infinite hope

…”Members and supporters of the opposition, loosely structured under the leadership of the National Transitional Council (NTC) … have also committed human rights abuses, in some cases amounting to war crimes, albeit on a smaller scale,” the Amnesty report said.

It said opposition supporters “unlawfully killed” more than a dozen Gadhafi loyalists and security officials between April and early July. And just after the rebels took control of eastern Libya, the report said, angry groups of rebel supporters “shot, hanged and otherwise killed through lynching” dozens of captured soldiers and suspected mercenaries, with impunity.

Mohammed al-Alagi, a justice minister for Libya’s transitional authorities said that describing the rebels actions as war crimes was wrong.

” They are not the military, they are only ordinary people, ” al-Alagi said. While rebels have made mistakes, he aknowledged, they cannot be described as “war crimes at all.”

In addition, the report said both sides stirred up racism and xenophobia, causing sub-Saharan Africans to be increasingly attacked, robbed and abused by ordinary Libyans.

“In February, there was this rumor about Gadhafi using black people as mercenaries; that’s wrong,” Nicolas Beger, director of the Amnesty International European Institutions office, told Associated Press Television News in Brussels on Monday. “But the NTC has not done a lot to curb that rumor and now there is a lot of retaliation against sub-Saharan Africans. Whether they were or they weren’t involved with the Gadhafi forces, they are at real risk of being taken from their work or their homes or the street to be tortured or killed.”

Beger also said abuses were continuing under the new government.

“We have even spoken to guards who admit that they use force,” he said. “They say, ‘Yeah we use force in order to get confessions, in order to force people to hand in their weapons.’ So this really needs to be controlled. This is one of the priorities that the new authorities have to really get a clear act on.”

Read more…

Full Report from Amnesty International

From Amnesty International’s blog, in its entirety:

It’s been nearly four full months since the United Nations called upon both Israel and Palestinians to conduct independent and impartial investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza and Southern Israel.  These violations were reported upon in the so-called Goldstone Report. Amnesty International and the rest of the international community are still waiting for the two parties to give an adequate response.

Today (Feb. 26), the United Nations voted 98-7 with 56 countries absent to provide an additional five months for the parties to conduct these investigations.  To date, both Israel and Hamas have issued reports that fall woefully short of being effective and independent. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in his response to the reports, found little to praise in them but unfortunately fell short of an assessment of whether they met the criteria set by the UN.

This disappointment gets to the crux of the matter.  There are powerful efforts to ensure that the Goldstone Report doesn’t get acted on.  Amnesty International believes the report is a means toward justice in a conflict in which the evidence suggests war crimes were committed.  And more importantly, in its insistence that all sides to the conflict be judged by a single international standard, it also provides a way toward a long-term sustainable peace in a region that hasn’t had it for nearly 75 years.

Today’s UN resolution contains the elements that AI is calling for, although AI had lobbied for the text to be more explicit in terms of the assessment required from the Secretary-General at the end of the five months.

But if the UN allows both parties to dither and shirk their international responsibilities, the vote will be meaningless.  It’s particularly disappointing that the United States was one of the seven negative votes today.  US support for the Goldstone report and process is essential to its effectiveness.

We want the United States and all members of the UN to support this resolution and provide some strength to a process that offers promise but which can easily be derailed.  The goal must be to have Israel and Palestine conduct credible and thorough investigations that are monitored by a UN-mandated body of legal experts.  And in five months down the road, if the parties have not done so, the UN Security Council should refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.  That would be an act with teeth.

Following up on a post from a while back, here’s a piece from the Amnesty International USA blog, in its entirety:

We mentioned in this site last August that a shocking video had been released which appeared to show extrajudicial killings in Sri Lanka during the final months of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the opposition Tamil Tigers.  The Sri Lankan government had denounced the video as a fake.  Today, a senior UN official presented the findings of three experts commissioned by him, which concluded that the video was authentic.   The official called for an independent inquiry into war crimes and other violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed during the war in Sri Lanka.   (The Sri Lankan government later criticized the UN official for publicly presenting his findings without first allowing the Sri Lankan government to respond.)

Separately today, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the Secretary-General is considering appointing a commission of experts to advise him on addressing possible violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka.

Amnesty International has been calling for an international, independent investigation into reports of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes, by both sides during the closing stages of the war in Sri Lanka.  Will today’s statements at the UN mean that we may finally see such an investigation sometime soon?

From the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies, via Save Darfur, excerpt:

Chadian rebel groups which had moved into North Darfur in early November have been committing a series of attacks against the civilian population reminiscent of the tactics employed by the janjaweed militias and government forces early in the Darfur conflict. Villages have been raided, property looted, and women raped.
…
The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies believes that these acts may constitute war crimes and call on the government of Sudan and relevant UN representatives to the initiate a full and thorough investigation. The perpetrators should be held accountable. At the same time, the international community should do more to ensure that civilians are protected, including ensuring full logistical and political support for the joint United Nations-African Union hybrid peacekeeping force (UNAMID) and pushing it to take robust action.

Excerpt from the NAACP blog, written by Rev. David Emmanuel Goatley, Ph.D., Chairman of the NAACP International Affairs Committee:

At the NAACP, our work in the global arena sometimes elicits the following kind of question. “With all the ills in the United States, why should we be involved in the problems in those countries?” There are at least three principle reasons you should engage globally.

First, if you intend to be relevant, you have to be global. We are interconnected in economics, politics, entertainment, and the like. Every time you purchase something, you are participating in the global economy. You have a vested interest in what is happening in the world for your personal well-being.

Second, if you don’t make the world a better place “over there,” you will soon suffer the consequences “right here.” The ease of global communication and transportation makes the creep of problems around the world inevitable. Remember the Asian Flu and HIV?

Third, making this world a better place for all is the work of mature and responsible people. We are interdependent and interconnected. How can you know that a child is starving or a woman is raped or a family’s home is burned and not be moved add your voice to the call for peace and justice?

Sudan is a country where unimaginable human atrocities are continuing. Despite modest steps of progress, there are still gross displays of inhumane treatment of individuals, families, and communities. The NAACP is joining the Save Darfur Coalition to call for people who believe in peace, justice, and security to join in a global day of action on Sudan on January 9, 2010.

Success!!!! From Reuters, excerpt:

BOSTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - TIAA-CREF has become the first large U.S. fund firm to sell stakes in a group of Asian energy companies over human rights concerns in Sudan.

The sales of shares of China’s PetroChina Co Ltd (601857.SS), CNPC Hong Kong (0135.HK) and Sinopec (600028.SS), and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC.BO) of New Delhi totaled $42.7 million, TIAA-CREF said on Monday.

The move could lead to a renewed round of pressure on the companies over their business ties to Sudan’s government, which is widely accused of war crimes.

The sales by TIAA-CREF, which provides financial services to nonprofits like hospitals and universities, also mark a milestone for rights activists who have tried for years — mostly in vain — to line up the influential fund industry behind its social agenda.

From the UN Development Fund for Women, excerpt:

The victims in today’s armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70 percent of the casualties in recent conflicts have been non-combatants — most of them women and children. Women’s bodies have become part of the battleground for those who use terror as a tactic of war — they are raped, abducted, humiliated and made to undergo forced pregnancy, sexual abuse and slavery. The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first treaty to expressly recognize this broad spectrum of sexual and gender-based violence as among the gravest breaches of international law.