Funeral of Kremlin critic Navalny to be held in Moscow on Friday
Widow of the Russian opposition leader unsure whether his funeral will pass off peacefully after Russia blocked memorial service plans. The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will be held in Moscow on Friday, his family and spokesperson have said. Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya announced the funeral date on Wednesday, but she said she was unsure if it would pass off peacefully and that plans for a civil memorial service had been blocked. “The funeral will take place the day after tomorrow and I’m not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband,” Navalnaya said in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday. The funeral will be held at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district on Friday afternoon, Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on the social media platform X, after several locations declined to host the service. He will then be buried at the Borisovskoye cemetery, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) away on the other side of the Moskva River. Navalny’s allies have accused the Kremlin of thwarting their attempts to organise a separate civil memorial service in a hall which could have accommodated more people. The Kremlin has said it has nothing to do with such arrangements. “Two people – Vladimir Putin and [Moscow Mayor] Sergei Sobyanin – are to blame for the fact that we have no place for a civil memorial service and farewell to Alexei,” Navalnaya wrote on X. “People in the Kremlin killed him, then mocked Alexei’s body, then mocked his mother, now they are mocking his memory.” The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s February 16 death at age 47 and his death certificate – according to his supporters – says he died of natural causes. Alexey Navalny and his wife Yulia during an opposition rally in Moscow, on October 27, 2013 [File: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters] ‘Putin killed my husband’ Yarmysh spoke of the difficulties his team encountered in trying to find a site for a “farewell event” for Navalny. Writing on X, she said most venues said they were fully booked, with some “refusing when we mention the surname ‘Navalny’”, and one disclosing that “funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us”. Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the funeral was initially planned for Thursday – the day of Putin’s annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly – but no venue would agree to hold it then. “The real reason is clear. The Kremlin understands that nobody will need Putin and his message on the day we say farewell to Alexey,” Zhdanov wrote on Telegram. In Navalnaya’s Wednesday speech before European lawmakers, she said, “Putin killed my husband … On his orders, Alexey was tortured for three years. He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters.” In the 12 days since her husband’s death, Navalnaya has staked a claim to take on the leadership of Russia’s fragmented opposition, saying she will continue his work. Speaking in English, her voice sometimes faltering, she described Putin as a “bloody monster” and told lawmakers it was not possible to negotiate with him. “You cannot hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones,” she said, calling for more effective action against the money flows of Russia’s ruling elite. Navalny’s allies have accused Putin of having him murdered because the Russian leader could allegedly not tolerate the thought of Navalny being freed in a potential prisoner swap, but they have not published proof to back up that accusation. The Kremlin has denied state involvement in his death and has said it was unaware of any agreement to free Navalny. Adblock test (Why?)
Mitch McConnell to step down as head of Republicans in US Senate
The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. United States Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said he will step down from his leadership role, leaving a power vacuum atop the party he has piloted for nearly 17 years, more than any other party leader in the chamber’s history. “I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, his voice breaking with emotion. “Father Time remains undefeated. I’m no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It’s time for the next generation of leadership.” The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker played an outsized role in helping former President Donald Trump cement a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, paving the way for landmark rulings cheered by conservatives ending the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and expanding gun rights. That belied McConnell’s personal opposition to Trump at times – particularly Trump’s conduct in advance of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – as well as McConnell’s continued vocal support for trying to pass aid to Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion over the opposition of hardline Republican opponents. Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, with McConnell now serving as minority leader after previously holding the post of majority leader. McConnell said he will not run for Senate Republican leader in November’s party elections, meaning he will end his time as leader when a new Congress convenes in January. McConnell’s departure from the leadership will remove a central character in negotiations with Democrats and the White House on spending deals to keep the federal government funded and avert a shutdown. Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rittansi, reporting from Washington, DC, said that McConnell was known as “someone who could count the votes and make sure he had the votes, an effective party leader in keeping his caucus together”. “Of course, a big part of being a leader in Congress isn’t so much about policy, but raking in the cash. He was good at fundraising, making sure that the Republican Party and congressional Republicans had the money to keep things moving,” Rattansi added. His steady command of his caucus stood in contrast to relatively newly minted Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who has struggled to lead his thin majority. McConnell twice froze up last year while making remarks in public, raising questions about his ability to continue to carry out the duties of his high-powered job. Those concerns were not assuaged by an August 31 note from the congressional physician that cleared McConnell to go on working. He indicated that he plans to serve out the rest of his term in the Senate, which extends through to January 2027. But his exit from the leadership will mark the step back of an orderly counterpart to the tumultuous approach of Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, and the hardline House Freedom Caucus before the November 5 US election for president, the full House and a third of the Senate. Now, with Republicans having to elect a new party leader, conservative pressure to hang tough against a moderate spending deal with Democrats could weigh more heavily on the budget negotiations and the leadership election. McConnell announced his plans on the Senate floor the morning after Trump won the Michigan Republican primary, continuing his sweep towards the party’s nomination. “I think the Trump chapter reopening is his cue to exit stage left,” a former high-ranking Senate Republican aide said when asked about the timing of McConnell’s move. John Thune of South Dakota, the second most senior Senate Republican, is expected to vie for the top party job, as well as John Cornyn, a senator from Texas, and John Barrasso, from Wyoming. Adblock test (Why?)
Is the West’s military support enough for Kyiv?
Russia is making gains in the war with Ukraine, and the West is considering its response. The war in Ukraine has raged for more than two years. Western allies are in talks over boosting their support to Kyiv in the hope of turning the tide against Russia. But direct intervention has been off the table – until now. French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the idea of more direct involvement, perhaps even putting troops on the ground. Could Western powers ever unite behind a move like this? How would Russia react? Presenter: Nastasya Tay Guests: Peter Zalmayev – executive director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative Oana Lungescu – distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute Alexander Clackson – founder of Global Political Insight Adblock test (Why?)
Abu Jawad’s heart breaks daily as he buries the people killed by Israel
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Before October 7, Saadi Hassan Sulieman Baraka, nicknamed Abu Jawad, had a routine. He would pray the dawn prayer, have dukkah and zaatar with olive oil for breakfast, and then head east of Deir el-Balah to tend to his palm and olive trees. No more. The 64-year-old is an Islamic undertaker, a job he has done for decades before Israel’s war on Gaza broke out. Now, the Palestinian father of 10 and grandfather of 116 is working long hours, burying more people a day than he would ever have thought possible. Tranquility lost Abu Jawad is one of the first residents of Deir el-Balah refugee camp in central Gaza, where he lives in a small house with his wife and 104-year-old mother. Graves are built in the ground, then covered up level with a marker on top if the identity of the person or people buried in them is known [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera] He is a simple, vibrant, generous man known as “Deir el-Balah’s Heartbeat”, and he feels the disruption of his tranquil life very deeply, mentally and physically. “I’ve lost 30kg (66lb), I’m not able to sleep at night, or eat, after my burials. The images I see are … pure horror. They won’t leave my mind.” “I’ve buried about 10 times more people during this war than I did across my entire 27 years as an undertaker. The least was 30 people and the most was 800. Since October 7, I’ve buried more than 17,000 people. “Every day, the cemetery is full of people crying over their beloved’s graves or by their bodies as they wait to be buried,” Abu Jawad said. “Now, my life is this,” Abu Jawad says. “I work at the cemetery from 6am to 6pm, sometimes longer. I prepare shrouds, build graves, lead funeral prayers, mourn, and bury. [embedded content] “There are four displaced men from Khan Younis who help me. What we do is voluntary, we’ve been offered money, food, and aid, but we don’t want anything except our reward from God and mercy for the martyrs we bury daily. “The fact that almost all of our funerals are mass is utterly heartbreaking; most of them included families wiped out. We prepare big family graves in the expectation of a massacre. We only have two cemeteries in Deir el-Balah; one is now completely full, and the other is running out of space.” ‘We are the dead’ On the day when a short ceasefire began in November, Abu Jawad remembers having to bury 800 people, mostly children. “We collected them in pieces, their bodies so riddled with holes it was like Israeli snipers used them for target practice. Others were crushed like … like a boiled potato and many had huge facial burns. Abu Jawad and his fellow volunteers working at the cemetery [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera] “We couldn’t really tell one person’s body from the other, but we did our best. We made one big deep grave, probably 10 metres (30 feet) deep, and buried them together. “Normally we can write the name of the deceased on their shroud, and their loved ones can come pray for them. But those 800 had no loved ones to visit them,” Abu Jawad chokes up at the painful memory. He goes on to describe how he has to almost deliberately shut off his emotions so he can complete his daily tasks of providing comfort for families as he buries their loved ones. “For me, those killed are still alive and we are the dead because we’re dying slowly. There’s no means of life here; no water, no food, no electricity, no peace, nothing at all. Is this a life? Abu Jawad and his team try to make a quick mass grave after a massacre in Deir el-Balah resulted in tens of deaths [Abubaker Abed/Al Jazeera] “Nearly every day, I see someone who doesn’t leave their beloved’s grave. I leave and come back just to see them still sobbing for their deep loss.” For a family to bring their dead to the cemetery is not an easy task. There have been numerous reports of people burying their dead in their yards because they could not venture out into the street with the body. “It takes days, a week, weeks, for a family to bring in their loved ones to the cemetery. Sometimes it’s because there were no tools to get bodies out of the rubble of a destroyed home, sometimes it’s because they can’t find shrouds or anything else to wrap the bodies in. “I’ve buried 67 of my family; the hardest was my cousins, who I was very close to. Their bodies were destroyed, they were in pieces. I didn’t recognise any of them. “Despite the scale of loss and horror I see every day, I can’t stop and never will. “Stop this genocide! We want a peaceful life. I want to leave and go home safely every day, not battling starvation and war at the same time.” [embedded content] Adblock test (Why?)
Are airlines returning to Israel, despite the war on Gaza?
Almost as soon as Israel’s war on Gaza broke out on October 7, many airlines suspended or cancelled their flights to Israel. Last week, Yossi Fattal, director general of Israel’s Chamber of Inbound Tourism Organisers, complained that Israel had become isolated – “like North Korea” – as dozens of airlines remained reluctant to fly there. The war has significantly affected Israeli tourism and flights. Yet, things are beginning to change. The entrance hall at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 25, 2023 [Alexi J Rosenfeld/Getty Images] Which airlines have resumed flights to Israel? United Airlines announced on Wednesday last week that it will begin flights to Israel again from March, becoming the first United States carrier to resume flights after suspensions at the start of the war. United plans initial flights to Tel Aviv from New York and New Jersey in the US on March 2 and 4, with a goal of having daily non-stop service restored from March 6. The carrier said in a news release that it had undertaken a detailed safety analysis before making this decision. British Airways, which used to operate two flights between the United Kingdom and Israel daily, will resume operations on April 1, operating one flight daily for four days a week. German airline Lufthansa, Switzerland’s flag carrier Swiss and Austrian flag carrier Austrian Airlines resumed flights to Tel Aviv on January 8. Meanwhile, Spanish airline Air Europa resumed flights to Tel Aviv on February 19. The Greek and French flag carriers, Aegean and Air France, both restarted flights to Tel Aviv in January. Italy’s ITA Airways will resume flights between Tel Aviv and Rome from March 1, starting with three return trips weekly. Brussels Airlines, the Belgian carrier, also announced on Wednesday last week that it will resume flights from March 24, with three flights per week from Brussels to Tel Aviv. The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) also announced that the US-based Delta Air Lines will resume flights to Israel in May. Delta has not officially confirmed this yet, but the last update from the carrier said that flights will be suspended between New York and Israel until April 30. Still, that’s only a fraction of the flights Israel used to attract before the war. An El Al aircraft rests on the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport in December 2021. El Al was one of only seven carriers operating into Israel in December last year [Maya Alleruzzo/AP] Which airlines do not plan to resume flights to Israel any time soon? American Airlines has halted flights until October 28. Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines have also suspended flights to Israel until further notice. TAP Air Portugal has suspended flights to and from Tel Aviv indefinitely, while Finland’s flag carrier, Finnair, announced it had cancelled its flights to Tel Aviv until October 29. Icelandair has cancelled flights to Tel Aviv, without any further update on its website. Bulgaria Air cancelled all flights to and from Tel Aviv, also without providing details about a timeline to restart operations. How has the war affected air travel in Israel? The number of international travellers arriving in Israel by air rose from 19.2 million in 2022 to 21.1 million in 2023, the IAA reported on January 21. In November 2023, however, the number of aircraft arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport was 68 percent lower than the same month the year before. Fattal said that while 250 airlines had been operating in and out of Israel before October 7, the number dipped to just seven last December. It has since crawled back up to 45. In the three-month period from October 7, 900,000 tourists had been expected to visit Israel. However, the Israeli daily Calcalist reported that only 190,000 people had actually visited. Prior to October 7, more than 300,000 people visited Israel every month. In November 2023, that figure reportedly dropped to 39,000. The number of travellers using Ben Gurion airport in November 2023 was 78 percent lower than in November 2022. The tourism industry in Israel accounted for 2.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, before falling to 1.1 percent in 2021. Both foreign and domestic tourism in Israel have flatlined since the start of the war. Which airlines have continued to fly to Israel throughout the war? In December, when only seven carriers were flying to Israel, around 80 percent of passengers were carried by Israel’s national carrier, El Al, followed by smaller Israeli carrier Israir at 10 percent and FlyDubai at 3.2 percent. With almost all airlines suspending and cancelling flights after October 7, El Al saw a 32.5 percent rise in passenger numbers to 5.5 million for 2023 at Ben Gurion airport, which has continued to operate throughout the war. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 145
Israel and Hamas played down chances of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks soon, a day after US President Joe Biden said it was imminent. Here’s how things stand on Tuesday, February 28, 2024: Fighting and humanitarian crisis Gaza’s Ministry of Health said 96 people were killed and 172 wounded over the past 24 hours, in its most recent daily update. The Palestine Red Crescent Society also released footage of its ambulance teams searching for survivors under the rubble at the scene of an Israeli air attack in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Meanwhile, a two-year-old Palestinian child called Khaled died after eating bread made from animal feed in the northern Gaza Strip. The UN Population Fund said Al-Helal Al-Emairati Maternity Hospital in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Now the prospect of an invasion of Rafah has prompted global alarm over the fate of nearly 1.4 million civilians trapped there. [I’m afraid we’ve been oscillating between 1.4 and 1.5 million] Regional tensions and diplomacy On Tuesday, Israel and Hamas played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a ceasefire in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden said Israel had agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some captives. Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a ceasefire that would see Hamas free some of the captives it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. And as the war continues, with UN truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France airdropped food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them. Separately, in the US, President Joe Biden renewed his call for legislators to approve a foreign aid bill that includes $14bn for Israel as well as assistance for Ukraine and Taiwan. Violence in the occupied West Bank In the West Bank, the Israeli military stormed the city of Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp, the Wafa news agency reported. Wafa said that Israeli forces, supported by military vehicles and bulldozers, have destroyed infrastructure including roads in both the city and the camp. Adblock test (Why?)
Who was Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who died protesting over Gaza?
NewsFeed People across the US have been holding vigils for Aaron Bushnell, the airman who died after setting himself on fire to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza. Here’s what we know about him. Published On 28 Feb 202428 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
June elections proposed during Senegal dialogue to end political crisis
Senegal has been thrown into crisis since the president attempted to push the February 25 elections till December. A national dialogue panel in Senegal has proposed holding elections in early June, the first such proposal since President Macky Sall attempted to push the February 25 elections till December. In early February, Sall, who is serving his second term and has said he would not run again, announced the postponement of the elections. But Senegal’s highest election authority, the Constitutional Council, rejected that move and ordered the government to set a new election date as soon as possible. On Tuesday, the panel sat as part of a two-day national dialogue that Sall called earlier this week, aiming at fostering trust among the candidates and the population. Civil, political, and religious leaders attended, but almost all of the candidates on the ballot refused to participate. The panel proposed holding the vote on June 2. Sall has said he will step down by April 2, which is the end of his current term, but it is unclear who will take over if elections are not held before that. A member of the dialogue panel, Ndiawar Paye, told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday that it would recommend Sall remain in office until his successor is sworn in. The delay of the vote has sparked deadly protests across Senegal, often seen as a rare stable democracy in a region rife with coups. Security forces have killed at least three people and injured dozens of others. The panel called for the Constitutional Council to review decisions that blocked candidates including Karim Wade, an opposition leader and son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, from the ballot. The election authority disqualified the younger Wade because he previously held dual citizenship. He renounced his French nationality to run. Sall has defended his decision to delay elections but has accepted the Constitutional Council’s ruling and attempted to calm the situation. At the launch of the dialogue, he said he would propose a general amnesty law addressing the protests, in which hundreds of people were jailed. It remains uncertain if the amnesty would include Ousmane Sonko, a popular opposition leader who is currently in jail. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Jolt to reality’: Gaza war forces voter rethink ahead of South Africa poll
Cape Town, South Africa – Three months to South Africa’s much-anticipated general elections, the political landscape is being remade. Since Cyril Ramaphosa became president in 2018, domestic issues like corruption within the government, rolling power cuts, and a wobbling economy have been hotly debated but Israel’s war in faraway Gaza has become a key election issue in recent months. Since the apartheid era, the topic of Palestine has been a major point of division in South African politics as the white government stood firmly with Israel while the anti-apartheid movement saw Palestinian resistance aligned with its own. But Israel’s continuing war in Gaza since October has forced political parties to lay their cards on the table. The two largest parties in particular – the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the main opposition the Democratic Alliance (DA) – are likely to see their constituencies change because of their positions on the war. The ANC-led government has been unambiguous in its pro-Palestine stance. South Africa was one of the first states to refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack as “genocide”, and early on referred Israel to the International Criminal Court. In January, Pretoria also dragged Israel to the world’s highest legal authority, the International Court of Justice. The DA, on the other hand, has flip-flopped between its initial steadfast support for Israel and more recent ambivalent rhetoric about “peace”. On October 8, Emma Powell, the DA shadow minister for international relations and cooperation, released a statement condemning “Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Israeli territory today during the religious holiday of Simchat Torah … The DA condemns this senseless violence and all acts of terror against innocent civilians, women, and children and calls for aggressors to this conflict to immediately withdraw.” A month later, as the number of deaths in Gaza rose drastically, the party shifted to more centrist rhetoric, with leader John Steenhuisen saying: “The (DA) stands in solidarity with both Palestinians and Israelis who seek a two-state solution … we embrace rationality based on peaceful co-existence for both a secure Israel and a free Palestinian state.” Unlike the Economic Freedom Fighters and other smaller opposition parties, the DA has never called for a ceasefire or used the term “genocide” regarding Israel’s killing of Palestinians. And ahead of the May 29 vote, it is the ANC’s moves that have proven to be wildly popular within and beyond South Africa. Ambassador Vusimuzi Madonsela (R) of South Africa attends a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, The Hague, the Netherlands, on February 20, 2024 [Robin van Lonkhuijsen/EPA-EFE] A realignment of the electorate Before October, the chances of the DA pulling off an upset at the national level were rising. In the 2019 general election, voter turnout was only 49 percent – the lowest since the first democratic vote in the country in 1994. The ANC also seemed like a party running aground, with fewer than 50 percent of respondents in an October survey by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) supporting it. Protests against soaring costs of living were becoming frequent and Ramaphosa’s re-election campaign was enmeshed in a scandal after about $500,000 in cash was stolen from his game farm. But the parties’ differing positions on the war have helped boost the ailing ANC’s chances. In the Western Cape Province, which has been governed by the DA since 2009 and where it traditionally dominates, a realignment of the electorate is under way. The province, one of South Africa’s largest, is home to Cape Town, the country’s parliamentary capital and second-largest city. Luwayne Pretorius, a 46-year-old beauty industry worker there says that as a gay Afrikaner man, the ANC gave him more rights than any other country in the world, but his loyalty shifted to the DA when Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma took power in 2009. Zuma, who in 2006 said same-sex marriages are “a disgrace to the nation and to God”, has also been implicated in several corruption scandals during his tenure which ended in 2018. However, Pretorius’s stance has changed drastically due to current events. “By being so fervent in taking a stance against apartheid Israel, it really says something about the ANC,” Pretorius said. “But with the DA, especially after apartheid, there is no way for a party to justify supporting another country committing an ethnic cleansing while simulating an apartheid state similar to what we saw in South Africa.” Historically, foreign policy has not influenced the voting decisions of South Africans, says Robert Mattes, a professor of government and public policy at the University of Strathclyde and co-founder of Afrobarometer, a pan-African political survey organisation. “There is a lot of activism in Cape Town largely in the coloured community and the Muslim portion of that community, but this is likely the portion of voters already voting ANC. For Muslim voters who are highly motivated by a party’s approach to Palestine, those who vote for the DA will be irritated and revolted, but not enough for them to move to the ANC. If they move away from the DA, it will be to smaller parties.” Na’eem Jeenah, senior researcher at the Johannesburg-based think tank Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), agrees with Mattes that in general, South Africans vote primarily based on domestic issues. But this time will be different, he says. “There certainly will be a shift of voters away from the DA as a result of its support for Israel and its refusal to speak about the genocide in Gaza,” Jeenah told Al Jazeera. He predicts that while some will vote ANC because of their pro-Palestine actions, many others will choose other parties like the Muslim party Al Jama-ah to protest against the DA without “rewarding the ANC with their vote”. Protesters hold a Palestinian flag as they gather outside the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as judges rule on emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that
Former paramilitary leader returned to Colombia following US jailing
Officials hope that Salvatore Mancuso will cooperate by revealing information about hundreds of murders and forced disappearances. Former Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso has been repatriated after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States. Salvatore Mancuso arrived at Bogota’s El Dorado airport on Tuesday. Having seen several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship, denied, he was quickly taken into police custody, with authorities hoping he would shed light on hundreds of crimes that took place during civil unrest in the 1990s and early 2000s. Now 59, Mancuso, who arrived on a charter flight carrying dozens of Colombians deported after illegally entering the US, was formerly a leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The paramilitary group, founded by cattle ranchers, fought against left-wing rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. Human rights organisations and government officials hope that he will cooperate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes. Mancuso has confessed his co-responsibility for numerous massacres. He has been in prison in the US since 2008 for drug trafficking, and has indicated he is now ready to take on the role of “peace advocate”. “I come to continue with my commitments to the victims, but at the same time, I come to put myself at the service of a peace agenda that will prevent Colombia from being an eternal factory of victims and collective pain,” Mancuso said in a statement distributed to the media upon his arrival. He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombia’s 2016 peace deal. Victims of the nation’s conflict are hoping that Mancuso helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial executions in which victims were buried in mass graves. In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in US custody, the former paramilitary leader has spoken of his dealings with politicians, and of the potential involvement of high-ranking officials in war crimes. But his extradition to the US in 2008 had slowed investigations. “Mancuso’s return to the country must contribute to the construction of peace, justice, truth and the non-repetition of war,” said Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, a former leader of the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel movement. He is the current chairman of the FARC political party Comunes. “I extend my hand to Mancuso to reconcile the country and bring to light all the responsibilities of the armed conflict,” he wrote on social media. “Peace will win!” Colombia suffered through nearly six decades of civil war waged between left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and the country’s military. The conflict killed more than 450,000 people and displaced millions. FARC, the largest rebel organisation, signed a peace deal with the government and laid down its arms in 2016. President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August 2022, has made pursuing “total peace” in the South American nation a key plank of his administration. He signed a landmark truce deal with The National Liberation Army (ELN) which was extended in early February. Adblock test (Why?)