Don't say 'genocide'

This past week felt like a "F*ck you" to accountability.

A UK whistleblower claimed that the Foreign Office removed warnings about a potential genocide in Sudan from an internal risk report because it didn't want to upset the UAE. And in the U.S., the former president of Honduras was pardoned after serving time for drug trafficking because Donald Trump needs the right guy to win the elections in the Central American country.

Also in this issue: A controversial peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda, the Indian state of Kerala, says it eradicated extreme poverty, Venezuela's diaspora is back on the streets (this time to celebrate a Nobel Peace Prize), a photography book project about Afghan women under Taliban rule without "victim imagery", and so much more.

A whistleblower tells British media: 'Our government hasn't warned of genocide in Darfur, even though it knows better'

Refresher:
Fighting broke out between Hemeti's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Gen. Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on April 15, 2023. Since then, the SAF and the RSF have been fighting each other over control of Sudan. Over 60,000 civilians have been killed in the civil war, 1.5 million Sudanese have fled the country, and over 6.1 million have been internally displaced.

What happened last week:
An employee/whistleblower from UK's Foreign Office (their version of foreign ministry) says the word "genocide" was removed on purpose from an internal risk report about Sudan. The claim is that officials softened the language to avoid upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who are suspected of backing the RSF militia that has carried out killings and forced removals in Darfur. The UAE are doing heavy business with the UK (more than one billion pounds in arms exports since 2019). The whistleblower says this was clearly not about careful wording, but about censorship.

Why this matters:
The risk of genocide in Darfur is, and has been, real since the war broke out in Sudan. To give a few examples: Amnesty International has again and again warned that the violence there shows signs of ethnically-motivated killings, Human Rights Watch has also documented ethnic-targeted attacks, Yale Humanitarian Research Lab found evidence of that as well. Some governments, like the U.S. for example, have officially determined that the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Darfur.

Tell me more:
The whistleblower says the UK Foreign Office staff were told to use soft language like "a return to previous conflicts". The allegation is especially noteworthy because the UK is usually one of the main voices at the UN Security Council when it comes to Sudan, drafting resolutions and pushing debates. However, critics say, if you refuse to use accurate language, the people doing the killing think no one will hold them accountable. Critics also argue that this lack of clear naming has made the situation worse in different places in Darfur, like El Geneina, the Zamzam camp, and El Fasher, where violence has only continued to grow since 2023.

• Dig deeper: Quite concretely, last month, The Guardian reported that British officials were given very early intelligence that the city of El Fasher was at serious risk of falling to the RSF militia, with potential for mass killings, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide. They were presented with four possible plans to prevent atrocities and protect civilians. The UK chose the weakest, least ambitious option. The city was captured last month.

Is this isolated to Sudan?
Apparently not. Another (former) Foreign Office staffer told the Guardian that warnings about mass killings sometimes got ignored when they clashed with political interests (in this case, it was to maintain a close relationship with Rwanda). They point to similar behavior in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where serious human rights concerns were also pushed aside.

What's the government's reaction?
The government denies all this. Their position is that using the word "genocide" is not a political decision, and that the UK only uses that label after a court confirms it with evidence. And so far, no court has issued a "genocide" ruling for what's happening in Darfur, Sudan right now. 'Plus, we're supporting UN investigations, cooperating with the International Criminal Court and funding documentation projects,' they say.

Sounds reasonable, though.
Not really, as per Gregory Stanton from Genocide Watch, a nonprofit that monitors where genocide or ethnic cleansing might be happening around the world. In April, Stanton wrote that the UK is failing to meet its obligations under the Genocide Convention, which states that governments, not courts, should regularly assess the risk of genocide and use "all means reasonably available" to prevent it.

Plus, the timeline tells a different story. When the said report was written in April 2023 (this is when the war broke out), Darfur was already a global concern. Analysts sent early warnings about the situation on the ground to the UK government (even before the war), so they could use it for UN warning systems and minister meetings. Two months later, news of the first mass killings spread, first in El Geneina, then El Fasher (experts now compare the violence there to the early days of Rwanda in 1994). Even after the massacres, the whistleblower states that the reports still did not use the term "genocide".

In the meantime, last week, the RSF attacked a pre-school and other sites in the Kalogi locality of the state of South Kordofan, killing at least 116 people, according to a local official. The executive director of the Kalogi locality told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the victims of the attack included 46 children who were attending the pre-school.

Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández

Refresher:
Former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, was convicted in a U.S. court in 2024 of drug trafficking, money laundering, and illegal weapons deals. He was accused of helping move a lot of cocaine (400 tons, or about 4.5 billion individual doses) to the United...