UNITED NATIONS: An independent review of United Nations operations in the years before hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar’s military concluded that the organization’s many bodies failed to act together, resulting in “systemic and structural failures.”
The 36-page review by Gert Rosenthal, Guatemala’s former foreign minister, released Monday said the UN could conceivably have reconciled competing views on whether quiet diplomacy or outspoken advocacy against human rights abuses in Myanmar should have been used — but it didn’t.
The result — as in Sri Lanka at the end of the civil war against Tamil separatists in 2009 — was a “dysfunctional performance of the UN system,” Rosenthal said.
“Without question serious errors were committed and opportunities were lost in the UN system following a fragmented strategy rather than a common plan of action,” he said, adding that the “systemic failure was further magnified by some bureaucratic and unseemly infighting.”
The long-simmering crisis exploded in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in northern Rakhine State in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign forced more than 720,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh and led to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes, killings and burned thousands of homes.
Rosenthal said the key lesson is “to foster an environment encouraging different entities of the UN system to work together.”
On a more optimistic note, he said since UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took office at the start of 2017, “there appears to be renewed recognition of the crucial importance of improved coordination.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres, who commissioned the report, has accepted all of its recommendations “and is committed to implementing them.”
“The secretary-general is very grateful to Mr. Rosenthal for producing a candid, forthright and very useful report,” he said.
The review covers the UN involvement in Myanmar since 2010, when the at the time military-fueled nation moved started opening up to the outside world, eventually leading to elections and moves toward a more open, market-oriented economy.
Rosenthal said “for all these positive tendencies with their ups and downs over time,” Myanmar also engaged in “long-festering discriminatory treatment against minorities” for decades, most especially the Rohingya.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.
In his conclusions and recommendations, Rosenthal said Myanmar’s government is mainly responsible for the grave abuses against the Rohingya.
He said the UN system “has been relatively impotent to effectively work with the authorities of Myanmar to reverse the negative trends in the area of human rights and consolidate the positive trends in other areas.”
He also noted “increasing criticism regarding the lack of leadership displayed by Aung San Suu Kyi,” the government’s de facto leader, “as well as her unwillingness to take distance from the military.”
Although the UN’s systematic failures are not down to any single entity or any individuals, Rosenthal said, “clearly there is a shared responsibility on the part of all parties involved in not having been able to accompany the government’s political process with constructive actions, while at the same time conveying more forcefully the United Nations’ principled concerns regarding grave human rights violations.”
Rosenthal said the UN Security Council as the world body’s most powerful organization should also bear some responsibility because its divisions failed to provide support to the UN Secretariat “when such backing was and continues to be essential.”
The Secretariat “would have benefited enormously” from Security Council support for an impartial UN observer presence in Rakhine state “to deter the use of violence in general,” he said.
He said the UN, which has multiple ways to engage its 193 member states, could find ways “to criticize and prod governments that engage in serious violations of international law while at the same time cooperating with them in delivering humanitarian and development assistance.”
“This would be the highly desirable objective to address the obvious dysfunctional performance of the UN system observed in both Sri Lanka and Myanmar,” he said.
But Rosenthal said “recent experience, precisely in both countries, has gone in the opposite direction, with mindsets and specific actions” competing rather than complementing each other.
Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, said the United Nations failed to keep its promise of “never again” to mass atrocities after the wartime deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Sri Lanka.
“If the UN leadership is determined to change its internal culture, it needs to hold UN officials most responsible for ignoring ethnic cleansing in Myanmar accountable for their inaction,” he said.
UN failed before Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar: Expert
UN failed before Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar: Expert
- An expert said said the UN could conceivably have reconciled competing views on whether quiet diplomacy or outspoken advocacy against human rights abuses in Myanmar should have been used, but it didn't
- The result was a “dysfunctional performance of the UN system”
Trump’s funding freeze triggers worry, Democrats say it hits Medicaid program
- Order sows confusion among US agencies
- Foreign aid also frozen, lifesaving medicines withheld
Despite assurances from the Trump administration that programs delivering critical benefits to Americans would not be affected, US Senator Ron Wyden, the top finance committee Democrat, said his office had confirmed that the portal doctors use to secure payments from Medicaid had been deactivated in all 50 states.
Medicaid, which covers about 70 million people, is jointly funded by both the states and the federal government, and each state runs its own program.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt could not say whether the program had been frozen, telling reporters at her first briefing since Trump took office on Jan. 20, “I’ll get back to you.”
Leavitt later posted on X that the federal government was aware of the Medicaid portal outage and that no payments had been affected. The website will be back online “shortly,” she said. The order, laid out in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the federal budget, will freeze federal grants and loans as of 5 p.m. Tuesday (2200 GMT) while the administration ensures they are aligned with the Republican president’s priorities, including executive orders he signed ending diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Federal grants and loans reach into virtually every corner of Americans’ lives, with trillions of dollars flowing into education, health care and anti-poverty programs, housing assistance, disaster relief, infrastructure and a host of other initiatives.
The memo said Tuesday’s freeze included any money intended “for foreign aid” and for “nongovernmental organizations,” among other categories.
The White House said the pause would not impact Social Security or Medicare payments to the elderly or “assistance provided directly to individuals,” such as some food aid and welfare programs for the poor.
In a second memo released on Tuesday, OMB officials said funds for Medicaid, Head Start, farmers, small businesses and rental assistance would continue without interruption. The freeze followed the Republican president’s suspension of foreign aid last week, a move that began cutting off the supply of lifesaving medicines on Tuesday to countries around the world that depend on US development assistance.
DISPUTED EFFECTS Four groups representing nonprofits, public health professionals and small businesses filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the directive, saying it “will have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients.” Democratic state attorneys general also said they would ask a court on Tuesday to block the freeze from taking effect.
“From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting food assistance, safety from domestic violence, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives,” Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the four groups that sued on Tuesday, said in a statement.
In Connecticut, the reimbursement system for Head Start — a government program that provides early education and other benefits to low-income families — was shut down, preventing preschools from paying staff, Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy said on X. The OMB memo did not appear to exempt disaster aid to areas like Los Angeles and western North Carolina that have been devastated by natural disasters. Trump pledged government support when he visited both places last week.
At the Tuesday briefing, Leavitt would not specifically say whether Head Start or disaster aid would be frozen.
Agencies were trying to understand how to implement the new order.
The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, its largest grant-making arm, will pause $4 billion in funding for community-based programs, nonprofits, states and municipalities, according to a person familiar with the matter and a memo seen by Reuters. Among the affected programs include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which receives more than $30 million a year from the Justice Department.
The OMB memo asserted the federal government spent nearly $10 trillion in fiscal year 2024, with more than $3 trillion devoted to financial assistance such as grants and loans. But those figures appeared to include money authorized by Congress but not actually spent — the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated government spending in 2024 at a much lower $6.75 trillion.
Trump’s Republican allies have been pushing for dramatic spending cuts, though he has promised to spare Social Security and Medicare, which make up roughly one-third of the budget. Another 11 percent of the budget goes toward government interest payments, which cannot be touched without triggering a default that would rock the world economy.
DEMOCRATS CHALLENGE ‘LAWLESS’ MOVE
Democrats immediately criticized the spending freeze as unlawful and dangerous.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the administration did not have the authority to prevent spending approved by Congress.
“This decision is lawless, destructive, cruel,” Schumer said in a speech to the Senate. “It’s American families that are going to suffer most.”
The US Constitution gives Congress control over spending matters, but Trump said during his campaign that he believes the president has the power to withhold money for programs he dislikes. His nominee for White House budget director, Russell Vought, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, headed a think tank that has argued Congress cannot require a president to spend money.
US Representative Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, said Trump was simply following through on his campaign promises.
“You need to understand he was elected to shake up the status quo. That is what he’s going to do. It’s not going to be business as usual,” Emmer told reporters at a Republican policy retreat in Miami.
At least one Republican centrist, US Representative Don Bacon, said he hoped the order would be short-lived after hearing from worried constituents, including a woman who runs an after-school program that depends on federal grant money.
“We’ve already appropriated this money,” he said. “We don’t live in an autocracy. It’s divided government. We’ve got separation of powers.” (Reporting by Steve Holland and Andy Sullivan in Washington and David Morgan in Miami; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Nate Raymond, Andrea Shalal, Richard Cowan, Sarah N. Lynch, Leah Douglas, Jeff Mason, Jasper Ward, Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Daniel Wallis and Nick Zieminski)
Pentagon to pull Milley’s security clearance, Fox News reports
- Milley was among the preemptive pardons that former President Joe Biden issued on Jan. 20, his last day in office
WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is revoking the security clearance and personal security detail for retired Army General and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Fox News reported on Tuesday cited multiple senior administration officials.
Hegseth will also direct a review to consider if Milley should be stripped of a star in retirement based on actions that “undermine the chain of command,” Fox News reported on Tuesday.
The last portrait of Milley will also be removed from the Pentagon, Fox News reported. Milley was among the preemptive pardons that former President Joe Biden issued on Jan. 20, his last day in office.
US sending Patriot missiles from Israel to Ukraine, Axios reports
- A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed to Axios that a Patriot system had been returned to the US, adding “it is not known to us whether it was delivered to Ukraine”
WASHINGTON: The United States transferred some 90 Patriot air defense interceptors from Israel to Poland this week to then deliver them to Ukraine, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing three sources with knowledge of the operation.
“We have seen the reports but have nothing to provide at this time,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in response to the report.
A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed to Axios that a Patriot system had been returned to the US, adding “it is not known to us whether it was delivered to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday he had spoken with Netanyahu. They discussed the Middle East, bilateral ties and US President Donald Trump, who took office last week, Zelensky said on social media. The post made no mention of the missiles.
France responsible for ‘extreme violence’ in Cameroon independence war, report says
- Between 1956 and 1961, France’s fight against Cameroonian independence claimed “tens of thousands of lives” and left hundreds of thousands displaced, the historians said
- A 2021 report concluded France bore “overwhelming responsibilities” in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and a 2020 review examining France’s actions during Algeria’s war of independence called for a “truth commission” and other conciliatory actions
PARIS: France waged a war marked by “extreme violence” during Cameroon’s fight for independence in the late 1950s, historians said in the latest officially commissioned study grappling with Paris’s colonial past released on Tuesday.
The historians found that Paris implemented mass forced displacement, pushed hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians into internment camps and supported brutal militias to squash the central African country’s push for sovereignty.
The historical commission, whose creation was announced by President Emmanuel Macron during a 2022 trip to Yaounde, examined France’s role leading up to when Cameroon gained independence from France on January 1, 1960 and the following years.
Composed of both French and Cameroonian historians, the 14-person committee looked into France’s role in the country between 1945 and 1971 based on declassified archives, eyewitness accounts and field surveys.
Most of Cameroon came under French rule in 1918 after its previous colonial ruler, Germany, was defeated during World War I.
But a brutal conflict unfolded when the country began pushing for its independence following World War II, a move France violently repressed, according to the report’s findings.
Between 1956 and 1961, France’s fight against Cameroonian independence claimed “tens of thousands of lives” and left hundreds of thousands displaced, the historians said.
“It is undeniable that this violence was extreme because it violated human rights and the laws of war,” it said.
For many in France, the war in Cameroon went unnoticed because it mainly involved troops from colonies in Africa and was overshadowed by the French fight in Algeria’s 1954-1962 war of independence.
“But this invisibility should not create an illusion. France was indeed waging war in Cameroon,” the report said.
The formerly British Cameroons to the south gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1961 and became part of the newly independent state.
While the study aims to fill France’s “memory gap” on this period, for Cameroonians, “the profound trauma linked to repression remains,” it said.
The report comes as France has seen its influence wane among its former African colonies, which are reevaluating — and sometimes severing — their ties with Paris.
Even after Cameroon gained independence in 1960, Paris remained deeply involved in its governance, working closely with the “authoritarian and autocratic” regime of Ahmadou Ahidjo, who stayed in power until 1982.
France helped draft Cameroon’s post-independence constitution and defense agreements allowed French troops to “maintain order” in the newly independent state.
Ahidjo’s successor, current President Paul Biya, 91, in office since 1982, is only the second president in Cameroon’s history.
Receiving the report in Yaounde on Tuesday, Biya called it a “work of collective therapy” that would encourage the peoples of both countries to better accept their past relationship.
Ahead of its publication, former anti-colonial fighter Mathieu Njassep had told AFP he wanted France to admit to wrongdoing.
“If France does not recognize it was wrong, we won’t be able to forgive it,” said the 86-year-old who fought against Ahidjo’s government from 1960 and was thrown in jail for 14 years for “armed rebellion.”
Macron has taken tentative steps to come to terms with once-taboo aspects of the country’s historical record, though many argue he has not gone far enough.
A 2021 report concluded France bore “overwhelming responsibilities” in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and a 2020 review examining France’s actions during Algeria’s war of independence called for a “truth commission” and other conciliatory actions.
But Macron has ruled out an official apology for torture and other abuses carried out by French troops in Algeria.
France is now reconfiguring its military presence in Africa after being driven out of three countries in the Sahel governed by juntas hostile to Paris — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
And Chad accused Macron of showing contempt after he said African leaders had “forgotten to say thank you” to France for helping to combat jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel.
Last week Macron said he was committed to “continuing the work of remembrance and truth initiated with Cameroon” after receiving the report.
Zelensky says Putin ‘afraid’ of negotiations on ending Ukraine war
Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Vladimir Putin was “afraid” of negotiations on ending the Ukraine war, after the Russian president ruled out direct talks with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“Today, Putin once again confirmed that he is afraid of negotiations, afraid of strong leaders, and does everything possible to prolong the war,” Zelensky posted on X.
