Venezuelans Cross the Border for Food

By Cintia Garcia

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela—The Venezuelan government opened the border between Colombia and Venezuela for 12 hours on Sunday after a group of women broke through the border the previous Tuesday to purchase food. Government officials have also announced the possibility of reopening the border between both nations again in the near future. Colombia and Venezuela are currently in negotiations and are planning to hold a summit.

Thousands line up to enter Colombia to buy basic needs. (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

Since August 2015, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut 100 kilometers of the border between San Antonio del Tachira Venezuela and Cucuta Colombia. President Maduro’s reasoning for the border closure was to prevent crime—he claimed the area had been overtaken by gangs and Colombian paramilitaries. Since the closure, in addition to a severe economic downturn in Venezuela, many have been going hungry because there is no food to buy on market shelves.

The situation led 500 women on Tuesday to storm the border connected by the Simon Bolivar Bridge and enter Colombia. The women had organized through social media to gather at the border and cross into Colombia dressed in white. The women pushed past the national guard, bought basic supplies, asked the Colombian guards to let them back through and reentered Venezuela singing the national anthem.

The act by the women prompted the Venezuelan government to open the border on Sunday for 12 hours. Approximately 35,000 people crossed into Colombia crowding the markets to buy rice, oil, toilet paper, medicine and any other basic necessity.

Venezuela’s food scarcity continues to grow causing families, especially children, to go hungry. Venezuela relies largely on imports to feed the nation since it does not produce other goods to fabricate products. Venezuela’s main production and revenue stems from oil. A drop in oil prices globally has caused an economic crisis in the country. A shortage in revenue means that Venezuela cannot import the goods needed to keep markets stocked to feed its citizens. Some critics believe that this is partially the result of government mismanagement. The Venezuelan government says a war is being waged against it for its socialist policies.

For more information, please see:

The Guardian—Venezuelans Storm Colombia Border City in Search of Food and Basic Goods—5 July 2016

BBC—Venezuelan Women Push Past Border Controls for Food—6 July 2016

BBC—Venezuelans Cross into Colombia to buy Food—10 July 2016

TeleSur—Venezuela and Colombia Open Common Border for 12 hours—10 July 2016

PILPG: War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Volume 11 – Issue 9 July 11, 2016

War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Volume 11 – Issue 9 July 11, 2016

Case School of Law Logo

FREDERICK K. COX
INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTER
Founder/Advisor
Michael P. Scharf

PILPG Logo

 

 

Editor-in-Chief
Kevin J. Vogel

Technical Editor-in-Chief
Jeradon Z. Mura

Managing Editors
Dustin Narcisse
Victoria Saran

War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war

crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type “subscribe” in the subject line.

Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.

Contents

AFRICA

Central African Republic

Sudan & South Sudan

Democratic Republic of the Congo

WEST AFRICA

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Lake Chad Region — Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon

Mali

EAST AFRICA

Uganda

Kenya

Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)

NORTH AFRICA

Libya

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Iraq

Syria

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

TOPICS

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Terrorism

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

African Union: Activists Challenge Attacks on ICC

Originally posted by Human Rights Watch

AU: Activists Challenge Attacks on ICC
Video Highlights Problems in AU Approach


(Nairobi, July 6, 2016) – Activists from across Africa clarify misconceptions about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and highlight the need for African governments to support the court in a video released today by 21 African and international nongovernmental organizations.

In January 2016, the African Union (AU) gave its Open-Ended Committee of African Ministers on the ICC a mandate to develop a “comprehensive strategy” on the ICC, including considering the withdrawal of African member countries from the court. The committee met in April and agreed on three conditions that needed to be met by the ICC in order for the AU to agree not to call on African countries to withdraw from the court. These include a demand for immunity from ICC prosecution for sitting heads of state and other senior government officials – which is contrary to a fundamental principle of the court.

It is not clear if the AU will consider any of the open-ended committee’s assessments and recommendations at its upcoming summit in Kigali, Rwanda, from July 10 to 18.

The video features 12 African activists who raise concerns about AU actions toward the ICC.

“The reasons why we supported the establishment of a permanent court as Africa have not changed,” says Stella Ndirangu of the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya. “The only thing that has changed is that now leaders are being held to account.”

“To say that the ICC is targeting Africa, I think, is a misrepresentation of the situation,” says Angela Mudukuti of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre. “It’s more Africans making use of the court they helped to create.”

“The big clash [these days] is over African leaders, the powerful few, who really want impunity for themselves, versus the vast majority, in fact all of the victims of Africa’s continent, who want justice every day,” says Ibrahim Tommy of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law-Sierra Leone.

“Governments of the world must support [the] ICC to give justice to victims in Africa,” says Chino Obiagwu of the Legal Defence and Assistance Project of Nigeria.

Six out of the nine African situations under ICC investigation came about as a result of requests or grants of jurisdictions by African governments – Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Uganda, and the Central African Republic twice. Two other investigations in Africa, the Darfur region of Sudan and Libya, were referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council. In Kenya, the ICC prosecutor received the authorization of an ICC pretrial chamber to open investigations after Kenya repeatedly failed to investigate the 2007-08 post-election violence domestically.

In January, the ICC prosecutor opened the court’s first investigation outside Africa, into Georgia, and is conducting several preliminary examinations of situations outside Africa – including in Afghanistan, Colombia, Palestine, and alleged crimes attributed to the armed forces of the United Kingdom deployed in Iraq.

The recommendations from the open-ended committee are the latest development in a backlash against the ICC from some African leaders, which has focused on claims that the ICC is “unfairly targeting Africa.” The backlash first intensified following the ICC’s 2009 arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for serious crimes committed in Darfur.

While blanket immunity for sitting heads of state is available in some domestic jurisdictions, it has never been available before international criminal courts dealing with grave crimes.

The AU, in 2015, adopted a protocol to give its continental court authority to prosecute grave crimes, but also, in a controversial provision, grants immunity for sitting heads of states and other senior government officials. That protocol will need 15 ratifications before coming into force, but has yet to be ratified by any country.

The video is endorsed by the following organizations that are part of an informal group that works to promote support for justice for grave crimes in Africa and beyond:

Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (Ghana)
African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (Uganda)
Africa Legal Aid
Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (Sierra Leone)
Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (Malawi)
Children Education Society (Tanzania)
Club des Amis du Droit du Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Coalition for the International Criminal Court (Burundi)
Coalition for the International Criminal Court (Global)
DefendDefenders – East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme
Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (Uganda)
Human Rights Watch
International Commission of Jurists (Kenya)
Kenya Human Rights Commission
Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice
Legal Defense and Assistance Project (Nigeria)
Nigerian Coalition for the International Criminal Court
Réseau Justice Et Développement (Togo)
Southern Africa Litigation Centre
Southern Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (Zambia)

The video can be viewed on Facebook here or on the Human Rights Watch media site here .

Berlin Anti-Gentrification Riot Leaves 123 Police Officers Injured

By Sarah Lafen

Impunity Watch Desk Reporter, Europe

BERLIN, Germany — In what authorities are calling the most violent protest in Berlin in over five years, 3,500 leftist protestors marched Saturday through Friedrichshain to oppose the gentrification of a district in the eastern part of the city.  Over the past decade, investment money has flowed into the German capital, making its way to previously run-down neighborhoods of Berlin.  This surge has increased rents in neighborhoods formerly home to artists and squatters.

Leftist protestors light flares on top of R94 in opposition to gentrification efforts (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

The protest began peacefully, and police used a helicopter to monitor the crowd.  The scene quickly turned violent as missiles, cobblestones, firecrackers, flares, and glass bottles were eventually thrown at the police officers.  123 of the 1,800 officers on scene were injured, and 86 protestors were arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, causing injury, and illegal use of explosives.  Police used tear gas, pepper spray, and billy clubs to break up the riot.  Residents who live in housing collectives in the neighborhood banged spoons on pots and pans in support of the leftist squatters.

Since June, there have been movements to evict squatters on the land in furtherance of efforts to gentrify neighborhoods that have been home to the squatters for decades.  The eviction of a house called “Rige Street 94” (R94) occupied by squatters in Friedrichshain on June 22 sparked the onset of aggressive demonstrations, the smashing of shop windows, and the burning of dozens of cars in opposition to the gentrification movement.

These leftist activists protest the invasion of what they call “yuppies” and “big shots” into the area of Berlin which they currently occupy.  Various leftist websites have supported the anti-gentrification movement, encouraging their followers to cause as much disruption as possible to voice their opposition to the gentrification.

Frank Henkel, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, categorized the riots as “arbitrary terror” and stated that his political party will not allow “lawless areas” to exist in any part of Berlin, including R94.

For more information, please see:

BBC — Berlin Riot : 123 Police Injured in Anti-Gentrification Protest — 10 July 2016

NY Times — Berlin Protests in Support of Squatters Turn Violent — 10 July 2016

Wall Street Journal — Berlin Leftist Rioting Leaves 120 Police Officers Injured — 10 July 2016

Breitbart — Berlin Rocked by Nightly Riots from Left-Wing Extremists — 5 July 2016

SYRIA DEEPLY: July 9, 2016

The Basics · The Government · ISIS · The Opposition · Global Players

WEEKLY UPDATE
July 9, 2016

 

Dear Readers, 

Welcome to the weekly Syria Deeply newsletter. We’ve rounded up the most important stories and developments about Syria and the Syrians in order to bring you valuable news and analysis. But first, here is a brief overview of what happened this week:

The week began on a hopeful note in Syria, as opposing international players agreed to cooperate for the sake of a political solution to the crisis, and the Syrian government announced a nationwide cease-fire for the occasion of Eid, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. But by the week’s end, the truce had broken down and some 300,000 civilians were besieged in Syria’s largest city.

After more than five months of increased violence in Aleppo, forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad have managed to cut the opposition’s only supply route in Aleppo: Castello Road. This most recent offensive for Aleppo is one of the Syrian government’s many attempts at seizing the city’s eastern areas, which have been an opposition stronghold since 2012.

Rebels said they are fighting back and have sent for reinforcements to try to regain their positions, but overnight airstrikes worsened their situation. A volunteer with the Syrian Civil Defense told Syria Deeply that Syrian government and Russian aircrafts were constantly above the city and countryside of Aleppo province. He added that two heavy attacks hit the city on Thursday, both of which the volunteer team believes were by Russian warplanes.

The United States voiced its concerns over the situation in Aleppo and an American intelligence official said, “This campaign exacerbates an already dire humanitarian situation and sets the stage for a humanitarian catastrophe.”

However, U.S. diplomatic decisions took a different tone this week. The day before the siege began, the United States and Russia agreed to increase their military coordination in Syria. The military partnership between Washington and Moscow would see a renewed commitment between the two countries to defeat terrorist groups in Syria.

The announcement came after a week of complicating alliances between foreign powers involved in the Syrian conflict. Ayatollah Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, said that his country will never work with the U.S. in Syria or in other regional conflicts. Iran is the Syrian government’s biggest supporter and is also aligned with Russia.

Russia gained another hopeful ally this week. Turkey, a partner in the U.S.-backed coalition against ISIS and a supporter of the Syrian opposition, said it is open to cooperating with Russia when it comes to fighting ISIS.

Formerly unfriendly countries may be warming up to each other diplomatically for the fight against ISIS in Syria, but the situation on the ground tells a different story.

The New Syrian Army, a U.S.-backed rebel group, was pushed back into the desert last week after a failed offensive in the ISIS-controlled town al-Bukamal, near the Iraqi border. The U.S. is currently investigating claims that American warplanes abandoned rebels after being diverted from Syria to Iraq.

Weekly Highlights:

Operating Under Siege and Bombs in Aleppo

As eastern Aleppo comes under siege by Syrian government forces, Syria Deeply goes inside one of the last remaining proper hospitals in the eastern opposition-held areas of the city and talks with a general surgeon operating amid the increasing violence.

Dr. Abu Sayyed, a physician in one of Aleppo’s last remaining proper hospitals, discusses how his facility operates with limited staff and supplies. Lindsey Snell and Mustafa Sultan

Conversations: Selling Military Antiques in Wartime

Abu Abdo owns an antique shop in Eastern Ghouta, one of the heaviest-hit areas in the war-ravaged country. The shop owner spoke with Syria Deeply about his decision to remain in his war-torn hometown and keep his family’s business running, despite no longer being able to sell anything.

Antique decorative objects hang on the wall in Abu Abdo’s shop. Eastern Ghouta, June, 2016. Syria Deeply

The Silent Suffering of Syria’s Chronically Ill

In the first installment of our series on chronic illnesses in Syria, we explore how the war has destroyed the country’s healthcare system, left millions of Syrians unable to manage their conditions and led to severe complications and untold unnecessary deaths.Worsening health conditions in Syria have also allowed for the resurgence of life-threatening illnesses that had largely been eradicated.

Syrian government artillery damaged a ambulance in the province of Daraa. Syrian Network For Human Rights

Additional Reading:

For new reporting and analysis every weekday, visit www.newsdeeply.com/syria.
You can reach our team with any comments or suggestions at info@newsdeeply.org.

Top image: Abu Abdo holds a dagger called “Karda”. Eastern Ghouta, June, 2016. Syria Deeply

Read the original post here.