Latest news with #ethniccleansing
Irish Times
6 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
TD apologises over remarks ‘wrongly' comparing British army in Ireland with Israeli actions in Gaza
Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe has apologised in the Dáil to 'the victims of British terror and atrocities' over remarks he made during a debate on Gaza . In a personal statement the Clare TD corrected the record over remarks he made in a comparison between Israeli attacks on Gaza and the British army's actions in Ireland over centuries. He said in the Dáil that the British army never retaliated to IRA attacks by 'bombing and shooting the civilian population of Ireland'. [ Four killed as crowds of Palestinians storm UN warehouse in search for food Opens in new window ] Mr Crowe said he wanted to apologise 'profusely' to 'the victims of British terror and atrocities. My apology is also to those of you who care about Irish history and the accuracy with which it should be conveyed.' READ MORE During debate on a Labour Party motion calling for a UN peacekeeping force to be deployed to Gaza he described the Israeli 'eye for an eye' approach to the 'reprehensible Hamas attack' as no longer war but 'ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide'. Mr Crowe said in his personal statement that he wanted to 'convey the magnitude and the visceral hatred which has been behind the Israel Defense Forces' actions in Gaza' 'I then wanted to make the point that brutal, bad, and all as the British armed forces have been on this island for a very long time, they never resorted to sending over the Royal Air Force tanks and missiles to pummel Irish cities.' But 'regrettably, speaking largely off the cuff I clumsily and wrongly stated 'they never retaliated by bombing and shooting the civilian population of Ireland'.' He said: 'It was a genuine slip-up on my part, but it was wrong and I wish to today unequivocally and profusely apologise. A former history teacher, he said he led a boycott to oppose a planned state commemoration of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Mr Crowe said: 'My apology is to the victims of British s terror and atrocities. My apology is also to those of you who care about Irish history and the accuracy with which it should be conveyed.'. The British armed forces 'have been involved in many heinous attacks on Irish people historically' and his own family 'also suffered at the hands in the past of the British military'.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘I just want security': fear remains for Syrian massacre survivors awaiting justice
Haider* hid in the attic as gunmen rifled through his cousins' belongings. 'Is anyone upstairs? Don't come down or I will kill you!' yelled a masked man wearing military fatigues. Haider waited in silence for an hour before fleeing his cousins' house in the village of al-Sanobar on Syria's coast. He emerged to find his home ablaze and 11 members of his family shot dead, including his 22-year-old brother and 16-year-old cousin. His family were some of the more than 200 al-Sanobar residents killed in sectarian massacres in north-west Syria on 7 March which mostly targeted members of the minority Alawite religion, a sect of Islam. The massacres were prompted by a coordinated attack on Syrian government forces by fighters loyal to the ousted president Bashar al-Assad. After coming under attack, the government issued a call for help. Fighters and armed individuals descended on the Syrian coast where a bloodletting ensued, mostly against members of the Alawite sect to which the Assad family belong. By the end, more than 1,100 people were dead. Unlike most of the victims' families, Haider knows who killed his loved ones. The gunmen, who appeared to be pro-government fighters, filmed themselves trampling through his cousins' home, singing and yelling 'ethnic cleansing!' joyfully, before uploading the video to Facebook, as first revealed by a CNN investigation. A spokesperson for Syria's interior ministry told the Guardian the men in the video had been arrested, but at least one of the gunmen remains active on Facebook, posting as recently as Tuesday. Haider, 25, said he was scared his family's killers were still out there, leaving him in constant fear. 'There's no security at all, we are suffering. I'm dying a thousand deaths a day,' he said over the phone. Syria's president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has set up a fact-finding committee to investigate how the sectarian massacres unfolded, vowing that 'no one would be above the law'. The results of the investigation and how the government holds perpetrators accountable is seen as a crucial test for the new authorities in Syria, who have pledged to protect religious minorities. The committee, initially meant to deliver its report in early April, was granted an additional three months after it requested more time. The lack of answers over how the killings happened and who was responsible has left victims' families feeling robbed of justice. 'They said that after a month everyone would be held accountable. But so far nothing has happened. I just want security, and to finish with this issue of 'ethnic cleansing',' Haider said. A source close to the committee has said that while they understand the political pressure to give answers to grieving families, a proper investigation could take 'years'. They pointed to the UN special tribunal for Lebanon, which took 15 years to issue its verdict on the killing of the Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, as an example of the difficulty of fact-finding missions. Complicating the committee's work is a deluge of fake pictures and videos which show horrific crimes from the civil war rather than the killings on Syria's coast. Witnesses have had trouble distinguishing who exactly committed violence against them and their families. After 14 years of war, Syria is populated by dozens of militias, many of which do not wear uniforms that civilians could easily identify. Human rights groups, such as the Syrian Network for Human Rights, have pointed to Turkish-backed militias, such as the Sultan Suleiman Shah brigade, as being responsible for most of the killings of almost 900 civilians by pro-government forces on the coast. Alawite civilians from two different villages in north-west Syria whose family members were killed told the Guardian they were attacked by members of the brigade. The Guardian could not independently verify their claims. The militia's leader, Mohammed al-Jassem, more commonly known by his nom du guerre, Abu Amsha, denied that his group harmed any civilians and said they refused to enter deep into the Syrian coast once they saw abuses happening. 'Our job was to clear the highway and return to Beit Yashout [a village on the coast]. Every village that we entered, they thanked us for the good treatment,' Abu Amsha told the Guardian while flanked by his senior officers at a militia headquarters in Afrin, northern Syria. He then showed a slideshow of civilians being filmed thanking him personally, as well as a series of WhatsApp voice-notes that Alawite civilians sent praising the militia. He said that after an internal review, he had found that none of his 16,000 members had committed any abuses on the coast. Abu Amsha and his militia were sanctioned by the US in 2023 for alleged human rights abuses, including the kidnapping and mass extortion of civilians in areas living under their control. 'All of my officers have certificates in international humanitarian law,' Abu Amsha said, pulling up a picture of his officers attending human rights training by the Swiss NGO Geneva Call. The source close to the fact-finding committee said it was still unclear if militia members or individuals were responsible for most of the killings. Many of the armed individuals who killed civilians were not neighbours turning on one another, but people who came from surrounding areas after receiving phone calls from besieged members of Syrian general security. While the promise of justice remains far off, the indignities suffered by victims grow greater. Fadi* asked some relatives to check on his home after he fled to Lebanon to escape a massacre that killed 25 of his neighbours in the Alawite village of Arza, north Syria. When Fadi's relatives knocked on the door, a family from the neighbouring village answered. 'The funniest thing is, they didn't just take my house. They were also wearing my clothes and my children's clothes. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry,' he said. * Names have been changed
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
We must all raise our voices to stop the horror in Gaza
For those of us in Israel who are horrified and ashamed about what our government is doing, we can only share Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's sense of hopelessness (As Gaza's children are bombed and starved, we watch – powerless. What is it doing to us as a society?, 24 May). For months now, as a member of the organisation Standing Together, an activist group of Jews and Palestinians, we have demonstrated to end the war. Lobbied politicians. Tried to awake the conscience of those who are only interested in territorial gain. Posted pictures of mutilated and starving Palestinian children. We cannot understand how the democratic world is so slow in responding. Many words of condemnation, but no action. We the peacemakers are many, but our voice has no traction with this government. The Palestinian community dare not say a word as they know they will be picked up by the security forces, and demonstrators are faced with increasingly violent police under the ultra-right minister Itamar Ben‑Gvir. Films about the occupation are banned. Television does not show pictures from Gaza. We are sliding fast into the quagmire of fascism and our voices are being silenced. Two countries for two peoples is what we want, and is the only way to peace. We have no Nelson Mandela here, or Martin Luther King, but we need every one of you to raise your voices and shout: 'Enough.'Olivia BezalelClil, Israel Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's piece questions what genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced starvation are doing to us, the privileged, in the UK. But she omits the very words for the events that the UK is purportedly 'powerless' to stop. She laments her loss of faith in humanity. I sympathise. But she is not powerless. She is a journalist at one of the most prominent newspapers in the world. Journalists can start by taking the most basic and obvious step of using the correct words. Use genocide to describe a genocide, use murder to describe murder, use ethnic cleansing to describe ethnic cleansing. And tell us, please, who is committing the acts that you feel such anguish about. Powerlessness results from the inability to accurately describe what is happening, to condemn it and encourage readers to take action to stop it, such as protests, boycotts, or petitioning our KhouryLondon I collect river stones. I paint them white, set up an art table at markets, at music venues and on the street at a weekly vigil in Maleny, in Jinibara country. I write the names of the murdered children and people come and paint them, talk about how they feel, say a prayer, have a cry, or just sit with the magnitude of it all. They take the stones home or leave them or gift them – most make a donation. The money goes to Olive Kids, an Australian-registered charity trying to provide for Palestinian children under near‑impossible circumstances. I call them remembrance stones; a friend calls it 'craftivism'. For me, it's just the best idea I've MoriartyDiamond Valley, Queensland, Australia Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's words resonate deeply with me, and I imagine for millions of others around the world. I have sat with impotent rage at what is being done to defenceless people for more than a year and not knowing what to do with it. While one can blame Israel, what to say of the leaders of the 'free world', the western powers, who have enabled the starvation and destruction in Palestine?Arif PervaizEdmonton, Alberta, Canada I am also a new mother and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett has encapsulated how I am feeling absolutely perfectly. From wanting to skip traumatic videos online, yet feeling compelled to watch, to feeling a huge sense of sadness and guilt watching my vibrant, plump baby tucking into his big dinner, acutely aware that many in Gaza at this moment are starving and experiencing unimaginable trauma. The feeling of powerlessness has affected me so much more during this particular humanitarian crisis than any other I can remember. Rhiannon may well be right that moral injury by proxy, while it is nothing compared with the trauma experienced by those in Gaza, might have long-term effects on people witnessing and absorbing so much trauma daily on their devices, but who know there is little they can actually PostillPoole, Dorset I am a paediatrician neonatologist. I have been working for six years in international cooperation programmes in Africa, even in unstable countries. Never before I have encountered such a deliberate targeting of health staff and children as I am seeing now in Gaza. If this is not a crime against humanity, I don't know what else it could be. We will be asked why we kept silent and I don't want to keep silent. Where is the UN? Why can't Britain, and European countries as a whole, do more to stop all of this? I wish I could join the doctors trying to save those children now, but it is impossible. Let me invite every reader to stand for those who have no voice and raise the cries of these children to our BertiEnfield, London Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
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The Independent
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump uses photos from wrong country as evidence of ‘white genocide' in South Africa
President Donald Trump's attempt to demonstrate evidence of 'white genocide' in South Africa fell flat after he used pictures from an entirely different country to support his claims. Trump met with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office on Wednesday in an effort to 'reset' foreign relations. The meeting took a bizarre turn when Trump produced an array of articles and showed video footage alleging ethnic cleansing in South Africa. At one stage, Trump flipped to a printout of a blog post from The American Thinker titled 'Let's talk about Africa, which is where tribalism takes you.' The featured image on the article, which was taken from a months-old video on Feb 7, showed Red Cross aid workers at a scene in the city of Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a mass rape and murder incident had occured. 'Look, here are burial sites all over the place. These are all white farmers that are being buried,' the president falsely claimed while holding up the piece to reporters. Trump continued to flick through pages, citing 'thousands of stories' about the 'death, death, death' of white South African farmers from an array of media sites, which the White House cited Wednesday. In a separate video, which Trump ordered his staffers to play for Ramaphosa, South African politicians were heard inciting racist violence against white South Africans, 'Go after the white man!' one man was heard shouting to crowds in the clip. Speaking about the video, Ramaphosa said the small minority party featured in the video spouts opposing views to the majority held by the South African parliament, 'which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution." Trump interjected, saying: 'But you do allow them to take land. You do allow them to take land. And then, when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.' The notion of a 'white genocide' in the country has been supported by Trump allies Elon Musk and Stephen Miller in recent times, having long been a rallying cry for white supremacists worldwide. Ramaphosa later expressed his belief that Trump is unconvinced by the allegations of 'white genocide' in a briefing with reporters. 'When he was asked by one of you - and thank God one of you asked - whether he was convinced that there was genocide, he says no, he's not convinced. Much as he flighted the video and all those press clippings, in the end I do believe that there's doubt and disbelief in his head about all this,' the president said. Ramaphosa also admitted in the fallout of the meeting that his delegation 'could have been better briefed,' reports News24. The meeting followed the recent arrival of a group of 59 white South Africans, who were granted asylum in the U.S., after Trump deemed them victims of racial discrimination in their home nation. In another video showing an aerial pan of roadside graves in South Africa, which was shared weeks before by Musk on X, Trump pointed at the footage, saying, 'Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. 'Over 1000 white farmers,' Trump claimed, without any concrete evidence. Trump continued, 'Those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross, and there's approximately 1000 of them. They're all white farmers. The family of white farmers.' 'It's a terrible sight. I've never seen anything like it,' he added. There is no official evidence of a 'white genocide' taking place in South Africa, despite Trump's claims.
Reuters
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Russia's Lavrov says radical groups engaged in 'ethnic cleansing' in Syria
MOSCOW/DAMASCUS May 20 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow is deeply concerned by what he said was ethnic cleansing being carried out by "radical militant groups" in Syria. The comments came as Syrian sources and Russian social media channels reported an apparent attack on one of the two military bases Moscow maintains in Syria. "Radical militant groups are carrying out real ethnic cleansing, mass killings of people based on their nationality and religion," Lavrov said, according to a transcript of his comments published on the Foreign Ministry website. There was no indication as to what groups he was referring to in his speech to a reception to mark the last day of the Easter period for Orthodox Christians. Russia, which maintains two military bases in Syria, was a key backer of the government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, who is now in Russia, where he was given asylum. A March outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria's coastal northwest, which was an Assad stronghold, left hundreds of members of the former leader's Alawite sect dead. Russia has attempted to maintain ties with Syria's new authorities, who have said that they may yet allow Moscow to retain use of the Hmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base. Two sources in Syria familiar with the matter said that the Hmeimim airbase had come under attack earlier on Tuesday. Military Informer, a pro-Russian Telegram channel that focuses on military matters, published what it said was video of a firefight between Russian troops and Syrian fighters at the base. Reuters could not verify the footage. The Syrian sources said that the motive for the attack on the airbase, which has sheltered Alawite refugees since the March attacks, was unclear. One, a Syrian security official based in the coastal city of Latakia, said an investigation was underway. U.S. President Donald Trump this month ordered sanctions on Syria imposed during Assad's rule removed, in a major policy shift for Washington.
