"Sexual violence reaches ‘epic proportions’ in South Sudan’s civil war" by Sam Mednick Associated Press March 25, 2017
MUNDRI, South Sudan — After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudan’s civil war, the young woman became pregnant. Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.
And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. ‘‘I still have hope,’’ she says, caressing the baby’s cheek with a finger. ‘‘I just don’t even know where to start.’’
Nor do I. The propaganda knows no bounds I guess.
The slender 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudan’s three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached ‘‘epic proportions,’’ says the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in UN camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a UN humanitarian survey conducted in December.
Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting here between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.
The young woman didn’t expect to become embroiled in South Sudan’s conflict.
‘‘I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams,’’ she said in an interview earlier this month. ‘‘If I talk about it, I just cry.’’
Then I wouldn't ask her to; AP did.
*************
Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organizations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.
Local organizations say the number is likely double that, but most incidents go unreported because of stigma surrounding rape.
‘‘Realistically, it’s more like over 50 cases,’’ said James Labadia, founder of MAYA, a local aid organization that focuses on women’s empowerment. He has been working with rape survivors for years but said things have never been so dire.
The group received funds from the US Agency for International Development last year and Labadia plans to seek more, a possibility which may be clouded by President Trump’s proposed budget cuts.
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through, constantly promoting the agenda and serving itself!
Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from MAYA’s staff and joined a women’s empowerment group. They’re launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in hopes of helping women become self-sufficient.
Ultimately, her dream is to return to school to be a nurse.
‘‘I can’t give up,’’ she said. ‘‘I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation.’’
Outrageous criminality and tragedy and turned into women's empowerment, nice trick!
--more--"
I decided to look back regarding the crisis, and it has been reported earlier. Part of the problem may be the hanging around of UN "peacekeepers (the four peacekeeping operations where the highest numbers of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse are reported — Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, and South Sudan").
But they are there to help.
"Rampaging South Sudan troops assault foreigners, kill journalist" by Jason Patinkin Associated Press August 15, 2016
NAIROBI — On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle over opposition forces, went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan’s three-year civil war.
They shot a local journalist to death while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, beat and robbed people, and carried out mock executions, several witnesses said. Americans were among those singled out for abuse, they said.
For hours throughout the assault in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help. Neither did embassies, including the US Embassy.
Asked why UN peacekeepers didn’t respond to repeated pleas for help, the deputy spokesman for the UN secretary general, Farhan Haq, said the UN is investigating.
The US Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, ‘‘was not in a position to intervene,’’ State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday. She said the US ambassador instead contacted local government officials.
In other words, they let it happen.
The Associated Press interviewed by phone eight survivors, both male and female, including three who said they were raped. The other five said they were beaten; one was shot. Most insisted on anonymity for their safety or to protect their organizations still operating in South Sudan.
The accounts highlight, in raw detail, the failure of the UN peacekeeping force to uphold its core mandate of protecting civilians, notably those just a few minutes’ drive away.
Those were web additions to my print.
The attack on the Terrain hotel complex shows the hostility toward foreigners and aid workers by troops under the command of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, who has been fighting supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar since civil war erupted in December 2013.
Army spokesman Lul Ruai did not deny the attack at the Terrain but said it was premature to conclude the army was responsible.
‘‘Everyone is armed, and everyone has access to uniforms,’’ he said.
Who knows what it is. The last place I'm finding truth is in my paper. This could be a complete fiction for all I know. Could be a false flag.
A report on the incident compiled by the Terrain’s owner at Ruai’s request, alleges the rapes of at least five women, torture, mock executions, beatings, and looting.
The attack came just as people in Juba were thinking the worst was over.
It's a mind-manipulating psyche job like we have here in the West with the "terror attacks."
Three days earlier, gunfire erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread. By Monday, as both sides prepared to call for a cease-fire, some at the Terrain started to relax.
And then the soldiers arrived. A Terrain staffer from Uganda said he saw between 80 and 100 men invade the compound after breaking open the gate.
‘‘They were very excited, very drunk, under the influence of something, almost a mad state, walking around shooting off rounds inside the rooms,’’ one American said.
For about an hour, soldiers beat the American and fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. Eventually, he was told to leave. He made his way to the nearby UN compound and appealed for help.
Meanwhile, soldiers were breaking into a two-story apartment block in the Terrain which had been deemed a safe house because of a heavy metal door guarding the apartments upstairs.
The soldiers then sexually assaulted women and shot through the door of a bathroom where several people were hiding, said Jesse Bunch, an American contractor who was hit in the leg.
Who does he work for?
‘‘We kill you! We kill you!’’ the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. ‘‘They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, ‘Do you want to die?’ and we had to answer ‘No!’ ’’
The soldiers found John Gatluak, a South Sudanese journalist. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Machar.
From the start of the attack, those inside the Terrain compound sent e-mail, text, and Facebook messages pleading for help.
‘‘All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The UN, the US embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the UN, contacting specific departments,’’ said a woman raped by 15 men.
A member of the UN’s Joint Operations Center in Juba first received notice of the attack at 3:37 p.m., minutes after the breach of the compound, according to an internal timetable compiled by a member of the operations center. The timetable shows other appeals for help.
The American who was released requested help from three UN battalions.
‘‘Everyone refused to go. Ethiopia, China, and Nepal. All refused to go,’’ he said.
Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff. A private security firm rescued the rest the next morning.
--more--"
Until proven otherwise, I regard all these events as staged and scripted crisis drills at worst and false flags at best.
"UN launches independent probe into South Sudan rampage" Associated Press August 18, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — The United Nations secretary-general is launching an independent investigation into allegations that UN peacekeepers did not respond to prevent multiple cases of abuse and sexual violence against civilians and foreigners in South Sudan’s capital.
PFFFFT!
Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman said late Tuesday that the UN chief is alarmed by reports of the July 11 attack on a compound popular with foreigners in Juba. The Associated Press this week reported that South Sudanese troops went on a nearly four-hour rampage through the compound in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in the country’s three-year civil war.
Several witnesses told the AP that soldiers shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, and carried out mock executions.
Separately, several witnesses also told the AP that UN peacekeepers in Juba did not stop the rapes of local women by soldiers outside the UN’s main camp last month. The violence came days after fighting between rival army factions.
The UN chief ‘‘urges, once more, the government of South Sudan to investigate these human right violations and to prosecute those involved in these unspeakable acts of violence,’’ his spokesman said in a statement.
Yeah, turns out all governments pretty much suck.
Nineteen soldiers have been arrested ‘‘because of crimes committed in July’’ and currently face military trial, the army said Wednesday.
--more--"
"South Sudan rebel leader has fled country, spokesman says" Associated Press August 19, 2016
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s rebel leader and former vice president has fled the country and was expected to emerge after weeks in hiding to speak to journalists, a spokesman said Thursday, as the United Nations announced it had assisted him on part of his journey.
Well, you see which side they have taken.
The UN involvement was likely to further anger a South Sudanese government that has accused the world body of interfering in its affairs after renewed fighting last month veered the country back toward civil war.
Riek Machar crossed the border into neighboring Congo and was airlifted to the capital, Kinshasa, spokesman Mabior Garang said, adding that he was planning to travel to Ethiopia soon. In a Facebook post, the spokesman said Machar left South Sudan after a ‘‘botched attempt to assassinate’’ him.
The UN indicated that Machar had been in danger.
It learned Wednesday that Machar was in Congo, near the South Sudan border, and arranged on humanitarian grounds for the UN peacekeeping force there to airlift him, his wife, and 10 others, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. He wouldn’t say where they were Thursday, only that they had been handed over to Congolese authorities.
To that call they respond, and why was he handed over to authorities?!
‘‘We have been providing him with whatever medical assistance he needs,’’ Haq said, without giving details. ‘‘He needed to be moved safely from one spot to another,’’ he added.
A South Sudan presidential spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, said President Salva Kiir had no reaction to the UN helping Machar.
Machar had returned to South Sudan in April in a major step toward realizing a peace deal reached in August 2015 under intense international pressure. He immediately took up the vice president post under Kiir that he’d had before the civil war. The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, called his return ‘‘the best hope that South Sudan has had in a very long time.’’
Oh, I see. US and UN want Kiir gone.
So what did he do wrong for them to turn on him?
But tensions remained as the recently warring camps were pushed to work together under the peace deal. In July, dozens of Machar’s bodyguards were shot dead.
--more--"
"Kerry calls for speedy deployment of South Sudan protection force" by Jeffrey Gettleman New York Times August 22, 2016
NAIROBI — A new protection force intended for South Sudan that was authorized by the United Nations this month should be deployed there as soon as possible to safeguard civilians, especially women and girls, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.
Oh, that's the point of all this.
“We need to move forward,” Kerry said, calling South Sudan’s ethnically based conflict, which has killed tens of thousands in the past 2½ years, tragic and reprehensible.
Kerry made the remarks while visiting Nairobi for the beginning of a six-day trip to Africa and the Middle East.
So much for global warming concerns.
Kenyan newspapers have described Kerry’s visit as a “peace mission” because the region’s conflicts are at the top of the agenda. Kerry is familiar with East Africa’s troubles, having flown in several times over the years to advocate peace proposals.
As a senator, he visited Sudan, venturing to the war-plagued region of Darfur. He has also visited Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the world’s youngest country.
So far, the government of South Sudan has resisted the planned deployment in Juba of a 4,000-soldier protection force, which the Security Council approved on Aug. 12 to bolster the UN peacekeeping mission there. That mission, which has about 12,000 soldiers, has been struggling to protect civilians from armed groups.
International pressure for the additional force, which would be supplied by neighboring nations, escalated after a burst of fighting in July claimed hundreds of lives and resulted in rapes, including of Western aid workers.
"As Mr. Kerry emphasized several times on Monday: “This is not an intervention force, this is a protection force.”
Whatever you say!
His words appeared aimed at the leaders of South Sudan’s warring factions who have often seemed to want to fight it out among themselves without a neutral force in between.
President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, a Dinka, has resisted such a deployment, describing it as a United Nations takeover of the country. His main rival, the former vice president Riek Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic group, fled the country last week, just a few months after he had returned under a peace deal that appears to have collapsed.
Mr. Kerry met with the foreign ministers of five African countries — Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda — in an effort to coax them to play a bigger role in stabilizing trouble spots, such as South Sudan and Somalia.
But he also said there was “a lot more going on in East Africa,” praising the region’s economic progress and “entrepreneurial energy.”
He shared some light comments about Kenya’s success at the Olympics in Brazil, where Kenyan runners won gold in the men and women’s marathons and other track and field events. He said he had congratulated President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and had asked him “to teach us how to run.”
Wasn't he up on war crimes charges at the Hague before they were dropped? And Kerry met with them?
On Tuesday, Mr. Kerry was scheduled to fly to Nigeria, where the topic of hundreds of missing schoolgirls, kidnapped in 2014 by the militant group Boko Haram, was bound to come up.
Someday I'll get back there.
Then he heads to Saudi Arabia to discuss the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been bombing areas of the country, trying to shore up a weak central government against Houthi insurgents. That action has provoked an outcry by international human rights groups who say the Saudi bombings have indiscriminately killed civilians."
Still are nine months later.
--more--"
I'm so glad he is gone.
Related: Under pressure, South Sudan agrees to 4,000 new peacekeepers
Had them shoved down their throat.
Now let the demonization campaign begin!
"South Sudan activists say intimidated for meeting diplomats" Associated Press September 08, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudanese activists say they face government intimidation in retaliation for meeting with the visiting UN Security Council last weekend, and some have fled the turbulent country.
The reports are the latest sign of hostility by the government toward the international community as this East African country, the world’s youngest, tries to recover from a civil war that threatens to grind on.
George W. Bush's greatest African success gone to sh**!!
At least three local organizations have been told by South Sudan’s government they can no longer operate. On Wednesday, the US envoy to South Sudan, Donald Booth, told Congress that the number of blacklisted groups could be as high as 40.
When Israel does it, it is no big deal.
George W. Bush's greatest African success gone to sh**!!
At least three local organizations have been told by South Sudan’s government they can no longer operate. On Wednesday, the US envoy to South Sudan, Donald Booth, told Congress that the number of blacklisted groups could be as high as 40.
When Israel does it, it is no big deal.
The UN mission in South Sudan said in a statement Thursday that it is ‘‘deeply concerned’’ by reports of harassment and intimidation against some civil society members who met with the diplomats in the capital, Juba. The statement does not mention the source of intimidation.
The government harassment is in response to position papers that supported an arms embargo on South Sudan or a new regional force to protect civilians after a recent eruption of fighting in the capital, said an activist who was at the meeting with the UN diplomats.
The government dislikes both ideas, but the Security Council diplomats, led by US Ambassador Samantha Power, brought a threat with them: Accept the force or face the arms embargo.
I'd say I'm glad she is gone, too, but her replacement is -- hard to believe it -- even worse.
This comes at the same time we are being told how wonderful it is that the U.S. is now friends with Japan and Germany. I suppose we will have to wait another 50 years to be friends with Russia and Iran -- if the planet survives.
I'd say I'm glad she is gone, too, but her replacement is -- hard to believe it -- even worse.
This comes at the same time we are being told how wonderful it is that the U.S. is now friends with Japan and Germany. I suppose we will have to wait another 50 years to be friends with Russia and Iran -- if the planet survives.
Heads of organizations that met with the diplomats have been ordered to report to the government ‘‘but fear to report because they don’t know what will happen,’’ the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
South Sudan is struggling to recover from civil war that began in December 2013 and killed tens of thousands.
That would have been on Obama's watch, huh?
That would have been on Obama's watch, huh?
--more--"
"South Sudan’s fighting directed at highest levels, UN report says" Associated Press September 09, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — A confidential UN report says South Sudan’s deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of government, and that leaders are intent on a military solution that has escalated the conflict from a ‘‘primarily political to tribal war.’’
I'm waiting for Bush, Bliar, and all the rest to be hauled in.
The UN panel of experts report obtained by the Associated Press says President Salva Kiir and army chief of staff Paul Malong directed the fighting in the capital, Juba, that killed hundreds, using MI-24 helicopters that only they had the authority to deploy. It cites ‘‘numerous reports’’ from South Sudanese senior military personnel and politicians.
The report also says Kiir and Malong have focused on procuring new weapons and ammunition, including the apparent acquisition of two fighter jets.
South Sudan’s civilians are ‘‘bearing the brunt of the resulting harm’’ as weapons continue to be procured, the report says.
The UN Security Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo if South Sudan’s government doesn’t comply with a plan to deploy an extra 4,000 peacekeepers to protect civilians.
I thought it already had.
--more--"
"South Sudan’s fighting directed at highest levels, UN report says" Associated Press September 09, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — A confidential UN report says South Sudan’s deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of government, and that leaders are intent on a military solution that has escalated the conflict from a ‘‘primarily political to tribal war.’’
I'm waiting for Bush, Bliar, and all the rest to be hauled in.
The UN panel of experts report obtained by the Associated Press says President Salva Kiir and army chief of staff Paul Malong directed the fighting in the capital, Juba, that killed hundreds, using MI-24 helicopters that only they had the authority to deploy. It cites ‘‘numerous reports’’ from South Sudanese senior military personnel and politicians.
The report also says Kiir and Malong have focused on procuring new weapons and ammunition, including the apparent acquisition of two fighter jets.
South Sudan’s civilians are ‘‘bearing the brunt of the resulting harm’’ as weapons continue to be procured, the report says.
The UN Security Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo if South Sudan’s government doesn’t comply with a plan to deploy an extra 4,000 peacekeepers to protect civilians.
I thought it already had.
--more--"
"South Sudan leaders found to amass wealth as country burns" Associated Press September 13, 2016
We are always told this when a regime change is needed!
Never mind your own leaders, stupid Westerner!
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s leaders have amassed wealth abroad amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed, a US-based watchdog group said Monday, charging that the civil war is being fueled by competition among rivals over national resources such as oil.
So what controlled juman rights group put out that timely report?
We are always told this when a regime change is needed!
Never mind your own leaders, stupid Westerner!
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s leaders have amassed wealth abroad amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed, a US-based watchdog group said Monday, charging that the civil war is being fueled by competition among rivals over national resources such as oil.
So what controlled juman rights group put out that timely report?
President Salva Kiir, former deputy Riek Machar, and those close to both men have looted the country in accumulating wealth that includes mansions, luxury cars, and stakes in a number of businesses abroad, according to the report by The Sentry.
The report says it has obtained images of officials’ family members jet-setting and partying in five-star hotels, as well as documentation of their properties abroad.
Officials in South Sudan who earn modest salaries have been able to amass fortunes with help from arms dealers, bankers, lawyers, and others abroad, it said."
Should be pretty easy for the NSA and its Five Eyes spies to find, 'eh?
I'll bet they don't have to live like a refugee!
"More than a million refugees have fled South Sudan, UN says" Associated Press September 16, 2016
Should be pretty easy for the NSA and its Five Eyes spies to find, 'eh?
I'll bet they don't have to live like a refugee!
"More than a million refugees have fled South Sudan, UN says" Associated Press September 16, 2016
AWEIL, South Sudan — More than 1 million refugees have fled South Sudan’s ongoing civil war, overwhelming aid agencies and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
The United Nations said Friday that South Sudan joins Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia as countries that have produced over 1 million refugees.
‘‘This is a very sad milestone,’’ said Leo Dobbs, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency. South Sudan’s estimated population was over 12 million last year, according to the World Bank.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but civil war erupted two years later and tens of thousands have been killed. New fighting in July in the capital, Juba, created a surge of more than 185,000 refugees. Most people fleeing are women and children.
Neighboring Uganda hosts the highest number of refugees, and 20,000 have arrived in the past week due to clashes in southern South Sudan. Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Congo, and Central African Republic also have received tens of thousands of people fleeing.
The UN praised the countries, some of the world’s poorest, for allowing refugees to enter.
‘‘Many refugees arrive exhausted after days walking in the bush and going without food or water,’’ Dobbs said. ‘‘Many women and girls said they were sexually assaulted during their flight.’’
Another 1.6 million people are displaced inside South Sudan.
The fighting that erupted in July between supporters of President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar ‘‘has shattered hopes for a real breakthrough and triggered new waves of displacement and suffering,’’ Dobbs said.
A peace deal reached a year ago continues to be violated. Machar fled the country during July’s chaos.
South Sudan has been threatened by the UN Security Council with an arms embargo if it does not accept 4,000 additional peacekeepers to help protect civilians. The government calls the plan a violation of its sovereignty.
"Sudan may have used chemical weapons in Darfur, Amnesty says" Bloomberg News September 30, 2016
And you wonder why I no longer believe the war pre$$?
It's the same script every damn time!
And you wonder why I no longer believe the war pre$$?
It's the same script every damn time!
Sudanese government forces may have used chemical weapons against civilians in the western region of Darfur in the past eight months, killing as many as 250 people, Amnesty International said.
The London-based advocacy group said Thursday that it has gathered ‘‘credible evidence’’ of at least 30 likely chemical attacks in Darfur’s Jebel Marra region between January and September. Many of the people that may have died due to exposure to the weapons were children, it said in a statement, citing testimonies from caregivers and survivors.
Two independent chemical-weapons experts consulted by Amnesty said the findings ‘‘strongly suggested exposure to vesicants, or blister agents, such as the chemical warfare agents sulfur mustard, lewisite, or nitrogen mustard,’’ the group said.
The suspected chemical assaults came during a large-scale military offensive that began in January against the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid faction, rebels who Sudan’s government say have ambushed army convoys and attacked civilians. Conflict that began in Darfur in 2003, when insurgents took up arms accusing President Umar al-Bashir of neglecting the region, has led to the deaths of 300,000 people.
The chemical-weapons agents were said to be in bombs dropped from planes and rockets, according to Amnesty.
--more--"
And the action taken in response?
"UN chief fires general in South Sudan after harsh report" Associated Press November 02, 2016
And the action taken in response?
"UN chief fires general in South Sudan after harsh report" Associated Press November 02, 2016
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon fired the commander of the peacekeeping force in South Sudan on Tuesday after an independent investigation sharply criticized the military response to deadly attacks in July on a UN compound housing 27,000 displaced people.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced the dismissal of Kenyan Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki shortly after the investigators’ report was released, saying the UN chief was ‘‘deeply distressed’’ by the findings.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has been riven by ethnic violence since shortly after gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011. Civil war broke out in 2013 when government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by his former vice president Riek Machar, who is a Nuer. A peace agreement was signed in August 2015, but fighting, which has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million displaced, continues.
A confidential UN report obtained by The Associated Press in September said the deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of Kiir’s government."
Looks like the UN ticked of Kenya:
Looks like the UN ticked of Kenya:
"Kenya pulling UN peacekeepers from South Sudan in protest" Associated Press November 03, 2016
NAIROBI — Kenya is pulling out its 1,000 troops deployed to South Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping mission and stopping future deployments after the UN secretary-general fired the force’s Kenyan commander, the foreign affairs ministry said Wednesday.
In a further blow to regional efforts to calm the civil war, Kenya said it is also disengaging from the South Sudan peace process, in which it has been instrumental as a broker, guarantor, and monitor.
The firing of Kenyan Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki came after an independent investigation sharply criticized peacekeepers’ response to deadly attacks in July on a UN compound housing 27,000 displaced people in Juba. The probe also found that peacekeepers didn’t respond to calls for help as South Sudanese soldiers rampaged through a nearby compound.
The firing was announced shortly after the investigators’ report was released Tuesday.
Principal Secretary Monica Juma said Ondieki’s firing was carried out without formal consultation with Kenya’s government. It said the move ‘‘revealed a high degree of disrespect for our country.’’
You could take it that way.
You could take it that way.
"UN warns that South Sudan risks spiraling into a genocide" by Justin Lynch Associated Press November 12, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan’s festering civil war risks spiraling into genocide, according to the UN’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, who cited recent examples of ethnically targeted rape, civilians being killed with machetes, and villages being burned to the ground.
More tales of horror.
Adama Dieng said South Sudan is awash with weapons, has an undisciplined military, and is in a humanitarian and economic crisis in which civilians are desperate for employment. ‘‘Genocide is a process,’’ said Dieng, adding that all the elements are present for a disaster.
We seem to be seeing slow-moving culling all across the planet.
We seem to be seeing slow-moving culling all across the planet.
South Sudan is the world’s newest country and there were high hopes that it would have peace and stability after its split from neighboring Sudan in 2011. But the country plunged into ethnic violence in 2013 when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, started battling those loyal to his former vice president Riek Machar, a Nuer.
How come they got a vote but Palestine and Kashmir do not?
How come they got a vote but Palestine and Kashmir do not?
A peace deal signed in August has not stopped the fighting. To stop South Sudan’s slide into ethnically based violence, Dieng proposed a strategy of reconciliation and dialogue to build trust in the East African nation. But even as Dieng, the UN expert on genocide, spoke, a radio station was shut down by South Sudan’s National Security Service.
Eye Radio is one of South Sudan’s largest national radio stations and known for its reggae music and messages of unity and peace. It is funded in part by the US Agency for International Development.
AID = CIA
No wonder the South Sudanese government shut it down.
No wonder the South Sudanese government shut it down.
On Friday three officials from the country’s security service seized the keys to Eye Radio’s studios, told journalists to leave, and ordered the head of the station to report to security officials, said Nichola Mandil, a senior journalist for the station.
A spokesman for the security service declined to give an explanation for the shutdown.
When informed that Eye Radio had been shut by the government, Dieng’s voice rose with ire and he recalled how radio had been a tool for spreading hatred during the Rwandan genocide.
He said the South Sudan government ‘‘should have encouraged, congratulated and used [Eye Radio] as a model and said from now onwards that is the message we want.’’ Instead, some of South Sudan’s media and social media have spread hate speech, Dieng said.
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through!
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through!
Across the country, charities and other nongovernmental organizations have received gruesome threats of violence against civilians from the southern Equatorian region of the country. There has also been a rise in Facebook posts that extoll ethnic violence.
‘‘We are going to take a quick revenge attack against Equatorians anywhere, any place from now on. We will find you and kill you. We will despicably and barbarically kill you,’’ said one letter by a group calling itself the ‘‘Angry Youth of former Northern Bhar El Ghazal,’’ a self-proclaimed watch group whose members are unknown.
In September, the Nation Mirror Newspaper was shut after it reported on government corruption.
South Sudan ranks 140th in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, and seven journalists were killed in 2015.
‘‘Press freedom has not been OK for a long time. This closure now indicates the situation has not changed and the government is still hostile to the national media,’’ said Alfred Taban, Chairman of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan....
So let's see, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes.
Ready to intervene, 'er, protect yet?
So let's see, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes.
Ready to intervene, 'er, protect yet?
--more--"
How will bringing more death to the place help?
"In South Sudan, mass killings, rapes, the limits of US diplomacy" by Somini Sengupta New York Times January 19, 2017
Apologizing for Obama on his way out the door.
UNITED NATIONS — Samantha Power had just boarded a US Air Force plane on her way home from a three-country tour in Africa when the calls began to come in from Washington. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, had just erupted in civil war along ethnic lines.
Was that the trip where her car drove over some kid and kept on motoring?
That was in December 2013. Power had taken over as the US ambassador to the United Nations three months earlier, she wanted to fly immediately to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. What she would do there wasn’t clear, though, after a series of intense exchanges with Washington, it was decided she would come home.
The back-and-forth was a harbinger of the difficulties Power would face in trying to avert what the UN has said could become a genocide.
Today, the Obama administration’s South Sudan strategy is in tatters. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, the UN says, and rape has been rampant.
The starkest diplomatic defeat for the United States came late last month. Power was unable to persuade the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and sanctions on key leaders.
“Council members who didn’t support this resolution are taking a big gamble that South Sudan’s leaders will not instigate a catastrophe,” Power said, citing the world’s failure to respond to genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
But poor timing, bad judgment, and a lack of a unified strategy have hampered the administration’s own efforts to avert a catastrophe, many advocates, aid workers, and former US officials say. In turn, it has drawn attention to the limits of American influence — that too in a country whose very creation the United States supported enthusiastically, backing its independence from Sudan.
It is also a reminder of how challenging it has been for Power in particular to put into effect the idea that she is best known for: using diplomacy to prevent mass atrocities.
If that is what she is known for she is a complete and utterly abysmal failure.
During her three-year tenure, Power has used her pulpit at the UN to denounce human rights abusers, particularly US rivals. She has used her last days on the job to promote the Obama administration’s diplomatic successes, including dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons and imposing new sanctions on North Korea.
While ignoring her own nation.
And on Tuesday, she used her last speech as ambassador to inveigh against what she called Russia’s “aggressive and destabilizing actions,” from its annexation of Crimea to its meddling in the US presidential election. It served as a warning to President-elect Donald Trump without ever naming him.
It neither annexed Crimea nor interfered in the election, liar!
“Russia’s actions are not standing up a new world order,” she said at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “They are tearing down the one that exists.”
GOOD!
As for South Sudan, she has expressed confidence that its conflict will stay on the Trump administration’s radar. That could well be wishful thinking. South Sudan did not come up once during the confirmation hearing of Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
When the South Sudan conflict began, in December 2013, it seemed to catch the Obama administration by surprise. At the time Power had rushed to the theater of another grisly ethnic conflict in the Central African Republic.
Several times on that trip, Power was asked what lessons she drew from her book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” and what she believed the United States needed to do in the face of mass slaughter.
Not commit it?
It seemed to loom over everything she said. At one point, jokingly, she said, “See, I knew I shouldn’t have written that book.”
Do you see me laughing?
The outbreak of fighting in South Sudan quickly cleaved along ethnic lines, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir versus those supporting his former vice president, Riek Machar. Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, and Machar is Nuer.
We are always told that, and I'm starting to believe its nothing but cover story crap.
At the time, many advocates familiar with the region pressed the United States to get tougher with South Sudan’s leaders. John Prendergast, a former Africa expert in the Clinton administration who now runs an advocacy group called the Enough Project, said he had recommended targeted sanctions as early as January 2014. By that summer, after UN investigators chronicled human rights abuses “on a massive scale,” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International backed an arms embargo.
Several former US officials said the administration had misjudged the rivalry between Kiir and Machar. They also said Susan Rice, the national security adviser, had been reluctant to put too much pressure on them — and in particular to impose an arms embargo.
“There are some differences in Washington,” is how Princeton Lyman, a former US envoy to South Sudan, put it in March 2015. Some of it, he said later, stemmed from a “lingering sympathy” for the leaders they had empowered.
Asked recently about the differences within the White House, a senior administration official said only that “the US position on this was based on a consensus decision within the interagency process.”
By May 2015, with no peace deal in sight, the African Union asked the Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
A peace deal was signed, only to be broken, repaired, and broken again.
In November 2015, the African Union issued a harrowing report that documented massacres, rapes, and a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation.
On the ground, things got worse. By the summer of 2016, after full-scale fighting broke out in Juba, UN investigators documented a spate of ethnic killings and said that government troops had been responsible for mass rapes, including of children.
Still no arms embargo. No targeted sanctions against the top leadership.
Like they are Israeli!
Instead, Power turned her attention to rallying the Security Council to authorize a surge of 4,000 peacekeepers from neighboring countries to secure Juba.
That effort, said Kate Almquist Knopf, the director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, only underscored a lack of political strategy. By then, she said, it should have been plain to everyone that Kiir and Machar were unlikely to honor any peace deal.
In September, on a trip to Juba, Power won a promise from South Sudan’s government to allow additional peacekeepers to enter the country.
Their deployment has been delayed by bureaucratic impediments, a lack of visas, and conflicting statements by ministers, according to the UN chief.
In November, the UN’s special adviser for genocide, Adama Dieng, issued the starkest warning: He urged the council to take action to stop what he regarded as steps to genocide.
By then, Power had won the rest of the Obama administration’s backing to pursue sanctions and an arms embargo. Rice expressed her support on Twitter, writing, “time is past for an arms embargo & sanctions against those stoking ethnic violence in #SouthSudan.”
But by that time, the African members of the council were not keen to impose sanctions. Russia called the resolution “senseless.” Even some US allies were reluctant to support it.
What?
Power issued grave warnings about “the human cost of imposing no cost for attacking civilians.”
Her remarks echoed the dilemma at the heart of her book.
“We have all been bystanders to genocide,” she wrote. “The crucial question is why.”
We all know why!
--more--"
And now she is out of power.
"Watchdog report accuses South Sudan military of corruption" Associated Press January 27, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — A new watchdog report says South Sudan’s military is engaged in systemic corruption that has plundered the country’s resources and fueled conflict in the East African nation.
They have their own military-industrial complex, 'eh?
The Washington-based Enough Project blames ‘‘willful, systematic obstruction of financial oversight’’ in the world’s youngest nation, where civil war has raged since late 2013.
The report says competition among various militia groups for money and power ‘‘can erupt into deadly violence’’ and is exacerbated by a lack of accountability and transparency.
The report also says that more than 100,000 ‘‘ghost’’ soldiers could be on the military’s payroll, allowing for commanders and military leaders to boost their incomes or reputations.
A spokesman for South Sudan’s military, Santo Domic Chol, declined to comment Thursday because he had not seen the report.
--more--"
Okay, we got military corruption, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes. What else can they throw at the wall?
"Famine declared in part of South Sudan" Associated Press February 21, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to the South Sudan government and UN agencies, the result of prolonged civil war and an economic crisis that has severely strained the East African nation.
Now military action must be taken.
The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan’s three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir’s government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.
I'm sick of being jerked around by the agenda-pushing, war-promoting pre$$.
More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional 1 million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, the UN announcement said.
And if all true, it highlights the complete failure of government at all levels.
So why should we believe they are capable of fixing the problems they most likely created?
Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 percent of South Sudan’s population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, the report said.
If food aid does not reach children urgently ‘‘many of them will die,’’ said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children’s agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished, he said, meaning they are at risk of death.
Monday’s declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan’s creation, and a UN official blamed the country’s politicians for the humanitarian crisis.
‘‘This famine is man-made,” said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. ‘‘There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security.’’
Maybe its global warming that is the cause.
--more--"
I don't doubt the suffering of Sudanese and find it appallingly criminal and tragic; I doubt the good intentions of my war-promoting paper is all.
3/7: South Sudan blocks desperately needed aid, say UN officials The report and statement show the daunting conditions faced by the international community as it tries to combat a catastrophe in the troubled East African nation."
"South Sudan ambush on humanitarian aid convoy kills 2" Associated Press March 16, 2017
JOHANNESBURG — An ambush on a humanitarian aid convoy in South Sudan has killed two people and wounded three, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday, in the latest hostility to outsiders trying to address the triple crisis of famine, cholera, and civil war.
Now cholera, too?
‘‘Unknown armed gunmen’’ targeted the convoy as it was returning from a field mission in Yirol East county, the agency said in a statement that condemned the attack. IOM staff, health workers, and civilians were the victims. Two died of gunshot wounds, and an IOM health officer was in stable condition.
The ambush took place in a region suffering from a cholera outbreak, the statement said. Famine was declared last month in two other counties of South Sudan, which has been devastated by three years of civil war.
The United Nations and aid groups have pleaded for more access to deliver humanitarian aid amid numerous government restrictions. Those include a sharp increase this month in the fees required for foreigners to work in the country, from about $100 to up to $10,000.
Both government troops and rebels have been accused of attacking, detaining, or harassing aid workers, including members of the UN peacekeeping mission.
Earlier this week, South Sudanese staffers with the US-based aid group Samaritan’s Purse were detained for a day by ‘‘armed personnel’’ before being released.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, fell into civil war just two years after it won its independence from Sudan in 2011.
Tens of thousands have been killed, and more than 1.5 million have fled the country, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis.
That about says it all, doesn't it?
--more--"
They didn't mention the rapes, did they?
Related: Cutting Through the African Bush
Who is really chopping things down and why.
How will bringing more death to the place help?
"In South Sudan, mass killings, rapes, the limits of US diplomacy" by Somini Sengupta New York Times January 19, 2017
Apologizing for Obama on his way out the door.
UNITED NATIONS — Samantha Power had just boarded a US Air Force plane on her way home from a three-country tour in Africa when the calls began to come in from Washington. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, had just erupted in civil war along ethnic lines.
Was that the trip where her car drove over some kid and kept on motoring?
That was in December 2013. Power had taken over as the US ambassador to the United Nations three months earlier, she wanted to fly immediately to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. What she would do there wasn’t clear, though, after a series of intense exchanges with Washington, it was decided she would come home.
The back-and-forth was a harbinger of the difficulties Power would face in trying to avert what the UN has said could become a genocide.
Today, the Obama administration’s South Sudan strategy is in tatters. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, the UN says, and rape has been rampant.
The starkest diplomatic defeat for the United States came late last month. Power was unable to persuade the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and sanctions on key leaders.
“Council members who didn’t support this resolution are taking a big gamble that South Sudan’s leaders will not instigate a catastrophe,” Power said, citing the world’s failure to respond to genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
But poor timing, bad judgment, and a lack of a unified strategy have hampered the administration’s own efforts to avert a catastrophe, many advocates, aid workers, and former US officials say. In turn, it has drawn attention to the limits of American influence — that too in a country whose very creation the United States supported enthusiastically, backing its independence from Sudan.
It is also a reminder of how challenging it has been for Power in particular to put into effect the idea that she is best known for: using diplomacy to prevent mass atrocities.
If that is what she is known for she is a complete and utterly abysmal failure.
During her three-year tenure, Power has used her pulpit at the UN to denounce human rights abusers, particularly US rivals. She has used her last days on the job to promote the Obama administration’s diplomatic successes, including dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons and imposing new sanctions on North Korea.
While ignoring her own nation.
And on Tuesday, she used her last speech as ambassador to inveigh against what she called Russia’s “aggressive and destabilizing actions,” from its annexation of Crimea to its meddling in the US presidential election. It served as a warning to President-elect Donald Trump without ever naming him.
It neither annexed Crimea nor interfered in the election, liar!
“Russia’s actions are not standing up a new world order,” she said at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “They are tearing down the one that exists.”
GOOD!
As for South Sudan, she has expressed confidence that its conflict will stay on the Trump administration’s radar. That could well be wishful thinking. South Sudan did not come up once during the confirmation hearing of Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
When the South Sudan conflict began, in December 2013, it seemed to catch the Obama administration by surprise. At the time Power had rushed to the theater of another grisly ethnic conflict in the Central African Republic.
Several times on that trip, Power was asked what lessons she drew from her book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” and what she believed the United States needed to do in the face of mass slaughter.
Not commit it?
It seemed to loom over everything she said. At one point, jokingly, she said, “See, I knew I shouldn’t have written that book.”
Do you see me laughing?
The outbreak of fighting in South Sudan quickly cleaved along ethnic lines, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir versus those supporting his former vice president, Riek Machar. Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, and Machar is Nuer.
We are always told that, and I'm starting to believe its nothing but cover story crap.
At the time, many advocates familiar with the region pressed the United States to get tougher with South Sudan’s leaders. John Prendergast, a former Africa expert in the Clinton administration who now runs an advocacy group called the Enough Project, said he had recommended targeted sanctions as early as January 2014. By that summer, after UN investigators chronicled human rights abuses “on a massive scale,” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International backed an arms embargo.
Several former US officials said the administration had misjudged the rivalry between Kiir and Machar. They also said Susan Rice, the national security adviser, had been reluctant to put too much pressure on them — and in particular to impose an arms embargo.
“There are some differences in Washington,” is how Princeton Lyman, a former US envoy to South Sudan, put it in March 2015. Some of it, he said later, stemmed from a “lingering sympathy” for the leaders they had empowered.
Asked recently about the differences within the White House, a senior administration official said only that “the US position on this was based on a consensus decision within the interagency process.”
By May 2015, with no peace deal in sight, the African Union asked the Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
A peace deal was signed, only to be broken, repaired, and broken again.
In November 2015, the African Union issued a harrowing report that documented massacres, rapes, and a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation.
On the ground, things got worse. By the summer of 2016, after full-scale fighting broke out in Juba, UN investigators documented a spate of ethnic killings and said that government troops had been responsible for mass rapes, including of children.
Still no arms embargo. No targeted sanctions against the top leadership.
Like they are Israeli!
Instead, Power turned her attention to rallying the Security Council to authorize a surge of 4,000 peacekeepers from neighboring countries to secure Juba.
That effort, said Kate Almquist Knopf, the director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, only underscored a lack of political strategy. By then, she said, it should have been plain to everyone that Kiir and Machar were unlikely to honor any peace deal.
In September, on a trip to Juba, Power won a promise from South Sudan’s government to allow additional peacekeepers to enter the country.
Their deployment has been delayed by bureaucratic impediments, a lack of visas, and conflicting statements by ministers, according to the UN chief.
In November, the UN’s special adviser for genocide, Adama Dieng, issued the starkest warning: He urged the council to take action to stop what he regarded as steps to genocide.
By then, Power had won the rest of the Obama administration’s backing to pursue sanctions and an arms embargo. Rice expressed her support on Twitter, writing, “time is past for an arms embargo & sanctions against those stoking ethnic violence in #SouthSudan.”
But by that time, the African members of the council were not keen to impose sanctions. Russia called the resolution “senseless.” Even some US allies were reluctant to support it.
What?
Power issued grave warnings about “the human cost of imposing no cost for attacking civilians.”
Her remarks echoed the dilemma at the heart of her book.
“We have all been bystanders to genocide,” she wrote. “The crucial question is why.”
We all know why!
--more--"
And now she is out of power.
"Watchdog report accuses South Sudan military of corruption" Associated Press January 27, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — A new watchdog report says South Sudan’s military is engaged in systemic corruption that has plundered the country’s resources and fueled conflict in the East African nation.
They have their own military-industrial complex, 'eh?
The Washington-based Enough Project blames ‘‘willful, systematic obstruction of financial oversight’’ in the world’s youngest nation, where civil war has raged since late 2013.
The report says competition among various militia groups for money and power ‘‘can erupt into deadly violence’’ and is exacerbated by a lack of accountability and transparency.
The report also says that more than 100,000 ‘‘ghost’’ soldiers could be on the military’s payroll, allowing for commanders and military leaders to boost their incomes or reputations.
A spokesman for South Sudan’s military, Santo Domic Chol, declined to comment Thursday because he had not seen the report.
--more--"
Okay, we got military corruption, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes. What else can they throw at the wall?
"Famine declared in part of South Sudan" Associated Press February 21, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to the South Sudan government and UN agencies, the result of prolonged civil war and an economic crisis that has severely strained the East African nation.
Now military action must be taken.
The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan’s three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir’s government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.
I'm sick of being jerked around by the agenda-pushing, war-promoting pre$$.
More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional 1 million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, the UN announcement said.
And if all true, it highlights the complete failure of government at all levels.
So why should we believe they are capable of fixing the problems they most likely created?
Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 percent of South Sudan’s population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, the report said.
If food aid does not reach children urgently ‘‘many of them will die,’’ said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children’s agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished, he said, meaning they are at risk of death.
Monday’s declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan’s creation, and a UN official blamed the country’s politicians for the humanitarian crisis.
‘‘This famine is man-made,” said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. ‘‘There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security.’’
Maybe its global warming that is the cause.
--more--"
I don't doubt the suffering of Sudanese and find it appallingly criminal and tragic; I doubt the good intentions of my war-promoting paper is all.
3/7: South Sudan blocks desperately needed aid, say UN officials The report and statement show the daunting conditions faced by the international community as it tries to combat a catastrophe in the troubled East African nation."
"South Sudan ambush on humanitarian aid convoy kills 2" Associated Press March 16, 2017
JOHANNESBURG — An ambush on a humanitarian aid convoy in South Sudan has killed two people and wounded three, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday, in the latest hostility to outsiders trying to address the triple crisis of famine, cholera, and civil war.
Now cholera, too?
‘‘Unknown armed gunmen’’ targeted the convoy as it was returning from a field mission in Yirol East county, the agency said in a statement that condemned the attack. IOM staff, health workers, and civilians were the victims. Two died of gunshot wounds, and an IOM health officer was in stable condition.
The ambush took place in a region suffering from a cholera outbreak, the statement said. Famine was declared last month in two other counties of South Sudan, which has been devastated by three years of civil war.
The United Nations and aid groups have pleaded for more access to deliver humanitarian aid amid numerous government restrictions. Those include a sharp increase this month in the fees required for foreigners to work in the country, from about $100 to up to $10,000.
Both government troops and rebels have been accused of attacking, detaining, or harassing aid workers, including members of the UN peacekeeping mission.
Earlier this week, South Sudanese staffers with the US-based aid group Samaritan’s Purse were detained for a day by ‘‘armed personnel’’ before being released.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, fell into civil war just two years after it won its independence from Sudan in 2011.
Tens of thousands have been killed, and more than 1.5 million have fled the country, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis.
That about says it all, doesn't it?
--more--"
They didn't mention the rapes, did they?
Related: Cutting Through the African Bush
Who is really chopping things down and why.
