VDC: Awaiting Verdict on Prominent Human Rights Activists in Syria
United Nations Calls for More Humanitarian Aid to North Korea as Regime Clamps Down on Aid Workers
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
PYONGYANG, North Korea – The United Nations has called $111 million in aid to fund crucial humanitarian needs in the country. The United Nations estimates that about 70% of the North Korean people are food insecure and one third of children under the age of five years old are stunted. North Korea “is both a silent and under-funded humanitarian situation,” Ghulam Isaczai, the United Nations resident coordinator for North Korea, said in a statement released last Wednesday. “Protracted and serious needs for millions of people are persistent and require sustained funding.” The call for additional funding comes as the North Korean regime cracks down on foreign aid organizations operating inside the secretive state. On Wednesday, the reclusive State’s propaganda news service announced the deportation of aid worker Sandra Suh, a United States citizen, accusing her of engaging in acts of propaganda against the state. It was the second deportation of an aid worker in less than two months after a German aid organization announced one of its workers was expelled in February.
The Korean Central News Agency claimed Suh had “engaged in anti-DPRK propaganda abroad with photos and videos about the DPRK she secretly produced and directed, out of inveterate repugnancy toward the DPRK.” Timothy Park, who accompanied Suh to North Korea, said the allegations were without basis. Suh has been named in the media as the founder of Los Angeles-based Wheat Mission Ministries.
Despite the regimes apparent crackdown on foreign aid workers the North Korean people remain desperate for humanitarian aid as the state continues to fail to meet their basic needs. According to the United Nations latest report on North Korea, Children in rural areas and those in institutions such as nurseries, kindergartens and orphanages have little access to water and sanitation contributing to the spread of waterborne diseases. About 25 percent of North Korea’s 24.62 million people still have no access to essential health services.
According to the economist Marcus Noland, North Korea could close the food gap and end food insecurity in the country with less than two-tenths of one percent of national income or one percent of the regimes military budget. The Kim Jong-un regime is known to be spending six times that of the United Nations latest appeal for aid to North Korea on luxury goods as North Korea’s elite regime insiders continue live in obscene wealth while most people go hungry.
For more information please see:
Deutsche Welle – Expulsions Hinder Foreign NGO Activities in North Korea – 13 April 2015
The Diplomat – North Korea Clamps Down On Foreign Aid Groups – 13 April 2015
Reuters – U.N. Calls For $111 Million for Crucial Aid for North Kore – 9 April 2015
The Wall Street Journal – North Korea Deports U.S. Aid Worker – 8 April 2015
New Talks Scheduled in Search of More Permanent Peace in Ukraine
By Kyle Herda
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
KIEV, Ukraine – Following a long period of relative rest in Eastern Ukraine, there has been another spike in reported use of heavy weapons on the frontline by both sides, in violation of the second Minsk agreement. As a result, France, Ukraine, Russia, and Germany will once again meet to try and work out a way to restore and keep peace.
The current ceasefire agreement requires both sides to pull back weapons with a caliber over 100mm from the front line. The rebels are accused of multiple incidents of 120-122mm attacks on government troops, and Kiev is accused of firing tank and artillery repeatedly at rebels. Pro-Russian senior commander Eduard Basurin claims two journalists were wounded in an attack by the government when troops fired around Pisky, near Donetsk. Kiev also claims one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and six wounded by the rebels while in the east.
One area under great risk of heavy fighting is the port city of Mariupol, which has seen scattered fighting already in the regions nearby. The city saw heavy fighting at points last year when the conflict was hot throughout the east, but has since been essentially fortified by Ukrainian troops. Mariupol’s position on the water with access to the Black Sea, as well as its position on land between rebel-held land and Russian-held Crimea, makes it a likely target for the rebels or Russia should they make a big push. Further, the 500,000 civilians within Mariupol are divided: 75 percent support Kiev, while 25 percent support separating from Ukraine. More than 1,000 Ukrainian troops have been deployed to Mariupol since last summer.
There have been over 6,000 killed in the conflict since it began over a year ago, and while many parties have tried to find a solution that results in peace and stability for all, nobody seems to have a permanent answer. Constant smaller violations of the current ceasefire, as well as the occasional serious violations as we have again seen recently, allow the peace to remain a fragile façade that both sides wear while continuing to act in furtherance of their ultimate goals with no resolve for the greater peace. Barring a large-scale conflict and renewed heavy fighting that proves successful for one side, either both sides must be willing to give, or fighting will continue as we have seen: indefinitely and with no hope for peace in sight.
For more information, please see:
Reuters – Violence escalates in east Ukraine ahead of talks – 14 April 2015
The Wall Street Journal – Diplomats Seek Withdrawal of Heavy Weapons From Ukraine Front Lines – 13 April 2015
Ukraine Today – ‘Normandy Four’ meeting today in Berlin for talks on fragile east Ukraine ceasefire – 13 April 2015
The Wall Street Journal – European Officials Push for Lasting Peace Deal in Ukraine – 12 April 2015
The Daily Signal – Visit to a Mariupol Hospital Lays Bare Ukraine War’s Toll – 12 April 2015
ISIS Videos Shows Deliberate Destruction of the Ancient City of Nimrud
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) shows militants using power tools and bulldozers to deface and destroy monuments in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, before the site was completely destroyed with explosives. The video comes only a week after another video showed the destruction of the UNESCO cite at the Ancient city of Hatra. Damage to Nimrud was first reported in March but the new video shows the full scale of the destruction of the historic cultural site which has stood for more than 3,000 years surviving countless conflicts and regimes.
Nimrud, which was once the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire and a major Assyrian city from about 1250BC to 610BC, is located 20 miles south of the modern city of Mosul and is just 3 miles outside the small village of Selamiyah, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered one of most important archaeological sites in Iraq. Nimrud was first excavated by modern archeologists in the 19th century when many of its artifacts were removed from their homeland and transported to Europe’s largest museums including the British Museum and the Louver, Sadly these artifacts that were once stolen from Nimrud and the Iraqi are now among the only surviving artifacts from the city following its horrific destruction.
Flashpoint Intelligence, a global security firm, could not confirm that the site shown in the video is in fact the ancient city of Nimrud. However, the organization said “online chatter does seem to corroborate the claims, and the rest of the video does follow the group’s pattern of destroying ‘idols,’ as they call it.” If confirmed, this destruction of cultural sites that belong not only to the people of Iraq but all of humanity, is a crime under international law. The loss of the city of Nimrud is a tragedy not only for the people of Iraq but for humanity, the city represents the cultural achievements of Ancient Mesopotamia, considered by many to be the birthplace of both agriculture and western civilization
ISIS has targeted several other Assyrian sites in Iraq and destroyed countless manuscripts, books and other artefacts that they have declared to be un-Islamic and blasphemous. The group recently destroyed a library in Mosul that contained more than 8,000 ancient manuscripts Irinia Bokova, the director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (UNESCO) has previous condemned the destruction of key historical sites by ISIS saying that the “deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime.”
Earlier this year’s ISIS supports claimed they were ordered by the Profit to commit these acts of Iconoclasm, the deliberate destruction of cultural and religious idols of other cultures, saying, “the Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him.” While the militants claim their actions are motivated by a desire to destroy what it sees as idolatry ISIS itself does not destroy all artifacts its encounters, instead the illegal looting and selling of antiquities is a primary source of ISIS funding.
For more information please see:
NBC News – ISIS Video Shows Apparent Destruction of Nimrud Archaeological Site – 12 April 2015
The Jerusalem Post – WATCH: ISIS Razes Ancient City in Latest Bid to Erase ‘Un-Islamic’ History – 12 April 2015
USA Today – Video Purports To Show ISIL Destroying Ancient City of Nimrud – 12 April 2015
The Guardian – Isis Video Confirms Destruction at UNESCO World Heritage Site in Hatra – 5 April 2015