Daily Brief Audio Series

For countries bordering Russia, these are nervous times. Particularly for nations that have been invaded and occupied by Moscow in the past, watching Russia’s atrocity-ridden invasion of Ukraine today brings about understandable fears of “who’ll be next tomorrow?”

But fear can sometimes lead to bad decision-making.

In recent months, the governments of five countries – Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland – have all taken steps towards withdrawing from the international ban on antipersonnel landmines. It’s a terrible trend.

These are particularly nasty weapons. Antipersonnel landmines cannot discriminate between a civilian and a combatant. They explode regardless of who steps on them or picks them up. And they can go on killing for decades, long after a war is over.

Antipersonnel landmines kill and maim more civilians than anything else. Civilians made up 85 percent of all recorded landmine casualties in 2023. When the age of victims was recorded, children accounted for 37 percent of the casualties.

It’s clear why there’s an international treaty against antipersonnel landmines, signed by 165 countries.

However, politicians in five countries bordering Russia now claim leaving the Mine Ban Treaty is somehow essential for national security.

They never make clear exactly how national security would be improved by embracing these banned weapons. Arguments come more from the gut.

Last month, for example, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, told parliament leaving the landmines treaty was necessary “so that we are not bound by a straitjacket that prevents us from defending our homeland with all our might.”

The argument in Poland and elsewhere has been: anything is acceptable in the defense of the nation. That may seem reasonable. Until you think about it a bit.

If anything is allowed, why not chemical and biological weapons, too? Why not nuclear weapons? Or torture?

But no. Not everything is allowed in the name of national defense. There are rules of human decency – and international agreements and customary laws – even in war.

These countries should be on the side of the rules, of the law, and of decency.

Yes, there are some rule-breakers on antipersonnel landmines, notably Myanmar and Russia, whose forces have also committed countless war crimes and other atrocities. No country should want to join that club.

The debate in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland has focused on misguided arguments. Using widely banned weapons that would put more civilians at risk will not help any nation’s defense.

This morning saw a new joint appeal by 100 Nobel Prize winners, including former dissident and president of Poland Lech Wałęsa, protesting withdrawals from the Mine Ban Treaty. The five governments should heed their call. 

Now in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, Dawood originally came from a village in Buthidaung township in Rakhine State, western Myanmar. In February last year, the Myanmar military conscripted him, along with other Rohingya men and boys. They were given little to no training and sent out to fight the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group, in Rakhine State.

Dozens were killed or injured in the fighting. Dawood spent a month in the hospital. Then, he was sent back to the front lines.

In May, with his unit besieged, he deserted. He returned to his home village, but that proved no escape from the fighting. Soon, Dawood was on the move again, along with other people from his village, fleeing shelling and gunfire.

Neither the military nor the Arakan Army cared much about protecting Rohingya civilians. Local observers estimate that hundreds are dead or missing from the fighting around that village alone.

Dawood survived but was caught and detained by the Arakan Army. He was one of some 80 men they accused of being former Myanmar soldiers.

Somehow, Dawood was able to escape. He hid in the forest for a time and then made the perilous journey across the border to Bangladesh. He now lives there in a crowded Rohingya refugee settlement.

Dawood is only 19 years old. He says his short life is now shattered.

His story is an incredible epic of survival, but it’s far from unique. Tens of thousands of other Rohingya have been arriving in Bangladesh, fleeing recent fighting in Myanmar. They join a million other Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who had escaped Myanmar military atrocities in earlier years.

The Bangladesh government says it’s overwhelmed and unable to support these new arrivals. US government funding cuts have also depleted humanitarian assistance.

The head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Muhammad Yunus, has talked about trying to repatriate people. However, clearly, Rohingya cannot safely return to Myanmar.

First, the conflict back home is ongoing. Second, there’s the danger of ethnic persecution by the Myanmar military. They’re already responsible for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Rohingya. Third, there’s the risk from the abusive Arakan Army, which now controls most of Rakhine State.

In September, the UN will convene to discuss the future of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. Later this month, countries at the UN Human Rights Council will also highlight the dire situation. These are important diplomatic opportunities.

For now, however, more than a million Rohingya seem stuck, having survived but left, as Dawood says, shattered. 

Some encouraging signs have emerged in recent weeks suggesting Western governments are finally shifting their approach to Israel/Palestine. However, as abuses and atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territory persist with no end in sight, there’s still a long way to go.

In a coordinated move this week, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom announced individual sanctions on two Israeli ministers: national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.

These measures were not related to Gaza. The five governments sanctioned the two ministers for their role in inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. What’s been happening in the West Bank sometimes gets overlooked because of the devastation in Gaza, but it’s been appalling, too.

Since October 2023, Israeli military demolitions and settler violence have displaced more than 6,400 Palestinians in the West Bank. By fueling or failing to stop settler violence, Israeli authorities have essentially greenlighted it. According to reports by an Israeli investigative journalist, Ben-Gvir even instructed police not to enforce the law against violent settlers.

The new sanctions will add pressure on the Israeli government to curb these abuses. They join other recent Western moves, hopefully signaling a much-needed shift overall, particularly from some governments that have often tried to shield the Israeli government from international criticism or consequences over its crimes in Gaza.

Last month, for example, the UK government adopted its hardest line yet in response to what it called the Israeli government’s continuing “egregious actions and rhetoric” in Gaza. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a suspension of free-trade negotiations with Israel, among other measures.

The EU has also announced a review of its economic agreement with Israel, because of what it called the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza.

All these measures are welcome. They suggest a long-necessary realignment of Western policies regarding the Israeli government, its abuses, and its atrocities. However, more is needed to increase pressure further.

For more than a year and a half now, Israeli authorities have been committing war crimes, crimes against humanity – including forced displacement and extermination – and acts of genocide in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. Israeli authorities continue to use starvation as a method of war.

Israeli officials have announced plans that would amount to an escalation of extermination in Gaza. In the name of human dignity and under their legal obligation – their “duty to prevent” under the 1948 Genocide Convention – governments need to do much more.

Some Western governments now shifting policy continue to provide Israel with weapons, even though Israeli military atrocities are undeniable. If there’s one thing all governments should do now, it’s stop arming Israel.

For more than two years now, a horrific conflict has been raging in Sudan.

The two main warring parties – the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – have committed horrific abuses against civilians. Their lists of atrocities grow longer almost by the day.

The RSF and their allied militias have carried out widespread, deliberate killings of civilians, many ethnically targeted. The RSF has engaged in widespread sexual violence, notably gang-rape, and pillage, as well. They’ve also destroyed, often by burning, towns and villages, and massively looted aid.

On the other side, the SAF have unlawfully killed civilians. They’ve repeatedly deliberately obstructed humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it. The SAF have also carried out airstrikes targeting civilian infrastructure, including hospitals.

The latest research from Human Rights Watch details SAF airstrikes in the region of South Darfur in February. They killed scores of civilians in attacks that used air-dropped bombs on residential and commercial neighborhoods in the city of Nyala. These strikes were part of a broader military surge of aerial bombings of Nyala, a hub for the RSF.

We found these attacks were indiscriminate, because the unguided bombs used have wide-area effects with limited accuracy. In populated areas, they can’t, under most conditions, be directed at a specific military target. Deliberately or recklessly conducting indiscriminate attacks is a war crime.

Yet more atrocities to add to Sudan’s ever-growing list. No one can ever hope to even document them all.

However, their horrific effects can be made clear with a few country-wide numbers.

In addition to the tens of thousands abused and killed, the renewed conflict has forced more than 12 million people to flee from their homes. About a third of them have fled to neighboring countries. The millions who remain make Sudan the world’s largest crisis of internal displacement.

Some 25 million people – that’s about half of the population of Sudan – are now dependent on emergency food supplies. Two million could be at risk of starvation in the coming months.

Last week’s deadly attack on a UN aid convoy in North Darfur is a reminder that both warring parties have been obstructing humanitarian efforts with no regard for the millions who desperately need relief.

Civilians continue to bear the brunt of Sudan’s devastating, two-year-old war.

Other countries need to take concerted action to protect civilians. They can do this by supporting the current international investigations into atrocities in Sudan and sanctioning individual perpetrators responsible for grave violations.