2010 Crimes Against Humanity Watchlist

In addition to the Top Three Areas of Concern for 2010 -- Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) -- the country's below present a substantial risk for identity-based conflict on the scale of crimes against humanity in the coming year:

China: The state's oppression of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as regional and other political dissidents -- most notably, the Uighurs, members of Falun Gong, and the people of Tibet -- is well documented, but the strength of the Chinese state and its stubborn "it's none of your business" attitude makes it difficult to engage the government on human rights issues, both domestically and internationally. China recently managed to pressure Cambodia to deport Uighur asylum seekers, and is threatening a deterioration of diplomatic relations with Argentina, whose courts recently issued an arrest warrant for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin for torture and genocide against Falun Gong practitioners.

Guinea: Brutal government crackdowns on opposition and the mobilization of ethnic militias not only threaten to destabilize Guinea, but could also wreck havoc on neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, both of which are still in the fragile early years of post-conflict reconstruction after experiencing decades of brutal war.

Yemen: Conflict between the Shi'a Houthis rebels and the Yemeni government intensified towards the end of 2009; the insurgency, which has religious overtones of a battle between Shi'a and Sunni branches of Islam, is shaping up to be a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which, according to Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group," perceive themselves as the contemporary standard-bearers of the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam, respectively."

Central African Republic: The CAR has been torn apart by its own internal conflict, as well as spillover from Sudan, the DRC, and the LRA, for years, and the UN Security Council recently warned of the need for substantial security sector reform ahead of the country's 2010 presidential elections to prevent a regression of the "two steps forward, one step back" progress towards peace.

Burma: Burma is also scheduled to hold national elections in 2010, which offer both an opportunity for the international community to push for a democratic opening in the long-time military dictatorship and the risk, as elections in repressive states often do, of even further government-sponsored violence against civilians.

Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party seem intent on making life and governance as difficult as possible for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, ZANU's partner in the current Government of National Unity. If history and Mugabe's reported stockpiling of arms and recruiting of militia is any indication, the aging dictator's likely plan is to unleash another wave of violence in order to claim legitimacy in what will be a very unfair national election.

Philippines: Though unrelated to the conflict between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the November massacre of 57 men and women allied with a candidate for a provincial governorship by the private army of a political rival has reinforced the stereotype held by many Christians that the Muslim population is excessively violent, and thus made ongoing peace talks more complicated.

[Photo by tea rose, from Wikimedia Commons.]