National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) militants shot dead at least 50 adivasis, or tribal people, at five different places in India's northeast state of Assam Dec. 23. Many women and children are among the dead. The attacks took place at remote rural villages, where residents were pulled out of their huts and summarily shot. The death toll is expected to rise. The coordinated attacks followed the killing of two Bodo rebels in a skirmish with Assam police troops earlier in the week. Authorities blamed the Songbijit faction of the NDFB, which is seeking statehood for the Bodoland region of Assam. (Times of India, Al Jazeera, BBC World Service, Dec. 24)

Ecuador's government announced Dec. 11 that the country's leading indigenous organization had two weeks to abandon the headquarters it has held for almost a quarter of a century. The announcement came in a letter from the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion (MIES) to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) stating that it needs the building on the northern outskirts of Quito as a shelter for street children. CONAIE president Jorge Herrera responded that the building "has been a symbol of the construction of a relationship between the state and indigenous peoples," and denounced the impending eviction as a "persecution of the indigenous movement." With the deadline approaching, CONAIE leader Floresmilo Simbaña pledged to resist removal. "We want to avoid confrontations and acts of violence," he said. But he added: "We are going to defend this place." The offices are currently occupied around-the-clock by CONAIE supporters, with banners and flags draped from the balconies.

At an event held in Sweden, the Kurdish mayor of the eastern Turkish city of Mardin, Ahmet Türk, apologized to the Armenians, Assyrians and Yazidis for the fact that some Kurdish ashirets (clans) had been accomplices during the Genocide of 1915. "Unfortunately, the Kurds, who implemented and executed the government's decision taken in 1914-15, were overtly used under the name of Islam," Türk said. "We now feel the bitterness about the participation of our fathers and forefathers in those massacres as their children and grandchildren... We ask the Armenians and the Assyrians and our Yezidi brothers to forgive us." (ArmenPress, Dec. 16) Türk was party chair of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which was banned in 2009 for alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Dec. 11 confirmed four charges of crimes against humanity against Charles Blé Goudé, and committed the ally of former President Laurent Gbagbo to trial at The Hague. Blé Goudé is accused of working with Gbagbo to orchestrate a wave of post-election violence between December 2010 and April 2011. Both Goude and Gbagbo are in ICC custody, and the prosecutor's office will seek to join Gbagbo's trial with Goudé's. The charges were a result of a five-month post-election crisis in which Gbagbo refused to step down after internationally recognized results of the November 2010 election proclaimed the current president, Alassane Ouattara, the winner. At least 3,000 people were killed and 150 women raped during the crisis. Much of the violence was carried out along ethnic, political and religious lines. Goude is allegedly responsible for murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence and other inhuman acts.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced Dec. 12 that she has suspended investigations into alleged war crimes in Sudan's Darfur, citing the UN Security Council's inaction in the case. "I am left with no choice but to hibernate investigative activities in Darfur as I shift resources to other urgent cases," Bensouda told the Security Council, rebuking the UN body for failing to push for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Presenting her 20th report to the Council on Darfur, Bensouda stated that without action, the cases against Bashir and three other indicted suspects would remain deadlocked. "What is needed is a dramatic shift in this council's approach to arresting Darfur suspects," Bensouda told the Council, or there would be "little or nothing to report to you for the foreseeable future." She also emphasized that the conflict is not over, saying that "massive new displacements" have taken place this year in Darfur.

The murders of more than 250 men, women and children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Beni Territory in recent weeks have widely been blamed on an Islamist insurgency of Ugandan origin known as the Alliance of Democratic Forces-NALU (ADF-NALU). But several armed groups and racketeering gangs are active in the area and the culprits of these killings have not been incontrovertibly identified. The killings were carried out, in various episodes between Oct. 2 and Dec. 7, using knives, machetes and hoes, in parts of Nord Kivu province, on some occasions in close proximity to positions held by the national army (FARDC) and bases of the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC (MONUSCO). Just in the 48 hours leading up to the night of Dec. 7, 50 people were killed in two parts of Beni territory, according to Civil Society in North Kivu, a local organization. (See map.)

Air-strikes on landmark buildings at the tail end of the Israeli military's "Operation Protective Edge" in Gaza in August were a deliberate and direct attack on civilian buildings and amount to war crimes, Amnesty International charges in a new report. Entitled "Nothing is Immune: Israel's Destruction of Landmark Buildings in Gaza," the report (PDF) provides evidence that attacks on four multi-storey buildings during the last four days of the conflict were in contravention of international humanitarian law, and calls for them to be independently and impartially investigated. "All the evidence we have shows this large-scale destruction was carried out deliberately and with no military justification," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International. "Both the facts on the ground and statements made by Israeli military spokespeople at the time indicate that the attacks were a collective punishment against the people of Gaza and were designed to destroy their already precarious livelihoods."

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda dropped the charges of murder, rape, persecution, deportation, and other inhumane acts against Kenyan President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta on Dec. 5. This action comes after an ICC trial chamber order that required the prosecutor to either withdraw the charges or show sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. The prosecutor's office ceased action for lack of evidentiary support which was identified by Bensouda as a consequence of the Kenyan government's refusal to cooperate and failure to provide important records of Kenyatta's activities. ICC judges have not made a formal declaration of non-cooperation by the government, but they have expressed that the government's interaction with the investigation did not comport to the standards of good faith set out under the ICC's founding treaty.