Victims allegedly tortured by New Zealand psychiatrist fear time is running out for justice

Warning: graphic content Around 200 people told a royal commission they were abused by Dr Selwyn Leeks and others at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 1970s, allegations Leeks has denied

A royal commission in New Zealand says it is still receiving complaints about alleged abuse at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 1970s. Photograph: Syldavia/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Aaron Smale

Wed 7 Jul 2021 

THE GUARDIAN 

ANew Zealand royal commission set up to investigate abuse in care says the country’s health ministry is still receiving complaints about a psychiatrist and others who allegedly tortured and abused patients at a hospital in the 1970s.

Around 200 people have alleged they were abused as children by Dr Selywn Leeks in the adolescent wing of Lake Alice psychiatric hospital but police and medical authorities failed to curb his career or investigate sufficiently.

Those failings – which police and medical authorities have since acknowledged – allowed Leeks to leave New Zealand without censure, and continue practising in Australia.

Leeks has consistently denied allegations of abuse or sexual assault, maintaining that his use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) machines was “therapeutic”, and has never faced criminal charges.

However, New Zealand police opened a third investigation in 2020, a year after the UN found that the country had breached the Convention against Torture in its failure to properly investigate allegations of torture by Leeks and others at Lake Alice in the 1970s.

The police are to announce their findings in early July, but Leeks is now 92 and according to his lawyer has failing cognitive capacity. Some alleged victims fear time is running out for justice to be done.

‘I was broken’

Over the past fortnight, the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care has heard evidence from numerous witnesses about Leeks and other hospital staff using ECT without anaesthetic, including on genitals.

Many of those testifying to the commission described being electrocuted as punishment for minor misbehaviour such as smoking or talking back to staff. Others allege that Leeks made them electrocute other children.

Melbourne man Kevin Banks was admitted to Lake Alice when he was 14. He said Leeks used an ECT machine on him without anaesthetic more than 70 times, including around six times on his genitals. He told the commission: “Nothing compares with the intensity of the pain. Dr Leeks would start on low and then turn the dial to high. On low it was like little sledgehammers hitting my head ... On high the pain was like razorblades cutting through my head.

“I was broken by what Dr Leeks and other staff did to me,” he told the commission. “As I have grown older the impacts have got worse, not better.”

Banks says the torture he and others allege they endured as children at Lake Alice has haunted them their entire lives. “I’m 62, I’ve been overseas. But wherever you go, you still bring Lake Alice with you. It’s still in your sleep. Whatever part of the world you’re in, it’s still with you.”

Banks was one of more than 300 children who went through the adolescent unit at Lake Alice in the 1970s. In 1977, shortly after he left, Banks made a complaint to the police.

Evidence was also given to the commission that children were raped and sexually abused by staff and adult patients at Lake Alice and given injections of the drug Paraldehyde, which caused extreme pain. One woman told the commission she believes Leeks raped her while she was unconscious. Evidence was given that a child who had epilepsy died during ECT treatment.

Around half of the children in the unit were Māori boys. In 2001, the then prime minister Helen Clark said some children were at the unit “primarily because there was nowhere else for them to go.”

‘The only people who did that were state organs of terror’

In response to an inquiry by the Ombudsman in 1977, Leeks said his use of ECT was a “recognised form of medical treatment”.

According to documents tabled at the commission, Leeks also said he supervised children carrying out shocks of another child who had assaulted them, saying this was “a “reasonable” opportunity to do something about their feeling of powerlessness while bringing home to the culprit the feelings of the people he had harmed”.

Asked whether the electric shock treatments without anaesthetic, including on the genitals, fell within the realm of standard medical care, expert witness Dr Barry Parsonson told the commission: “The only people who did that were state organs of terror, namely the Gestapo is a good example.

Complaints about Leeks’ electrocution of children as punishment were made to the NZ Medical Council in 1977, but after an initial investigation the complaint was not progressed. Leeks was never disciplined, and was instead given a certificate of good standing by the council.

He moved to Australia after the unit closed in 1978 and continued practising. It was in the Australian state of Victoria in 2006 that he was found liable by a civil court of sexually assaulting a woman who had been his patient, and ordered to pay $55,000 in damages – a sum she says was never paid. Leeks maintained his innocence but lost an appeal. Criminal charges were not brought.

‘If it was today, there is no way Dr Leeks would be practising’

Aleyna Hall, the deputy chief executive of the NZ Medical Council, apologised at the royal commission last week, saying “to the survivors of the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit, the medical council is sorry”. Hall added that the council “acknowledges the hurt that you have experienced and apologises for any actions that the medical council of the time should have taken but did not”.

“If it was today, there is no way Dr Leeks would be practising,” she said.

After an out-of-court settlement between victims of the Lake Alice adolescent unit and the New Zealand government in 2002, dozens of complainants’ files were forwarded to the police, but only one victim was interviewed. In 2010, the police announced there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute.

Speaking to the commission last week, New Zealand police apologised to survivors for this previous investigation. They had received 34 statements from Lake Alice survivors but police representatives at the commission said 14 to 15 of those had been lost.

“Police did not accord sufficient priority and resources to the investigation of allegations of criminal offending” at Lake Alice, detective superintendent Thomas Fitzgerald, director of the criminal investigation branch, said. “This resulted in unacceptable delays in the investigation and meant that not all allegations were thoroughly investigated. The police wish to apologise to the Lake Alice survivors for these failings.”

Hayden Rattray, a lawyer representing Leeks, addressed the commission on the opening day of the hearing, saying Leeks was now 92 and suffered ill health, including suspected Alzheimer’s. “Leeks has a right to give evidence and to make submissions. But he is, by virtue of his age and cognitive capacity, manifestly incapable of doing either,” he said.

At the close of the commission, he said Leeks was “neither aware of the matters before the inquiry nor cognitively capable of responding to them”.

“When he was cognitively capable of doing so, [Leeks has] always ardently maintained his innocence,” Rattray said. He said the “true focus of the commission is and should be on the myriad failings of a system that among other failings has allowed such serious allegations to go untested for near-on half a century.”

“Justice delayed is justice denied … the remedy to that injustice can’t itself be another injustice. It can’t, I submit, be to prosecute a 92-year-old man unfit to instruct lawyers, unfit to participate in an interview with police.”

Banks said he had waited more than 40 years for Leeks to face charges and be held accountable and now believes it’s too late. “It’s not going to happen, the age he is, the mental state he’s in.”

If you need support you can call Lifeline Aotearoa on 0800 543 354

In Australia, adult survivors can seek help at the Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657380.

In the UK you can call the National Association for people Abused in Childhood on 0808 8010331.

Help can also be found at Child Helplines International.

When nature needs tourism

Tourism often harms the environment, but not always. The COVID-19 pandemic shows that in some places nature actually benefits from tourists.



Ecotourism can play a useful role in conservation initiatives


Summer 2020 was not a good one for common murres on the Swedish island of Stora Karlso in the Baltic Sea. The small black and white sea birds had significantly fewer babies. In fact, their breeding performance dropped by more than a fifth.

And it was all because lockdown kept tourists away.

The 2.5-kilometer (1.6 miles) island is usually the most visited seabird colony in the Baltic. When Stora Karlsö is full of day trippers, sea eagles usually give the spot a wide berth. But last summer, the birds of prey had no such crowds to contend with. While they don't prey directly on the common murre, their presence startled the breeding animals, causing eggs to roll down the cliffs or leaving them vulnerable to being eaten by gulls and crows.

Stora Karlso wasn't the only place to report unexpected wildlife problems. The drop in tourism in Thailand and India meant that with no grub left behind by visitors, highly aggressive groups of monkeys were left to fight over dwindling food supplies.
Free of tourists the environment breathes a sigh of relief

It might come as a surprise that less tourism would be a bad thing for nature.

After all, carbon emissions from aviation dropped around 22%, as planes stayed grounded, according to the Global Carbon Project, a research network that quantifies greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Watch video 03:10 COVID-19 and the climate: Can nature now take a breath?

And throughout the pandemic, media outlets and social media posts have highlighted that "nature is healing" in the absence of humans. Turtles were able to nest on empty beaches, pygmy bats spent nights in empty parking lots and, according to local newspaper reports, significantly more white dolphins were spotted off the coasts of Hong Kong, thanks to a suspension of shipping traffic.

But tourism can also play a role in conservation, not to mention supporting local livelihoods. International tourist arrivals worldwide dropped 73% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Revenues linked to the industry have collapsed.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), a private travel industry grouping, estimates that the massive dip has led to a loss of approximately 197 million jobs worldwide, as well as $5.5 trillion (€4.7 trillion) in revenue. The losses are five times greater than those caused by the 2009 global economic and financial crisis.

The nature-based tourism sector has been hit particularly hard.

Job losses in nature reserves

With no visitors, many national parks remained closed during lockdowns and income plummeted. In Brazil, there were about five million fewer visits to national parks than usual from spring to fall 2020, according to the Luc Hoffmann Institute, a foundation created by conservation organization WWF.

That resulted in an estimated $1.6 billion in revenue losses for companies working directly or indirectly in tourism around protected areas. Brazil expects to lose some 55,000 permanent or temporary jobs, the institute said.

This trend hit park rangers particularly hard, said Martin Balas, a tourism researcher at the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde, Germany.

"Worldwide, one in five jobs in this field has been lost," said Balas.

Rangers in national parks are among the losers of the Corona pandemic - and by extension the animals

It's been particularly drastic in the global South and has highlighted an over-reliance on international tourists, particularly in African countries, added the researcher.

Some countries, such as Kenya, are shifting to promote more continental and regional tourism. But domestic vacationers often have less disposable income than visitors from abroad, so the economy at tourism destinations also needs to be much more diversified.

Hotels, for instance, can prepare for a lack of vacationers by finding other sources of income.

"If a hotel has homegrown vegetables on the menu, it can score points with its guests. And when there are no tourists, it can still sell the vegetables at local markets," said Balas.

If people lose, nature loses

For now, though, wildlife is suffering from the disappearance of tourism jobs with many returning to agriculture and livestock farming.

"In some cases, forests are being cleared for it or fences are being built through wildlife corridors [which animals use to move across habitats]," said Martina von Münchhausen, tourism expert at WWF Germany.

This is reigniting human-wildlife conflict even it where it was previously mitigated by revenues from protected areas and tourism, partly because animals are losing roaming ground, putting them in the path of people.

Watch video01:49Coronavirus weakens fight to save Namibia's rhinos

Lockdowns and business closures have put increased pressure on protected areas and national parks too, said Ina Lehmann, who is responsible for biodiversity policy at the German Development Institute (DIE).

"People in cities have also lost jobs and income. As there are hardly any state social security systems in place in many countries in the global South, a lot of people have returned to their home villages in the countryside."

There, they not only convert land for farming and ranching, but have also started hunting more wildlife to survive, Lehman said.

Many people in Africa's cities lost their livelihoods due to the Corona pandemic and the lockdowns

Commercial poaching around the world has also increased, because funds are lacking to monitor protected parks, due to reduced tourism revenue and money being diverted to the health sector. A report by the Luc Hoffmann Institute noted a rise in wildlife crimes during the pandemic, including an increase in rhino and giraffe poaching in Uganda.

In Europe, like elsewhere, conservation facilities had to close, at least temporarily, as did some educational institutions run by the German environmental organization BUND.

"We could see how much environmental education was lacking by seeing significantly more trash on the beaches," said Stefanie Sudhaus, marine conservation officer at BUND Schleswig-Holstein. "We appreciate and protect only what we know and understand."

Two African women stand in front of a beach store selling surfing supplies on the coast of Senegal

Steer visitors, protect nature

Still, some national parks and protected areas did take advantage of the pandemic's mandatory tourism pause in summer 2020 to begin refocusing. In Ecuador, new guidelines have been developed for the Galapagos National Park. Products and services are to be expanded to create new ways to make a living. In the future, visitors will be required to make reservations ahead of time for popular sites.

In the Tusheti National Park in Georgia, newly created hiking trails and other tourism infrastructure will help better manage visitor flows, helping to protect nature from "overtourism." And inspired by the unfortunate common murres in the Baltic Sea, scientists want to explore whether tourists could be useful as seabird protectors against predator attacks in other places as well.

Watch video07:14 Belize: Coronavirus-era conservation

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Global tax reform plan goes to the G20



Issued on: 07/07/2021

G20 finance ministers may reach agreement on the tax plan in Venice

 ANDREA PATTARO AFP


Milan (AFP)

G20 finance ministers meeting in Venice on Friday and Saturday could rally the world's top economies behind a global plan to tax multinationals more fairly, already hashed out among 130 countries representing 90 percent of world output.

On the face of it, the Group of 20 -- the world's 19 biggest economies plus the European Union -- have already backed the framework for global tax reform, agreed on July 1 among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) alongside China and India.

But negotiations continue behind the scenes to convince low-tax EU countries such as Hungary, Ireland and Estonia, who declined to sign up to the OECD deal to tax global companies at a rate of at least 15 percent.

Italian Finance Minister Daniele Franco, whose country holds the G20 presidency, said he is "confident" of reaching a "political agreement" among finance ministers in Venice that would "radically change the current international tax architecture".

- Taxing digital giants -

The hold-out European countries have relied on low tax rates to attract multinationals and build their economies.

Ireland, the EU home to tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple, has a corporate tax rate of just 12.5 percent, while Hungary has one of 9.0 percent and Estonia almost only taxes dividend payments.

However, the support of these three countries is crucial for the EU, as the adoption of a minimum tax rate would require unanimous backing from member states.#photo1

The minimum rate is one of two pillars of global tax reform.

The other is less controversial -- a plan to tax companies where they make their profits rather than simply where they are headquartered.

It has in its sights digital giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, which have profited enormously during the pandemic but pay tax rates that are derisory when compared to their income.

When the new tax regime is in place -- the OECD is aiming for 2023 -- then national digital taxes imposed by countries such as France, Italy and Spain will disappear.

However, the EU plans to announce its own digital tax later this month to help finance its 750-billion-euro post-virus recovery plan -- in the face of opposition from Washington, which sees it as discriminating against US technology giants.

It has warned the European proposal could "completely derail" the global tax negotiations.

Countries have for years been debating how to stop multinational companies taking advantage of different countries' systems to limit the amount of tax they pay.

Negotiations became bogged down during the US presidency of Donald Trump, but were revived with Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, and the G7 richest nations made a historic commitment at a meeting in London last month.

"Joe Biden has put the United States back at the centre of world politics, with a multilateral strategy which made a decisive contribution to the agreement," said Stefano Caselli, professor of banking and finance at Milan's Bocconi University.

But while the agreement reached so far is "historic", he told AFP "it marks only the beginning of the road".

- A road full of obstacles -

The reforms must be implemented by parliaments in different countries -- and Republicans in the US Congress, for one, are strongly opposed.

For a number of emerging economies, meanwhile, the reform does not go far enough.#photo2

Argentina, a member of the G24 intergovernmental group that also includes Brazil and India, has called for a global minimum corporation tax rate of 21 percent or even 25 percent before agreeing to the OECD plan.

"This is already a very important result," Giuliano Noci, professor of strategy at Politecnico di Milano, told AFP, saying it will be harder to go further.

"The devil is in the detail. We have to wait for the implementation to assess the real scope of the agreement."

The G20 discussions are also expected to focus on post-pandemic global recovery, inflationary risks, climate change and aid to poor countries.

Colombia court accuses soldiers of murdering 120 civilians

Issued on: 07/07/2021 - 

Soldiers patrol around a military battalion where a car bomb exploded, according to authorities, in Cucuta, Colombia June 15, 2021. © REUTERS/Stringer

A Colombian court on Tuesday accused 10 members of the military and a civilian of forcibly disappearing 24 people and murdering at least 120 civilians and falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters who had been killed in combat.

This is the first time Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal has accused members of Colombia's army in connection with the so-called false positives scandal, in which soldiers murdered civilians and classified them as rebels killed in combat so they could receive promotions or other benefits.

The defendants played a decisive role in the murders, which were presented as combat deaths in the Catatumbo region of Colombia's Norte de Santander province between January 2007 and August 2008, in order to inflate body counts, the court said.

The accused, identified by the JEP as those responsible for giving orders without which the crimes would not have systematically happened, include a general, six officers, three non-commissioned officers, and a civilian.

"It was a pattern of macrocriminality, which is to say, the repetition of at least 120 murders during two years in the same region by the same group of people associated with a criminal organisation and following the same modus operandi," said magistrate Catalina Diaz.

Victims included farmers and retailers, among others, she said.

The JEP is a tribunal created under the 2016 peace deal to prosecute former FARC members and military leaders for alleged war crimes.

At least 6,402 people were murdered by members of Colombia's army between 2002 and 2008 according to the JEP, while some victims groups say the figure could be higher.

Dozens of army officers who have been detained and convicted for their part in the scandal have testified before the JEP as they seek more lenient sentences.

If those accused on Tuesday do not accept the charges within 30 days, they could receive a sentence of up to 20 years in jail in a civilian court, said magistrate and JEP president Eduardo Cifuentes.

#CRONYISM 
UK government accused of 'chumocracy' in handing out virus contracts

Issued on: 07/07/2021 

Questions have been asked not just about Hancock's affair but the contracts he has awarded JESSICA TAYLOR UK PARLIAMENT/AFP/File


London (AFP)

Britain's government is facing growing criticism over how it awarded contracts for virus-related goods and services during the pandemic, its detractors alleging a "chumocracy" in which politically connected companies got priority.

"I think in comparison to Britain 10 years ago, there's a level of corruption that we haven't reached before," said Emily Barritt, a lecturer in law at King's College London.

The latest revelation came in late June when Health Secretary Matt Hancock resigned after it emerged he was having an affair with a university friend he had appointed as an aide, Gina Colodangelo.

Hancock was already facing questions over a series of virus-related contracts.

One was a £30-million ($41-million) contract to produce vials for Covid-19 testing that was awarded without competition to a company run by his former neighbour -- someone who had no background in making medical goods.

The conservative Daily Telegraph has reported that another £28-million contract was awarded to a healthcare company where Colodangelo's brother is strategy director.

And in June, the High Court ruled against another senior Conservative minister, Michael Gove.

Gove had unlawfully awarded a £560,000 contract for virus-related communications to market research firm Public First, having failed to go through proper procedures.

The company's founders are friends of Dominic Cummings, who until recently served as Prime Minister Boris Johnson's top adviser.

- Issues of 'cronyism' -

The opposition Labour party is calling for an independent probe into the government's handling of the pandemic.#photo1

Its Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray told the BBC: "The huge part of the story is all the issues that remain unresolved with regards to cronyism."

Rules on awarding public contracts were already very flexible, said Daniel Fisher, a postgraduate researcher at City University of London.

The pandemic "has provided opportunities to relax rules even further", with a loosening in ethical standards leading to "speedy opaque contracting", he added.

The Department of Health and Social Care, contacted for comment by AFP, said that it was "inaccurate to say we have relaxed the procurement rules".

The ministry has "stringent rules in place" and "ministers have no role in this process", it insisted.

The government does have the right in the case of a major emergency to award contracts without competitive tendering. But it is legally obliged to publish the terms of the contracts awarded -- something it did not do in a number of cases.

The Good Law Project, a British non-profit campaign group, has taken legal action against the government, including the case that led to the High Court ruling against Gove.

It estimates that spending on contracts linked to the virus amounted to at least 17 billion pounds between April and November 2020. The government failed to publish details of £4.4 billion of these contracts, it says.

And what is known about these contracts is "alarming," it argues, alleging that the government awarded them to companies that lacked relevant experience.

It gives the example of Ayanda Capital, a company "with connections to Liz Truss," international trade minister. It was awarded a £252-million contract to supply facemasks for the health service. But most of them could not be used.

Transparency International was also critical in a report issued in April.

"The way the UK Government handled bids for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) and other COVID-19 response contracts appears partisan and systemically biased in favour of those with political access," it argued.

"While relaxing the rules may have been defensible at the start of the pandemic, when countries were scrambling to secure vital supplies, any such justification has long since passed," the anti-corruption campaign group added.

Britain's is not the only government to face questions over public contracts during the pandemic.

In the United States, the Brookings Institution think tank reported that up to $273 million went to more than 100 companies owned or operated by major donors to former president Donald Trump's election efforts.

Anti-corruption campaigners point out that other countries have managed to hold public tenders quickly and yet be transparent. European Union members Sweden, Slovakia, Estonia and Lithuania have not had problems specifying who won the contracts, and how much was involved, they argue.

Ukraine published such contracts "within 24 hours", said Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK.

© 2021 AFP

ANOTHER NATO FAILURE
Failure of Libya talks endangers December vote, analysts warn
Issued on: 07/07/2021 -

Libya has seen a decade of bloodshed that had largely ended with an October ceasefire -- but will the calm last? Mahmud TURKIA AFP/File

Tripoli (AFP)

The failure of UN-led talks on Libya to reach a compromise over December elections could endanger a roadmap that had raised hopes of ending a decade of chaos, analysts have warned.

Seventy-five delegates from the war-torn North African country aired their differences at rowdy meetings in Geneva last week.

But despite an extra day of unscheduled talks, they remain divided over when to hold elections, what elections to hold, and on what constitutional grounds -- a blockage that threatens to hurl Libya back into crisis.

"No consensus was reached among the LPDF (Libyan Political Dialogue Forum) members" on the contentious question of a constitutional basis for the previously agreed December 24 polls, the UN acknowledged Saturday.

Oil-rich Libya was plunged into chaos after dictator Moamer Kadhafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

Two rival administrations later emerged, backed by a complex patchwork of militias, mercenaries and foreign powers.

While Turkey supported a UN-recognised administration in Tripoli, eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar enjoyed backing from the UAE, Egypt and Russia.

Under a UN-backed ceasefire agreed last October, an interim administration was established in March to prepare for presidential and parliamentary polls on December 24.

The UN's Libya mission UNSMIL, in its statement Saturday, warned that "proposals that do not make the elections feasible" on that date "will not be entertained".

- Back into political crisis -

But analysts said foreign parties were pushing Libya's rival camps apart.

"The differences which emerged in Geneva were to be expected," said Khaled al-Montasser, professor of international relations at the University of Tripoli.

He identified three tendencies.

"A first group called for elections to be postponed to next year, a second only wants parliamentary elections and a third remains committed to the roadmap" which envisions both legislative and presidential polls.

The LPDF members were supposed to have agreed by July 1 on the constitutional basis for parliament to adopt an election law.

"We had a consensus on a draft text... but right from the start of the (Geneva) meetings, it was brought into question by certain members who made new proposals," one delegate told AFP, asking not to be identified.

They tried to "evade their commitment to holding elections" on schedule, he said.

- 'Orchestrated in advance' -

But Jalal al-Fitouri, a law professor, said the divisions were "orchestrated in advance".

"It's not a secret to anyone that the (foreign) states monopolising the Libya file... put pressure on those who represented them within the LPDF in Geneva," he said.

"Each state supports a particular side and has a position on how to hold the vote and on conditions for candidacy."

By manipulating the process, foreign players are hoping to ensure their favourites come to power and can represent their interests in Libya's lucrative post-war reconstruction, he added.

Since last year's ceasefire, the security situation in Libya has slowly improved.

But progress has stalled, notably on another key prerequisite for the polls -- the withdrawal of all foreign forces.

The United Nations has estimated that 20,000 foreign forces including Russian mercenaries are still on Libyan territory.

Turkey refuses to withdraw its military, saying its presence is based on an agreement with the previous unity government in Tripoli.

© 2021 AFP

Tenure struggle ends with Hannah-Jones charting new course
By TOM FOREMAN Jr. and AARON MORRISON


1 of 9

Nikole Hannah-Jones is interviewed at her home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, July 6, 2021. Hannah-Jones says she will not teach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill following an extended fight over tenure. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — A Black investigative journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking work on the bitter legacy of slavery in the U.S. announced Tuesday that she will not join the faculty at the University of North Carolina following an extended tenure fight marked by allegations of racism and conservative backlash about her work.

Nikole Hannah-Jones will instead accept a chaired professorship at Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C.

The dispute over whether North Carolina’s flagship public university would grant Hannah-Jones a lifetime faculty appointment had prompted weeks of outcry from within and beyond its Chapel Hill campus. Numerous professors and alumni voiced frustration, and Black students and faculty questioned during protests whether the predominantly white university values them.

And while UNC belatedly offered her tenure last week, Hannah-Jones said in an interview with The Associated Press that the unfairness of how she was treated as a Black woman steered her toward turning the offer down.

“I wanted to send a powerful message, or what I hope to be a powerful message, that we’re often treated like we should be lucky that these institutions let us in,” said Hannah-Jones, who earned a master’s degree from UNC. “But we don’t have to go to those institutions if we don’t want to.”

Hannah-Jones — who won the Pulitzer Prize for her work on The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project focusing on America’s history of slavery — noted that she hadn’t sought out the job, and was recruited by UNC’s journalism dean before her tenure application stalled amid objections by a powerful donor and concerns by conservatives about her work.

“I wasn’t seeking to go into academia,” Hannah-Jones told AP. “It was this particular job at this particular place that I wanted to go and give back to the university that helped me build the career that I’ve built.”

The 45-year-old Hannah-Jones will instead accept a tenured position as the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard, which also announced Tuesday that award-winning journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates is joining its faculty. Coates, who won a National Book Award for “Between the World and Me,” and Hannah-Jones have both been given MacArthur “genius” grants for their writings.

RELATED COVERAGE
– UNC trustees OK tenure for journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
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Hannah-Jones’ tenure application was submitted to UNC’s trustees last year, but it was halted after a board member who vets the appointments raised questions about her nonacademic background. Instead, she was initially given a five-year contract, despite the fact that her predecessors were granted tenure when appointed. Last week the trustee board, after weeks of mounting pressure, finally voted to offer tenure.

UNC journalism school Dean Susan King, who supported Hannah-Jones throughout her application, said in a statement that she hopes “that UNC can learn from this long tenure drama about how we must change as a community of scholars in order to grow.”

The university’s enrollment is approximately 60% white and 8% Black.

More than 30 faculty members of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media signed a statement Tuesday saying they supported Hannah-Jones’ decision and decrying “the appalling treatment of one of our nation’s most-decorated journalists by her own alma mater.”

“We will be frank: It was racist,” the statement said.

Asked if she agreed with their assessment, Hannah-Jones told AP that “the facts speak for themselves.”

“If there is a legitimate reason for why someone, who has worked in the field as long as I have, who has the credentials, the awards, or the status that I have, should be treated different than every other white professor who came before me, outside of race, I would love to hear that explanation,” she said. “I haven’t heard it yet.”

Hannah-Jones’ and Coates’ Howard appointments are supported by nearly $20 million donated by three philanthropic foundations and an anonymous donor, gifts meant to bolster Howard’s investment in Black journalists, the university said.

“At such a critical time for race relations in our country, it is vital that we understand the role of journalism in steering our national conversation and social progress,” Howard President Wayne A. I. Frederick said in a news release.

Coates celebrated his return to Howard, which is his alma mater.

“This is the faculty that molded me. This is the faculty that strengthened me,” Coates said. “Personally, I know of no higher personal honor than this.”

In her written statement, Hannah-Jones cited political interference and the influence of a powerful donor to the journalism school, a reference to Arkansas newspaper publisher Walter Hussman. He has acknowledged in past interviews that he emailed university leaders challenging her work as “highly contentious and highly controversial.”

Hussman, whose name adorns the UNC journalism school after he pledged a $25 million donation, said in a phone interview Tuesday that he still has concerns about The 1619 Project but that he respects Hannah-Jones.

“I really felt a sense of regret that we were never able to get together and never had a chance to sit down and talk to her,” he said.

What excites Hannah-Jones most about her Howard appointment, she said, is the opportunity to help mold a new generation of journalists to serve “as the truth tellers in our democracy.”

“Unfortunately, for far too long, the institutions that are training Black journalists ... haven’t been able to get the type of resources they needed, to really compete and gain entry into newsrooms at the rates that they should. And I believe that we can change that.”

“While it’s unfortunate how this came about, and I’m deeply saddened by what happened with my alma mater, this is not a consolation prize,” she said of her new position at Howard.

“This hopefully also sends a message to other Black folks, who’ve gotten to a certain status in their career, that we can come home and build our own.”

___

Morrison reported from Brooklyn, N.Y.

___

AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison is a member, trainer and mentor for the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which Hannah-Jones co-founded.

Al Sharpton eulogizes white Arkansas teen shot by deputy

BEEBE, Ark. (AP) — The Rev. Al Sharpton and attorneys for George Floyd’s family on Tuesday mourned a white Arkansas teenager fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy, as they urged support across racial lines for efforts to reform police practices.

Sharpton eulogized 17-year-old Hunter Brittain, who was shot and killed by a white Lonoke County sheriff’s deputy, Sgt. Michael Davis, during a traffic stop June 23 near Cabot, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.

The killing in the predominantly white community has drawn the attention of national civil rights activists such as Sharpton, who said concerns about police tactics aren’t just limited to the Black community.

“The issue of policing is not about Black and white,” Sharpton told a packed auditorium at Beebe High School, where Brittain was a rising senior. “It’s about right and wrong.”

Many attending the memorial wore jeans and shirts that read “Justice for Hunter,” in a ceremony that included Floyd family attorneys Ben Crump and Devon Jacob. Both are representing Brittain’s family.

Floyd died in May last year when a white Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin the handcuffed Black man’s neck to the ground. His death sparked nationwide protests over policing and racial inequality.

Crump and Jacob invoked other people killed by police, including Breonna Taylor, a Kentucky woman who was fatally shot during a botched police raid. Crump led the crowd in chanting, “Hunter Brittain’s life matters.”

“Because he is not here, we all have to unite together and make sure people all over America know that we will get justice for Hunter Brittain,” Crump said.

Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley last week fired Davis for not turning on his body camera until after he had shot Brittain. Staley said the only footage police have is from the aftermath. Arkansas State Police are investigating Brittain’s death. Davis is white.

Authorities have released few details about the shooting. Brittain’s family has said the teenager was unarmed and was holding a jug of antifreeze when he was shot. Brittain’s family and friends have held protests nightly outside the Lonoke County sheriff’s office and have complained about the lack of information released.

Family members have said Brittain had been working on his truck’s transmission and had been test driving it when he was pulled over.

Staley on Monday said he welcomed those who want to peacefully protest, but that out-of-state activists could risk “inflaming an already difficult situation.”

“The people of this county are good, decent people and they, like me, want to see accountability and transparency in this situation,” Staley wrote on the office’s Facebook page.

The memorial included calls to pass federal legislation in Floyd’s name to overhaul police practices.

“Hopefully, Hunter and his untimely death will finish what Hunter’s brother — George Floyd — and his death started,” Jacob said.

Jesse Brittain, Hunter’s uncle, received a standing ovation when he called for an end to qualified immunity for police officers, a legal doctrine that frequently shields them from civil lawsuits for things they do in the course of their job.

“Your life had meaning, you’re loved and your family will not stop advocating until we have justice for you, Hunter,” he said. “And also justice for all of our other brothers and sisters dying at the hands of law enforcement hired to protect and serve us around this country.”

As mourners filed into the high school auditorium Tuesday morning, photos and video of Brittain were displayed on a large screen above his casket, which was decorated with blue and white ribbons, the Chevrolet symbol and “Forever Chevy 17.” Family members said Brittain dreamed of becoming a NASCAR driver after graduation.

“Hunter did nothing wrong, just like we felt George Floyd did nothing wrong,” Sharpton told reporters before the memorial. “But if we segregate how we react, then we’re wrong.”

It was unclear what impact Sharpton’s and the attorneys’ calls for action would have in Lonoke County, a rural county of 73,000 people that is 90% white.

Even before the memorial service, Brittain’s friends and family were calling for change at the state level with petitions urging the Legislature to require officers to wear body cameras that would be turned on as soon as their shift begins.

“I never thought anything like this would happen until it hit so close to home,” said Scott Hendrickson, whose son was close friends with Brittain and who is . “Once it happened to my son’s best friend, I said it could happen to my son so it was too close to home to not do anything about it.”

Dozens of people gathered outside the sheriff’s office after the memorial service for a rally with Brittain’s family, attorneys and the NAACP

Melissia McMahan, who is the Brittain family’s mail carrier and knew the teen since he was a toddler, said she had thought about the need for police reform before Brittain’s death but hadn’t thought it was something her own community would face.

“I never expected anything like what happened, especially not just a country boy working on his truck and taking it for a test drive,” she said.

Targeting infidel 'crusaders': DR Congo's dreaded ADF militia

Issued on: 07/07/2021 -

Deserted: A boy rides a bicycle at the entrance to the town Mutwanga. Many residents have fled their homes because of attacks ALEXIS HUGUET AFP/File

Beni (DR Congo) (AFP)

Mado was worshipping at an evangelical church in the town of Ndalya in February when her life changed forever.

Gunmen burst in, killed her two-month-old daughter at point-blank range, ordered her to leave the baby's body on the ground and follow them out along with the other worshippers.

The young woman had become a hostage of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) -- the bloodiest and most dreaded of the many armed groups that roam eastern DR Congo.


The baby's killer said "now you won't be weighed down anymore," Mado, whose name has been changed for this article, recounted between sobs.

They made her carry a heavy package on her head through dense forest until the group came to a halt in a clearing.

It was prayer time for their jihadist captors.

Later, at meal time, the group was divided into four: the commanders, the combatants, the fully veiled women accompanying them, and the hostages under close guard.

After a four-day ordeal, Mado was freed.

Today she lives with a host family in Beni.

- Islamic State link -

The rise in bloody attacks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has coincided with ADF"s affiliation to the so-called Islamic State (IS). It has become the latest armed group in a jihad that extends from the Sahel to Somalia and from Nigeria to Mozambique.

The ADF's long but murky story begins as an armed Ugandan Muslim group that holed up in eastern DRC in 1995.#photo1

It has not carried out any attacks in Uganda itself for years and lives off extortion and control over the region's abundant resources.

These are classic tactics used by the myriad other armed groups that operate in the area -- the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) monitor estimates their number at 122 -- flourishing on the ashes of the country's two great wars from 1996 to 2003.

But in March, the United States officially linked the ADF to the IS and identified its leader as Seka Musa Baluku. It said the ADF had become IS' "Central Africa Province" -- an entity that the IS declared in April 2019 as it was losing ground in Syria and Iraq.

In two written claims that circulated in late May, the ADF used rhetoric typical of IS and other jihadi groups, speaking of wanting to target "crusaders" -- a reference to Christians, in their view infidels.

The DRC's Catholic Church says the ADF has massacred around 6,000 civilians since 2013, a toll that has risen sharply since 2019, when the militia appears to have become more radicalised.

On June 30, the IS claimed responsibility for the DRC's first suicide bombing -- a blast outside a bar in Beni three days earlier that was preceded by an explosion in a Catholic church, injuring two women.#photo2

- Palpable threat -

Beni lies in the heart of ADF territory, which stretches east to the Rwenzori mountains on the Ugandan border and north towards neighbouring Ituri province.

The 45-kilometre (28-mile) drive on a dirt road under military escort from Beni to the Rwenzoris takes two hours, with modest army posts positioned at intervals along the way.#photo3

The threat is palpable.

Dozens of villagers have been massacred since the start of the year in attacks that typically occur at night.

Often the victims are decapitated with machetes, their arms tied behind their backs.

Witnesses of one attack, whose location and date are not being revealed by AFP in order to protect them, said the ADF tied up several hostages including one whose head was then cut off.

One said the ringleader shouted in Swahili, the dominant language of East Africa: "If you cut off the heads of these kafirs (infidels) in the name of Allah, He will be happy and you will be rewarded."

The others were then executed in turn.

- Fighters -

AFP was also able to interview two individuals presented by the army as ADF fighters.

Arafat and Moshoud -- their names have also been changed -- are Congolese who speak Lingala, the country's most widely spoken language.#photo4

They were arrested in December and February respectively and were being held in a safe house in Beni, police said.

They have provided valuable information on ADF's organisation and recruitment practices, according to their handlers.

The top echelon includes men from Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia and "most recently" Mozambique, said Arafat.

Arafat, 19, said he cooked for Baluku, the much-feared Ugandan who heads the ADF.

He described the chief as an "authoritarian and disciplined man" who likes goat meat -- "especially the entrails".

Tasks are handed out by national origin: "The Somalis teach the teenagers how to make home-made bombs. The Tanzanians and Ugandans are in charge of military training and teaching the Koran," said Moshoud.

The 23-year-old Muslim from Oicha, near Beni, said he was recruited in 2017 and that Baluku made him the commander of an 85-strong company.

"I was responsible for transferring money to ADF accomplices and collaborators in charge of recruiting new members," he added.

- Harsh justice -

Justice is harsh in the ADF's jungle or forest camps, some of which are temporary, others semi-permanent, they said.

A fighter accused of embezzling part of funds earmarked for recruitment was convicted by a tribunal of Ugandan and Somali chiefs.

"His left hand was cut off," Moshoud said.#photo5

A couple caught having sex were each given 100 lashes because they were not married, he said.

Arafat, who said he witnessed the whipping, added: "If it had been adultery, the man would have been stoned to death."

Wherever Baluku sets up camp -- always dubbed "Medina" in reference to Islam's second holiest city -- the day revolves around the five prayers required by Islam.

"We rise at five in the morning for prayers," said Moshoud. "Then the chiefs assign tasks and missions: patrols for some, ambushes for the others."

"Everyone returns to base at noon for prayers. We also pray at 3, 6 and 7 pm," Arafat said.

"Before going on an operation against (the army) or civilians, we first do the 'doua'," Moshoud said, referring to an invocation of Allah.

- Recruitment, training -

The ADF recruits Congolese members from around North Kivu, even though the province is minority Muslim like the rest of the country. They are recruited by force, through promises of jobs or through propaganda, according to UN experts.

Survivors of attacks confirmed the testimony of Moshoud and Arafat.

They said the assailants speak several languages including Arabic and Kiganda (spoken in western Uganda), as well as Lingala and Swahili.

Their style of dress is eclectic, some wearing parts of stolen army uniforms, some wearing Muslim skullcaps and others sporting military caps.#photo6

Still others tie scarves around their heads, witnesses have told AFP.

To identify themselves among unknown comrades during attacks they wear a piece of cloth of a designated colour around an arm, a wrist or the forehead.

As they attack, the ADF men loot everything in their path: telephone kiosks, stores of soap, rice, corn, also called maize, and medicines.

Like other armed groups, they are interested in the region's resources, but go for timber and cocoa more than minerals.

- Abandoned hamlets -

The nine kilometres (six miles) between the town of Mutwanga and the village of Mwenda, deep in the forested foothills of the Rwenzoris, are dotted with hamlets that have been emptied of their residents, weeds taking over the deserted homes.

"My children are in Beni," some 45 kms distant, a farmer says under the gaze of an army officer.

"I spend the night here on my own so I can tend to my fields. I hope the army is here to secure" the area.

In Mwenda, the army says it has "advance positions" against the ADF -- simple wood huts covered with tarps -- while command posts are set up in old administrative buildings.

As if reciting by rote from a manual, a major says: "Our mission is defensive, with fixed positions to protect the population. Every time a case is reported we go out in pursuit of the enemy."#photo7

An army offensive launched in November 2019 set off a wave of reprisals.

On May 6, President Felix Tshisekedi decreed a "state of siege" in North Kivu and Ituri, vowing to stamp out the armed groups, the ADF in particular, which he described as having an "Islamist leaning".

But has the new tack -- which has seen the military take over local institutions -- helped the rank-and-file soldier?

At the Mutwanga command post, an officer said he had seen little progress in the way of uniforms, rations and munitions. "We just pray that it will come," he smiled.

Meanwhile the ADF are perfecting their methods.

Various sources said they use surveillance drones -- what Mado thought were "toys" that they "sent up into the sky".

Especially worrying is an uptick in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), according to UN experts.

Attesting to the increased firepower were three bomb attacks in Beni over a single weekend.

Two women were injured in a June 27 attack at a Catholic church ahead of a confirmation ceremony, and a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a bar hours later.

The previous day saw a bomb attack outside a petrol station on the outskirts of Beni, with no casualties.

- 'Grateful to be alive' -

Muslim leaders are increasingly under pressure from military chiefs to respond to the bloodshed.

But the community's leader, imam Hamza Mali Wasingenga, whose predecessor was shot dead, said: "We Muslims of Beni are massacred just like the Christians. The authorities should stop associating us gratuitously with these people, who kill with no concern for the religious affiliation of their victims."#photo8

While the ADF is seen as far and away the leading cause of violence in the region, many residents also point the finger at local militias known as Mai-Mai, as well as corrupt soldiers.

In May, two officers were placed in detention over accusations of being in league with ADF fighters, according to an army spokesman.

Many also wonder whether some business owners use the deadly tactics of the ADF to eliminate rivals, blaming their disappearance on the ADF.

In Mutwanga, a few men gaze at what is left of a shop that was looted and torched in a recent attack.

"We don't understand this war," sighed Musa Kakule, a cocoa farmer who was forced off his land.#photo9

"We don't know if the ADF come with the specific idea of killing people or not. The only thing we know is that through God's grace, we are here, together, alive."

© 2021 AFP

The murky link between DR Congo's ADF and Islamic State

Issued on: 07/07/2021

Grief: A relative of a woman killed in a suspected ADF attack in Beni 

carries a cross to her grave John WESSELS AFP

Beni (DR Congo) (AFP)

Its hallmark: Attack a remote village, massacre its inhabitants and abduct survivors.

Not for nothing has the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) become a name that inspires widespread dread in eastern DR Congo.

Suspicions are growing that this historically Ugandan Muslim group has linked up with the so-called Islamic State, also called ISIS, although experts say the depth of the involvement remains unclear.

According to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a respected monitor, the ADF is one of an estimated 122 armed organisations that roam eastern DRC -- the legacy of two regional wars that ran almost back-to-back from 1996 to 2003 and claimed millions of lives.

The DRC's Catholic church says the ADF is suspected of killing 6,000 people since 2013, while the KST blames it for more than 1,200 deaths in North Kivu province's Beni area since 2017.#photo1

On the weekend of June 27-28, Beni was hit by three bomb attacks, including a blast at a Catholic church, that came just hours after a suicide bombing outside a bar -- the region's first such attack.

The IS, monitored by the US-based SITE intelligence Group, identified the suicide bomber as "Abu Khadijah" who targeted "Christian disbelievers at a liquor bar."

- IS link -

On March 10, the US State Department branded the ADF a "foreign terrorist organisation" known as "ISIS-DRC" or "Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen."#photo2

It said the group was led by Seka Musa Baluku and had become IS's so-called "Central Africa Province" -- an entity that the IS declared in April 2019 as it was losing ground in Syria and Iraq.

The IS is also affiliated to jihadist groups in the Sahel and northern Mozambique -- two other poor, remote African regions with struggling governments.

In a report dated June 10, the UN experts said Baluku pledged allegiance to the IS in July 2019.

He deepened the commitment last September, declaring that the ADF no longer existed and was part of the "Central Africa Province" operation.

According to the Bridgeway Foundation, a US NGO that works on preventing mass atrocities, Baluku turned to the IS in 2017 when the ADF ran short of money.

The cash crunch weakened morale and virtually ended its operations.

An injection of IS funds and propaganda boosted recruitment and encouraged the group to take bolder operations, helped by an influx of motivated foreign jihadists, says the foundation's Laren Poole.

- Caution -

However the UN experts are cautious about the extent of the IS-ADF association.

They say they are unable to confirm any "direct" IS role in either commanding ADF operations or in providing it with financial, human or material support.

The ADF has been under US sanctions since 2014 -- the designation of the ADF as a "terrorist organisation" provides additional legal tools for US law enforcers to prosecute members of the group.

Jason Stearns of the Congo Research Group, an organisation based at New York University, suggests the announcement was "probably political, making the ADF part of the American war on terror."#photo3

But the designation carries several risks, not least the propaganda boost for the IS, Stearns warns.

Another peril is that the ADF becomes simplified to a military problem, thus enabling DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi to sidestep more complex options, such as a programme to demobilise militia fighters.

"Two years after his inauguration, his government has not been able to articulate a strategy for dealing with armed conflict," Stearns wrote in a blog.

"It is difficult to see a solution to the conflict around Beni, or indeed to the violence in the DRC in general, without a transformation of the Congolese state," he added.

© 2021 AFP