Africa

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By PRESS RELEASE
Jun 27 2018 (Amnesty International)

• Report names 13 officials with a key role in murder, rape and deportation of Rohingya
• Myanmar’s security forces committed nine distinct types of crimes against humanity; responsibility goes to the top of the chain of command
• Calls for accountability, including a UN Security Council referral to the ICC

Amnesty International has gathered extensive, credible evidence implicating Myanmar’s military Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and 12 other named individuals in crimes against humanity committed during the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State.

The comprehensive report, “We Will Destroy Everything”: Military Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Rakhine State, Myanmar, calls for the situation in Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and prosecution.

“The explosion of violence – including murder, rape, torture, burning and forced starvation – perpetrated by Myanmar’s security forces in villages across northern Rakhine State was not the action of rogue soldiers or units. There is a mountain of evidence that this was part of a highly orchestrated, systematic attack on the Rohingya population,” said Matthew Wells, Senior Crisis Adviser at Amnesty International.

“Those with blood on their hands – right up the chain of command to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – must be held to account for their role in overseeing or carrying out crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations under international law.”

Amassing the evidence

In the report, Amnesty International also names nine of the Commander-in-Chief’s subordinates in the Tatmadaw – Myanmar’s armed forces – and three in the Border Guard Police (BGP) for their roles in the ethnic cleansing campaign.

The culmination of nine months of intensive research, including in Myanmar and Bangladesh, the report is Amnesty International’s most comprehensive account yet of how the Myanmar military forced more than 702,000 women, men and children – more than 80% of northern Rakhine State’s Rohingya population when the crisis started – to flee to Bangladesh after 25 August 2017.

The report provides new details about the Myanmar military’s command structure and troop deployments, as well as the security forces’ arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of Rohingya men and boys in the weeks directly before the current crisis unfolded.

It also provides the most detailed information to date about abuses by the armed group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), before and after it launched coordinated attacks on security posts on 25 August 2017. This includes killings of people from different ethnic and religious communities in northern Rakhine State, as well as the targeted killings and abductions of suspected Rohingya informants to the authorities.

Amnesty International has already documented in detail how the Myanmar military’s vicious response to the ARSA attacks came in the context of long-standing institutionalized discrimination and segregation amounting to apartheid and was marked by crimes under international law including murder, rape, torture, targeted large-scale burning of villages, the use of landmines, forced starvation, mass deportation and other serious human rights violations.

Based on more than 400 interviews – as well as reams of corroborating evidence, including satellite imagery, verified photographs and videos, and expert forensic and weapons analysis – the new report goes into harrowing detail about the patterns of violations committed in the military’s “clearance operations” following the ARSA attacks. It also identifies the specific military divisions or battalions involved in many of the worst atrocities. Amnesty International has documented the security forces committing nine out of the 11 types of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Combat troops deployed to ‘destroy everything’

The report documents how the military’s senior command put some of its fiercest fighting battalions, infamous for violations elsewhere in the country, front and centre in the operations in northern Rakhine State. This had disastrous consequences for the Rohingya population.

In the weeks leading up to 25 August, the Tatmadaw brought in battalions from the 33rd and 99th Light Infantry Divisions (LIDs), two combat divisions that Amnesty International had implicated in war crimes in Kachin and northern Shan State in late 2016 and mid-2017, as part of the ongoing internal armed conflicts there.

In some Rohingya villages, the incoming military commanders made their intentions clear from the start. Around 20 August 2017, five days before the bulk of the violence erupted, a field commander from the 33rd LID met in Chut Pyin, Rathedaung Township, with Rohingya leaders from nearby villages. According to seven people present interviewed separately by Amnesty International, the field commander threatened that if there was ARSA activity in the area, or if villagers did any “wrong,” his soldiers would shoot at the Rohingya directly, without any distinction.

Amnesty International likewise obtained an audio recording in Burmese, which it believes to be authentic, of a telephone call between a Rohingya resident of Inn Din, Maungdaw Township, and a Myanmar military officer based in the area. In the recording, the officer says, “We got an order to burn down the entire village if there is any disturbance. If you villagers aren’t living peacefully, we will destroy everything.”

The ensuing wave of violence, in which the security forces completely or partially burned several hundred Rohingya villages across northern Rakhine State, including almost every Rohingya village in Maungdaw Township, has been well documented by Amnesty International and others. The report goes into additional detail about the widespread as well as systematic attack on the Rohingya population, including in large-scale massacres in each of the three townships – in the villages of Chut Pyin, Min Gyi and Maung Nu. Thousands of Rohingya women, men and children were murdered – bound and summarily executed; shot and killed while running away; or burned to death inside their homes – though it may never be known exactly how many lost their lives as a result of the military operation.

The security forces also raped Rohingya women and girls, both in their villages and as they fled to Bangladesh. Amnesty International interviewed 20 women and two girls who were survivors of rape, 11 of whom were gang raped. The organization documented rape and sexual violence in 16 different locations in all three townships of northern Rakhine State. The practice was widespread and terrorized Rohingya communities, contributing to the campaign to force them out of northern Rakhine State. Some rape victims also had their family members killed in front of them. In at least one village, security forces left rape survivors inside buildings and set them on fire.

Border Guard Police arrests and torture

Amid growing tensions ahead of the 25 August attacks and in the days that followed, Myanmar security forces arrested and arbitrarily detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys from villages across northern Rakhine State. Amnesty International interviewed 23 men and two boys whom the security forces arrested and tortured or otherwise ill-treated during this period.

The Rohingya men and boys were often severely beaten during the arrest and then taken to Border Guard Police (BGP) bases, where they were held incommunicado for days or even weeks.

BGP officers tortured the detainees to extract information or to force them to confess to involvement with ARSA. Amnesty International documented in detail torture that occurred in two specific BGP bases: one in Taung Bazar, in northern Buthidaung Township; and another in Zay Di Pyin village, in Rathedaung Township. Multiple survivors of torture named BGP officers responsible for the torture at these bases.

Released detainees described torture methods that included severe beatings, burning, waterboarding and rape and other sexual violence. Several Rohingya men who were held at the Taung Bazar BGP base described having their beards burned. Rohingya men and two boys who were detained at the Zay Di Pyin BGP base described being denied food and water; beaten to the point of death; and, in many cases, having their genitals burned until they blistered.

A farmer from a village in Rathedaung Township told Amnesty International: “I was standing with my hands tied behind my head, then they pulled off my longyi [a sarong-like garment] and put a [lit] candle under my penis. [A BGP officer] was holding the candle and [his superior] was giving orders… They were saying, ‘Tell the truth or you will die’.”

Some detainees did die from torture in custody, including a 20-year-old man who was beaten to death with a wooden plank after he asked for water.

To secure their release, detainees were made to pay large bribes and to sign a document stating they had never been abused. Ten months later, the Myanmar authorities have yet to provide information about who remains in detention, where they are being held, and under what charges, if any. These detentions amount to arbitrary detention under international law.

Command responsibility

Amnesty International reviewed confidential documents about the Myanmar military indicating that, during military operations like those in northern Rakhine State, forces on the ground normally operate under the tight control of senior commanders. Combat division units – which committed the vast majority of crimes against the Rohingya – have strict reporting requirements as to their movements, engagements and weapons use, information that senior commanders knew or should have known.

Further, top military commanders, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, actually travelled to northern Rakhine State directly before or during the ethnic cleansing campaign, to oversee parts of the operation.

Senior military officials knew – or should have known – that crimes against humanity were being committed, yet failed to use their command authority to prevent, stop or punish those crimes, and even attempted to whitewash the overwhelming majority of them in the aftermath. Moreover, there is sufficient evidence to require an investigation into whether some or all may have been directly involved in planning, ordering or committing murder, rape, torture and the burning of villages.

Amnesty International’s research identifies 13 individuals with key roles in crimes against humanity. The organization is calling for all those responsible to face justice. [The names will be released following an embargoed press conference in New York on 26 June.]

Time for accountability

Faced with mounting international pressure, last month the Myanmar authorities announced the establishment of an “Independent Commission of Enquiry” to investigate allegations of human rights violations. Previous government and military-led investigations into abuses in Rakhine State have only served to whitewash military atrocities.

“The international community should not be fooled by this latest attempt to shield perpetrators from accountability. Instead, it must finally put an end to the years of impunity and ensure that this dark chapter in Myanmar’s recent history is never repeated,” said Matthew Wells.

“The United Nations Security Council must stop playing politics and urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar and impose targeted financial sanctions against senior officials responsible for serious violations and crimes.

“While building international consensus and support for an ICC referral, the international community should use the UN Human Rights Council to set up a mechanism to collect and preserve evidence for use in future criminal proceedings.

“A failure to act now in light of the overwhelming body of evidence begs the question: what will it take for the international community to take justice seriously?”

NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The report, including the list of 13 names, will be made available at an embargoed press conference in New York on 26 June. Contact conor.fortune@amnesty.org for details.

2. Alongside the report, Amnesty International and SITU Research have created a new platform visualizing how Myanmar’s military committed crimes against humanity against the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State since 25 August 2017. The map-based narrative takes users on an interactive journey through the weeks leading up to the violence, the military’s deployment and commission of atrocities, the flight en masse of Rohingya villagers to Bangladesh, and the recent construction on top of destroyed Rohingya villages. It calls for accountability for Myanmar officials with a key role in atrocities including murder, rape and deportation of the Rohingya.
Enter the site here (after 00:01 GMT on 27 June): https://mapping-crimes-against-rohingya.amnesty.org/

Public Document
****************************************
For more information or to arrange an interview, please call:
Conor Fortune (in London until 23 June, and New York from 24-28 June) on:
+44 74 3263 3678 or
email: conor.fortune@amnesty.org
twitter: @writesrights
Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on:
+44 20 7413 5566 or
email: press@amnesty.org
twitter: @amnestypress

International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK

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Pele (standing, back row right) at the UNICEF signing ceremony. Credit: UNICEF

By Kul Chandra Gautam
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 27 2018 (IPS)

Pele’s example has inspired millions of young people to join the ‘beautiful game’ and contribute to building a peaceful and prosperous world fit for all our children.

As billions of people around the world—including millions of Nepalis—are glued to their televisions watching the 2018 World Cup, I wish to reminisce about the humanitarian dimension of a great football star who is currently not in the pitch. Pelé.

Everybody knows Pelé as probably the best football player in the world in history. But few people know about his important contribution to other great social causes. Unbeknownst to many of his fans, Pelé helped save the lives and improve the health of millions of children in Brazil.

He also helped promote such worthy global causes as ecology and environment, sports and development and peaceful resolution of conflicts as goodwill ambassador for the UN, UNESCO and UNICEF.

Pelé and breastfeeding

In the 1980s and 90s, UNICEF was involved in promoting many innovative methods of social mobilization to influence child-friendly public policies in Brazil. One example was promotion of breastfeeding to enhance child health and to reduce the high rates of infant mortality and malnutrition.

Due to the aggressive marketing of baby milk formulas by private multinational companies, breastfeeding had declined dramatically to the point that in the 1980s only eight percent of Brazilian mothers exclusively breastfed their babies during the first six months. UNICEF explored how best it could help reverse this dangerous trend.

Efforts to promote breastfeeding by the Ministry of Health and by concerned pediatricians were not producing the desired results in the face of very aggressive and deceptive advertising by the infant formula companies. In its search for who might be the most respected and credible messenger whose advice mothers would pay attention to, UNICEF came up with the most unusual yet obvious choice: Pelé—Brazil’s most popular and the world’s best football player.

It did not take much effort for UNICEF to convince Pelé to lend his name to this worthy mission of saving the lives and protecting the health of millions of Brazilian children. Decline in breastfeeding affected all segments of Brazil’s population but the worst consequences were among the poorest.

Many poor women were influenced by formula advertisers who presented bottle-feeding as the healthy and glamourous alternative to breastfeeding. Rich and beautiful women were shown as preferring bottle-feeding over breastfeeding. Even doctors and nurses in hospitals were enlisted by infant formula companies to influence new mothers to switch to bottle-feeding.

As the world’s leading child health organizations, UNICEF, WHO and the International Pediatric Association, had uncontested scientific evidence that breastfeeding was the best nutrient for infants, and that exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years with gradual introduction of healthy weaning foods protected children from infection, malnutrition and common childhood diseases.

With rare exceptions, all mothers are capable of breastfeeding which has many lifelong advantages for infants as well as for their mothers and society as a whole.

With such arguments UNICEF convinced Pelé to be its champion for breastfeeding. It helped prepare an attractive poster that was plastered all over the country in which Pelé’s mother was shown patting her famous son on the shoulder and saying: “Of course, he is the best football player in the world. I breastfed him!”

This poster became the centre-piece of a breastfeeding promotion campaign that led to a dramatic increase in exclusive breastfeeding to almost 40 percent within a few years. The lives of thousands of Brazilian children were saved and health of millions improved as a result of this campaign.

As UNICEF’s Chief for Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s, and later as its global Program Director, I had the opportunity to visit Brazil many times and witness the impact of Pelé’s contribution—along with that of the Catholic church and Brazil’s vibrant media—in that country’s impressive progress in child survival and development.

Childhood in poverty

Pelé was receptive to UNICEF’s message partly because of his own personal experience of growing up as a poor child. Born in 1940 in a poor community in the state of São Paulo in southern Brazil, Pelé’s real family name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He grew up in poverty earning money by working in tea shops as a servant.

Taught to play football by his father, he could not afford a proper football. He often played with either a grapefruit or an improvised ball made of old socks stuffed with newspapers and tied with a string. Given this personal experience, Pelé is very sensitive to the plight of children suffering from poverty. He has been a strong supporter of UNICEF and the UN’s anti-poverty development goals.

In Brazil, Pelé’s name is also associated with anti-corruption activism. In 1995, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who had once been a UNICEF consultant on social policy, appointed Pelé to the position of Extraordinary Minister for Sport. During his tenure, Pelé proposed legislation to reduce corruption in Brazilian football, which came to be known as “Pelé law.”

‘Say yes for children’

I had the opportunity to meet and interact with Pelé in 2001 when I was leading UNICEF’s plans for organizing a Global Summit at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. To build momentum for the Summit to come up with ambitious goals and strong commitment, UNICEF had launched a “Say Yes for Children” campaign with active support of luminaries like Nelson Mandela, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and dozens of world leaders.

One of the highlights of the campaign was a special partnership with FIFA. We invited FIFA President Sepp Blatter and several famous football stars and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors to join. The most prominent among them was Pelé, who signed the “Say Yes…” campaign as part of “UNICEF-FIFA Global Alliance for Children”.

I was happy to be part of that memorable ceremony at which I asked Pelé to sign a football jersey for my son Biplav Gautam, a sports enthusiast, who treasures that jersey as one of his proud possessions.

In another memorable event, Pelé helped UNICEF and FIFA to kick off the 2006 World Cup in Germany as part of a campaign to utilize the power of football to create self-esteem, mutual respect and fair play among children, and to spread the message of peace.

Pelé carried the World Cup trophy onto the pitch in Munich alongside supermodel and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Claudia Schiffer. Around 150 former World Cup winners also took part in the spectacular opening ceremony watched by more than a billion people around the world.

A special World Cup website created by UNICEF in Arabic, English, French and Spanish invited fans to join a virtual team of UNICEF supporters around the world captained by England star and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham and joined by other soccer heroes like Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Francesco Totti (Italy) and many others.

All of these players appeared in a series of TV spots produced by MTV for UNICEF and FIFA, which were broadcast around the world and in every stadium before each match. The spots ended by asking viewers to ‘UNITE FOR CHILDREN, UNITE FOR PEACE’.

Maestro of ‘beautiful game’

During his illustrious career, Pelé won three FIFA World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and broke many international records as the greatest football player of all time. His extraordinary skills—such as his ability to strike powerful and accurate shots with both feet and the elegance with which he maneuvered the ball and out-maneuvered his competitors—are legendary. More than anyone else, Pelé is credited for popularizing football as “the beautiful game.”

Due to ill health Pelé was unable to join in the opening of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. But his example has inspired millions of young people to join the ‘beautiful game’ and contribute to building a peaceful and prosperous world fit for all our children.

The link to the original article published in The Republica, a daily newspaper in Kathmandu :
http://republica.nagariknetwork.com/news/pele-beyond-football/

The post Pelé Beyond Football appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kul Chandra Gautam, a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, is author of a forthcoming memoir: “Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of United Nations”

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By WAM
Hong Kong, Jun 27 2018 (WAM)

By: Hatem Mohamed –  Abdullah Al Saleh, Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Economy, has commended the robust relations between the UAE and Hong Kong, reaffirming the UAE’s continued contribution to the Belt & Road Initiative, aimed at promoting cooperation ties between countries of the region.

"The strategic position boasted by the UAE as a global transit route for international logistics and international trade between East and West, enables the country to bolster its contributions to the ambitious Belt & Road Initiative which is conducive to effecting significant changes and a new era in international trade,"
Abdullah Al Saleh, Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Economy


“The strategic position boasted by the UAE as a global transit route for international logistics and international trade between East and West, enables the country to bolster its contributions to the ambitious Belt & Road Initiative which is conducive to effecting significant changes and a new era in international trade,” Al Saleh said during the Roundtable Lunch he had today with at the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, where he is leading the UAE delegation to the BnR Summit, opening tomorrow in Hong Kong.

“The UAE is now the second largest Arab economy and has secured great strides over the past years that earned the country a prestigious position on the global trade map thanks to its investment-friendly environment, application of best practices, and resilient logistics sector,” Al Saleh said during his meeting with the Vice Chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Brandon Liu.

“UAE and Hong Kong have several advantages in common, including the adoption of a liberal economic policy,” he added, underlining the robust re-export sector the two sides have.

The Belt and Road Summit, organised by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Hong Kong Trade Development Council, brings together senior government officials, representatives of international institutions, business leaders and industry experts from countries along and beyond the Belt and Road to exchange views on multilateral co-operation and explore new business opportunities arising from the Belt and Road Initiative.

Al Saleh presented the key investment incentives provided by the UAE to accelerate FDI inflows into the country, including resilient legislation, strong infrastructure facilities, and advanced technologies across all fields.

He called on Hong Kong investors to benefit from the country’s coveted geographical position, which gives Hong Kong companies a streamlined access to the MENA region.

For his part, the Hong Kong senior official underscored the growing interest of Chinese investors in continuing to establish fruitful strategic relations with the UAE.

He reaffirmed the significant role assumed by the UAE in the BnR Initiative.

WAM/Hatem Mohamed/Tariq alfaham

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By WAM
PETERHEAD, Scotland, Jun 27 2018 (WAM)

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Masdar, and the Norwegian multinational energy company, Equinor, (formerly Statoil) have installed, and will soon begin testing, a new battery system designed to store electricity generated by Hywind Scotland, the world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm.

The battery storage solution is the first in the world to be connected to an offshore wind farm. The project is designed to evaluate the capabilities of advanced storage technologies to optimise the release of electricity from renewable energy plants to transmission grids – from both a technical and commercial perspective.

The battery storage solution is the first in the world to be connected to an offshore wind farm. The project is designed to evaluate the capabilities of advanced storage technologies to optimise the release of electricity from renewable energy plants to transmission grids – from both a technical and commercial perspective.
Deployed at an onshore substation, the battery system known as ‘Batwind’ has a storage capacity of 1.2 megawatts, equivalent to the battery capacity of more than 1.3 million iPhones. By helping to mitigate peaks and troughs in production, the project aims to maximise the commercial value of Hywind Scotland’s electricity output.

Following the successful installation of Batwind, Masdar and Equinor will now explore how the new storage solution can be utilised to improve the operational and cost efficiency of other wind farms – to open up new commercial opportunities in an expanding global wind power market.

Bader Al Lamki, Masdar’s Executive Director for Clean Energy, said, “Energy storage is vital to unlocking the full potential of renewables by mitigating the variable nature of wind and solar power. Batwind will help us to understand how we can deploy this new technology in future projects, both in solar power and wind power plants.”

“Batwind exemplifies how we at Masdar are moving forward with our partners, through innovation and collaboration, to bring commercially viable solutions to the renewable energy sector,” he added.

According to a recent International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, report from last October, the cost of installing battery storage systems could fall by two-thirds (66 percent) by 2030. Masdar has played a key role in developing energy storage solutions as part of its commitment over the last decade to advance commercially viable clean technologies. An example is the Gemasolar concentrated solar power project in Spain, the first in the world to use molten salt thermal storage and able to generate electricity 24 hours a day.

Operational data from Batwind will be assessed based on the weather, market prices, and consumption patterns to create an intelligent and optimised storage system.

“The variability of renewable energy can to a certain extent be managed by the grid, but to integrate even more renewables, we will need to find new smart solutions for energy storage to reduce system integration costs and provide firm power,” said Sebastian Bringsvaerd, Hywind Development Manager. “How to do this in a smart and value creating way is what we are aiming to learn from Batwind.”

The Hywind Scotland wind farm was inaugurated in October 2017. Masdar holds a 25 percent stake in the project, while Equinor owns the remaining 75 percent. The wind farm is made up of five 6-megawatt turbines floating 25 kilometres off the coast of Peterhead in northeast Scotland.

With an installed capacity of 30-megawatt, Hywind Scotland supplies approximately 6,600 homes and displaces 63,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

The project is Masdar’s second offshore wind partnership with Equinor, after the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm in the English North Sea. Combined with London Array, currently the world’s largest offshore wind farm in operation, the projects bring the total capacity of the UK renewable energy projects in which Masdar is an investor to over 1 gigawatt.

Since 2006, Masdar has invested in renewable energy projects with a combined value of US$8.5 billion; the company’s share of this investment is US$2.7 billion. Besides the UK, Masdar’s renewable energy projects are located in the UAE, Jordan, Mauritania, Egypt, Morocco, Montenegro, Serbia and Spain. The electricity generating capacity of these projects, which are either fully operational or under development, is around 3 gigawatts gross.

WAM/Rola Alghoul/Rasha Abubaker

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