 'I am in pain. I have to use this.' Laying the pus-covered pad on the desk in front of him, he gave up his secret. During his escape from the civil war in neighbouring Congo, he had been separated from his wife and taken by rebels. His captors raped him, three times a day, every day for three years. And he wasn't the only one. He watched as man after man was taken and raped. The wounds of one were so grievous that he died in the cell in front of him. 'That was hard for me to take,' Owiny tells me today. 'There are certain things you just don't believe can happen to a man, you get me? But I know now that sexual violence against men is a huge problem. Everybody has heard the women's stories. But nobody has heard the men's.'

Argentina

Argentine Torture Trial Ends with Life Sentences for Ex-military Leaders of Notorious Prison
Associated Press dispatch in The Washington Post, July 14, 2011
"Two former military officers were convicted Thursday of murder, kidnapping and torture at one of the most notorious prisons run by Argentina's former dictatorship. Both got life sentences for crimes against humanity. There were very few survivors among the 2,500 political prisoners who passed through 'El Vesubio' prison during the 1976-83 military junta's dirty war on dissidents, which officially claimed 13,000 lives in all. 'El Vesubio' was run by the army in La Matanza, a working-class suburb of the capital, said Rodrigo Borda, a lawyer for the Center for Social and Legal Studies, which has kept close track of Argentina's progress in prosecuting crimes comitted by the junta. 'The detainees were hooded and chained together, and the guards gave them almost nothing to eat,' Borda said in an interview. Witnesses testified that the prison's boss, Col. Pedro Alberto Duran, regularly raped female prisoners and forced them to live with him in rooms in the compound. Duran was charged, but died in June during the trial.

Peru

"Telmo Hurtado is accused of killing 69 peasants in the 1980s."

"Butcher of the Andes" Faces Trial in Peru
The Telegraph, July 15, 2011
"A Peruvian ex-army officer known as the 'Butcher of the Andes' and accused of killing 69 peasants in the 1980s, was extradited to Peru from the United States late on Thursday to face charges, police said. Telmo Hurtado is accused of commanding a military patrol in the southeast of the country that killed the peasants, including 30 children and 27 women, in 1985 during Peru's war against Shining Path Maoist guerrillas. He was to appear before a national criminal court on Friday, which will decide where he will be held while the case is developed against him, said Karim Ninaquispe, a lawyer for families of the victims. Hurtado is alleged to have taken part in the infamous 'Accomarca Massacre' on August 14, 1985, when army units entered the Quebrada de Huancayoc village, herded villagers into houses and set them alight, killing dozens. Hurtado was included in a blanket amnesty granted to military officers in the 1990s but lost his immunity when the Supreme Court nullified the law in 2002, at which point he moved to the US city of Miami, Florida. He was arrested by US authorities in 2007 and the following year was ordered to pay $37 million after a case brought by the Center for Justice and Accountability, a rights group representing two witnesses to the massacre. Around 70,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed during Peru's war on leftist Shining Path and Tupac Amaru rebel groups in the 1980s and 1990s."
[n.b. This is the full text of the dispatch.]

Sudan / South Kordofan

"Comparison: 17 June - 4 July 2011."

Clooney's Satellites Capture Piles of Bodies, Mass Graves in Sudan
By Mark Benjamin
Time.com, July 14, 2011
"George Clooney's Satellite Sentinel Project set up to monitor the spiraling violence in Sudan has a stunning report out today with convincing evidence showing ;a campaign of systematic mass killing of civilians in Kadugli, South Kordofan' in the south-central area of the country. ... The group combined eyewitness reports and DigitalGlobe satellite imagery to pinpoint what seem almost certainly to be piles of bodies in Kadguli and mass graves south of there. The group cites four eyewitness accounts of Sudan Armed Forces from northern Sudan and related militias searching houses in the town and 'systematically killing' civilians suspected of supporting southern Sudan forces. The report describes the slitting of one civilian's throat and sealing and burning homes with civilians inside. Eyewitnesses also describe the mass graves, shown above, dug by a yellow earth mover on June 8 less than a mile south of the Tilo School in Kadugli. The pits are about 26 meters long and 5 meters wide. Large green trucks were seen driving to the site and unloading around 100 bodies. Witnesses say before being buried in the mass grave, some of the bodies were wrapped in white plastic and piled up in Kadugli. The group captured what seem to be a pile of those bodies, too. [...]"

Syria

"Syrian forces enter a village near the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus." (Associated Press)

Syrian Forces May Have Committed Crimes against Humanity
The Telegraph, July 6, 2011
"Syrian forces may have committed crimes against humanity when they crushed protests in the town of Tel Kelakh in May, Amnesty International have claimed. Urging the United Nations to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, the human rights group said nine people died in custody after being captured during the operation in the town, close to the Lebanese border. 'Amnesty International considers that crimes committed in Tel Kalakh amount to crimes against humanity as they appear to be part of a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population,' it said. In what it described as a 'devastating security operation,' scores of men were arbitrarily arrested and tortured, including people already wounded, in response to largely peaceful demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad, it said. The military operation in Tel Kelakh, completed in a few days in mid-May, sent thousands of people fleeing for shelter into Lebanon, Amnesty said in a report compiled from witness testimony gathered in Lebanon and from phone calls into Syria. 'The accounts we have heard from witnesses to events in Tel Kelakh paint a deeply disturbing picture of systematic, targeted abuses to crush dissent,' said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.

Srebrenica Massacre / National Tribunals

"Dutch UN peacekeepers watch while Muslim refugees from Srebrenica gather in the village of Potocari in 1995." (Associated Press)

Dutch State Responsible for Three Srebrenica Deaths, Says Court
By Ian Traynor
The Guardian, July 5, 2011
"Relatives of the victims of Europe's biggest massacre in decades won a landmark case, immense satisfaction, and the likelihood of substantial damages when a Dutch appeals court ruled for the first time that the Netherlands had to answer for the deaths of Muslim men at Srebrenica 16 years ago. The verdict stunned the Dutch government as well as the plaintiffs, who have campaigned on the issue for more than a decade and had almost given up. If the ruling is upheld by the supreme court, there could be hundreds of claims for damages from relatives from some of the estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males butchered by the Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic, on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague on charges of genocide. The verdict also found for the first time that countries contributing to a UN peacekeeping mandate must answer for their actions and cannot enjoy immunity behind a UN cloak. The court rejected the Dutch government's argument that it was not responsible for its troops stationed in Srebrenica as they were under UN authority. 'It has been established that states who take part in UN peacekeeping operations cannot not be responsible for their actions. It's all about effective control,' Liesbeth Zegveld, the lawyer for the two Bosnian plaintiffs, told the Guardian. Hasan Nuhanovic, whose parents and brother were killed at Srebrenica, and the relatives of Rizo Mustafic, who worked as an electrician for the Dutch and was killed, have campaigned for years to get the UN and the Netherlands to bear partial blame for the atrocities on the grounds that at the time Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, was a UN-declared 'safe haven' manned by Dutch troops serving with the UN. The court ruled that the Dutch state was responsible for those deaths.