Brazil: Opposition Seeks Resignation from Eduardo Cunha

By Kaitlyn Degnan
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILIA, Brazil — Members of Brazil’s Congress are calling for the resignation of Eduard Cunha, President of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies after newspaper Folha de S. Paolo reported that he received kickbacks from a Petrobras contract.

President of Brazil’s House of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha. (Photo courtesy of the BBC).

Cunha is a member of the Party for the Democratic Movement of Brazil, which is part of the government coalition. Cunha left the coalition in July after a Petrobras consultant alleged that he demanded bribes for contracts.

Cunha denied involvement in the scheme back in March.

Cunha allegedly received kickbacks in a Swiss account from a Petrobras contract in Africa. A lobbyist (reportedly the operator for PMDB at Petrobras) said he deposited $7.5 million in Cunha’s account. Swiss officials confirmed that there was $5 million in accounts belonging to Cunha, according to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.

His attorneys, in a statement said that they learned about the allegations from media report. They plan to ask the Supreme Court for access to the investigation.

Opposition leaders sent Cunha an e-mail urging him to resign. A group of MPs, Rousseff’s supporters on the left, demanded Cunha be investigated under the code of ethics.

Cunha has denied the accounts, and said that he will not resign. He claims that the Brazil’s chief prosecutor leaked the information to embarrass him politically.

These calls for resignation comes just days after Brazil’s Court of Accounts ruled that President Dilma Rousseff’s government “overstated tax receipts and hid expenses,” manipulating 2014 revenue and spending figures. It is up to Cunha to make the decision on whether to let the dozen or so impeachment motions filed in Congress to proceed.

It is reported that Cunha was working with other members to start the proceedings when news broke of the kickbacks.

The president’s office has so far declined to comment on the matter.

 

For more information, please see:

Huffington Post – Eduardo Cunha: Time to Resign – 7 October 2015

Wall Street Journal – Brazil Watchdog Rules Against Rousseff, Fueling Impeachment Talk – 7 October 2015

BBC – Brazil opposition demands sacking of Congress speaker – 10 October 2015

Bloomberg Business- Brazil’s Cunha got Kickbacks from Petrobras Contract, Folha Says – 10 October 2015

Bloomberg Business – Rousseff’s Most Powerful Foe Suffers Blow in Kickback Scandal – 10 October 2015

 

 

Documents Show Pinochet Ordered 1976 Assassination

By Kaitlyn Degnan
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America 

SANTIAGO, Chile — Newly declassified documents show that 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was directly ordered by General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet ruled Chile as dictator from 1973 until 1990.

Orlando Letelier, along with an American co-worker, was killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976. A third passenger was seriously injured, but survived.

A Washington, D.C. memorial to Letelier and Ronni Moffit. (Photo courtesy of the New York Times).

Letelier was a former Chilean defense and foreign minister, a top official under Salvador Allende, the Marxist President deposed in the 1973 coup. Before fleeing to the United States, Letelier was tortured and jailed.

In the United States, Letelier lobbied against Pinochet’s government and was considered one of its most prominent opponents.

The documents included a secret 1987 memorandum written by George P. Shultz, then Secretary of State. The memorandum (addressed to President Ronald Reagan) referred to a C.I.A. report which he said contained “convincing evidence that President Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murders.”

Chilean courts held agents of DINA, the intelligent agency and Pinochet’s secret police, responsible for the murder.

The former director of DINA, General Manuel Contreras, was later tried and convicted of human rights violations in the 1990s by a Chilean court. He was sentenced to 505 years in prison, where he died on August 8, 2015.

The documents allegedly include correspondence from Contreras confirming that “all foreign operations had been approved by Pinochet.”

It has long been assumed that Pinochet was responsible for the murder, but this is the first presentation of conclusive evidence.

John Kerry gave the collection of over 280 documents to the Chilean government while in the country this week. The documents had previously been withheld from the last release of documents related to the Pinochet regime, released by the Clinton administration from 1999 to 2000. The Justice Department had renewed the investigation into the case and the withheld documents were considered potential evidence.

The release of the documents was reported by Chilean Senator Juab Pablo Letelier, son of the late Orlando Letelier. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet arranged for Senator Letelier to receive copies of the documents. He said that the documents contained “concrete information about how Pinochet covered up his responsibility.”

 

For more information, please see:

The Guardian – Pinochet directly ordered killing on US soil of Chilean diplomat, papers reveal – 8 October 2015

Reuters – U.S. documents show Pinochet ordered Letelier’s murder: Chilean senator – 8 October 2015

Washington Post – Declassified US docs reveal Pinochet ordered killing in US – 8 October 2015

Fox News Latino – Chilean dictator Pinochet personally ordered assassination of diplomat, documents reveal – 9 October 2015

New York Times – C.I.A. Believed Pinochet Ordered 1976 Assassination in U.S., Memo Reveals – 9 October 2015

 

 

 

Christian Pastor in Bangladesh Survives Murder Attempt

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 

DHAKA, Bangladesh—

A Baptist pastor survived a murder attempt on Monday, after he invited three men who expressed interest in religion into his home.

Reverend Luke Sarker, the pastor of Faith Bible Church in Pabna, a district in northwest Bangladesh, is a Bangladeshi that recently converted to Christianity. In September, he met with two men to discuss religion and their interest in converting to Christianity.

The men then requested a second meeting with Reverend Sarker for Monday and came to his home along with a third man. During their meeting with Reverend Sarker, his wife left the room. The three men then attacked him Reverend Sarker and attempted to slit his throat with a knife. When Reverend Sarker cried out for help, his wife and neighbors rushed to his aid. His attackers then fled and police later found a motorbike near the home. Reverend Sarker’s wounds from the knife attack were not serious.

Police have arrested a member of Islami Chhatra Shibir, which is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party that opposes Bangladesh’s current government. The member, Obaidul Islam, was detained for questioning after police raided his home in Pabna. According to a local police chief, Rezaul Karim, police also arrested a local businessman and an activist for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, another opposing political party and a key ally of Jamaat-e-Islami.

This attack comes after last week’s murders of two foreigners living in Bangladesh. One, an Italian aid worker employed in Dhaka, and the other, a Japanese famrer residing in northern Bangladesh, were shot to death. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the websites of radical Islamic groups, the Islamic State declared responsibility for their deaths. There has been no independent confirmation that the Islamic State was responsible for the killings.

The Bangladesh government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has rejected the Islamic State’s claim and has instead blamed the attacks on the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami. The Bangladesh government believes that through the attacks, the opposition groups are attempting to destabilize the country. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party denied involvement in the attacks.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. (Photo courtesy of HNGN)

There have also recently been a series of attacks against secular bloggers in Bangladesh, whose population is predominantly Muslim. This year, four secular bloggers were hacked to death. Extremist Islamic groups are believed to be behind the attacks.

 

For more information, please see:

Headlines and Global News (HNGN) – Christian Pastor Escapes Murder Attempt in Northwest Bangladesh, Police Arrest Suspect – 7 October 2015

Associated Press – Christian Pastor Survives Knife Attack at Home in Bangladesh – 6 October 2015

BBC – Bangladesh Pastor Survives Knife Attack – 6 October 2015

New York Times – Baptist Pastor in Bangladesh Survives Knife Attack – 6 October 2015

 

 

 

 

 

Syria Deeply: Russia Is Intensifying the Syria Conflict

WEEKLY UPDATE
October 9, 2015
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.

Russia Is Intensifying the Syria Conflict

It’s hard to fathom, writes political analyst Sharif Nashashibi in his debut article for Syria Deeply, but the civil war is about to get a lot worse. “This new push by the Syrian government’s allies,” he writes, “is setting the stage for the further escalation and prolongation of the conflict. If Moscow thinks its current muscle flexing will pacify Syria, it is sorely mistaken.”

My Syrian Diary Part 42

“It looks like escaping has become our new destiny,” writes Marah in this week’s diary entry. “We want to escape from home, from our responsibilities and from the whole country. What’s left? Maybe I will escape life altogether. The situation keeps deteriorating. I try not to let this crisis affect everything I do, but I always fail in this effort. The crisis is stronger than me. It actually controls my life.”

War Widows: Caught Between Unbearable Losses and Daily Challenges

Thousands of widowed Syrian women face poverty as well as grief. Unable to work, and with no income of their own, they often endure strict control from their remaining family. For some, life is so difficult that they make the heartbreaking decision to remarry in a desperate attempt to find financial stability. Syria Deeply’s partners on the ground spoke to widows throughout Idlib province about how they’re coping.

More Recent Stories to Look Out for at Syria Deeply:

Nigeria’s Continued Success Against Boko Haram

By Tyler Campbell

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

 

ABUJA, Nigeria – Late on April 16, 2014 heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists raided a Government Girls Secondary School and abducted nearly 200 girls from their dorms. Around 9 p.m. gunmen overtook soldiers guarding the school in a lengthy gun battle and forced nearly 200 girls onto trucks and vans. As they left the town they set fire to homes and business throughout the town.

(Loading those recused from Boko Haram onto trucks. Photo courtesy: Pan Atlantic Journal)

These scenes have become frighteningly commonplace in Nigeria. Terrorist organizations like Boko Haram, which roughly translates to western education is forbidden, had become an accepted part of life. This was true, until newly elected president Muhammadu Buhari declared all out war on these types of organizations. At first there was major backlash against president Buhari and his policy of eliminating these groups by December 2015. In fact, attacks by Boko Haram and other groups intensified right after Buhari’s election. Finally it seems the tides are starting to turn against these organizations and Nigeria’s military is racking up some notable accomplishments.

 

On September 23, the Nigerian military had one of these notable accomplishments. The military conducted raids on two Boko Haram camps and freed 241 women and children being held there. Along with freeing these prisoners they also captured 43 militants. One of these 43 was a notable Boko Haram kingpin named Bulama Modu.

 

Along with capturing militants, the Nigerian military destroyed the camps and captured weaponry, which ranged from AK-47’s to bows and arrows. One captured militant even gave up the location of a Boko Haram IED factory in the Dara Jamel village in Nigeria. The attitude of surrender seems to be spreading throughout the Boko Haram. Many militants have been caught burying their weapons and fleeing or surrendering to Nigerian troops.

 

Today a remaining pocket of Boko Haram terrorist attempted to make a last stand against the advancing forces of the Nigerian 120 Task Force Battalion. The Battalion successfully repelled the advance and inflicted heavy casualties on group. After the advance, a minimum of 100 militant bodies were found. The task force also captured a sizeable arms cache, which included 2 Rocket Propelled Grenades and supplies for making more IED’s.

 

As Boko Haram continues to retreat and lose ground they have been forced underground and out of the country. In the coming months it is likely that the group will turn more and more toward guerilla type tactics. This trend is already beginning to materialize. Last month Boko Haram claimed multiple suicide bombings  throughout Nigeria. Unfortunately, this is a price Nigeria and the surrounding area will have to pay as Boko Haram is slowly overwhelmed.

 

For more information, please see:

All Africa – Nigerian Army Kills Scores of Boko Haram Insurgents in Yobe State – 7 October 2015

Nigerian Army ­– Press Release – 23 September 2015

CNN – Nigerian forces free 241 women, children in Boko Haram camps, arrest kingpin – 23 September 2015

CNN – As many as 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram, Nigerian officials say – 16 April 2014