Genocide News Now

Irene and Elisa discuss the existential crises associated with catastrophic climate change and their impact on genocide prevention. They also go into depth on three news items: Armenia's case against Azerbaijan in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Texas's anti-abortion law (SB-8), and the recent mistreatment of Haitian refugees on the US's southern border.

Join us for a discussion of war, peacebuilding, and the problem of vested interests in Colombia and Latin America with veteran peace-maker and long-time human rights activist Louise Winstanley, the Programme and Advocacy Manager of ABColombia, a UK-based human rights organization.

Louise discusses:

• Right-wing tactics of repression in Latin America;

• Obstacles to documentation of evidence of atrocity;

• The ongoing dire situation of human rights defenders and environmental activists in Colombia, especially since the signing of the 2016 Peace Accord;

• The growth of right-wing neo-paramilitary groups;

• The history of the FARC and the political genocide of the Patriotic Union political party after its formation in the 1980s;

• The peace process that resulted in the Peace Accord in 2016 and challenges to its implementation;

• The disappointments of land reform;

• Links between multinational agricultural and mining corporations and paramilitary groups;

• The impact of Covid-19 on Colombia;

• The large-scale, nationwide social protests in spring 2021 that resulted in dozens of protesters killed by Colombian security forces;

• Police reform and the importance of peaceful protest in peacebuilding processes; and

• How we all can continue working for peace in situations of apparently intractable conflict.

Irene and Elisa do a deep dive into recent news on genocide and settler colonialism with IPG technical producer Raffi Zarzatian. Among other things, they discuss how societies can truly transform themselves in the midst of long-term genocidal institutions, including Germany, Namibia, the United States, Canada, Palestine and Israel.

The team uses recent news articles as stepping off points:

1. Deutsche Welle, "The Blind Spot of Germany's Dark History," 27 May 2021, https://fb.watch/76sPxukTqq/

2. Reinhart Koessler and Hennig Melber, "Namibian genocide: why Germany’s bid to make amends isn’t enough," The Conversation, 1 June 2021, https://theconversation.com/namibian-genocide-why-germanys-bid-to-make-amends-isnt-enough-161820

3. BBC, "Mexico apologises to Mayan people for historic abuses," 4 May 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56975966

4. Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, "Canada: ‘This one unmarked grave is what genocide looks like," Al-Jazeera, 1 July 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/1/canada-this-one-unmarked-grave-what-genocide-looks-like

5. Mustafa Abu Sneineh, "Israel detains more Palestinian citizens as arrest campaign enters second week," Middle East Eye, 31 May 2021, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-citizens-arrest-campaign-second-week

6. Ahmed Yousef, "Israel-Palestine: One-state solution is the path forward," Middle East Eye, 30 May 2021, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-one-state-solution-path-forward

On the day of the arrests of internationally-known Palestinian activists Muna and Mohammad El-Kurd in East Jerusalem, we are joined by Fadi Quran, campaign director at Avaaz and global human rights advocate, for a moving, in-depth, and inspirational discussion about the challenges of living under Apartheid in Israel-Palestine and the way forward to ensure the security and the dignity of both Palestinians and Jews in the region.

We discuss Sheikh Jarrah, the settlements, the "80/20 strategy" in Jerusalem, the terror techniques used by Israeli security forces, the question of genocide, settler colonialism, long-term historical trauma from the Holocaust, and the global connection of systems of oppression and also between struggles for liberation.

This episode encourages all of us to dream of better and more just futures, ones that can be the basis for continued ethical action in the present.

You can follow Fadi Quran on Twitter at @FadiQuran

In this episode, Anti-Genocide Coffee Break podcast hosts speak with Dr. Gurgen Petrossian, LL.M. (Heidelberg), a senior researcher at Frederick Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, and head of its International Criminal Law Research Group. He is also Chairperson of the German-Armenian Lawyers' Association.

We speak with Dr. Petrossian about the German Armenian Lawyers Association and a new claim they have submitted against Azerbaijan in the German courts for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Second Artsakh War in 2020.

As part of this discussion, we cover, among other subjects:

- An overview of the history of the Artsakh territories, including the first and second wars;

- Azerbaijani propaganda and anti-Armenianism;

- Turkish foreign policy;

- International law related to atrocity crimes;

- "Genocidal intent" in law and practice;

- Germany's recent history with universal jurisdiction; and

- The role of domestic courts in genocide prevention.

Irene and Elisa discuss genocide prevention in Iraq with Iraqi human rights activist, Ranin Taher. In particular they discuss ISIS's persecution of Iraqi Christians within the wider framework of ISIS's violence against religious and national minorities in Nineveh and Sinjar, making the case that ISIS committed genocide against Christians. Also discussed is the current political situation in Iraq, including the violent state response to national protests by the country's youth.

Dr. Marina Mchitarian Lazaridou, Armenian-Greek artist and human rights advocate, joins us for a discussion of the importance of cultural heritage, the impact of its destruction, and the role played by cultural preservation in peacebuidling. Along the way we also discuss the power of memory, of stories, of symbols, and of peace work.

We also briefly discuss news updates, including:

- UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet's statement that Israel may have committed war crimes during its recent bombing of Gaza;

- French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron's visit to Rwanda and acknowledgement of French responsibility for the Rwandan genocide;

- The launch of a Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC) by the UN migration office and the Rohingya community in Bangladesh.

Dr. Mchitarian Lazaridou's work can be found at the following sites: www.genocide-survivor9.webnode.com, www.photographsspeak.webnode.com, www.greeksofarmenia-com.webnode.com, https://frommushtoartsakh.webnode.com/

When ISIS overtook the Shengal region of northern Iraq in August 2014, it massacred Ezidi men, older women, and older boys and kidnapped women, girls, and young boys. Since then, the Ezidi community has worked tirelessly to locate and rescue the captive women and children and welcome them back into the community. The painful legal and communal question of how to define the belonging of children born of genocidal rape has lingered, causing great hardship to the mothers and children involved as well as to their families and communities.

IIn this episode, Irene and Elisa discuss this issue with Dr. Amy Beam, author of The Last Yezidi Genocide, and Farhad Shamo Roto, a Ezidi human rights advocate and survivor of the 2014 genocide. He is also president of Voice of Ezidis, which can be found here.

Irene and Elisa are back to discuss the Iraq Project's May 8 Statement on Israeli violence in Jerusalem, in which we protest the genocidal violence directed at Palestinians and Palestinian life. We talk about how we make the decision to use the term genocidal and genocide, and what it means to identify genocidal patterns in conflict. We also discuss our ongoing work in Iraq, sharing stories from our work there in 2016 and 2017.

The team is back for another in-depth conversation with Maung Zarni about the Myanmar military (the Tatmadaw) and how it became so powerful; the reasons popular support for the Tatmadaw evaporated after the February coup; the emergence of a revitalized and inclusive civil society in Myanmar; and what you can do right now to support this civil society (see below for more on that!).

Irene and Elisa also bring you up-to-date on the news, including:

1. A Guardian investigation that links illegal EU policies towards refugees to at least 2000 refugee deaths;

2. Continuing cultural genocide by Azerbaijan against Armenian heritage sites, including the destruction of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in the city of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh;

3. New reports predicting 500,000 to 1 million deaths in India from Covid-19 by July 2021;

4. US President Biden's decision to suspend patents for Covid vaccines in order to respond to the growing pandemic crisis in India and elsewhere; and

5. Renewed Israeli attempts to erase Palestinian life from Jerusalem.

To take action to support civil society in Myanmar:

1. Sign a petition to Chevron: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/demand-chevron-stop-bankrolling-the-myanmar-military?clear_id=true&source=email-stop-chevron-bankrolling-the-myanmar-military-coup-day-9

2. Sign a petition to President Biden: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/myanmar-military-coup-tell-president-biden-to-impose-sanctions

3. US residents: Tell your Senators to support the Rohingya Genocide Determination Act of 2021 (S. 1142): https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-senators-co-sponsor-the-rohingya-genocide-determination-act-of-2021-s1142

4. Join the Coalition Against Chevron in Myanmar: https://www.facebook.com/groups/263548775494329