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Genocide Emergency: Central African Republic
Genocide Watch has issued a Genocide Emergency for the Central African Republic. Continuing violence between Christian majority (anti-Balaka) and Muslim minority (Seleka) militias, has been genocidal because victims are targeted for their religious identity. Seleka militias that began the killing when Michael Djotodia seized power have now been driven back by French and African Union forces. Djotodia has fled. Muslims are escaping to Chad, but are being pulled from vehicles by Christian anti-Balaka gangs. Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. The shortage of adequate food, water, and shelter has created a humanitarian crisis. Peacekeeping forces must remain in the country until people can return to their homes, with security provided by a transitional government.
France says Central African Republic on verge of genocide
BY JOHN IRISH
PARIS Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:48pm EST
(Reuters) - France said on Thursday that Central African Republic was "on the verge of genocide"
and it expected the United Nations to give Paris and the African Union permission to intervene.
Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of 4.6 million people, has descended into violence
and chaos since Seleka rebels, many of them from neighboring Chad and Sudan, ousted
President Francois Bozize in March.
The U.S. State Department estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced and
68,000 have fled to neighboring countries since Seleka leader and interim president Michel
Djotodia has lost control of his loose coalition of warlords.
The violence has increasingly pitted Seleka's mainly Muslim fighters against Christian militias.
Christians make up half the population and Muslims 15 percent, the CIA World Factbook says.
(read more)
Unspeakable Horrors in a Country on the Verge of Genocide
The Guardian, November 22, 2013
By David Smith
A massacre of the innocents is taking place in the heart of Africa as the world looks the
other way.
One man describes how his four-year-old son's throat was slit, and how he witnessed a snake
swallowing a baby. A woman explains that she is caring for a young girl because its her mother
went searching for medicine and was bludgeoned to death with Kalashnikov rifles. A young man
tells how he was bound and thrown to the crocodiles, but managed to swim to safety.
This is the world of horrors that the Central African Republic (CAR) has become. Thousands of
people are dying at the hands of soldiers and militia gangs or from untreated diseases such as
malaria. Boys and girls as young as eight are press ganged into fighting between Christians and
Muslims. There are reports of beheadings and public execution-style killings. Villages are razed
to the ground.
Never much more than a phantom state, the CAR has sucked in thousands of mercenaries from
neighbouring countries and, France warned on Thursday, now stands "on the verge of genocide".
(read more)
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In volatile Congo, a new U.N. force with teeth
3 November 2013
The Washington Post
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Kilimanyoke, Congo — With shells flying overhead, the Congolese soldiers pressed forward on a desolate stretch of road near the Rwandan border. Ahead of them was a rebel army, firing relentlessly. Behind them, a new U.N. combat brigade waited in white armored vehicles, ready to serve as backup.
The U.N. soldiers are in Congo with an ambitious goal: to reverse the trajectory of one of the world’s most horrific and complex conflicts, one that has killed more than 5 million people since 1998, the deadliest war since World War II. They are also here to rescue the image of the troubled U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Congo.
“To be a peacekeeper doesn’t mean you need to be passive,” their top commander, Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, said hours before the offensive began. “To be a peacekeeper, you need to take action. The way to protect the civilians is to take action. If you see the history of atrocities here, it justifies action.” (read more)
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Syria Meets Deadline for Submitting Destruction Plan for Chemical Weapons
New York Times
October 27, 2013
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and MICHAEL R. GORDON
GENEVA — Syria submitted a formal declaration of its chemical weapons program and its plans for destroying its arsenal three days ahead of the deadline, the international chemical weapons watchdog said Sunday.
The watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which has been charged with monitoring and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons program, said that it had received the Syrian submission on Thursday and that the agency’s Executive Council would review the declaration’s “general plan of destruction” by Nov. 15.
It was not immediately clear, however, whether the declaration’s listing of chemical weapons sites was exhaustive, an important test of President Bashar al-Assad’s willingness to cooperate with the program to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure and arsenal.
Saying that such declarations are confidential, the chemical weapons agency declined to disclose or discuss the contents of the Syrian document. (read more)
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Activists say nearly 500 killed in gas attack near Damascus
By Dominic Evans and Khaled Yacoub Oweis
21 August 2013(Reuters) - Syrian activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching a gas attack that killed nearly 500 people on Wednesday, in what would, if confirmed, be by far the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war.An opposition monitoring group, citing figures compiled from medical clinics in the Damascus suburbs, put the death toll at 494 - 90 percent of them killed by gas, the rest by bombing and conventional arms. (read more)
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Genocide Watch Annual Report 2012Genocide Watch has prepared an annual report that describes the successes and work of the organization and its predecessor, The Cambodian Genocide Project. We are proud of the work we continue to accomplish. (read report here)
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Genocide Watch Report - Countries at Risk 2012
Genocide Watch publishes an annual Countries at Risk Report on its website. Countries with threats of genocide, politicide or mass atrocities are profiled and, as needed, a genocide alert is included recommending policies to prevent the threats. (Read the full report here.)
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