Tag Archives: war crimes

US Pressure Mounts For Sri Lanka War Crimes Accountability

August 11, 2010 at 1:24 PM

I remember vividly my recent encounter with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, who angrily dismissed any concerns regarding alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Unfortunately for the minister, and luckily for the human rights movement, I am not the only one who is concerned about serious human rights violations that were committed by both the government and the Tamil Tigers during the final stage of the conflict. International concerns regarding alleged war crimes are not fading. To the contrary, this week new pressure is building up to ensure true accountability. This week, fifty-seven eight members of Congress sent a letter (pdf) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to press for an independent international inquiry into the alleged war crimes. The congressional action is gaining considerable media attention, with stories run by AFP, AP, BBC and Al Jazeera.

We are still awaiting Secretary Clinton’s response to the serious concerns raised by the US lawmakers. The congressional letter highlights the limitations of Sri Lanka’s sham commission on Lesson’s Learnt and Reconciliation, which started its work today, and which is not expected to produce any more credible results than its predecessors. Unfortunately, Secretary Clinton so far seems to support the domestic commission, despite the doubts raised about its credibility.

We also just learned that the US Department of State will submit its follow up report on war crimes and accountability in Sri Lanka to Congress this afternoon. This new document will reportedly inform Congress what steps – if any – the Sri Lankan government has taken to ensure accountability for any crimes committed.

To stay updated and to follow new developments on the release of the State Department report, please follow us on Twitter.

Update: State Department report can be found here.

Taliban Leaders Should Be Prosecuted for War Crimes

August 11, 2010 at 1:20 PM

Sanam Gul was a widow, 35 years old and pregnant.  According to news reports she was kept in captivity for three days before being shot to death in a public trial by the Afghan Taliban.  The execution took place in the Qadis District of the rural Baghdis province in Western Afghanistan.

The “court” that ordered the punishment, found Sanam Gul, also known as Bibi Sanubar, guilty of having an illicit affair, proof of which was her pregnancy.  She was sentenced to 200 lashes and then executed.  The punishment was carried out by Mohammad Yousuf, the area Taliban commander amid a crowd of onlookers.

Sanam Gul’s death comes soon after the chilling Aug 7 executions of ten medical aid workers who had been returning from a trip to provide free medical care to remote regions of Afghanistan.

These barbaric theatrics meant to intimidate and terrify local populations are not novel tactics for the Taliban.  In the time that they controlled Afghanistan, from 1998-2001, such public floggings and executions were frequent occurrences in towns controlled by the group.   In addition to such tactics of terror which misuse concepts of Islamic law to instate a reign of terror, the Taliban are also guilty of increasingly bloodthirsty killing campaigns that kill hundreds of Afghan civilians.

A U.N report released on August 10 revealed that civilian casualties caused by the Taliban have increased nearly 31% in the first six months of 2010.  This means that over 3,000 Afghan civilians have died in the shootings, killings, suicide bombings that the Taliban carry out with impunity in areas which they control.

In the first half of 2010, the executions and assassinations of civilians by the Taliban and other insurgent groups increased by over 95% to 183 recorded deaths compared to the same time last year. The victims were usually accused of supporting the According to Staffan De Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the U.N “Afghan children and women are increasingly bearing the brunt of this conflict; they are being killed and injured in their communities in greater numbers than ever before”.

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Two Days Left to Contact Your Representative on Sri Lanka War Crimes

August 3, 2010 at 7:19 AM

As we reported last week, there’s a Congressional letter being circulated around the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the U.S. to support an international investigation into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the war in Sri Lanka.  We still have two more days to get additional Representatives to co-sign the letter, as the deadline for co-signers has been extended to Thursday, Aug. 5. Thanks a lot to those who’ve already contacted their Representatives.

We need all the support we can get for this letter, so the victims and their families in Sri Lanka can receive justice.  Here’s how you can help:

1. Take action online, urging your Representative to co-sign the letter.

2. Call the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Representative (if you don’t know who your Representative is, visit the House of Representatives website to find out).  Tell your Representative about the Congressional letter and ask him/her to co-sign it.

3. If your Representative is on Facebook or Twitter, use those media to encourage him/her to co-sign the letter.  For an example on Twitter, follow Christoph’s lead.

Thanks to everyone who can help with this effort.  We’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Urge Your Representative TODAY to Demand Accountability for Sri Lanka Crimes

July 28, 2010 at 11:18 AM

For new developments on Sri Lanka and updates on this action, follow me on Twitter.

UPDATE (July 30): Our action is working! We almost got one new co-signer per hour within the first 24 hours of the start of our action, collecting 22 additional signatures. Even more important, due to the traction we got on this topic over the last days, the deadline to sign on was extended to next Friday, August 6Thursday, August 5! Please keep urging your representative to sign and spread the word. Thanks to everyone who has already done so.

After a US State Department official called for reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka last week, US lawmakers are now taking concrete action to hold the State Department to its own word (unfortunately the State Department seems to support the insufficient domestic investigation into the war crimes). Currently, a congressional sign on letter is circulating at Capitol Hill, gaining support to identify those responsible for the crimes committed in the final stage of

Civilians, in between Kilinochchi and Mulathiv, Sri Lanka, May 2009, during the last few months of the war. (c) Private

Sri Lanka’s civil war. The letter, sponsored by Representatives Jan Schakowsky and James McGovern, urges Secretary Clinton to publicly call for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the war in Sri Lanka. We urgently need your help in asking your representative to sign on. To achieve the highest impact with this congressional letter and keep up the pressure for true accountability, we must collect enough signatures now.

Last year, activists like you spearheaded the global Unlock the Camps in Sri Lanka campaign, leading to the release of tens of thousands of civilians who were detained after the end of the war. Now we need your help again. Please take action today by asking your representative in the House to sign the congressional letter, demanding an international investigation. The letter will be closed this Friday, July 30, so please urge your representative now!

Here‘s how you can take action:

  1. Take action online, urging your House representative to sign on to the letter.
  2. Call the Congressional switchboard at 202 224-3121 and ask for your representative. Tell him about the letter and encourage him to support it.
  3. If your representative has a Facebook page or twitter account, encourage him through these platforms to sign on (for an example how to do this on twitter, follow our lead).

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UN names war crimes panel on Sri Lanka

June 22, 2010 at 8:12 PM

A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the Secretary-General has appointed a three-member panel of experts to advise him on the issue of war crimes reportedly committed in Sri Lanka during the war between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.  Is this the international investigation that Amnesty International has been calling for?  No, unfortunately.  According to the spokesperson’s statement, the UN panel will look into “modalities, applicable international standards and comparative experience” on how to provide accountability for reported violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.  While the panel is to advise the UN Secretary-General, it hopes to cooperate with Sri Lankan officials and is supposed to be available as a resource to the Sri Lankan government.

The Sri Lankan government, for its part, is reportedly not happy with the Secretary-General naming the panel.  One Sri Lankan official yesterday, in anticipation of the panel being named today, said that it amounted to “an attempt to provide oxygen” to the Tamil Tigers (who were militarily defeated a year ago).  Another Sri Lankan official called the move by the UN “unwarranted” as the Sri Lankan government had recently appointed its own reconciliation commission to look into events during the war.

But as Amnesty International’s report, “Twenty Years of Make-Believe:  Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry,” documents, the Sri Lankan government has a poor record of holding its own forces accountable for violations of human rights and war crimes.  One of the prior commissions of inquiry described in our report was a 2006 commission set up by the Sri Lankan government to investigate several high-profile cases of human rights violations.  That commission’s activities were observed, at the Sri Lankan’s government’s request, by an “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons” (known as IIGEP).  After a little more than a year in operation, IIGEP quit in protest, saying that the commission’s proceedings didn’t satisfy basic international standards for such commissions.

As it happens, Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the Chair of the new UN panel, was also a member of IIGEP.  This fact has already been used by a Sri Lankan official to criticize the new UN panel.  I hope Mr. Darusman’s experience on the new panel will turn out more positively than the IIGEP experience, but judging from the Sri Lankan government’s reactions so far, I’m not very optimistic.  I do hope that the UN panel will help lead to an independent international investigation into war crimes and human rights abuses committed by both sides during the war in Sri Lanka, sooner rather than later.

Sec. Clinton's shot at uncovering justice for Sri Lanka's war crimes

May 27, 2010 at 10:53 AM

Originally posted on HuffingtonPost.com.  This post is the first of our Sri Lanka’s visit to the U.S. Series.

In the context of Amnesty International’s global campaign to establish an international, independent investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, we are currently closely following the US visit of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Professor G.L. Peiris.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Professor G.L. Peiris, is currently on a public relations tour through the United States, touting his country as the new paradise for foreign investment, and dismissing war crimes allegations on the way. This week, he even took to the Huffington Post website to present his questionable worldview: “A Year After Defeating Terrorism, Sri Lanka Embodies Hope and Change“.

One year after Sri Lanka’s civil war came to a bloody end, the evidence that both parties to the conflict committed serious human rights violations, including war crimes, continues to pile up. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group and the US State Department have compiled extensive reports on the human rights violations that were committed by both the Sri Lankan army and the armed Tamil Tigers. To date, not one single individual has been held accountable for the crimes committed.

Consequently, Sri Lankan government officials have had difficulties hiding their self-confidence following their successful attempts (so far) to evade official international scrutiny. (This confidence is further boosted by articles such as a recent New York Times piece that declares Sri Lanka as the number one tourist destination to visit in 2010. The New York Times article is now part of the official information package that is handed out by Sri Lankan embassy staff at events where the Foreign Minister is speaking).

Push to lift Leahy law restrictions

This new self-confidence became most visible for me during a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), when Minister Peiris openly stated that one objective of his US visit is to change US policy that bars US training of the Sri Lankan military under the Leahy amendment. The Leahy amendment prohibits U.S. security assistance to foreign military or security units, which are believed to have committed gross human rights violations.

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Sad Loss of a Women's Human Rights Pioneer

May 11, 2010 at 12:30 PM
Rhonda Copelon, American University

Rhonda Copelon, American University

I recently heard the sad news that Professor Rhonda Copelon died on May 6th 2010.  Professor Copelon’s work was critical to defining women’s rights as human rights.  It was her dedication to gender justice, combined with her tireless work  as founding faculty member of the CUNY Law School’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, that contibuted to the recognition in international law of rape as a crime of genocide and torture. It is thanks to her that domestic violence and other forms of gender violence can constitute torture under the United Nation’s Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. 

It was no small feat to persuade the human rights community to treat gender violence as a human rights violation.  Feminists were met with resistence to the notion that violence committed by private individuals – such as domestic violence – could constitute a human rights violation.  As Professor Copelon put it “including private gendered violence, it was said, would “dilute” the human rights framework”.  However, Professor Copelon persisted in the struggle to integrate gender in the international human rights framework – and won.  

Many Human Rights NGOs expanded their work on women’s human rights and, thanks in part to the foundation Professor Copelon laid, Amnesty International launched a global campaign to Stop Violence Against Women.  Professor Copelon was generous with her time, advice and encouragement and was an inspiration to human rights activists around the world. 

Iwas fortunate enough to hear Professor Copelon speak about her work with the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, a group committed to ensuring that gender was integrated into all aspects of the International Criminal Court’s work.  What struck me was not only her passion, dedication and incredible intelligence but also her humility, collaborative spirit and sense of humor.  In her  opening remarks she said “I am not known for obedience.”  Well, thanks to her defiance and determination women’s rights really are human rights.  Her passing is a huge loss and she will be missed.

Suicide Bomber Interrupts Graduation in Somalia

December 8, 2009 at 11:50 AM

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009: 52 students were set to graduate in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, an unprecedented number for this country which has been ravaged by conflict for decades. But the graduation ceremony was interrupted by a suicide bomber.

The death toll? 23 people. Dozens more were injured. Three members of the Transitional Federal Government were also killed, including the Ministers of Higher Education, Education and Health, indicating that the attack was most likely politically motivated.

One of the students who was graduating that day, a 23 year old future doctor, tells IRIN what happened:

I was extremely happy that after six years I was finally getting my degree; it was the happiest day of my life. I was one of the first graduates to get to the venue for the ceremony. I was there at 8am. You have no idea how hard we worked to get our degrees. There were days we could not go class because of the security situation. I had to cross roadblocks to get to the university and brave gunfire many times; therefore graduation day was an emotional day for all of us. But then, just as we were about to receive our diplomas, a huge explosion ripped through the place. For a minute I was so dazed I could not understand what was happening. Then I realized my leg was bleeding and when I looked at where my colleagues had been sitting, there was nothing but death and destruction. – Sakhaudin Ahmed

Al-Shabaab, Somalia’s most active militant group, has denied responsibility for the attack. But Somalis disagree. In the past few days, hundreds of Somalis have marched down the streets of Mogadishu to rally against al-Shabaab, in what the BBC says is an “unprecedented show of anger at the militants.” And today, residents of a town close to Mogadishu fired back at Hizbul Islam rebels, one of Somalia’s other main rebel groups, to protest the arrest of a school headmaster who had a raised a Somali flag over the school.

Regardless of who is responsible for the attack, deliberately targeting civilians constitutes a war crime and is always prohibited under international law.

The TFG has now set up an inquiry into the attack. The rest of us have to wait and see if anyone is ever brought to justice for this heinous crime.

Tentative Hope for Internally Displaced Persons in Africa

December 4, 2009 at 2:28 AM
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Children in Kalma Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, South Darfur, Sudan.

An internally displaced person is someone forced from their home by natural disaster, extreme poverty or political conflict but do not leave the borders of their homeland. This is the crucial difference between internally displaced persons and refugees; refugees cross a border, leaving their homeland and subject to protections afforded by international treaties. There are more than 25 million internally displaced persons (IDP’s)  in the world, outnumbering refugees by a ratio of two to one. However the vast majority of relief efforts target refugees rather than IDPs and there are no United Nations agencies or international treaties that specifically target this population-until now.

 Africa is home to at least half of the world’s IDP’s. Algeria, Sudan, Chad and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) all have at least a million IDP’s each. “[In Africa,] forced displacement … is mostly attributable to the acts or omissions of the state, such as human rights violations, political and socio-economic marginalization, conflicts over natural resources and governance challenges, according to the AU.” In late October, seventeen member nations of the African Union signed the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons. Previously, the only international law document specifically targeted to IDP’s was the Guiding Principles for Internal Displacement. As the name suggests, this document only lists suggested principles of behavior to prevent and manage situations of displacement; it is what’s referred to as “soft law” in that it is not binding on State’s behavior. Conventions and treaties, on the other hand, are binding on State’s behavior and can lead to sanctions or adjudication. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

U.S. State Department Releases Sri Lanka War Crimes Report

October 22, 2009 at 10:06 AM

The U.S. Department of State‘s Office of War Crimes Issues released its investigation into the final stage of the conflict in Sri Lanka today. Requested by Congress, the report (pdf) covers the period between January and May 2009 and consists of an overview of incidents that happened during the final stage of the conflict. It is based on a wide range of sources, including Amnesty International’s own reporting, and uses both traditional, and innovative evidence such as satellite imagery and aerial photographs.

While the report “does not reach any legal or factual conclusions”, it provides a disturbing overview of what happened in the so-called “No-Fire Zone”, looking at both the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE): SEE THE REST OF THIS POST