Attacks on Brazil's indigenous people rose sharply in 2021, report says



Indigenous people protest during the International Indigenous People Day, in Sao Paulo

Wed, August 17, 2022 
By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Attacks on Brazil's indigenous people and invasions of their lands by illegal miners and loggers, mainly in the Amazon, increased dramatically in 2021, escalating an already "terrifying" situation, the Catholic Church's Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi) said on Wednesday.

In its annual report on violence against indigenous people, Cimi detailed a dramatic intensification of abuses in the third year of President Jair Bolsonaro's government, which has dismantled inspection and indigenous protection bodies.

Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist, has encouraged the economic exploitation of indigenous reservations with new legislation and proposals to allow mining on indigenous lands, Cimi said.

"The invaders intensified their presence and brutality of their actions," and increasingly used heavy weapons to attack villages that resisted their advance, the report said.

With more than 20,000 illegal gold miners on the Yanomami reservation on the border with Venezuela, invaders have begun armed attacks against indigenous communities, causing a climate of terror and deaths, including of children, Cimi said.

In Pará state, where surging wildcat gold mining has destroyed forests and polluted rivers, invaders have attacked Munduruku community organizations and tried to prevent their leaders from traveling to demonstrations in the country's capital Brasilia, it said.

Bolsonaro's office did not respond to a request for comment.

There were 305 invasions into indigenous lands in 2021, compared to 263 cases the previous year, almost three times more than the cases reported by Cimi in 2018, when Bolsonaro was elected president.

There were 176 murders of indigenous people, six fewer than in 2020, which had the highest number of homicides on record.

Suicides of indigenous people rose to 148 last year, the highest ever recorded.

Cimi also reported cases of murders carried out with extreme cruelty and brutality, such as those of Raissa Cabreira Guarani Kaiowá, aged 11, and Daiane Griá Sales, 14, from the Kaingang people. Both indigenous girls were raped and killed.

The government's indigenous affairs agency Funai declined to comment, saying it had not seen the Cimi report.

Funai, created in 1967 to protect Brazil's 300 tribes, half of which live in the Amazon rainforest, said in a statement that it acts with environmental and law enforcement agencies to combat illegal activities on indigenous lands.

To run Funai, Bolsonaro appointed a police known for helping farmers in land conflicts with indigenous people.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; editing by Deepa Babington and Sandra Maler)

BOLSONARO'S 

Brazil govt. removes environment chief in possible reprisal


 Samuel Vieira de Souza, a retired Army colonel, has been removed from his position of director of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, IBAMA. 

(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File) 


FABIANO MAISONNAVE
Thu, August 18, 2022 

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has removed a top environmental official in a potential act of retribution, just days after he appeared in a report on illegal gold mining in the Amazon rainforest for the Brazilian television station Globo.

The dismissal of Samuel Vieira de Souza, a retired Army colonel and director of the environmental agency known by the Portuguese acronym IBAMA, was published Thursday in the nation's official gazette.

De Souza recently allowed a Globo television crew to accompany an agency operation against prospectors in the Yanomami Indigenous territory, and gave an on-camera interview. The piece aired Sunday on Globo's program Fantastico. Bolsonaro, who is running for reelection, has been an outspoken champion of fostering economic activity within Indigenous territories, particularly promising regulation of mining in areas where it is currently illegal.

It would be a “big coincidence” if de Souza were fired for any reason other than the Globo report, Alex Lacerda, head of the union that represents the nation’s environment officials, told The Associated Press.

The Globo segment denounced businessman Rodrigo Martins de Mello, a Bolsonaro backer who has been accused of involvement with mining on protected Amazon lands, which the president has repeatedly promised to legalize. De Mello, who is running for a seat in Congress, previously denied any wrongdoing through his lawyer.

But the Brazilian government gave a different explanation for de Souza's removal. The environmental agency said he will be part of a working group to fight international environmental crime, as a special advisor to the Ministry of Environment. U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry is one of the leaders of this initiative.

The working group was created during the Summit of the Americas in June in Los Angeles.

De Souza is one of several military officials named by Bolsonaro to key positions in the nation’s Indigenous and environmental agencies who had limited or no expertise in the fields. The president has called career environmental and Indigenous officials radicals and during his tenure their agencies have been defanged.

De Souza's removal could parallel an episode in April 2020 when Olivaldi Azevedo, another military officer, was dismissed soon after Globo aired a segment featuring an operation against land grabbers inside an Indigenous territory.

For years, Bolsonaro has accused Globo and several other mainstream media of unfair coverage that favors the opposition. In February 2021, he held up a large sign reading “GLOBO TRASH” as a crowd of his supporters cheered.

Lacerda, of the environmental officials' union, said in a phone interview that the retired colonel shouldn’t have been named to his position at IBAMA in the first place.

“Our struggle is for only environmental officials to occupy these positions. These are technical positions,” he said. “Since the government began ousting officials, Brazil has seen record-breaking deforestation.”

Bolsonaro this week launched his campaign for reelection, with the first-round vote just over six weeks away. On Aug. 22, he will appear on Globo’s nightly news program for his first sit-down interview with the network in years.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

MEANWHILE.....

Bolsonaro Charges at Man Who Heckled Him in Front of His Home


Walter Brandimarte
Thu, August 18, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro tried to snatch the mobile phone of a young man who cursed at the conservative president in front of his home in Brasilia, where he frequently stops to greet supporters.

Video footage published by G1 website on Thursday shows the president leaving his car and lunging at the man who was holding up his phone, apparently to shoot a video, while hurling insults at the leader.

The president, who’s up for re-election in October, grabbed the man by the arm and collar before bodyguards intervened, throwing the heckler to the ground.

Bolsonaro’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brazil’s presidential campaign officially started this week amid growing polarization between supporters of Bolsonaro and his leftist challenger, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who’s leading the race.

Brazil's Bolsonaro grabs at heckler, tries to take phone


Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attends a Holy Supper Service held by the Evangelical Parliamentary Front at the headquarters of the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


MAURICIO SAVARESE
Thu, August 18, 2022 

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro briefly grappled with a heckler and tried to snatch his phone on Thursday, underscoring possible challenges for the sometimes quick-tempered leader to stay disciplined on the campaign trail.

As Bolsonaro spoke to supporters outside his residence in the capital city of Brasilia, social media influencer Wilker Leão used his phone to film himself repeatedly shouting at the president, calling him “coward,” “bum” and the “darling” of a pork-barrel faction in Congress.

Bolsonaro first entered his car, but then reemerged and grabbed the man’s shirt and forearm while reaching for his phone. Security guards pulled Leão away.

The presidential campaign that kicked off Tuesday is expected to be an uphill battle for Bolsonaro, who trails former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in all polls ahead of the Oct. 2 first round vote.

A journalist from news website G1 published a video of Leão's comments and the subsequent altercation.

“Don’t film this, don’t film this,” Bolsonaro told his supporters as Leão was held by presidential security. “It is his right (to protest), but he was being impolite.”

Four minutes later, security allowed Leão to return to the scene and chat with Bolsonaro about politics. The two have spoken several times before, without incident.

“You can talk to me as much as you want,” Bolsonaro told Leão. The two spoke for five minutes until the president decided to go back to his car and leave.

Bolsonaro has had earlier confrontations, often with the press. In 2020, he told a journalist, “I want to punch you in the mouth" and once suggested he'd like to shoot supporters of the rival Workers' Party.

Mario Sergio Lima, a senior Brazil analyst at Medley Advisors, said the incident will weigh against Bolsonaro at a moment he could start his campaign in a more positive tone to pick up support.

“It was a very bad sequence for the president in electoral terms. It shows a lack of restraint and should be used against him by their opponent's campaigns,” Lima told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

MR LAWNORDER
Brazil federal police accuse Bolsonaro of COVID-linked scaremongering


Brazil's President Bolsonaro leads a motorcade rally, in Brasilia

Wed, August 17, 2022 

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's federal police on Wednesday accused President Jair Bolsonaro of discouraging mask use during the pandemic and falsely suggesting that people who got vaccinated against COVID-19 ran the risk of contracting AIDS.

In a document sent to Brazil's Supreme Court, a police delegate said Bolsonaro's effort to discourage compliance with pandemic-linked health measures amounted to a crime, while his effort to link AIDS with vaccination amounted to a misdemeanor.

The police asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is in charge of the probe, to authorize the police to charge Bolsonaro and others involved in the case.

In a social media livestream last October, the far-right president said, without presenting any evidence, that UK government reports had shown that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had developed AIDS.

Bolsonaro, who has declined to take the vaccine, was temporarily suspended from both Facebook and YouTube after the comments.

The police said additional steps were needed to conclude the investigations, including hearing from Bolsonaro.

The solicitor general's office, which typically provides legal representation for the president, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Writing by Peter Frontini; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Lula eyes 'green' farm loans to tackle Amazon deforestation


Wed, August 17, 2022 at 5:22 AM·3 min read
By Lisandra Paraguassu

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Advisors to leftist Brazilian presidential hopeful Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are proposing subsidized "green" farm loans to spur planting of soybeans and corn on open pasture and reduce deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

The proposal, revealed to Reuters by a senior Lula advisor, is one of the clearest examples yet of how the former president has tried to court allies in the powerhouse agribusiness sector while promising more environmentally friendly policies.

"The ecological transition is a central axis for all our policies," said Aloizio Mercadante, who is coordinating the Workers Party (PT) platform. "We can open differentiated lines of credit to encourage migration to agriculture that sequesters carbon."

Most opinion polls show Lula with a double-digit lead over right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who rode a wave of rural support to office four years ago. Lula's entreaties to farm leaders have drawn concern from some environmental activists and met with disdain from powerful ag groups.

Under the proposed green credit program, Brazilian farmers could apply for cheaper, government-subsidized loans if they agree to meet targets for sustainable agricultural practices, Mercadante said.

The program would aim to encourage conversion of degraded pastures into crop-growing areas and also increase the use of greener, bio-pesticides in Brazil, the world's biggest supplier of soybeans, coffee and sugar among other food staples.

The green loans are similar to a subsidized credit program launched for the 2010/11 crop, in Lula's last year in office.

That program, now called ABC+, helped cut an estimated 170 million tonnes of net carbon emissions over the seven years to 2018, government information on the scheme said.

However, that only represents 2% of Brazil's total subsidized farm credit, or about 6 billion reais ($1.17 billion) in the current crop.

Lula's advisors see plenty of room to grow, eyeing an estimated 30 million hectares (74.1 million acres) of underused pastureland where ranching could be replaced by crops.

Farmers in Brazil's biggest grain state Mato Grosso would be prime candidates for the green loans, the advisors said, as the state boasts 11 million hectares of planted area and almost as large an area of degraded pastures.

In 2021, deforestation in Mato Grosso reached 2,300 square kilometers, according to Brazilian space research agency INPE.

Carlos Ernesto Agustin, an agribusiness entrepreneur who has been consulting on the PT's proposals, said the plan would boost agricultural output, reduce deforestation risks and improve Brazil's image abroad by encouraging a transition from ranching to farming.

"Why doesn't this migration happen?" he said. "Because it lacks an incentive ... a public financing policy."

Former Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, who has also been advising Lula's campaign, said 35% of Brazil's livestock production is in the Amazon region, where productivity is low.

She said that land would be more productive with crops that would also sequester more carbon than the degraded pastures, without affecting meat processing.

However, Teixeira underscored that incentives for more sustainable agriculture were only part of the solution to reducing deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, which has hit a 15-year high as Bolsonaro has cut back on environmental law enforcement.

"One thing is confronting deforestation. You need policies for command-and-control. Another thing is the low-carbon transformation of economic sectors," she said.

($1 = 5.1404 reais)

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Writing by Ana Mano; Editing by Brad Haynes and Sam Holmes)

ANOTHER TRUMP WALL
Arizona's border wall delayed after 2 containers topple


This photo provided of Univision Arizona shows empty shipping containers toppled over Sunday overnight on the Mexico-US international borderline in Yuma, Ariz., on Monday, Aug. 16, 2022. An effort by Arizona's Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall suffered a temporary setback over the weekend when two containers stacked on top of each were somehow toppled over. The stacked pair of containers were righted by early Monday morning.

 (Claudia Ramos/Univision Arizona via AP)

ANITA SNOW
Tue, August 16, 2022

PHOENIX (AP) — An effort by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma suffered a brief setback when two stacked containers somehow toppled over.

Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on her Twitter feed a photo she took Monday morning of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the U.S. side of the border.

No witnesses have come forward to say what happened Sunday night.

Ramos said contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers may have been toppled by strong monsoon winds.

But C.J. Karamargin, a Ducey spokesman, said that he doubted that hypothesis, adding that even though the containers are empty they still weigh thousands of pounds.

“It's unlikely this was a weather event,” said Karamargin, suggesting that someone opposed to the wall was to blame.

The stacked pair of containers were righted by early Monday morning.

“Clearly we struck a nerve. They don't like what we are doing and they don't want to keep the border open,” the spokesman said.

Officials with Ducey's office say they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to close the gap.

Federal officials have not commented on the state's actions, which come without explicit permission on federal land. State contractors began moving and stacking 60-foot-long, (18.2-meter-long) 9-foot-tall (2.7-meter-tall) shipping containers early Friday. Two other 1,000-foot (305-meter) gaps also will be closed off. The containers will be topped with 4 feet (1.2 meters) of razor wire.

Karamargin said that the Border Patrol informed the governor's office around midnight that the containers were toppled.

“Those weren't secured yet,” he said. “This happened before securing the containers to the ground. They will be bolted later and will be immovable.”

Judge limits privilege defense in AZ Mormon sex abuse case


AP Illustration by Peter Hamlin based on legal documents.

MICHAEL REZENDES
Thu, August 18, 2022

An Arizona judge overseeing a high-profile lawsuit accusing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of conspiring to cover-up child sex abuse has ruled that the church may not refuse to answer questions or turn over documents under the state’s “clergy-penitent privilege.”

Clergy in Arizona, as in many other states, are required to report information about child sexual abuse or neglect to law enforcement or child welfare authorities. But an exception to that law — the privilege — allows members of the clergy who learn of the abuse through spiritual confessions to keep the information secret.

Judge Laura Cardinal ruled on Aug. 8 that the late Paul Adams waived his right to keep his confessions secret when he posted videos of himself sexually abusing his two daughters on the Internet, boasted of the abuse on social media, and confessed to federal law enforcement agents, who arrested him in 2017 with no help from the church.

“Taken together, Adams’ overt acts demonstrate a lack of repentance and a profound disregard” for the principles of the church, widely known as the Mormon church, Cardinal said in her ruling. “His acts can only be characterized as a waiver of the clergy-penitent privilege.”

The lawsuit accuses two Arizona bishops and church leaders in Salt Lake City of negligence in not reporting the abuse and allowing Adams to continue abusing his older daughter for as many as seven years, a time in which he also abused the girl’s infant sister.

Cardinal issued her order, which the church is expected to appeal, after attorneys for three victims objected when the church refused to turn over disciplinary records for Adams, who was excommunicated in 2013. The victims’ attorneys also objected when a church official cited the privilege when refusing to answer questions during pre-trial testimony.

“The judge’s order applies to the church’s secret records and to what happened at the secret ex-communication hearing,” said Lynne Cadigan, an attorney for the three children who filed suit.

Cardinal’s order will require church official Richard Fife, a clerk who took notes during the excommunication hearing, to answer questions from the attorneys representing the Adams children. It will also require church officials to turn over records of the disciplinary council meeting.

The church has filed a legal motion asking Cardinal to delay implementing her order until it contests her findings with the Arizona Court of Appeals. Without the delay, church lawyers said, information it considers confidential under the clergy-penitent privilege would be released to attorneys for the Adams children and, potentially, the public.

“The privileged information will have been disclosed and it would be impossible to ’un-ring the bell,” the church said.

Church officials did not return calls from the AP seeking additional comment on the ruling.

In a motion filed earlier this year asking Cardinal to dismiss the case, the church said its defense “hinges entirely” on whether bishops John Herrod and Robert “Kim” Mauzy were required to report Adams’ “confidential confessions” to civil authorities, or were excused from reporting requirements under the privilege.

The lawsuit was filed by three of the six children of Paul and Leizza Adams, and was featured in a recent investigation by the Associated Press. The AP found that a church “abuse help line” used by Herrod and Mauzy to contact church attorneys is part of a system that can easily be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm’s way.

The “help line,” AP’s investigation found, is housed within the church’s risk management department, where church officials work to protect the church from financial losses and lawsuits that could mar the church's reputation.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement late Wednesday that said, “The AP story has significant flaws in its facts and timeline, which lead to erroneous conclusions.”

The statement, which did not dispute any facts in the story, said the help-line “has everything to do with protecting children and has nothing to do with cover-up.”

The investigation was based in part on nearly 12,000 pages of sealed documents from an unrelated West Virginia child sex abuse lawsuit against the church, which provided the most detailed and comprehensive look yet at the so-called help line, which has been criticized by Mormon abuse victims and their attorneys for being inadequate to quickly stop abuse and protect victims.

The sealed records, including sworn statements by high church officials, revealed that all records of calls to the help line are destroyed at the end of each day. They also showed that Mormon church officials consider all calls referred to attorneys with the firm Kirton McConkie, which represents the church, to be confidential under the attorney-client privilege.

During an interview last month, William Maledon, an Arizona lawyer who represents the church in the lawsuit, said the fact that Adams posted videos of his abuse of both daughters on the Internet and boasted about the abuse on social media would have no bearing on the case because neither Herrod nor Mauzy knew that Adams posted the pornographic material.

“The bishops didn’t know anything about that,” Maledon said, adding that Herrod and Mauzy said as much in sworn declarations submitted in the case.

But Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, who has opened a criminal investigation into the church, told the AP months ago that he believes Adams waived any confidentiality rights under the clergy-penitent privilege by posting his abuse and discussing it online.

Adams “disclosed his actual crime to thousands of people on the Internet,” McIntyre said, “so there’s an implied waiver there.”

—

To contact the AP’s investigations team, email investigative@ap.org.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Myanmar’s government-in-exile deserves more help

Thu, August 18, 2022 

Five years ago this month, Myanmar’s army launched a pogrom against Rohingyas, a Muslim minority, that ended up pushing 750,000 of them out of the country. The unlucky refugees are still rotting in camps in Bangladesh. The Rohingyas that remain in Myanmar, meanwhile, suffer systematic segregation and discrimination (see Asia section). Not content with persecuting a minority of its citizens, however, the army has since overthrown the civilian government and brutally suppressed nationwide protests against the usurpation of democracy. That has spawned violent resistance, which the army is attempting, without success, to crush.

Few regimes around the world are more blood-stained and repugnant. Yet few regimes are also harder to influence. Western countries have suspended aid and Western businesses have divested, for the most part. The economy shrank by 18% last year, by the World Bank’s estimate. But the army does not care about the immiseration of its citizens. In fact, it does not care about them full-stop: its scorched-earth campaign against the rebels fighting for democracy has killed thousands of innocent bystanders and displaced about 1m people.

The ferocious response to the insurgency gives an inkling not just of the army’s brutality, but also of how determined and resilient Myanmar’s democrats are. Ordinary villagers, with scant weapons or training, have formed militias in many places. Fighters from the ethnic majority, the Bamar, have joined forces with ethnically based insurgencies around the country’s fringes. Although few of these groups have the strength to battle the army head-on, they are carrying out raids and ambushes all over the country. The army controls barely half of Myanmar’s territory and is slowly losing ground. And all this has been achieved with almost no outside help. A bit more cash and encouragement would provide the opposition with a huge boost.

The lack of help is partly because Myanmar does not seem like a priority, amid the war in Ukraine, the ailing state of the world economy and umpteen other crises. But mainly it reflects how little hope there initially seemed of dislodging the army. The near-universal assumption was that all dissent would be easily crushed. Western governments discouraged violent resistance to the coup, on the ground that such bloodshed would be futile. They also doubted the opposition’s ability to unite.

That view turns out to have been flat wrong. mps from the former ruling party quickly formed a shadow government. Despite their reputation for Bamar chauvinism, they included representatives from ethnic-minority parties. They even promised to treat Rohingyas better. The National Unity Government (nug) commands the loyalty of the vast majority of Burmese, including most of the resistance forces. In some areas, it has managed to form local administrative bodies and runs schools and clinics. The army, meanwhile, has proved itself incapable of defeating the insurgency.

But the nug is desperately short of cash. It needs support—and especially money—from the West. If America recognised it as the legitimate government, the nug could claim the $1bn in Burmese assets that America froze after the coup. Such a gesture would have the added benefit of showing that the outside world is not willing to acquiesce by default to the army’s atrocities.

None of this guarantees the military regime’s demise, of course. It retains the overwhelming advantage in money and firepower. It still has a powerful ally in China. But the resistance has defied the odds for 18 months. It would not take much to shift the odds in its favour.

© 2022 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/08/18/myanmars-government-in-exile-deserves-more-help

UN envoy tells Myanmar general: End violence, seek democracy


 United Nations special envoy Noeleen Heyzer, left, and Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin  WAR CRIMINAL

shake hands Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Heyzer, who is making her first mission to the strife-torn Southeast Asian country, met Wednesday with the head of its military-installed government, state television announced. (Myanmar True News Information Team via AP)More


GRANT PECK and EDITH M. LEDERER
Wed, August 17, 2022 

BANGKOK (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, met Wednesday with the head of its military-installed government and called on him to urgently halt all violence, support a political path back to civilian rule and democracy, and allow the country’s imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to return home and to meet with her.

On her first mission to the strife-torn country, Heyzer also reiterated Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ extreme concern about Myanmar’s humanitarian, security, economic and political crisis and reiterated the U.N. chief’s call for the release of all political prisoners. She also urged Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to impose a moratorium on future executions, following the recent executions of four political activists that drew worldwide condemnation.

Heyzer’s statement on her two-day visit was released as she left the country, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said, and she was not able to meet Suu Kyi but hopes they will meet in the future.

Haq said Heyzer and the general had “a good discussion” and the U.N. will see whether her key demands will be carried out. He said the U.N. will “continue to push on those points.”

Going forward, Heyzer’s statement said she and general Hlaing “agreed to engage in frank conversations, focusing on the need for inclusive solutions to a peaceful and democratic Myanmar, reflective of the will of the people.”

State-run MRTV television said Heyzer and Min Aung Hlaing exchanged views on promoting trust and cooperation between Myanmar and the United Nations. It did not provide any details on the talks in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw.

Heyzer’s statement said that in the meeting with the general and his senior advisers she communicated pragmatic steps the military must take to de-escalate conflict and reduce the suffering of the Myanmar people. It called the meeting “part of broader efforts by the United Nations to urgently support an effective and peaceful Myanmar-led political pathway to return to civilian rule based on the will and the needs of the people.”

Myanmar has been wracked by violent unrest since the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February last year. The army’s takeover prevented Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party from beginning a second term in office.

The takeover was met with massive public opposition, which has since turned into armed resistance that some U.N. experts, including Heyzer’s predecessor, Christine Schraner Burgener, have characterized as civil war. Critics of the military have accused it of carrying out widespread human rights abuses to crush opposition to its rule.

Much of the international community, including Myanmar’s fellow members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have expressed frustration at the hard line the generals have taken in resisting reform. Myanmar’s military rulers agreed to a five-point ASEAN plan in April 2021 to restore peace and stability to the country, including an immediate halt to violence and a dialogue among all parties. But the military has made little effort to implement the plan.

An earlier statement from Heyzer’s office said she called for “immediate and specific de-escalation steps including ending aerial bombing and the burning of civilian houses and infrastructure.”

Heyzer stressed in the statement as she left Myanmar that “U.N. engagement does not in any way confer legitimacy” on the military government.

“The people of Myanmar have the right to democracy and self-determination free from fear and want, which will only be possible by the good will and efforts of all stakeholders in an inclusive process,” she said.

Heyzer said she urged general Hlaing to implement the U.N. secretary-general’s appeal. She said she also conveyed a request from the Australian government to release Australian economist Sean Turnell, who served as an adviser to Suu Kyi and is being tried with her on a charge of violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act.

Suu Kyi is being held in prison in Naypyitaw. She has been prosecuted in a string of criminal cases widely seen as politically motivated by the ruling military. The government has refused to allow her to meet with any outsiders, including a special envoy from ASEAN.

“I’m deeply concerned about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s health and well-being in her current situation, and request that she can return home soon,” Heyzer said. “I want to have an opportunity to meet with her as soon as possible, both because I care about her personally and I believe she is a critical stakeholder for my dialogue with all parties concerned.”

Her statement also expressed deep concern about civilians displaced from their homes and called on all parties to facilitate the immediate and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to all people and to protect and empower women.

In her meeting with the general, the statement said, “she highlighted her continued resolve to act in a bridging rule and leverage her convening power to address the protection needs and suffering of the most vulnerable and to end the conflict.”

Heyzer also told the general she plans to consult the government ahead of her visit to Bangladesh later this month where she plans to visit camps for Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazaar. They host about one million Rohingya and others forcibly displaced from Myanmar, the statement said.

Muslim Rohingya face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship and many other rights. More than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh starting in late August 2017 when the Myanmar military launched a “clearance operation” against them following attacks by a rebel group. The safety situation in Myanmar has worsened following last year’s military takeover.

Heyzer’s statement said she highlighted Myanmar’s responsibility for “conducive conditions” for the Rohingya to return, saying their rights and well-being “are integral to the future of a peaceful and prosperous Myanmar.”

The National Unity Government, the main opposition organization which views itself as a legitimate government of Myanmar, issued a statement after Heyzer arrived Tuesday, saying her visit must be aimed at ending the military’s violence and her talks must reflect the voice of the Myanmar people.

“The special envoy’s visit must be directed at ending the junta’s violence, its weaponization of aid, its persecution of political prisoners, and its impunity. Intensified efforts must also target the multiple junta-induced crises destabilizing the region’s peace and security. Anything short of this would be an appeasement of war criminals,” it said. “Mrs. Heyzer’s consultations must include Myanmar’s ethnic resistance organizations and civil society, and amplify the voices of Myanmar people.”

___

Lederer reported from the United Nations

Myanmar junta hits back at ASEAN after being barred from meetings


 Myanmar's military junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun speaks during the information ministry's press conference in Naypyitaw

Wed, August 17, 2022 

(Reuters) -Myanmar's military leadership on Wednesday lashed out at the ASEAN grouping of Southeast Asian countries for excluding its generals from regional gatherings, accusing it of caving to "external pressure".

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have heaped condemnation on Myanmar's junta, which they say has failed to make concrete progress on a peace plan agreed with the 10-nation bloc last year, including engaging with opponents and a cessation of hostilities.

Myanmar's military seized power from an elected government in a coup last year, and has since then crushed dissent with lethal force. Most recently, the junta has been criticised for executing political activists and imprisoning Aung San Suu Kyi, the symbol of Myanmar's opposition and democracy movement. [L4N2Z70W5]

ASEAN has barred Myanmar's generals from attending regional meetings, and some members said last month it would be forced to rethink the way forward unless the junta demonstrates progress on the peace plan.

The junta has declined offers to send non-political representatives instead to ASEAN meetings.

"If a seat representing a country is vacant, then it should not be labelled an ASEAN summit," junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said at a routine news conference on Wednesday, adding that Myanmar was working on implementing the peace plan.

"What they want is for us to meet and talk with the terrorists," he said, using the junta's label for pro-democracy movements that have taken up arms against the military.

He said ASEAN was violating its own policy of non-interference in a country's sovereign affairs while facing "external pressure", but did not elaborate.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cambodia, which is currently chairing ASEAN, did not address the accusation.

Ministry spokesperson Chum Sounry said ASEAN was "hopeful that the situation in Myanmar can be greatly improved, so that it can return as an indispensable member of our united ASEAN family again."

Several western countries including the United States and Britain have imposed sanctions on Myanmar's junta over the coup.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by John Geddie)

Myanmar's Suu Kyi testifies in her official secrets case


 Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi waits to address judges of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, Dec. 11, 2019. Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has testified in a prison courtroom in the capital Naypyitaw for the first time in her official secrets case. Suu Kyi, who has been detained since her government was ousted last year by the military, is being tried with Australian economist Sean Turnell and three former Cabinet members on the same charge, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

GRANT PECK
Thu, August 18, 2022

BANGKOK (AP) — Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi testified Thursday in a prison courtroom in the capital for the first time in her official secrets case, a legal official said.

Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the military ousted her government last year, is being tried in Naypyitaw with Australian economist Sean Turnell and three former Cabinet members on the same charge, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Suu Kyi denied all the accusations in the case against her and pleaded not guilty, said the legal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to release information.

Sean Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, was an adviser to Suu Kyi.

The colonial-era secrets statute criminalizes the possession, collection, recording, publishing or sharing of state information that is “directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy.”

The exact details of the alleged offense in the case have not been made public, though Myanmar state television, citing government statements, said last year that Turnell had access to “secret state financial information” and had tried to flee the country.

Suu Kyi was sentenced Monday to six years in prison on four corruption charges.

She earlier was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted on charges of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, sedition and another a corruption charge, bringing her total prison term to 17 years. Trials on several other charges are ongoing.

Suu Kyi’s supporters and independent analysts say the charges are politically motivated and are an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power while keeping her from returning to politics.

Details of Thursday's proceedings were not available because Suu Kyi's lawyers have been banned by a gag order since last year from revealing information about her trials, all of which are closed to the media and the public.

The legal official said Suu Kyi appeared to be in good health.

Another co-defendant, former Union Minister Kyaw Win, is scheduled to testify next week.

Turnell testified last week, also denying the accusations against him. He and Suu Kyi are both being held in the prison where the trial is being conducted in a special courtroom.

Suu Kyi is also being tried there on an election fraud charge, which is punishable by up to three years in prison, and seven counts of corruption which each carry a maximum sentence of 15 years and a fine.

The army’s takeover last year was met with nationwide peaceful protests. After security forces unleashed lethal force against the protesters, some opponents of military rule turned to armed resistance in many areas.

The Rohingyas are being wiped out in slow motion


THE ECONOMIST
Thu, August 18, 2022 

On a vacant patch of land in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state along the western flank of Myanmar, grass grows long under the hot sun. A house once stood on this plot, though all trace of it is long gone. Mohammed, a 36-year-old Rohingya man, grew up in that house and lived there until 2012, when he and his family were forced to flee by a band of ethnic Rakhines wielding sticks and torches. That summer mobs of Rakhine villagers and Burmese soldiers razed Rohingya villages and killed hundreds of people belonging to the long-persecuted Muslim minority group. Some 140,000 Rohingyas were displaced in the melee and herded into camps, where they have remained ever since.

The pogrom of 2012 laid the groundwork for a bigger bout of bloodshed five years later. In 2017 Burmese security forces launched a campaign of mass killing, rape and arson in northern Rakhine, in what the un has branded as genocide. Nearly 750,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, where they live in the world’s biggest refugee camp (see map).


In the decade since the rampage of 2012 and the five years since the genocide of 2017, the Rohingyas have been subject to conditions designed to drain the life from the ethnic group, according to the un. Crossing over into Bangladesh afforded some respite, at first. Yet the Bangladeshi government has long since begun to view the refugees as a burden. Violence in the camps is rampant, with much of it committed by the Bangladeshi security forces. No matter which side of the border Rohingyas find themselves today, their experience is the same: hunger and misery surrounded by barbed wire.

The Burmese army, which has run Myanmar for most of the past 50 years, began persecuting Rohingyas decades ago. It first attempted to drive them off their land in 1978, using the now familiar tools of murder, arson and rape. Its high command considers them Bangladeshi interlopers, with no claim to Burmese citizenship—as do many other Burmese. It enshrined that view in law 40 years ago, turning the Rohingyas into the world’s largest community of stateless people.

It was not until 2012, however, that the government began to herd Rohingyas into camps. This segregation, in addition to the imposition of a matrix of repressive laws, which include restrictions on marriage and having children, amount to a system of apartheid, according to Human Rights Watch (hrw), an advocacy group. After the genocide of 2017, this vice tightened.

Today about a fifth of the Rohingyas who remain in Myanmar live in what Fortify Rights, a pressure group, calls “modern concentration camps”. One unfortunate resident, Hla Maung, lives cheek by jowl with 11 relatives in one of the cramped shelters into which families are crowded. These structures were originally designed to last two years. Many have been badly damaged by monsoons and flooding over the past decade. In April some 28,000 Rohingyas were living in shelters deemed by the un to be structurally unsound. Because international aid agencies must apply to travel to the camps two weeks in advance, they cannot always repair shelters right away. “Living conditions are, by design, squalid,” observed hrw in a recent report.

Harsh restrictions on movement make life harder still. More than three-quarters of displaced Rohingyas cannot leave their camps at all, according to a survey conducted in 2015 by the Centre for Diversity and National Harmony, a Burmese ngo. The rest may travel, but only to a Rohingya ghetto in Sittwe or to Sittwe General Hospital, the sole facility in the state that provides specialised treatment. Medical referrals are granted only for emergencies and even then getting the necessary travel authorisation can take days. Access to health care in the camps is limited. In the more remote ones, doctors visit for just a couple of hours once or twice a week. Rates of disease and child mortality are higher in the camps than elsewhere in the state, according to the International Rescue Committee, an aid organisation.

Those who can leave the camps must get a “village departure certificate” which costs up to 5,000 kyat ($3.45). Sometimes security forces demand travellers present an identity card proving their citizenship, which most Rohingyas lack. All Rohingyas must pass through numerous checkpoints manned by soldiers who demand bribes, and to leave they must often also pay for a “security escort”, which costs up to 20,000 kyat. These restrictions prevent Rohingyas from working, making it difficult for them to supplement the cash or food aid they receive from ngos, which residents say is insufficient for their daily needs.

For the roughly 300,000-350,000 Rohingyas who have not been herded into camps, conditions are still dire. They, too, are rarely granted permission to get treatment at Sittwe General Hospital. And though they continue to live in their own homes, a mesh of restrictions hems them in as well. They are not allowed to leave their districts without authorisation. Security checkpoints strewn throughout their villages are manned by soldiers who enforce curfews (from 6pm to 6am) and rules limiting gatherings in public areas to no more than five people. Violations of these rules lead to beatings or detention.

These conditions appear calculated to bring about the “slow death” of the Rohingyas, says the un. Their numbers in Myanmar have dropped precipitously. Before 2017 the country was home to as many as 1.3m Rohingyas. (No reliable numbers exist as they were not included in the last census in 2014, the first in 30 years.) Now the population is closer to 600,000. Most fled to Bangladesh. But many are likely to have died because of the grim living conditions.

There are dismaying parallels between the experiences of Rohingyas in Rakhine state and those in the refugee camps of Bangladesh. At first refugees could work in surrounding towns, recalls Hakim Ullah, who has lived in the refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar district since 2017. Now they need permission to leave the camps. Shops and schools in the camps were demolished earlier this year by the Bangladeshi authorities, who have banned paid work and private education. “The refugee camps have become detention camps”, says Rahamat Ullah, a Rohingya civil-rights activist who lives in Cox’s Bazar.

Nor have refugees traded freedom for safety. Militant groups and criminal gangs operating in the camps regularly commit murders, kidnappings and robberies. Bangladesh’s security forces do much of the terrorising themselves, according to reports from human-rights groups. The Armed Police Battalion, the specialist unit responsible for security in the camps, acts “with impunity”, says Ashraf Zaman of the Asian Human Rights Commission, a pressure group based in Thailand. The battalion has reportedly beaten children and raped women. The Bangladeshi forces are so brutal, that they remind Mr Hakim Ullah of the Burmese army. (Bangladeshi authorities did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Economist.)

As long as the Burmese army is in power, little about the Rohingyas’ condition is likely to change. “Life in the camps is worse than prison,” says Mohammed, who now lives in a camp outside Sittwe. At least prisoners know the length of their sentence. Rohingyas do not know if they will ever be released. Even if they are, many would have no home to return to. The authorities long ago bulldozed the ruins of houses like Mohammed’s, and sold the land to developers—making it easier to remove every last trace of the group.

© 2022 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/08/18/the-rohingyas-are-being-wiped-out-in-slow-motion

BJP PURGES MUSLIMS
India backtracks on support for Rohingya refugees, will deport them


A Rohingya refugee family rests in a temporary shelter after a fire destroyed a Rohingya refugee camp on Saturday night, in New Delhi


Wed, August 17, 2022 
By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's home ministry said on Wednesday that Rohingya refugees in the capital New Delhi would be held at a detention centre and then deported, contradicting a minister's earlier statement promising flats and security to members of the Muslim minority.

Hardeep Singh Puri, federal minister for housing and urban affairs, had earlier on Wednesday outlined new provisions for the Rohingya, signalling a potential change in the government's critical stance towards the refugee group from Myanmar. Rohingya refugees would be allotted flats in western Delhi's Bakkarwala area, provided basic amenities and round-the-clock police protection, Puri had said on Twitter.

But, just hours after Puri's tweets, the federal home ministry said in a statement that "Rohingya illegal foreigners https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1852521" would remain at a locality in the city's southern reaches as authorities worked to deport them.

"Illegal foreigners are to be kept in the detention centre till their deportation as per law," the home ministry said in a statement.

"The Government of Delhi has not declared the present location as a detention centre. They have been directed to do the same immediately."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has previously tried to repatriate members of the Rohingya, who are a minority community in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled from persecution and waves of violence in their homeland over the years, mainly to Bangladesh. (https://reut.rs/3PvPvBo)

As of early this year, around 1,100 Rohingya lived in Delhi and another 17,000 elsewhere in India, working mainly as manual labourers, hawkers and rickshaw pullers, according to estimates from Rohingya rights activist Ali Johar.

He said some 2,000 Rohingya had left for Bangladesh this year, amid fears of being deported.

"Most of the Rohingya in Delhi now live in rented accommodation, where they feel safe, or in settlements," said Johar, 27, who moved to India a decade ago and lives with his family.

Speaking to Reuters before the home ministry's statement, Johar underlined fears among the community, which has faced the ire of some Indian right-wing Hindu groups, that the new facilities could be used to corral the Rohingya.

"If it turns out to be a detention camp, that will be a nightmare for us," he said.

(Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Additional reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Bernadette Baum)

Bangladesh PM tells UN that Myanmar must take Rohingya back

 

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina greets the gathering during an interaction with journalists after official election results gave her a third straight term, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 31, 2018. Hasina on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, told a visiting U.N. official that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees must go back to their ancestral home in Myanmar from crowded camps in neighboring Bangladesh.


JULHAS ALAM
Wed, August 17, 2022 

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh's leader told a visiting U.N. official on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority Rohingya refugees living in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh must return home to Myanmar, where they had fled waves of violent persecution.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made the comment to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. Bachelet arrived on Sunday and visited Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar district near the border with Myanmar.

“The Rohingya are nationals of Myanmar and they have to be taken back,” Hasina was quoted as saying by her press secretary, Ihsanul Karim.

Muslim Rohingya face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship and many other rights. More than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh starting in late August 2017 when the Myanmar military launched a “clearance operation” against them following attacks by a rebel group. The safety situation in Myanmar has worsened following a military takeover last year.

Currently, Bangladesh is hosting more than 1 million Rohingya refugees.

The refugees will mark the fifth anniversary of their latest influx in Bangladesh amid botched attempts to send them home. Earlier this month, Bangladesh sought cooperation from China in repatriating Rohingya to Myanmar during a visit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China had brokered a November 2017 agreement with Myanmar aimed at sending them back.

Hasina and several Cabinet ministers earlier expressed frustration over what they called Myanmar's inaction in taking them back under the agreement. The U.N. and Bangladesh authorities have tried at least twice to began repatriations, but the refugees refused to go, citing safety concerns in Myanmar.

When Bachelet visited the camps on Wednesday, refugees urged the U.N. to help improve safety inside Myanmar so they can return.

The U.N. said in a statement that the refugees described “their grievances, their pains” to Bachelet.

“When our rights are respected, we can have our livelihoods again, and we can have land, and we can feel that we are part of the country,” it quoted refugees as telling her.

Bachelet emphasized the importance of ensuring that safe and sustainable conditions exist and that any returns be conducted in a voluntary and dignified way, it said.

“The U.N. is doing the best we can to support them. We’ll continue doing that,” she said. “But we also need to deal with the profound roots of the problem. We need to deal with that and ensure that they can go back to Myanmar -– when there are conditions for safety and voluntary return.”

In March, the United States said the oppression of Rohingya in Myanmar amounts to genocide after authorities confirmed accounts of mass atrocities against civilians by Myanmar’s military in a widespread and systematic campaign against the ethnic minority.

Canada minister: Not safe yet for Syrian refugees to go home

Canadian Minister of International Development Harjit Sajjan, listens to an official from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), during his visit to Makassed primary health care center, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022. Sajjan said Syria is not safe yet for millions of refugees to start returning home and those who fled their homes did so only because they had to. He also said , he also said that Lebanon should work to reach a deal with the International Monetary Fund to start getting the small nation out its worst economic crisis in its modern history. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

BASSEM MROUE
Wed, August 17, 2022 

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria is not safe yet for millions of refugees to start going back home, a Canadian minister cautioned during a visit to Lebanon on Wednesday. He spoke days after Lebanese officials announced a plan to start returning 15,000 Syrian refugees to their war-shattered country every month.

The remarks by Harjit Sajjan, Canada's minister of international development, followed his tour of the region that also took him to Jordan, where he visited Syrian refugees living in tent settlements.

More than 5 million Syrians fled their country when the conflict began 11 years ago, with most of them now living in neighboring countries Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Lebanon, which has taken in 1 million Syrians, is facing an economic meltdown and unprecedented financial crisis — and is eager to see the refugees return.

On Monday, Syria’s Minister of Local Administration Hussein Makhlouf said Syrian refugees in Lebanon can start returning home, pledging they will get all the help they need from authorities.

However, the U.N. refugee agency and rights groups oppose involuntary repatriation to Syria, saying the practice risks endangering the returning refugees. Human rights groups have said that some Syrian refugees who returned home were detained.

Sajjan echoed those concerns Wednesday.

“It is very, very important to make sure that there is an absolute safe environment where they can return to,” Sajjan said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Clearly, right now, based on our assessments Syria is not a safe place for people to return.”

“These are very proud people, who want to go back home. They don’t want to live in these conditions,” Sajjan said, adding that any return will have to be a “voluntary situation.”

Over the past few years, Canada has resettled tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, some of them from Lebanon and Jordan. Sajjan, a former defense minister and ex-member of the military who served in Afghanistan said he saw first-hand the effects and “horrors of war, which pushes people out."

“No one wants to leave their homes, but they have to,” he added.

He said Canada will continue to look at ways, with multinational partners, to provide the appropriate direct support for the Lebanese people and “the vulnerable Syrian refugees as well.”

The calls for the return of Syrian refugees have increased in Lebanon since its economic downturn began in late 2019, leaving three-quarters of Lebanese living in poverty. For Syrians, living conditions have become much worse.

Sajjan said that during his talks with Lebanese leaders, he urged them “to move as quickly as possible" to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout program.

He stress that IMF's demands on Lebanon are “all legitimate things that are being asked for, given how the economic crisis has unfolded.”

Ahead of any deal with IMF, Lebanon still has to draft legislation on combatting money laundering and a law on capital controls.

Lebanon's crisis was further exacerbated by the massive August 2020 explosion in Beirut's port that killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and caused billions of dollars in damages.

Sajjan expressed hopes that the investigation into the explosion would resume soon. The domestic investigation has been stalled since December, due to legal challenges raised by some politicians against the judge leading the probe after he had filed charges against them.

“I think the impact of the explosion ... has shocked the world," Sajjan said. “We are hopeful that the current investigation can move forward in a transparent way."