Pascal Harta, Nika Malia, November, 2020 discussed on BBC World Service
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
But go. Hadiya's successor, Irakly Harry Bosch, really a 0.22 days later went ahead with the plan. Once you step into Georgian politics, you should be ready to be invited into prison, Nika Malia said sarcastically. But ask many supporters of the governing Georgian Dream Party. And they would point their finger the opposition and say they did the same thing when they were in power. Mr Malia and the leaders off. Seven other opposition parties have been boycotting the parliament since last October's elections, which they rejected as fraudulent. As a result, Georgia, which is considered by many as the most politically progressive country in the region, has effectively became a one party state. Has never bean a coalition government instead of the two main political parties treat each other like mortal enemies. In a recent interview, the new prime minister to be used the word treason in reference to the main opposition party, 33 Times. The Georgian opposition promised to return to the streets in full force to demand Malia is released and a snap election. But today they returned to the streets of belief. See there was a crisis 300 kilometers south in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Armenia's prime minister announced on his Facebook page that the country was facing an attempted military coup. This was nickel bashing and response to a statement signed by over three dozen senior military commanders calling for his resignation. After firing the head of the army while broadcasting live on Facebook, Mr pushing and called on his supporters to gather in the caravans Main square ever since Armenia's humiliating defeat in the war with neighboring Azerbaijan over the Nagano Cara back territory in November, 2020 The country's prime minister, has been under pressure from the opposition to step down. The war cost Armenians dearly. They lost swathes of Azeri territory previously under their control. More than 3.5 1000 Armenian soldiers were killed. Many of them young conscripts. Thousands more were injured. Dozens of servicemen are still captive in Azerbaijan. But Nicole passion, Yang refused to resign. The opposition calls me a traitor, and if I'm a traitor, then why are so many of you here, the prime minister told several 1000 of his supporters in the Republic Square. Do you think I didn't consider resigning off course I did. But people chose me as their prime minister, and they should decide my fate, not opposition. You call pushing and lead a popular prizing in 2018. I was there and remember the exhilaration in a state of mass joy expressed by the people in the same republic Square. When the ex leader resigned after public pressure, the former ruling party received just 5% of the vote in the next elections. Many of those former officials are now in the opposition. And they're still deeply unpopular. That is the choice that Armenians are facing between the embattled prime minister and an unpopular position. And just like in Georgia, as one commentator put it. To me. It seems that the choice is between the bad and the worst. That was Ray hand. Dmitri. The Yazidis of Iraq off followers of an ancient faith involving angels, which is little understood in often misinterpreted by outsiders. Some Yazidis see themselves as part of the Kurdish ethnic group. Others strongly insist that they are a community apart. When the fighters off the Islamic state swept through parts of Iraq and Syria. They singled out minorities such as the Yazidis for persecution nearly seven years ago when I s arrived in the small farming village of culture In northern Iraq. They separated the mostly as Edie community there into those they would kidnap and those they would slaughter. Has dumped the bodies in mass graves. Only recently have the remains of some of the people. They killed their being returned to culture for proper burials identified by their didna, they could finally be mourned by their relatives. Lizzie Porter was allowed to witness the communal funeral. As the coffins brought into culture village, the pained cries of people mourning the dead tear across the cold breeze. Wailing is laid over the screech and thump of sorrowful pipe and drum music and the rich smell of incense. In a large clearing Iraqi army soldiers placed the coffins on tables, each topped with reeds of yellow and red flowers. Volunteers make a human chain to shield grieving women from view. Some Mourners were lanyards around their necks, the faces of dead fathers, sons and husbands displayed on laminated cards. 103 people being laid to rest here on the sweeping plains of northwestern Iraq, the first of the Yazidis to be given proper burials after they were killed by the so called Islamic state 6.5 years ago. Coach. Oh, in Sinjar district was once a farming village. But the crops have long since shriveled. The animals gone. The only residents here now are a brigade of yours ET fighters who guard the empty buildings and rocky soil against any future insurgent attacks. In August. 2014 I s militants surrounded cultures, population, kidnapping girls and women and killing the men and boys. It was part of a murderous sweep across northern Iraq and Syria. At the U. K and you Parliament's later described genocide against his Edie's Christians and other minority groups. The Yazidis, an ethno religious minority. Targeted by Iris extremists who deemed them Devil worshippers. In all militants killed or abducted 12,000 Yazidis, According to monitoring groups, nearly 3000 girls and women are still missing. People in Sinjar belief that they are being held captive by I s members hiding out in Iraqi cities or across the border in Syria. Local authorities working with the United Nations and international organizations. Exum's remains from the burial places where the militants had dumped the bodies. Medical workers identified the victims using didna samples from surviving relatives. Now, as people return to bury their loved ones. The walls of Cho Cho's abandoned homes stand like gravestones, memorials to the massacre that took place here today. A Perry Winkle blue sky hides behind pale gray clouds. The ground is muddy and Mourners huddle together and black coats and jackets faces worn and tired of life. Man in black kisses. The photo of his father that has been fixed to the end of his coffin. Tears have stained his face. Before the coffin is lowered into the ground. He pulls away the sat in Iraqi flag and nails to it. Using a key is a screwdriver. He struggles to prise his father's portrait from the wooden coffin. Eventually the picture is removed. A man helps to push earth over his father's coffin. Before covering the mound with the Iraqi flag. He clutched his at the sticky brown earth and kneels next to the grave, still sobbing. Only more steadily. But this burial of culture is only really the beginning. These victims are only some of more than 400 people whom I s killed in this village. In turn. Those are a subset of the thousands of victims Yazidis as well as Christians and Muslims. What remains is still to be exhumed and identified from around 200 mass graves in areas formerly and the IAS control in Iraq. To add to the grief of losing their entire communities. Sinjar district remains unstable. For those who have returned here from displacement camps elsewhere in Iraq, electricity runs for just 2 to 4 hours a day. Political disputes between the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq on the government in Baghdad mean that other services are barely functioning either. Presence of multiple armed groups with competing priorities makes people feel unsafe. Yazidis have little faith in Iraqi or Kurdish authorities ability to dampen their pain. Hosni Elia Samad is another morning crouching beside his uncle's new grave and culture. He says another uncle and Denise are still missing, but doesn't have much hope in Iraqi officials capacity. They say they're ready. But there was no action. He tells me. A few meters away, the man dressed in black and his father's grave stands up and lights a cigarette staring at the muddy ground. A little girl in a pink Willy jump her hair in a topknot handsome award of tissue to wipe away his tears, but he cannot stop crying. How is Lizzie Porter? You're listening to from our own correspondent here on the BBC World Service with me, Pascal Harta. Next we take you to Peru, where there's been plenty.