War Crimes, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

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      In Bali Bombing Trial, Victims Describe Their Pain and Prisoners Apologize

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      A Guantánamo military court heard anguishing testimony at the sentencing hearing for two Malaysian prisoners who pleaded guilty after 20 years of detention.Relatives of tourists killed in the 2002 terrorist bombing in Bali, Indonesia, spoke of endless, devastating grief, and two prisoners who conspired in the attack renounced violence in the name of Islam on Thursday for a U.S. military jury assembled at Guantánamo Bay to deliberate their sentence.The prisoners, Mohammed Farik Bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, both Malaysians, pleaded guilty last week to war crimes charges for conspiring with an affiliate of Al Qaeda that carried out the attack. The bombings killed 202 people from 22 nations.“No God of any religion rewards such acts of horror,” said Solomon Lamagni-Miller, 18, of London. He was born after his uncle, Nathaniel Dan Miller, 31, was killed in the bombing and read a statement written by the victim’s mother, his grandmother.Christopher Snodgrass of Glendale, Ariz., said the loss of his daughter, Deborah, 33, in the bombing and other “terrorist activities worldwide” left him despising “over 20 percent of the world population, Muslims. I’m a religious person, and the hate-filled person I have become is certainly not what I wanted.”Echoing the sentiment of several family members, he appealed to the jury to “deal with these murderers in such a manner that they can’t do to others as they’ve done to us.”For hours this week, fathers, mothers, a brother and three sisters of the victims offered anguished descriptions of searches for missing relatives, of life-altering burns and of the vacuum left by the deaths of young people who had gone on vacation in Bali and never came home.Two of Mr. Bin Amin’s elder brothers tearfully asked the jury for leniency. Then both defendants renounced their terrorist pasts, apologized to the families and said they were tortured while in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas prison network from 2003 to 2006.The men were captured in Thailand in June 2003. A U.S. military jury is hearing the case to decide a sentence in the 20- to 25-year range, and cannot grant credit for time served. There is, however, a secondary, secret agreement in which the men could return to Malaysia later this year.Mr. Bin Amin’s brothers flew in from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, and sat in the public portion of the spectators’ gallery, where a blue curtain separated relatives of the dead from the United States, Britain and Germany.The oldest brother, Fadil, 62, an architect who was educated in Birmingham, England, sorrowfully told the court that his mother taught all 10 of her children a peaceful form of Islam. “He somehow got sidetracked” and made bad choices, he said.In the gallery sat Matthew Arnold, who traveled to Guantánamo from his home in Birmingham and testified that his brother Timothy, 43, was in Bali for a rugby tournament when he was killed “by this atrocity.”“My family’s lives have been changed completely by the actions of the perpetrators of this crime,” he said. “And I would like the court and Mr. Bin Amin, and Mr. Bin Lep, to be aware of the devastating effects of their actions on so many innocent and decent people.”Mr. Bin Amin, who hung his head at the defense table throughout the hours of testimony, apologized to the victims, his family and “all Muslims. This is not what I was taught as a child,” he said.In his two decades of U.S. detention, he said, “I have changed. I am not an angry young man anymore. I am a reformed man. My faith has evolved.”As part of their plea deal, both men offered secret testimony earlier this week for the future war crimes trial of Encep Nurjaman, a prisoner known as Hambali whom prosecutors portray as a mastermind of terrorist attacks in Indonesia in 2002 and 2003. But both men said in their confessions that they had no firsthand knowledge of Mr. Hambali’s role in the attack.On Thursday, Mr. Bin Amin went further.“I didn’t know anything about the Bali bombing until after it happened,” he said, describing his role in the plot as helping some of the perpetrators after the bombing and assisting in money transfers that could be used for other attacks.He showed drawings he made of himself being tortured, which were recently declassified to show the jury.Col. George C. Kraehe, the case prosecutor, did not object to the artwork that showed Mr. Bin Amin nude, hooded, shackled in painful positions and at one point held spread-eagle on a plastic tarp by masked guards, with one pouring water into his nose and mouth.Christine A. Funk, Mr. Bin Amin’s lawyer, said the artwork display was to help the jury “in weighing appropriate punishment.” Mr. Bin Lep said he did not want the legacy of torture “to define who I am.”Also, he said, “I forgive the people who tortured me.”He admitted to his crimes. “I am guilty of my role in the Bali bombing,” he said.He described himself as “young, immature and stubborn” when he was drawn to Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 to train with Al Qaeda.“All I wish for now is peace,” he said. “I wish that peace for everyone here, but especially the victims and their families.” More

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      Trump’s Landslide Victory in Iowa

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      More from our inbox:Young Voters: Vote!U.S. Strikes in YemenThe Genocide Charges Against IsraelDonald J. Trump at a caucus site in Clive, Iowa, on Monday evening. His victory was called by The Associated Press only 31 minutes after the caucuses had begun.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Wins Iowa in Key First Step Toward Rematch” (front page, Jan. 16):If you weren’t scared before Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, you should be terrified now. The disgraced, twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted former president came within one vote of winning all 99 of Iowa’s counties, and received 51 percent of the vote.Ron DeSantis came in a distant second with 21 percent of the vote, and Nikki Haley was a distant third with just 19 percent of the vote.The bid for the Republican nomination for president is all but over, leaving America with a terrible choice between the autocratic and awful former president, and the obviously too old and frail current president.Unless Ms. Haley can win convincingly in New Hampshire, and match Donald Trump in South Carolina, the former president will be the nominee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Some Very Difficult Questions About Israel and the War in Gaza

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      It’s become something of a tradition on “The Ezra Klein Show” to end the year with an “Ask Me Anything” episode. So as 2023 comes to a close, I sat down with our new senior editor, Claire Gordon, to answer listeners’ questions about everything from the Israel-Hamas war to my thoughts on parenting.We discuss whether the war in Gaza has affected my relationships with family members and friends; what I think about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; whether the Democrats should have voted to keep Kevin McCarthy as House speaker; how worried I am about a Trump victory in 2024; whether A.I. can really replace human friendships; how struggling in school as a kid shaped my politics as an adult; and much more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Courtesy of Ezra KleinThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      The Overlooked Crisis in Congo: ‘We Live in War’

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      Artillery boomed, shaking the ground, as a couple scurried through the streets of Saké, their possessions balanced on their heads, in the embattled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.At a crossroads, they passed a giant poster of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, who is standing for re-election on Dec. 20. “Unity, Security, Prosperity,” read the slogan. They hurried along.“Our children were born in war. We live in war,” Jean Bahati, his face beaded with sweat, said as he paused for breath. It was the fifth time that he and his wife had been forced to flee, he said. “We’re so sick of it.”They joined 6.5 million people displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has dragged on for nearly three decades, stoking a vast humanitarian crisis that by some estimates has claiming over six million lives, is now lurching into a volatile new phase.Making sense of the mayhem is not easy. Over 100 armed groups and several national armies are vying for supremacy across a region of lakes, mountains and rainforests slightly bigger than Florida. Meddlesome foreign powers covet its vast reserves of gold, oil and coltan, a mineral used to make cellphones and electric vehicles. Corruption is endemic. Massacres and rape are common.For all that, aid groups struggle to draw attention to the suffering in a country of about 100 million people, even when the numbers affected dwarf those of other crises.“There’s a sense of fatalism about Congo,” said Cynthia Jones, the World Food Program head in eastern Congo. “People seem to think ‘that’s just the way it is’.”However this latest phase of the war, which began in earnest two years ago, is drawn in unusually clear lines.On one side is the M23, a well-organized but ruthless rebel group that the United States and the United Nations say is backed by Rwanda, Congo’s eastern neighbor, which is one-hundredth the size of Congo. (Rwanda denies any link.) Since October, the M23 has seized the main roads into Goma, the regional capital, as well as the hilltops overlooking Saké, 10 miles to the west.People fleeing fighting this month pass an election poster for Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, in Saké. Parts of eastern Congo are so unstable that voting has been canceled there.An aerial view of the regional capital of Goma. Since October, the militia group known as M23 has seized the main roads into Goma.On the other side is Congo’s army, whose troops are notoriously ill-disciplined — even as fighting raged near Saké last week, drunken soldiers careened through its streets. But their strength is boosted by two new allies.One is the Wazalendo, Swahili for patriots, a coalition of once-rival militias that the government cobbled together to repel M23, despite the fighters’ reputation for factionalism and brutality.The second is a force of about 1,000 Romanian mercenaries, many formerly with the French Foreign Legion, deployed around Goma and Saké. If M23 tries to seize the city — as it briefly did once, in 2012 — the Romanians are charged with defending it. “They are the last line of defense,” Romuald, a retired French officer advising the Congolese military, said at a lakeside restaurant in Goma. He asked to omit his surname to protect his security.Amid all that, an election is taking place. More

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      Israeli Army Escorts Journalists to Gaza Hospital, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — it’s available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.A view of Al-Shifa Hospital in a darkened Gaza. Israel says Hamas maintains a command center beneath the hospital, a claim rejected by Hamas and hospital officials.Mohammed Saber/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Today’s Episode:The Israeli Army Escorted Times Journalists to Al-Shifa, a Focus of Its Invasion, by Philip P. Pan and Patrick KingsleySantos Won’t Seek Re-election After House Panel Finds Evidence of Crimes, by Grace AshfordSean Combs Is Accused by Cassie of Rape and Years of Abuse in Lawsuit, with Ben SisarioEmily Lang More

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      Haley Slams Trump and Ramaswamy Over Israel Remarks

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      Nikki Haley on Friday knocked two of her Republican presidential rivals, Donald J. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, over their recent comments on Israel, underscoring the deepening divide within the party around the “America First” anti-interventionist stance that Mr. Trump made a core part of his first campaign.Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley suggested, lacks moral clarity and has not left “the baggage and negativity” of the past behind, an apparent reference to Mr. Trump’s still-simmering animosity toward Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over events that include his congratulating President Biden on winning the 2020 election. Mr. Ramaswamy, meanwhile, sounds more like a liberal Democrat than a Republican, Ms. Haley said.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” Ms. Haley said of Mr. Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner, in a news conference in Concord, N.H., after filing to get on the state’s primary ballot.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump who has been running on her foreign policy experience, said the next president of the United States needed to be someone who “knows the difference between good and evil, who knows the difference between right and wrong.”“You don’t congratulate or give any credit to murderers, period,” she said. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, accused Ms. Haley of using Democratic talking points and said that “there has been no bigger defender and advocate for Israel than President Trump.” But Mr. Trump has drawn scorn from both sides of the political aisle for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence.His tone shifted on Friday, though, as he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he had “always been impressed by the skill and determination of the Israeli Defense Forces.” A second post said simply: “#IStandWithIsrael #IStandWithBibi.”Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign, dismissed Ms. Haley’s remarks on Friday — including Ms. Haley’s accusation that he sounded like a member of the group of progressives known as “the squad” — as a scripted attack from a candidate whom Ms. McLaughlin sought to portray as beholden to special interests.“Pre-canned quip brought to you by the Boeing squad,” she said in an email, invoking Ms. Haley’s tenure of less than a year on the corporate board of Boeing.Ms. Haley’s dig at Mr. Ramaswamy on Friday escalated an ongoing feud between the G.O.P. rivals that has pitted those with more traditional conservative positions, who believe the United States should play a major role abroad, against those espousing anti-interventionist views, who want Americans to focus on issues at home.Mr. Ramaswamy was sharply rebuked by his opponents over his conversation with Tucker Carlson on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this week.He called the Republican response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel another example of “selective moral outrage” and argued that politicians on both sides of the aisle had largely ignored other atrocities, citing fentanyl deaths in the United States and the accusations of genocide of ethnic Armenians by Azerbaijan.“It comes down in most cases — some people do have ideological commitments that are outdated that are earnest — but a lot of it comes down to money, the corrupting influence of super PACs on the process,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.In a statement on Friday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, another Republican candidate in the race, condemned Mr. Ramaswamy’s remarks, saying that he was “pulling out the oldest and most offensive antisemitic tropes possible.”He added: “To say that outrage is fueled by donor money and the media is beyond offensive. It is morally wrong and it is dangerous.”Mr. Ramaswamy accused critics and even conservative media outlets of taking his words out of context. Ms. McLaughlin, his campaign spokeswoman, said in an email on Friday that he was talking about Azerbaijan, not Israel.But Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator, was not persuaded. In a tense exchange between the two men on Thursday night, Mr. Hannity said that Mr. Ramaswamy had a history of retreating from his incendiary statements and had made wild claims without backing them up.“What are the financial corrupting influences that Nikki Haley is taking a position on?” he said. “We’ve got pictures of dead babies decapitated, burned babies’ bodies. We’ve got the equivalent of what would be, population-wise in the U.S., over 37,000 dead Americans. So, how much more evidence do you need? What are you talking about?”Mr. Trump, during his time in the White House, virtually did not challenge Israel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.As his United Nations ambassador, Ms. Haley forcefully spoke out in support of the president’s formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as his decision to cut American funding to Palestinian refugees. She has since made her foreign policy credentials and staunch support for Israel pillars of her campaign. Her sparring with Mr. Ramaswamy over foreign policy on the national debate stage in particular helped to boost her in the polls, propelling her to the second position behind Mr. Trump in New Hampshire.On the trail and on the Republican media circuit this week, Ms. Haley has been talking up her on-the-ground experience in the Middle East and calling for the elimination of Hamas. In town halls in New Hampshire on Thursday, she ratcheted up her criticism of Mr. Trump for his reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, saying the former president was too focused on himself.In a small room crowded with reporters at the New Hampshire State House on Friday, Ms. Haley again pitched herself as “a new generational conservative leader” who knew how to negotiate with world leaders.“I know what it takes to keep Americans safe,” she said. She later added: “You don’t just have Israel’s back when they get hit. You need to have Israel’s back when they hit back, too.” More

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      A Gaza Father’s Worries About His Children

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      More from our inbox:A Temporary House Speaker?Republicans, Stand Up for UkraineWork Permits for ImmigrantsIs A.I. Art … Art?An injured woman and her child after an Israeli bombing near their house in the Gaza Strip.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?,” by Fadi Abu Shammalah (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 13):My heart goes out, and I cry over the suffering of Palestinian children in Gaza. They have done nothing to deserve war after war after war.However, to ignore Hamas’s responsibility for contributing to that suffering is to miss the whole picture. Hamas rules Gaza, and it has chosen to buy missiles and weapons with funds that were meant to build a better society for Gazan civilians.Last weekend’s attack was designed by Hamas to prompt a heavy response by Israel and stir up the pot, probably to kill a Saudi-Israeli peace deal, even if it meant sacrificing Palestinian civilians in the process. We can lay the blame for the Gazan children who have been killed in recent days at the feet of both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas.Aaron SteinbergWhite Plains, N.Y.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Opinion guest essays from Rachel Goldberg (“I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy,” nytimes.com, Oct. 12) and Fadi Abu Shammalah. These essays, for the most part, demonstrate the dire disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians for decades.Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Abu Shammalah describe the horrors from their perspectives (terrorists or fighters; most vicious assaults on Jews since the Holocaust or terrifying violence raining down on Gaza).Despair is a shared theme in these articles. There is also a glimmer of hope found in the similar, heartbreaking pleas of loving parents for their children. Is now the time for mothers and fathers around the world to stand together for all children? If not now, when?Daniel J. CallaghanRoanoke, Va.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay. I’m hoping that hearing from a Palestinian in Gaza at this incredibly terrifying time might help your readers better understand the importance for all of us to call for immediate de-escalation to prevent Israel’s impending invasion.Shame on those who do not do what they can to prevent this assault on humanity. Let’s end this current horror show.Mona SalmaSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Regarding Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”:Maybe Hamas should have considered that question before deciding to attack Israel.Jon DreyerStow, Mass.A Temporary House Speaker?Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for House speaker on Thursday night. He hopes to remain as the party’s No. 2 House leader.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Scalise Departs Speaker’s Race as G.O.P. Feuds” (front page, Oct. 13):Given the urgent state of affairs (Israel-Gaza, Ukraine, looming government shutdown), wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Republicans in the House of Representatives to pick a temporary speaker? Someone who doesn’t want the job permanently but would take the role through, say, early January.One would think that having the speaker role be temporary would make it easier to arrive at a compromise.Shaun BreidbartPelham, N.Y.Republicans, Stand Up for Ukraine David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Resistance to Aid in Ukraine Expands in House” (front page, Oct. 6):Where do Republicans stand? On the side of autocracy or democracy? Dare I ask? The Ukrainians are on the front lines, fighting and dying to preserve the values of the West. Republicans, stand up and be counted!Norman SasowskyNew Paltz, N.Y.Work Permits for Immigrants Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York TimesTo the Editor:In your Oct. 8 editorial, “The Cost of Inaction on Immigration,” you correctly identified one potential benefit from proactive immigration policies. If Congress were not so frozen by the anti-immigration fringe, immigrants could fill the urgent gaps in the American labor market and propel our economy forward.President Biden can and should also expand work permits for long-term undocumented immigrants using an existing administrative process called parole.The organization I lead, the American Business Immigration Coalition, published a letter on behalf of more than 300 business leaders from across the country and a bipartisan group of governors and members of Congress clamoring for this solution.The farmworkers, Dreamers not covered by DACA and undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens who stand to benefit already live and belong in our communities. The advantages for businesses and everyday life in our cities and fields would be enormous, and this should not be held hostage to dysfunction in Congress.Rebecca ShiChicagoIs A.I. Art … Art?A.I. Excels at Making Bad Art. Can an Artist Teach It to Create Something Good?David Salle, one of America’s most thoughtful painters, wants to see if an algorithm can learn to mimic his style — and nourish his own creativity in the process.To the Editor:Re “Turning an Algorithm Into an Art Student” (Arts & Leisure, Oct. 1):A.I. art seems a commercially viable idea, but artistically it falls very far short of reasoned creativity and inspiration. When you remove the 95 percent perspiration from the artistic act, is it art anymore? I don’t think so.David Salle’s original work is inspired. The work produced by his A.I. assistant (no matter how much it is curated by the artist), I am afraid, will never be.I hope he makes money from it, as most artists don’t or can’t make a living with their inspired, personally or collectively produced art. They cannot because the market typically prefers a sanitized, digitized, broadly acceptable, “generically good” art product — something that has been produced and edited to satisfy the largest number of consumers/users/viewers. The market will embrace A.I. inevitably.I fear the day when A.I.-written operas, musicals, concerts and symphonies are performed by A.I. musicians in front of A.I. audiences. With A.I. critics writing A.I. reviews for A.I. readers of A.I. newspapers.Eric AukeeLos AngelesThe writer is an architect. More

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      Now Is the Time to Pay Attention to Trump’s Violent Language

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      Donald Trump has never been shy with his language but recently, the editor Alex Kingsbury argues, his violent speech has escalated. In the last few weeks alone, Trump suggested his own former general was treasonous, said that shoplifters should be shot and exhorted his followers to “go after” New York’s attorney general. Kingsbury says he understands why voters tune Trump out, but stresses the need to pay attention and take action for the sake of American democracy.Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.This Opinion short was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. More