Global Crises

On a quarterly basis, Jewish World Watch provides an update on the status of the worst man-made crises in the world. These updates are prepared by Victor Gold, Esq., Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Member, Temple Emanuel, Jewish World Watch Committee and Member, JWW Synagogue Advisory Committee.

Global Crises Update - Archives

	December 2007
	September 2007
	June 2007
	March 2007
	January 2007
	September 2006
	June 2006
	March 2006

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The purpose of this report is provide a quarterly update for Jewish World Watch of the most serious human rights crises in the world at this time. This supplements the report of March, 2008. New material appears in italics.  These descriptions are taken primarily from Enough, Human Rights Watch, the New York Times, Genocide Watch and The Economist.

This report does not describe the situation in Sudan/Darfur/Chad, since other JWW reports deal with that crisis. This report makes no attempt to rank the following crises in order of seriousness. Instead, they are listed in alphabetical order.

Burma (Myanmar)

The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Burma's authoritarian military government, remains of major international concern given its intensely restrictive police state that denies most basic rights and freedoms. Continued military action against separatist ethnic rebellions have displaced hundreds of thousands of people, mostly ethnic minorities, while nearly 2 million more have taken refuge in neighboring countries such as Thailand. In August 2007 authorities raised fuel prices by as much as 500 percent.   In November, UN Special Investigator on Human Rights in Burma was allowed into the country for the first time in four years. His analysis, based on a 5-day visit, reported many more deaths from the crackdown than the government has admitted, and also claimed that 1,000 of the 4,000 civilians and monks detained were still in prison. The report was presented at the UN Human Rights Commission in December. Since the protests began in September, the SPDC has kept a tight lid on any journalists, preventing any photographs, news or other footage from leaving the country.   On May 1, a referendum was in place for a vote on May 8 which would give more power to the military government and place severe restrictions on access to information (and other rights lost) to the public.   In early May Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, killing an estimated 200,000 people. The referendum voting was pushed to May 24 despite the fact that most citizens are still unable to get to the polls. The referendum passed with 98% approval, even in effected areas. The government has also blocked foreign aid from entering the country following Nargis, leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands more in a move that some analysts have claimed violates the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

Burundi

One of the best predictors of future genocide is past genocide that has gone unpunished.  Genocide in Burundi has never led to punishment. The current situation in Burundi shares many similarities to the conditions leading up to the genocides of 1972 (150,000 people killed) and 1993 (300,000 killed).  The Burundi President, Pierre Nkurunziza, has publicly accused his opposition of planning genocide and has falsely accused independent radio stations of imitating RTML, the infamous hate radio of the Rwandan genocide.  Such charges have been pretexts for arrests and attempted murders of opponents. The head of the national police and intelligence agency has been implicated in numerous killings and massacres, including incidents at Muyinga and Kinama.  Impunity continues to rule Burundi.  On February 22, 46 opposition Members of Parliament sent a letter to the UN.   Two weeks later, four of those members were victims of simultaneous grenade attacks while their police guards left post.   No one has been prosecuted.   Arms are being sent in from Sudan at night.

Central African Republic

Government troops have carried out hundreds of unlawful killings and burned thousands of civilian homes since mid-2005 in their counterinsurgency campaign in northern Central African Republic (CAR), a new report by Human Rights Watch charged. Since the beginning of the conflict in mid-2005, the CAR security forces have been responsible for the most serious violations in the conflict, including multiple summary executions and unlawful killings, widespread burning of civilian homes, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.   The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported over 300,000 refugees from this crisis, many in neighboring Cameroon and even Sudan. Some recent accounts from western CAR have reported a possible ethnic dimension to the attacks, with members of the Mbororo ethnic group, mostly nomadic pastoralists, targeted specifically because they are believed to be wealthy. Many refugees report unwillingness to ever return to CAR.   There has been an upsurge of attacks recently, with up to 100,000 forced out of their homes by armed bandits.   These groups of 10-30 armed men roam the villages killing, torching, kidnapping, and looting.   In addition, health care is so bad that the average life expectancy is 44 years.   Jean-Pierre Bemba, the vice president of DRC (below), was arrested mid-May in Brussels by the International Criminal Court for his crimes against humanity in CAR.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The eastern region of the DRC has regressed into some of the worst violence in years. In January the government agreed on a deal with the dissident commander Laurent Nkunda to bring an end to fighting since 2004. After a brief reprieve these troops attacked the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan militia with elements that committed atrocities in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Over a 100,000 people have been displaced and dozens killed. Nkunda's troops are members of the Tutsi community and the FDLR are mainly Hutu. This has led to its own tensions. ENOUGH reports that the root cause of most of the violence is due to the weak state institutions that tax and abuse the local population but provide no security or social services in return. Rape is rampant and used as a weapon. FDLR rebels continue to attack the local populations. The Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels remain safe in Congo's Garamba National Park .   In early December 2007 renewed fighting in North Kivu forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to suspend delivery of food aid to as many as 300,000 vulnerable people in that region. Fighting exacerbated road conditions already deteriorating from DRC's rainy season. The UN also reports that incidents of sexual violence and recruitment of children into armed groups have risen sharply since the conflict began.   More than 5 million people have died since the war started in 1998, the majority due to lack of access to food and health care.

Ethiopia

The United Nations released a report on September 19 that painted a bleak picture of Ethiopia's war-torn Ogaden region, detailing an acute medicine shortage, depleted food stocks, rising prices and an increased number of beatings and shootings.   The Ogaden is a desolate corner of eastern Ethiopia where nomads are waging a separatist war against the Ethiopian military. It is populated mostly by ethnic Somailis. The report confirms that the Ethiopian military has largely sealed off parts of the area in an effort to stamp out a rebel movement and that civilians are suffering. After the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers in April, government troops blockaded much of the area, according to Western diplomats and aid workers. Many Ogaden residents have described longstanding abuses, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning huts and killing civilians, accusations the Ethiopian government denies. In November 2007, UN agencies began to deploy staff in Ethiopia's Somali region in an effort to step up humanitarian aid delivery to the area. The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) completed a needs assessment in the Ogaden.   On May 27, Ethiopia's Supreme Court sentenced the former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to death, agreeing with the prosecution that a life sentence he received last year did not match the seriousness of his crimes.

Iran

The government of Iran uses claims of foreign threats to justify both the denial of human rights and the development of what many believe to be a nuclear weapons program.   The government routinely tortures and mistreats detained dissidents, including through prolonged solitary confinement. The Judiciary, which is accountable to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is responsible for many serious human rights violations.   Recent months have seen the largest crackdown on civil liberties since the 1980s. Purges of suspected liberals have decimated university faculties, and repeated closures have all but silenced the once-vociferous opposition press. Since the spring a wave of arrests has targeted everyone from women's-rights advocates to student leaders, trade unionists and critical journalists, packing the country's prisons so tight that police are commandeering other buildings as makeshift lock-ups. The number of executions nearly doubled last year, to 177, bringing Iran the distinction of being the world's heaviest user of capital punishment per head of population. This year has seen not only a further jump in the number of judicial killings but a return of mass public hangings, which are sometimes broadcast on state television . The BBC reports that a recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which shows that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, has acted like a safety valve, letting off the steam that had been building up over a possible American military attack. It is also likely to make it more difficult to significantly increase international sanctions.

Nepal

A brutal civil war has been fought in Nepal for several years between rebels of the Communist Party of Nepal and government security forces.   The rural population of this, one of the poorest countries in Asia, has suffered terribly.   Both sides in the civil war have engaged in serious violations of international humanitarian law.   In November, 2006, Nepal's coalition government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) signed a comprehensive peace agreement to end the fighting, rewrite the country's constitution (including whether it will remain a monarchy), and establish an interim government. The Nepali Army and Maoists have agreed to an arms management pact, under which each side would put away most of its weapons and restrict most troops to a few barracks, under the supervision of monitors from the United Nations.    This fragile peace agreement was shaken in mid-September when Maoists left the interim coalition government, saying no progress was being made on their key demand of abolishing the monarchy and declaring a republic. As of yet the Maoists have held to their declared commitment to the ceasefire, though many fear the stalemate may result in Nepal entering an era of either ultra-rightist (military or military-backed) or ultra-leftist (Maoist) dictatorship.   W idespread protests in Nepal followed the May 8, 2008 killing of businessman Ram Hari Shrestha. Members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) abducted Shrestha on April 27 and took him to the Shakti Khor barracks (UN-run military quarters) in Chitwan District, where he was tortured.     The PLA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and it has acknowledged its involvement in Shrestha's killing.

Pakistan

In office since a 1999 coup d'etat, President Pervez Musharraf's military-backed government has had a poor human rights record. Ongoing concerns include arbitrary detention, lack of due process, and the mistreatment, torture, and "disappearance" of political opponents; harassment and intimidation of the media; and legal discrimination against and mistreatment of women and religious minorities. The MMA ( Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal) has now turned against General Musharraf for supporting the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda at America's behest.   General Musharraf's original plan was to neuter the Supreme Court by sacking its chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Three months of pro-Chaudhry protests succeeded in persuading other judges to reinstate their chief in June. Thwarted, General Musharraf began seriously to flirt with the Pakistan People's Party ( PPP ), once led by assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto. He hoped to win her support for a constitutional amendment enabling his election as president while still in uniform. In the end General Musharraf yielded to pressure from the ruling Muslim League ( Q ) party, which sees the PPP as its nemesis, to abandon the deal with Ms. Bhutto's party. In October 2007, Musharraf won the support of most parliamentarians in controversial presidential elections, though the Supreme Court ruled that the winner could not be formally announced before it had decided whether General Musharraf was eligible to stand. Ms. Bhutto's October return from exile was marked by a suicide bombing targeting her homecoming parade, killing dozens. Musharraf declared emergency rule in November, dismissing judges opposed to his candidacy. The new Supreme Court confirmed his right to stand - Musharraf quit his arm post soon after. Pakistan's Chief Election Commissioner recently announced that general elections will be held on January 8, 2008, leaving many to question whether such elections can be free and fair if emergency rule has not been lifted.

Somalia

Since the overthrow of Siad Barre's 21-year government in January 1991, civil conflict has torn Somalia apart, leading to the collapse of the state and the economy.   Up to 700,000 people have been displaced by fighting between ousted Islamists and clan militias against Ethiopian troops and Transitional Federal Government forces. Human Rights Watch states that abuses have been perpetrated by all sides in this complex conflict: Ethiopian forces, Ethiopia's Somali allies in the transitional federal government (TFG), and those resisting the Ethiopian intervention, including militias loyal to the Hawiye clan and groups aligned to the ICU. But it is the Ethiopians with their superior weapons who are doing much of the harm in Mogadishu.   A National Reconciliation Congress began in Mogadishu in June.   The six-week conference, intended to settle longstanding disputes among clans, ended in August, producing upbeat resolutions but had no visible impact on a raging insurgency in Mogadishu. According to Human Rights Watch, since November, renewed clashes in Mogadishu have been marked by increasing brutality toward civilians, including further summary executions and enforced disappearances of individuals by Ethiopian and TFG forces conducting counterinsurgency operations. The armed conflict in Mogadishu has fueled regional instability and has contributed to fighting in Ethiopia's own eastern Somali Regional State, where a longstanding rebel movement, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, has seized the opportunity of the military being stretched next door to increase attacks (see Ethiopia, above).   While peace talks have begun in May 2008, thanks in part to new PM Nur Hassan Hussein, fighting still rages and famine looms worse than ever.

Zimbabwe