Opinion: No more illusions in Myanmar

Myanmar's military has staged a coup and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The country's democratic experiment has failed, says Rodion Ebbighausen.



Many initially wondered how much power Myanmar's military would really be willing to cede, now we know

When Myanmar's military began withdrawing from civilian politics in 2011, one question was front and center — how much power would the military give up?

The skeptics didn't trust the generals, and only saw a military dictatorship in the guise of a democracy. Optimists, however, saw a genuine new beginning and opportunities for democratization.

Progress at first

Initially, positive signs prevailed. The military, led by Thein Sein, the former general and reformist president, got serious about opening up the country. Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, as were many imprisoned National League for Democracy (NLD) politicians. Restrictions on press freedom were also eased.

When the NLD won a landslide victory in the country's 2015 parliamentary elections, the military and its Union Solidarity and Development Party accepted defeat. There wasn't much risk involved in the move: According to the constitution, the military controls a quarter of all parliamentary seats as well as the ministries of defense, border security and the interior. Still, there were signs that the military was willing to compromise.

Watch video 02:16 How can the intl. community respond?

Electoral triumph, then setbacks

Legitimized in the 2015 elections, the NLD outmaneuvered the military and succeeded in making Aung San Suu Kyi a state counselor, a kind of prime minister in a position not provided for in the constitution.

The architect of this move, a lawyer by the name of Ko Ni and a vocal critic of the military, was shot dead in the street in front of the Yangon airport soon after. The perpetrator was caught, but the masterminds behind the attack were never identified. But it seemed that the military was sending a message to the NLD: Do not challenge us. The military, which sees itself as the guarantor of the country's stability and unity, did not want to accept that someone else would determine the rules of the game.

The NLD, however, continued to focus on confrontation. Rather than tackling reforms that would have benefited the population, it invested much energy focusing on unpromising constitutional changes — which were hindered by the military with the help of a blocking minority guaranteed by the constitution.

The relationship between Suu Kyi and armed forces commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing deteriorated visibly. Suu Kyi's controversial appearance before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where she defended the country against accusations of genocide against ethnic Rohingya — which was also a defense of the military — did nothing to change that fact.


AUNG SAN SUU KYI: FROM FREEDOM FIGHTER TO PARIAH
Darling of democracy



Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's assassinated founding father Aung San, returned to her home country in the late 1980s after studying and starting a family in England. She became a key figure in the 1988 uprisings against the country's military dictatorship. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) was victorious in 1990 elections, but the government refused to honor the vote.

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Elections were a turning point

In another landslide victory, Suu Kyi and the NLD won 83% of the vote in Myanmar's November 2020 elections. This time, the military disputed the results and argued the election was rigged. An election commission installed by the civilian government rejected the accusations. A lawsuit filed by the military before the Supreme Court of Myanmar is still pending.

Now, the military has staged a coup and wants to take the reins of government for a year in order to reform, among other things, the electoral commission. Article 417 of the constitution justifies the coup, allowing the military to take power if a state of emergency threatens the sovereignty or unity of the country. The military considers itself to be in the right. However, the coup amounts to the improbable principle of the military having to abolish democracy in order to save it.

And so, how much power is the military ultimately willing to give up? The unmistakable answer: none.

This article has been translated from German by Dagmar Breitenbach.

#BLM  #BLMEU

Belgium staggers toward decolonization

Months after Belgium's Black Lives Matter protests, the country's reckoning with its past has come under scrutiny. But some Belgian activists feel that tackling race and colonialism-related issues needs a bigger push.


Despite widespread protests like this one in June 2020, Belgium has been slow to address its colonial past

Ibrahima, a 23-year-old Black Belgian man, died in police custody in Brussels on January 9. Riots broke out a few days later.

Angry citizens clashed with police officers and even attacked the Belgian king's car with the monarch inside.

Local media reported around 150 arrests related to the night's incidents.

TOPPLED MONUMENTS: A SELECTION OF CONTROVERSIAL FIGURES
Edward Colston: slave trader and philanthropist
Controversy over the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was rife for years. On June 7, demonstrators removed the bronze from its pedestal and tossed it into the water. While Colston was working for the Royal African Society, an estimated 84,000 Africans were transported for enslavement; 19,000 of them died along the way. But he went down in history as a benefactor for his donations to charities. PHOTOS 1234567

Fearing the unrest would continue, Brussels' security forces were placed on high alert throughout January.

Cruel history

A few months earlier, Belgium had revived efforts to reckon with its colonial past, following the global Black Lives Matter protests.

Belgian authorities made a number of decisions aimed at tackling the country's long-standing race-related issues: the history of cruel colonialism and the present systemic racism that continues to affect its Black citizens. 

Belgium’s economy was immeasurably improved by the takeover of Congo, starting in the late 19th century. Leopold II ruled the land as his personal fiefdom, looting ivory and rubber,
and murdering millions.

Still, a 2020 survey showed that half of Belgians thought colonialism did more good than harm in Congo. 

Watch video 02:11 The real history of Belgium's King Leopold II

Reconciling the past

The unrest that followed Ibrahima's death showed that Belgian authorities have yet to gain society's trust on the issue of combating racism and addressing its historical causes.

Weary of the elite's reluctance to push for fundamental changes, local activists and diaspora groups have taken it upon themselves to do so.

Last summer, after widespread anti-racist and decolonization protests in Belgium, the country's federal parliament set up a commission to study its colonial past.

In July, King Philippe sent a letter to the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo expressing his ''deepest regrets'' for the ''acts of violence'' committed by Belgium, and linked that to racism today.

Having rejected the calls for a long time, Flemish schools finally announced that lessons in colonialism, neo-colonialism and decolonization will be included in their school curricula. 

For many, the small steps Belgium took were necessary, yet insufficient to bring about fundamental changes.  

Activists gather in Brussels to commemorate the murder 

ASASSINATION of Patrice Lumumba

One example was the very commission set up to examine Belgium's colonial past.

Once it was launched, criticism rained down: Not one historian or expert of Congolese, Rwandan, or Burundian origins was included. 

But perhaps even more remarkable remains the protracted and unresolved story surrounding the murder of Congo's first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, one of the challenges Belgium needs to surmount in order to deal with its past and face what it did in Congo.

Statues of Leopold II have been attacked and sabotaged several times

Unresolved case of Lumumba

On a rainy January 13, dozens of people gathered to honor the memory of Patrice Lumumba.

In 1961, the US and Belgian governments plotted his assassination and threw his body into acid after he was killed.

There is a direct link between Belgium's nonchalant attitude toward Lumumba's murder and "the colonial mentality" that continues to prevail in Belgian society to the present day, according to Brända Audima, who heads the Congo department of Intal Solidarity, an NGO working to raise awareness about the ongoing aspects and impacts of colonialism.

"What led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba was the perception of supremacy — the mentality of 'we are better than you, we can come to your countries, take your resources and kill your leaders,'" Audima said

Watch video 01:53 Patrice Lumumba, uncompromising independence fighter

In September 2020, Belgium agreed to facilitate the repatriation to Congo of the only part of Lumumba's body that was left and had secretly been kept by former police officer Gerard Soete: his tooth.

Sixty years after his assassination, Lumumba's family still seeks justice.

In 2000, the Belgian Parliament established a commission to "determine the exact circumstances of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the possible involvement of Belgian politicians."

Still, nobody has been tried yet. Most of those suspected of being involved in Lumumba's death have died of old age.

Etienne Davignon is one of the only remaining suspects. The 88-year-old is chairman of the Brussels' Bozar Museum. 

A collective of Belgian rights groups and cultural and academic figures has released a statement refering to Davignon's presidency as the imposition of a Eurocentric and colonial cultural orientation that leads to a censoring of the truth.

Launching an online petition, the collective has demanded that the authorities replace him with a "person who would allow artists to tell everyone's story, not just those of the ruling classes."

Activists have called on authorities to dismiss Etienne Davignon, the head of Bozar Museum

"It was clear for me that [Davignon] was a collaborator of the powers in place at the time in Belgium," said Christophe Lacroix, Belgian parliamentarian and member of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination.

"This issue has to be addressed at some point," he said.

"We need to take responsibility for that dark period of Belgium's history ... [when] certain members of the Belgian government wanted to keep control of this colony [Congo] even though it had been granted independence," he added.

Brända Audima believes the efforts to even up the past should primarily focus on preventing similar brutalities from happening. "There should be consequences [for colonial crimes]; it is not enough to say what happened was bad," she said.

Audima points out the fact that none of the companies that extracted Congo's resources for decades have agreed to pay reparation yet, despite the fact that historians — and Belgian authorities — have confirmed their engagement in the destabilization of the country and crimes such as violent repression and using forced labor. 

Activists have called for actions that brings substantial change

Glimmers of hope

In Brussels, Lumumba Square — and the small sign there that recounts his story — are among the few monuments that showcase the brutality of Belgium's colonial rule in Africa. The little square that hosts the murdered leader's memorial was named after him only in 2018.

The rest of the city is adorned with statues and memorials meant to glorify Belgium's past. For example, figures of and references to the controversial King Leopold II — whose ruthless conquests in the Congo ultimately killed an estimated 10 million people — are plentiful.

"I remember the extensive investigations into Lumumba's murder ... despite prolonged debates and clamor nothing actually happened," said Dr. Karel Arnaut from the University of Leuven.

"That makes people skeptical about the decisions that the authorities make."

For Arnaut, who teaches and researches interculturalism, migration and minorities, the picture is not all grim, however.

"What we can see these days in Belgium is the emergence of plenty of local and grassroots initiatives aimed at combating the legacies of colonialism," Arnaut said.

He sees a renewed wave of intellectual struggle organized by researchers in Belgian universities.

These researchers intend to bring to light what has been left out of the official history of colonialism so far. "In addition to them, there are young and vibrant African diaspora groups who have recognized sustained activism as the only way to claim their rights," Arnaut said.

Just last month, Ghent City Council positively responded to an initiative that called for renaming Leopold II Street. The Belgian tourist hotspot had already gotten rid of a Leopold II statue following a local campaign.

"This keeps me hopeful," Arnaut said.

VIDEO Belgian letter of 'regret' to DR Congo 15 min

SOFT POWER; ONCE USED BY USA

Opinion: China uses coronavirus vaccine to expand influence

COVID-19 vaccines are scarce in Europe, and China is using that to its advantage. There's no misunderstanding the effect of sending

 1 million doses to Serbia, writes DW's Miodrag Soric.

Serbia's health minister let the media watch him get a shot of China's Sinovac vaccine

For autocrats, the best truths are the truths they invent themselves. When the coronavirus hit Europe early last year, Serbia's president, Alexander Vucic, was quick to play it down. Then when he discovered that the situation was actually dangerous, he initiated a lockdown stricter than almost anywhere else in Europe. He declared victory over the coronavirus a few months later, which coincidentally was just ahead of the country's upcoming parliamentary elections. Go figure.

The Serbian president has once again taken up the fight against COVID-19, and the country's government-friendly media is making sure that everyone knows it. They're also reminding everyone that Serbia is doing better than the rest of Europe — all thanks to Vucic's wise leadership!

The protector of the people

If the pandemic weren't so serious —deadly serious, in fact — it would actually be funny to watch all of the missteps and made-up figures the government has issued. A walk through the Serbian capital almost gives one the impression that everything is just fine, that COVID-19 sidestepped Serbia on its way elsewhere. Cafes and restaurants are open for business. People continue to crowd into local shopping malls. Most of them seem to have forgotten their masks. And those wearing them are doing so incorrectly, with their noses fully exposed.

Serbia looks east to fill coronavirus vaccine shortage

The million-dose shipment from China and promises of more vaccines from Russia have bolstered the spirits of many in Serbia. This sentiment hasn't been lost on the Serb leader himself, who's been quick to tell anyone and everyone about his COVID-related accomplishments.

He continues to portray himself as the protector of the Serbian people, a selfless civil servant working around the clock to secure as much of the needed vaccines as possible.

But his tone and style in front of the cameras are factually wrong, not to mention highly inappropriate. He talks about a "war" among countries to stockpile doses of the coronavirus vaccines. In doing so, his goal seems to be to portray himself as the hero of the people.

Some leaders are just plain narcissists who do what they do to feed their egos. It becomes embarrassing when they, in the process, look down on other countries as if they were somehow better.

Serbia has no reason to boast or put itself on a pedestal considering the fact that its health system is in utter disarray, with many holding the president as primarily responsible. As far as Belgrade's official coronavirus statistics are concerned, there's no one willing to put any faith in those numbers.

European solidarity?

The Russian and Chinese vaccines do not have regulatory approval in Western countries. And that's why the difficulties the EU and Washington are that much harder to take. These delays will cost lives, and governments across Europe are under pressure to deliver for their citizens.

Yet, that cannot be allowed to happen at the expense of others within the EU. Solidarity within the bloc is non-negotiable. Germany, as the richest and biggest member of the EU, won't move to the head of the line if doing so comes at the expense of smaller EU countries.

Serbia isn't a member of the EU, but together with other western-Balkan countries it has received millions from Brussels to fight the pandemic. That's a fact that Belgrade often happily ignores.

One would have to be shockingly naive to think that the vaccines from China come with no strings attached, that they are only sent for humanitarian reasons or as an apology from the country where the pandemic is thought to have started.

China is a country that thinks long-term. While it has had difficulties buying its way into companies in Germany, Britain and the United States, it can do so much more easily and cheaply in places like Serbia or Hungary. In doing so, those countries become both economically and politically dependent on China -- as has been the case in Latin America and Africa in the recent past.

The West's strategic mistake

The fact that the West is sitting around and allowing this to happen is an error that can and must be criticized. The communist government's standing in the region is on the rise for all to see. By delivering vaccines, it's not only promising help but also providing it in a very practical way.

It would be a great strategic mistake if the West were to allow Russia and China to increase their influence in the western Balkans. At the very least, the EU should support Montenegro'sefforts to join the bloc. The people there have already overthrown parts of the country's communist past.

If the goal is showing the promoting democracy pays off, then Montenegro is a place where the EU can make that point for the region.

THAT ONLY THE US HAS

The Government Wants To Protect Troops From Microwave Weapons, Which Trump Officials Considered Using On Immigrants

A December request for contract proposals calls microwave weapons “a growing threat on the battlefield.”

Dan Vergano BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 2, 2021,

Barcroft Media / Getty Images
Soldiers line up during military drills of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the US Army Europe.

After being dismissed for decades, microwave weapons are beginning to be viewed as a serious military threat — prompting the Defense Department to issue a request to outfit US soldiers with detectors for what it called “a growing threat on the battlefield.”

The weapons, some of which cause burning sensations, have already been considered for use on US soil. In June, a federal police officer had requested a truck-sized microwave heat ray to disperse Black Lives Matter protests. The Trump administration considered using that same device against asylum seekers in 2018.

Now, the Defense Department wants US soldiers outfitted with microwave weapon detectors. That was laid out in a Dec. 9 contract solicitation for “a low cost, low weight, small size wearable radio frequency (RF) weapon exposure detector,” specifying high-frequency microwaves, that came from the Defense Department’s Defense Health Program.

The Defense Department’s interest in detecting microwave weapons comes as Israel, China, and Russia are reportedly inventing their own versions of a microwave heat ray “Active Denial System” that the US pioneered two decades ago. The US continues to develop the technology: An Air Force Research Laboratory is rolling out a “counter-swarm electromagnetic weapon,” called THOR, to fry drones in mid-flight. A Navy microwave weapon prototype mounted on a standard gun mount was unveiled in 2018. The need to disable drones became more real with the autumn war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which the former won with fleets of drones decimating the latter’s defenses.

Then, in December, a new report suggested these weapons could cause neurological injuries. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s criticized report suggested the weapons were the “most plausible” explanation for puzzling neurological injuries seen in at least 15 diplomatic personnel and their families in Cuba in 2016 and 2017.

“Without known patterns of [radiofrequency] injury to guide diagnosis, it will be difficult to differentiate [microwave] injury from other common sources of illness and injury such as heat stroke,” says the defense agency’s microwave weapon detector program request, which closes in about two weeks. “This ambiguous symptomology is aggravated by the transient nature of RF energy. Without a sensor it is possible that no residual evidence of RF attack will be available.”

The Defense Department declined to comment on the detector contract. However, experts contacted by BuzzFeed News suggested that the burgeoning military interest in microwave weapons might spring from the advent of drone-zapping weapons and the NASEM report. The technology, they added, is noteworthy as a new battlefield concern in the 21st century.

“I suppose that although the US has never deployed these weapons in a theatre of war, there’s a fear that other actors will,” Andrew Wood of the Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research said by email. They can easily be concealed behind cloth screens, he added, so US military personnel experiencing burning sensations, for example, might need a detector to tell if someone else is pointing a microwave weapon at them.

The contract’s demand for a wearable sensor that can fit into a rifle magazine pouch and can be clipped to a vest also points to concerns about accidental exposure to microwaves by military test site workers, environmental epidemiologist Marloes Eeftens of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute told BuzzFeed News by email.

Despite the burning sensation one might feel when they are in the beam of a “heat-ray-like” weapon, Eeftens warned that it would be hard to determine whether a concentrated microwave field was to blame. “You will come out with no marks, so it's difficult to objectively determine if and how much someone was really exposed to,” she said.

There are detectors for other kinds of radiofrequency waves than the microwaves described in the Department of Defense’s contract solicitation, Paul Elliot of Magnetic Sciences Inc. in Acton, Massachusetts, told BuzzFeed News. They are usually intended for people who work with electronics.

“The things we sell are the size of bricks, or at least half a brick,” he said. “You wouldn’t wear one.”

While high-temperature-inducing microwaves, like the ones found in ovens, can cook food and cause burns, the question of whether neurological health effects can result from less powerful ones has long lacked evidence and has been subject to the kinds of conspiracy theories seen today about 5G cellphones.

US Air Force experiments set limits on human microwave exposures in the 1970s during studies of electromagnetic pulses seen from nuclear explosions. Those standards have widely been adopted since, but a 2018 NATO technical report called those limits scientifically unjustified, saying they weren’t backed by any experiments showing injuries. A report by French researchers last year that low-power pulsed microwaves were associated with cancer and behavior changes in rats raised the health effects question once more, especially with systems such as THOR now contemplated for field use against drones.

“I don't expect major safety problems for people in the beams, but on the other hand, the amount of research on bioeffects from such pulses is limited,” bioengineer Ken Foster, of the University of Pennsylvania, said. “If the military is going to field these weapons, they jolly well better do good safety studies.”

MORE ON THIS

Medical Records Can’t Explain “Havana Syndrome,” A Buried CDC Report Says

Dan Vergano · Jan. 15, 2021

Dan Vergano is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

A Whistleblower Alleges A Top Trump Official Signed A Last-Minute Agreement With ICE’s Union That Could Hamstring Biden’s Immigration Policies

The agreement could give the union “unprecedented veto authority in many areas," the group representing the whistleblower wrote in a letter to Congress.

Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 1, 2021,

Tom Williams / AP
Ken Cuccinelli during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Sept. 24, 2020


A whistleblower alleged Monday that a top Trump administration official abused his authority by entering into a series of last-minute agreements with the union for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that could hamstring President Joe Biden’s sweeping policy changes.

The letter released by the Government Accountability Project, which was sent to congressional committees and the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, alleges that Ken Cuccinelli, the department's former acting second-in-command, signed a set of agreements with the ICE union, which endorsed former president Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

“The agreements grant [the union] extraordinary power and benefits — far more than what DHS agreed upon with its other employee unions which did not endorse President Trump. The agreements confer on the union the ability to indefinitely delay changes to immigration enforcement policies and practices as well,” the letter, written by David Seide, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, states. “Moreover, under the agreements, ICE expressly waives statutory management rights which negotiating parties know better than to waive. Even more shockingly, the agreements attempt to prohibit any challenge to their validity for eight years.”

According to the Government Accountability Project, the agreement could give the ICE union “unprecedented veto authority in many areas” and increase the use of agency resources. The letter was first reported by the New York Times.

The group says it is representing the whistleblower, who is a current government official and “possesses information concerning significant acts of misconduct committed” by Cuccinelli.

The controversial former acting deputy secretary also signed a series of agreements that required DHS to provide notice of immigration policy changes to local jurisdictions to give them six months to review and submit comments. The state of Texas, which signed one of the agreements, eventually sued DHS over its implementation of a deportation moratorium, claiming it violated the contract.

The letter states that the government has 30 days to officially disapprove of the union agreement.

A representative for the union did not immediately return a request for comment.

Cuccinelli told the New York Times that the agreement "is entirely legal and appropriate, or we wouldn’t have executed it.”

“I absolutely deny any mismanagement, waste of government funds and any misuse of authority,” he said.

In its first week, the Biden administration issued new priorities for ICE officers as of Feb. 1, including that they should focus on immigrants who have been deemed a national security threat, were arrested at the border after Nov. 1, 2020, or have been convicted of an aggravated felony.

“This abuse of authority is shocking,” the whistleblower letter concludes. “When the evidence is collected — the agreements’ last second timing, their out-sized conveyance of power and benefits, their purported invulnerability and Mr. Cuccinelli’s extraordinary involvement — it is clear that they are another example of the prior administration’s effort in its waning hours to cement a legacy at taxpayer expense. We urge you to investigate immediately and promptly act as you deem warranted.”


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The DHS Has Signed Unusual Agreements With States That Could Hamper Biden’s Future Immigration Policies  Hamed Aleaziz · Jan. 15, 2021

Trump Had A Mandate To Target All Undocumented Immigrants For Arrest. ICE Has A New Plan To Change That.  Hamed Aleaziz · Jan. 27, 2021

Trump Announced He Withdrew The Nomination Of Chad Wolf To Run DHS After He'd Criticized The Capitol Riot  Hamed Aleaziz · Jan. 7, 2021

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Records Pried Loose By BuzzFeed News Have Prompted A Demand For The Investigation Of Former Trump Health Officials

Under Trump, health officials sought to control the message and limit interactions with the media as the pandemic raged through America, raising questions about violations of anti-gag rules.

Jason Leopold BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on February 2, 2021

Getty Image   Michael Caputo

Citing documents obtained by BuzzFeed News, two independent government watchdog groups are calling for an investigation into whether a top health official in the Trump administration violated federal anti-gag laws in trying to silence members of the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services.

BuzzFeed News has reported that Michael Caputo, a controversial Republican operative handpicked last year by then-president Donald Trump to control messaging around the coronavirus pandemic, lambasted CDC and HHS personnel for discussing COVID-19 response plans with reporters and demanded to know how an interview conducted with an HHS official was approved.

In addition, Caputo’s science adviser at the time, Paul Alexander, sent a lengthy email last August to Caputo, former CDC director Robert Redfield, and other health officials encouraging them to suppress and edit the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration and meant at this time to impact school re-openings and they then send it to the media knowing it is deceiving. I ask it to be stopped now!” Alexander wrote in the email, which was first obtained by Politico.

On Tuesday, the two watchdog groups — Open the Government and the Government Accountability Project — sent a letter requesting action from the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that protects government employee rights. The groups argued that Caputo’s and Alexander’s edicts were aimed at stifling HHS and CDC employees’ free speech rights and violated the anti-gag provision in the 2012 federal Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, which states that any restriction on employees' speech has to be accompanied by language informing them of their rights to blow the whistle.

“Separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by BuzzFeed News and our organizations recently returned records evidencing these violations in primary documents, including email correspondence and agency communication policies,” the letter to Henry Kerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel, states

Referencing protections for federal workers and the dire consequences of a deadly pandemic, the letter says: “The alarming violations of these rights by HHS leadership require a strong response. Otherwise, a workforce chilled from disclosing substantial and specific threats to public health and safety may never thaw. This chilling effect can be especially deadly during a historic health emergency.”

Because Caputo and Alexander have left the government, they can't face any repercussions. The Office of Special Counsel could still order HHS to rescind the orders Caputo issued and remind employees of their whistleblower rights, the watchdog groups said.

The groups have previously been successful in getting the Office of Special Counsel to probe similar incidents aimed at silencing federal employees at the CDC and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open the Government, told BuzzFeed News in a statement: “It is unconscionable that the public's right to information is hampered at a time when the need for accurate and timely scientific data could not be more urgent.”

“These revelations underscore the need for more transparency at HHS and for the Biden Administration to repeal autocratic gag orders,” she said.







HHS / via FOIA



Mark Weber, who succeeded Caputo, told BuzzFeed News that HHS issued a new media policy this month that appears to unwind restrictions Caputo implemented. In response to questions from BuzzFeed News about Caputo and whether he ran afoul of the anti-gag law, Weber quoted the new media guidance, which says:

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“HHS is committed to a culture of openness with the media and public that values the free exchange of ideas, data, and information and doing so in a manner that is timely, responsive, and accurate. In keeping with the desire for a culture of openness, HHS employees may, consistent with this policy, speak to members of the press about their work.”

Caputo, who was also a campaign aide to Trump during his 2016 presidential bid and is a close confidant of political strategist Roger Stone, was tapped by Trump last April as assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS. Soon after, Caputo hired Alexander, a Canadian health researcher. The two have been accused of politicizing the agency and undermining the work of scientists; more than 100 pages of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News highlighted some of those actions.

The letter cites Caputo’s reaction to reporting last summer by CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, who sent an email to Caputo trying to confirm that HHS’s vaccine initiative, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, was “working on a vaccine education campaign for the public to increase the chances that people will get the COVID vaccine when it comes out.”

Caputo, the watchdogs’ letter says, “sought to squash the story,” suggesting to Cohen her source was wrong and “does not have actual visibility of the issue.”

“I’d hate to see CNN put out an [sic] wildly incorrect story,” he wrote.

Cohen responded saying her sources were Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokesperson. Caputo then fired off an angry email to then–CDC director Robert Redfield, Nordlund, and other HHS and CDC officials.



HHS / via FOIA



A month later, in July, Caputo sent an email to Nina Witkofsky, then the acting chief of staff at the CDC, and other HHS and CDC officials stating that “according to longstanding policy, no media interviews are permitted” without HHS clearance. “No exceptions.”

The next day Caputo sent an email to Redfield, Witkofsky, and other CDC officials demanding to know the name of the press officer who approved three NPR interviews.


HHS / via FOIA



“I need to know who did it and we will look into the matter,” Caputo wrote.

Irvin McCullough, the deputy director for legislation with the Government Accountability Project and one of the signers of the letter calling for an investigation, told BuzzFeed News Caputo’s emails are a textbook example of illegally gagging a federal employee.

“Someone reading that might get the impression they can't blow the whistle or disclose information to the media during a public health emergency,” said McCullough, who has recently published four op-eds about federal workers rights under the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. “It’s a clear-cut violation of an employee’s anti-gag rights.”

Alexander, meanwhile, sent politically charged emails to numerous officials about masks and about allegations of racism at the agency. In one email he asserted that the media has “no concern for lives lost” due to COVID-19.

Neither Caputo nor Alexander could be reached for comment.

Caputo’s tenure at HHS ended on Sept. 16, 2020, a couple of days after he posted a video on his Facebook page accusing CDC scientists of “sedition” and being part of a “resistance unit” that was plotting against Trump. Alexander exited shortly thereafter.


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Jason Leopold is a senior investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles. He is a 2018 Pulitzer finalist for international reporting, recipient of the IRE 2016 FOI award and a 2016 Newseum Institute National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame inductee

After Fueling A Genocide, Facebook Is Taking A Stand Against A Myanmar Coup

In an internal post, the company outlined how it will try to protect people opposing Myanmar’s military coup

Posted on February 2, 2021, 

Sopa Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
A soldier stands on guard outside a Hindu temple in Yangon, Myanmar.

After failing to stem the hate speech and misinformation that fueled a genocide in Myanmar, Facebook now says it plans to take proactive content moderation steps following a military coup taking place in the country.

In an internal message posted late on Monday and viewed by BuzzFeed News, Rafael Frankel, a director of public policy in the Asia-Pacific region, told employees that the social network was watching the “volatile situation” in Myanmar “with grave concern” and outlined a series of measures to crack down on people who used it to spread misinformation or threaten violence.

As part of those measures, Facebook has designated Myanmar as a “Temporary High-Risk Location” for two weeks, allowing the company to remove content and events in the country that include “any calls to bring armaments.” The social network previously applied that designation to Washington, DC, following the insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

The social network, which had touted its efforts to protect the integrity of Myanmar’s national elections in November, also said it would protect posts that criticized the military and its coup, and would track reports of pages and accounts being hacked or taken over by the military.

“Myanmar’s November election was an important moment in the country’s transition toward democracy, although it was not without its challenges, as highlighted by international human rights groups,” Frankel wrote. “This turn of events hearkens us to days we hoped were in Myanmar’s past and reminds us of fundamental rights that should never be taken for granted.”

“This turn of events hearkens us to days we hoped were in Myanmar’s past and reminds us of fundamental rights that should never be taken for granted.”

Facebook’s moves come after General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of Myanmar’s military, took control of the country’s government and detained its elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her National League of Democracy (NLD) party on Monday. Following the election in which the NLD won a majority of seats in Myanmar’s parliament, military-backed opposition groups called the results fraudulent and demanded a revote.

On Tuesday, the US State Department officially designated the military’s takeover in Myanmar as a coup, triggering financial sanctions.

“After a review of all the facts, we have assessed that the Burmese military’s actions on February 1st, having deposed the duly elected head of government, constituted a military coup d’etat,” a State Department official said in a briefing, employing the name the US government uses to refer to the country.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Facebook confirmed the actions it outlined in Frankel’s post and said it would be removing content that praises or supports the coup.

“We’re putting the safety of people in Myanmar first and are removing content that breaks our rules on violence, hate speech and harmful misinformation,” Frankel said. “This includes removing misinformation that delegitimizes the outcome of November’s election.”

Facebook is taking action in a country where it has previously faced international condemnation for its handling of the displacement and genocide of Rohingya Muslims that began in 2016. In 2018, United Nations investigators found that senior military officials in Myanmar had used Facebook, which did not have content moderators in the country, to foment fear and spread hate speech.

The “extent to which Facebook posts and messages have led to real-world discrimination must be independently and thoroughly investigated,” the UN investigators concluded in their report.

In Monday’s post, Frankel said Facebook was using “a number of product interventions that were used in the past in Myanmar and during the US elections, to ensure the platform isn’t being used to spread misinformation, incite violence, or coordinate harm.”

The company is working to secure the accounts of activists and journalists “who are at risk or who have been arrested” and removing content that threatens or calls for violence against them, Frankel wrote. The company will also protect “critical information about what’s happening on the ground,” given the restrictions imposed on news outlets in the country.

Facebook’s work is an ongoing effort. On Tuesday, it removed a page for Myanmar’s military television network late Monday, following inquiries from the Wall Street Journal. While the company had banned one page for the Myawaddy television network in 2018 during a crackdown on hundreds of accounts tied to Myanmar’s military, a new page had reappeared and garnered 33,000 likes.

Facebook has frequently come under fire for facilitating the growth of violent and extremist groups and its ineffectiveness in stemming misinformation. Most recently, a tech watchdog group accused the company of fomenting the unrest that led to the deadly attempted coup in the United States.

“[Facebook] has spent the past year failing to remove extremist activity and election-related conspiracy theories stoked by President Trump that have radicalized a broad swath of the population and led many down a dangerous path,” the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) said in a report.

The report uncovered specific threats made in pro-Trump and militant groups on Facebook both before and after Joe Biden’s election victory in November.

Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.


Ryan Mac is a senior tech reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Canada Just Declared The Proud Boys A “Terrorist Entity”

The move comes after members of the Proud Boys were found to have played integral roles in the US Capitol insurrection last month.

Christopher Miller BuzzFeed News Contributor
Last updated on February 3, 2021

Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Members of the Proud Boys join gun rights advocates in front of the Virginia capitol building in Richmond, Jan. 18, 2021.

The Canadian government on Wednesday labeled the violent far-right Proud Boys group, whose members were among those who stormed the US Capitol last month, and two other extremist movements “terrorist” organizations.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair made the announcement, saying the threat of “ideologically motivated violent extremism has been identified as the most significant threat to domestic security in Canada.”

Blair said the Canadian government has also added Atomwaffen Division, an American neo-Nazi group, and the Base, a white supremacist group, to its list of terrorist entities. It is not known if any of those groups’ members were involved in the insurrection at the Capitol. The Russian Imperial Movement was also added to the list.

“No matter the ideological motivation, they’re all hateful, intolerant, and, as we've seen, they can be highly dangerous,” Blair said, adding that he hopes the new labels will send a message to violent extremist groups that their actions will not be tolerated by law enforcement.

The government designation follows a motion unanimously passed by Canada’s Parliament last month to designate the Proud Boys as a banned terrorist group.

Neither Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio nor anyone associated with Atomwaffen Division could be reached for comment. Rinaldo Nazzaro, the founder of the Base, wrote on his Telegram channel, “this is flat-out political repression.”

With the designations, Canada has gone further than the US when it comes to labeling such extremist groups. But President Joe Biden has directed his administration to conduct a full assessment of the risk of domestic violent extremism in the wake of the attack on the Capitol.

Asked at a White House press briefing on Wednesday if the US planned to do the same, press secretary Jen Psaki said there was a review underway of domestic extremist violence. "I expect we will wait for that review to conclude before making any determinations," she said.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about further violence by domestic political extremists, noting there is still a “heightened threat environment across the United States.”

While Canada's designation does not make it a crime to be a member of the groups, those associated with them can now face serious consequences. For instance, banks can now freeze the assets of those involved with the groups, and police can charge anyone who financially or materially supports them.

The Proud Boys saw its profile raised and its ranks grow significantly last year when former president Donald Trump called on the group to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate with then-candidate Biden.

Several members of the Proud Boys played key roles in the Capitol insurrection last month, and at least two of them now face federal conspiracy charges.

Dominic Pezzola, one of the Proud Boys charged for participating in the Jan. 6 mob attack, was caught on camera smashing a Capitol window with a police shield, according to the FBI. He had instructions for making guns, poisons, and bombs in his home when the FBI searched his home, prosecutors said.

Another member, Ethan Nordean, was arrested Wednesday in Washington state and charged with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding, among other charges, relating to the coup attempt.


Evelyn Hockstein for the Washington Post via Getty Image
Proud Boys march in support of Trump in Washington, DC, on Dec. 12, 2020.


The Proud Boys, a self-proclaimed “Western chauvinist” group, was founded in 2016 by Canadian Gavin McInnes, who could not be reached for comment. The Proud Boys were vehemently pro-Trump for years until the former president made a statement following the insurrection condemning the violence. Since then, members have called Trump “weak” and a “failure” on the several Telegram channels they operate.

The group, which welcomes only men and has branches across the US and the world, has been involved in numerous violent events since its inception.

The Base, a white supremacist group founded in 2018 by New Jersey native Nazzaro (who goes by several aliases, including Norman Spear and Roman Wolf), has been described by the FBI as a “racially motivated violent extremist group” that “seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state.” According to the Guardian, Nazzaro purchased land in Washington state for the Base to train its members in combat.

The FBI cracked down on the Base in 2020, arresting nine members who were allegedly planning domestic terrorist acts, including assassinations. Nazzaro remains free and now lives in St. Petersburg with his Russian wife and two daughters. In an interview last year with Russia’s state-run Rossiya-24 channel, he claimed the group was merely a “self-defense” organization and called himself a “family man.”

Atomwaffen Division is a neo-Nazi group that emerged in 2016 alongside the US alt-right segment of the white supremacist movement, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Members of AWD have already been connected to several killings in the group’s short history, per the ADL. Five senior members were arrested and charged with federal crimes last year. In October, Ukraine deported two members who tried to set up a local branch and join a far-right military unit to gain combat experience in the war-torn country. The Southern Poverty Law Center said AWD is “organized as a series of terror cells that work toward civilizational collapse.”

The Russian Imperial Movement is an ultranationalist, far-right paramilitary organization based in St. Petersburg. Last April, the US State Department listed three leaders of the group as "specially designated global terrorists." The move marked the first time the US had labeled a white supremacist group as a terrorist organization.



MORE ON THIS
One Of The Proud Boys Who Stormed The Capitol Had Instructions For Making Guns And Bombs In His Home, FBI SaysEma O'Connor · Jan. 29, 2021

The Proud Boys Got A Bunch Of New Followers After Trump Said To “Stand By”Jane Lytvynenko · Sept. 30, 2020


Christopher Miller is a Kyiv-based American journalist and editor.

On This Day: US 15th Amendment ratified

 

An 1870 print celebrating the passage of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It decreed that the right to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. File Photo by Thomas Kelly/Library of Congress

On This Day, Feb. 3: US 15th Amendment ratified - UPI.com

 

'New chance at life': Man gets face, hands in rare surgery

NEW YORK — Almost six months after a rare face and hands transplant, Joe DiMeo is relearning how to smile, blink, pinch and squeeze

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

The 22-year-old New Jersey resident had the operation last August, two years after being badly burned in a car crash.

“I knew it would be baby steps all the way,” DiMeo told The Associated Press. “You’ve got to have a lot of motivation, a lot of patience. And you’ve got to stay strong through everything.”

Experts say it appears the surgery at NYU Langone Health was a success, but warn it’ll take some time to say for sure.

Worldwide, surgeons have completed at least 18 face transplants and 35 hand transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which oversees the U.S. transplant system.

But simultaneous face and double hand transplants are extremely rare and have only been tried twice before. The first attempt was in 2009 on a patient in Paris who died about a month later from complications. Two years later, Boston doctors tried it again on a woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee, but ultimately had to remove the transplanted hands days later.

“The fact they could pull it off is phenomenal,” said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital who led the second such attempt. “I know firsthand it’s incredibly complicated. It’s a tremendous success.”

DiMeo will be on lifelong medications to avoid rejecting the transplants, as well as continued rehabilitation to gain sensation and function in his new face and hands.

In 2018, DiMeo fell asleep at the wheel, he said, after working a night shift as a product tester for a drug company. The car hit a curb and utility pole, flipped over, and burst into flames. Another driver who saw the accident pulled over to rescue DiMeo.

Afterward, he spent months in a medically induced coma and underwent 20 reconstructive surgeries and multiple skin grafts to treat his extensive third-degree burns.

Once it became clear conventional surgeries could not help him regain full vision or use of his hands, DiMeo’s medical team began preparing for the risky transplant in early 2019.

“Within the world of transplantation, they’re probably the most unusual,” said Dr. David Klassen, UNOS chief medical officer.

Almost immediately, the NYU team encountered challenges including finding a donor.

Doctors estimated he only had a 6% chance of finding a match compatible with his immune system. They also wanted to find someone with the same gender, skin tone and hand dominance.

Then during the search for a donor, the pandemic hit and organ donations plummeted. During New York City’s surge, members of the transplant unit were reassigned to work in COVID-19 wards.

In early August, the team finally identified a donor in Delaware and completed the 23-hour procedure a few days later.

They amputated both of DiMeo’s hands, replacing them mid-forearm and connecting nerves, blood vessels and 21 tendons with hair-thin sutures. They also transplanted a full face, including the forehead, eyebrows, nose, eyelids, lips, both ears and underlying facial bones.

“The possibility of us being successful based on the track record looked slim,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the medical team of more than 140 people. “It’s not that someone has done this many times before and we have a kind of a schedule, a recipe to follow.”

So far, DiMeo has not shown any signs of rejecting his new face or hands, said Rodriguez, who revealed details of the transplant Wednesday.

Since leaving the hospital in November, DiMeo has been in intensive rehabilitation, devoting hours daily to physical, occupational and speech therapy.

“Rehab was pretty intense,” DiMeo said, and involves a lot of “retraining yourself to do stuff on your own again.”

During a recent session, he practiced raising his eyebrows, opening and closing his eyes, puckering his mouth, giving a thumbs up and whistling. DiMeo can feel his new forehead and hands get cold, and often reaches up to push his long hair off of his face.

DiMeo, who lives with his parents, can now dress and feed himself. He shoots pool and plays with his dog Buster. Once an avid gym-goer, DiMeo is also working out again — benching 50 pounds and practicing his golf swing.

“You got a new chance at life. You really can’t give up," he said.

As with any transplant, the danger of rejection is highest early on, but lasts indefinitely. The medications he takes also leave him vulnerable, for the rest of his life, to infections.

“You’re never free from that risk,” Klassen said. “Transplantation for any patient is a process that plays out over a long period of time.”

Still, Rodriguez said he’s amazed to see that DiMeo has been able to master skills like zipping up his jacket and putting on his shoes.

“It’s very gratifying to all of us,” Rodriguez said. “There’s a tremendous sense of pride.”

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Follow Marion Renault on Twitter: @MarionRenault

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marion Renault And Marshall Ritzel, The Associated Press