World

Suddenly notorious for a scathing first-person account of the war in Ukraine published online, Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatiev arrived in France seeking political asylum Sunday after quitting his country for fear of reprisals.

“When I heard the higher-ups were calling for me to be sentenced to 15 years in prison for fake news, I realised that I wouldn’t get anywhere here and my lawyers couldn’t do anything for me in Russia,” Filatiev tells AFP in the asylum seekers’ waiting area at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

After a time out from the army, the 34-year-old last year rejoined Russia’s 56th airborne regiment — his father’s old unit — based in Crimea.

The paratroopers were sent into southern Ukraine when President Vladimir Putin began his “special military operation” against Kyiv on February 24.

Filatiev himself spent two months around the key cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv before being withdrawn from the front with an eye infection.

“We didn’t have the moral right to attack another country, especially when it’s the nation that’s closest to us,” he writes in a 141-page broadside called “ZOV” that he posted on the VKontakte social network in August.

The title, the Russian word for “call”, is made up of the identification letters painted on military vehicles during the attack.

In the text, Filatiev rails at both the state of the military and Moscow’s assault on Ukraine, which he believes is broadly opposed by rank-and-file soldiers too afraid to speak out.

– ‘Chaos and corruption’ –

Filatiev depicts a barely functioning army that lacked training and equipment even before the invasion started.

The armed forces “are in the same state Russia has fallen into in the last few years,” he tells AFP.

“Year by year the chaos and corruption grow. Corruption, disorder and a couldn’t-care-less attitude have reached unacceptable levels,” Filatiev adds.

“For the first few months I was in shock, I told myself that it couldn’t be true. By the end of the year, I realised that I didn’t want to serve in an army like this.”

But he did not resign before the attack on Ukraine began, and found himself advancing with his unit into the south of the neighbouring country.

“If the army was already a mess in peacetime, corrupt and apathetic, it’s clear that in wartime, in combat, that this will come even more to the fore and the lack of professionalism is even more obvious,” Filatiev says.

Those in power in Moscow have played a major role in “destroying the army we inherited from the Soviet Union,” he adds.

Filatiev insists that his unit did not participate in the abuses against civilians and prisoners that have caused worldwide outcry and allegations of war crimes by the Russian invaders during his two months at the front.

– ‘Terrorised’ troops –

After being evacuated to a military hospital in the Crimean city of Sebastopol, he tried to resign for health reasons — only to be threatened by his superiors with an investigation if he refused to return to the fighting.

He left Crimea in early August and published his account of the war online.

Filatiev spent some time skipping from one town to another to avoid detection before leaving the country, arriving this week in France via Tunisia.

“Why am I telling all this in detail? I want people in Russia and in the world to know how this war came about, why people are still waging it,” he says.

On the Russian side, “it’s not because they want to fight, it’s because they are in conditions that make it very difficult for them to quit,” Filatiev believes.

“The army, all of Russian society, is terrorised,” he adds.

By Filatiev’s reckoning, just 10 percent of soldiers support the war, with the remainder fearing to speak out.

“Those who are against are afraid to say it, afraid to leave. They’re afraid of the consequences,” he says.

If granted asylum in France, Filatiev says he wants to “work towards this war coming to an end”.

“I want the fewest possible young Russian men to go there and get involved in this, for them to know what’s happening there,” he says.

Diplomats paid tribute to departing UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday, despite her failure to release a long-promised report on alleged abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

A long line of country representatives took the floor at a UN rights council to praise how Bachelet had handled the challenges of the past four years.

But while the former Chilean president was greeted with praise, flowers and a standing ovation, the row over a long-promised report on the rights situation in Xinjiang remains unresolved.

Bachelet told the council nearly a year ago that her office was finalising a report on the situation in the far-western Chinese region, where Beijing stands accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

She steps down from her post on Wednesday with her successor still to be appointed — and the report still unreleased.

Rights groups have grown increasingly frustrated at the delay.

With just a day to go before she steps down however, it looks increasingly unlikely that she will keep her promise to release it before she leaves.

– ‘Tremendous pressure’ –

Several rights groups raised the issue during Tuesday’s meeting, as did Britain’s ambassador to the rights council, Rita French.

It is “essential for all of us that no state is free from objective scrutiny on its human rights record, and that no state can be allowed to stifle the high commissioner’s independent voice,” said French.

“We therefore urge you to publish your report on China.”

John Fisher of Human Rights Watch, while acknowledging Bachelet’s accomplishments, added: “All of that risks being overshadowed if you fail to publish your report on Xinjiang before leaving office.

“Uyghurs and other victims have placed their trust in you to report on the extent of the abuses they face,” he said.

“If you don’t stand up for victims, who will?” 

Campaigners accuse China of a litany of abuses in Xinjiang, including mass detention, forced labour, compulsory sterilisation and the destruction of Uyghur cultural and religious sites.

The United States and lawmakers in other Western countries have gone so far as to accuse China of committing genocide against the minority groups.

Beijing vehemently rejects the claims.

Bachelet did not address the issue on Tuesday, but last week she acknowledged to journalists that her office had been under “tremendous pressure to publish or not to publish”.

She insisted that she would “not publish or withhold publication due to any such pressure”, insisting, “we’re trying very hard to do what I promised”.

Up to 200,000 people are stranded in remote Pakistan valleys after the unrelenting floods of the past week — with helicopters the only way of reaching them.

Unprecedented rain in the Swat Valley turned rivers into raging torrents that washed away roads and bridges, cutting off tourists and residents from nearby towns, even as the water receded. 

Army and government helicopter missions have rescued hundreds of panicked tourists and locals — some urgently needing medical help.

“It feels like I have got a second life,” said tourist Yasmin Akram, a diabetic who was airlifted to Saidu Sharif’s airfield from the Kalam valley with her 12-year-old daughter and husband. 

The traffic police officer watched in despair as the hotel they fled in the middle of the night was swallowed by the Swat river, taking with it a young boy.

“I witnessed this all with my own eyes,” she said. “Since then I haven’t slept.”

Her husband, dazed from exhaustion, said he ran out of medication for his kidney condition after Kalam was cut off. 

“When I arrived here it was like being given a new life,” said Muhammad Akram, an official with the Punjab government. 

Their two adult sons were left behind, with priority given to the sick, women and children. 

The stunning Swat Valley, known locally as the “Pakistani Switzerland”, is a popular tourist spot because of its majestic mountains, lakes and rivers. 

The deeply conservative area came to notoriety in the mid-2000s, when it saw the rise of a powerful local chapter of the Pakistani Taliban. 

In 2012, following a military operation to displace the Taliban, then-schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai — now a Nobel peace laureate — was shot and left for dead by militants in Swat’s main town, Mingora. 

– ‘Challenges are immense’ –

Junaid Khan, the deputy commissioner for Swat, told AFP that stricken tourists have made up the majority of evacuations. 

Government officials and doctors have been airlifted into the valleys to identify those most in need of rescue. 

Locals are willing to stay behind if food and medical supplies are guaranteed, said Khan.

Thousands of food aid packages have already been delivered –- some dropped from the back of a helicopter when crowds of people reaching for the aircraft made it impossible to land.

“We’ve reached areas that no other organisations and aid groups have been able to,” Khan said at Saidu Sharif’s airfield, where some of the rescue missions are being coordinated. 

Locals are hurrying to create makeshift landing pads for the helicopters –- with the first established on grounds surrounding a mosque in Mankyel.

It could be days before roads leading to the mountains and valleys are repaired. 

“The challenges are immense but the hope is very high in this region which has seen the worst of terrorism, militancy, earthquakes and floods,” said Khan. 

So far 21 deaths have been reported in the area’s valleys –- mostly as a result of collapsed houses — but a handful of people were washed away by floods.

A helicopter supplied by the provincial government’s chief minister –- not built for rescue missions — has helped to pull more than 350 people from villages, carrying up to double the recommended number of passengers. 

Army helicopters have collected hundreds more. 

Six Indonesian soldiers have been arrested after being accused of killing four indigenous Papuans and mutilating their bodies last week, authorities said on Tuesday. 

The suspects pretended to be willing to sell weapons to lure the victims on August 22, the day the crime allegedly occurred, Papua provincial police director Faizal Ramadhani told AFP. 

The victims were then dismembered, stuffed into sacks and thrown into a river outside of the city of Timika, according to a police report. 

As of Monday, body parts belonging to three of the victims had been found, Ramadhani said, adding that authorities were continuing to look for the remains of the last victim.

The Papua police have also named four civilians as suspects in the case, three of whom were arrested over the weekend, Ramadhani said.   

The civilian suspects said that the soldiers were “directly involved” in the killing and dismemberment of the victims, who are believed to be affiliated with rebel groups in the Nduga area, Ramadhani said.

Military investigators were questioning the six soldiers, who were named as suspects and arrested by the military police on Monday, military official Chandra W. Sukotjo said on Tuesday. 

Teguh Muji Angkasa, a senior military officer in Papua, told reporters in Jayapura on Monday that the army was coordinating with the police on an investigation. 

“We are committed to upholding the rule of law. We will hand out firm sanction if the soldiers are proven to be involved (in the crime),” Angkasa said. 

Sebby Sambom, a spokesman of the West Papua National Liberation Army, the military wing of Papua’s main separatist group, demanded that the Indonesian government sentence the perpetrators to death.

“This is a crime against humanity by the Indonesian government through its security forces,” Sambom said in a statement, threatening to carry out a “retaliation operation” if his group’s demand was ignored.  

Indonesia maintains a heavy military presence in the resource-rich but underdeveloped Papua region, where the conflict with a rebel separatist insurgency has been claiming an increasing number of victims. 

A former Dutch colony, Papua declared itself independent in 1961, but neighbouring Indonesia took control of the region two years later, with the promise of holding a referendum on independence.

The subsequent vote in favour of staying part of Indonesia was widely considered a sham.

More than 50,000 fighters including former rebels from rival camps in South Sudan’s civil war were set to be integrated into the country’s army in a long-overdue graduation ceremony on Tuesday.

The unification of forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival, Vice President Riek Machar, was a key condition of the 2018 peace deal that ended the brutal five-year conflict in which nearly 400,000 people died.

Since achieving independence in 2011 from Sudan, the world’s youngest nation has lurched from crisis to crisis, battling flooding, hunger, ethnic violence and political turmoil.

The ceremony in the capital Juba, held under tight security, comes against a backdrop of growing frustration in the international community over delays in implementing the peace deal, as explosions of violence threaten to undo even fragile gains.

Earlier this month, South Sudan’s leaders — appointed to run a transitional government — announced that they would remain in power two years beyond an agreed deadline, sparking international concern.

The transition period was meant to conclude with elections in December this year, but the government has so far failed to meet core provisions of the agreement, including drafting a constitution.

According to the peace deal, the troops’ graduation ceremony was supposed to take place in 2019. 

But the two leaders remained deadlocked over the division of senior posts in the unified armed forces command, only inking an agreement in April this year.

Over 52,000 men and women — drawn from Kiir and Machar’s parties as well as the South Sudan Opposition Alliance — will take part in Tuesday’s proceedings to officially join the army, police and other bodies responsible for national security.

The government has invited representatives from neighbouring nations including Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to attend the ceremony.

– Unpaid salaries –

The addition of tens of thousands of former rebels to the government’s payroll will add to already crushing economic challenges — civil servants have been unpaid for months.

But the move was nevertheless met with optimism in some quarters, with one former rebel telling AFP he was excited to join the police force.

“I am looking forward to serving my people. I just want to tell our people that finally peace has come after a long struggle,” said the former rebel who only identified himself as John, citing government restrictions.

Many of the new graduates will carry sticks instead of guns at the ceremony, because of a years-long arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.

The UN has repeatedly criticised South Sudan’s leadership for its role in stoking violence, cracking down on political freedoms and plundering public coffers.

The United States last month pulled out of two peace process monitoring organisations in South Sudan due to the government’s failure to meet reform milestones, citing a “lack of sustained progress”.

Fighting between rival Iraqi forces raged for a second day Tuesday with rocket fire echoing from Baghdad’s Green Zone where 23 supporters of powerful Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr have been shot dead, medics said.

Tensions have soared in Iraq amid a political crisis that has left the country without a new government, prime minister or president for months.

They escalated sharply after Sadr’s supporters on Monday afternoon stormed the government palace inside the high-security Green Zone following their leader’s announcement that he was quitting politics.

The violence pitches backers of Sadr against rival Shiite factions backed by neighbouring Iran, with the sides exchanging gunfire across barricades — violence the United Nations warns risks tipping the war-ravaged country deeper into chaos.

Overnight, shelling targeted the Green Zone that houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, a security source said, amid angry protests after Sadr’s surprise announcement.

Sadr, a grey-bearded preacher with millions of devoted followers who once led a militia against American and Iraqi government forces after the 2003 US-led overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein, announced Monday his “definitive retirement” and said he had “decided not to meddle in political affairs”.

On Tuesday morning, fresh clashes broke out between Sadr’s supporters and the army and men of the Hashed al-Shaabi, former Tehran-backed paramilitaries integrated into the Iraqi forces.

The rattle of automatic gunfire and heavier explosions of rocket-propelled grenades could be heard from the Green Zone.

– ‘Dangerous escalation’ –

The United Nations mission in Iraq warned of “an extremely dangerous escalation” and called on all sides to “refrain from acts that could lead to an unstoppable chain of events”.

“The very survival of the state is at stake,” it warned.

But amid an army-imposed nationwide curfew that continued Tuesday, Baghdad was otherwise quiet, with shops shuttered and few cars venturing out on the streets.

On Tuesday morning, medics updated the toll of Sadr supporters killed to 23, with some 380 others injured — some with bullet wounds and others suffering tear gas inhalation.

A mass funeral was held Tuesday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf for some of the protesters killed in Baghdad.

Witnesses said earlier that Sadr loyalists and supporters of a rival Shiite bloc, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, had exchanged fire.

The Framework condemned an “attack on state institutions”, urging the Sadrists to engage in dialogue.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi said “security or military forces, or armed men” were prohibited from opening fire on protesters.

– ‘Disturbing’ –

The United States also urged calm amid the “disturbing” reports, while France called on “the parties to exercise the utmost restraint”.

Shortly after Sadr made his announcement to step down, his followers burst into the Republican Palace in Baghdad — where cabinet meetings are usually held — and initially celebrated including by cooling off in a swimming pool in the garden.

Sadr — a longtime player in the war-torn country’s political scene, though he himself has never directly been in government — announced he was quiting politics two days after he said “all parties” including his own should give up government positions in order to help resolve the political crisis.

His bloc emerged from last year’s election as the biggest in the legislature, with 73 seats, but short of a majority. 

In June, his lawmakers quit in a bid to break the logjam, which led to the Coordination Framework becoming the largest bloc.

Hamzeh Hadad, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it was “not clear” what Sadr’s strategy was.

“Whatever it does mean, in typical Sadrist fashion, there is always backtracking expected,” Hadad said.

“The second, and more terrifying thought on this is that he is giving his followers the green light to do whatever they like.”

Iraq has been mired in political deadlock since legislative elections in October last year due to disagreement between Shiite factions over forming a coalition.

Sadr’s supporters have for weeks been staging a sit-in outside Iraq’s parliament, after storming the legislature’s interior on July 30, demanding fresh elections be held.

The Coordination Framework wants a new head of government to be appointed before any new polls are held.

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