Hundreds of civilians are feared to have died in a surge of fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in the turbulent Darfur region, a United Nations source told Reuters on Monday. A spokesperson for Sudan's army denied any fighting was taking place in Darfur's mountainous Jabel Marra region and accused insurgents of harassing and attacking locals.
Reports of clashes throughout last week have marred Khartoum's announcement of a new peace push in the region and come just more than a month ahead of national elections. "We think that we have a mounting number of casualties ... The lower estimate is about 140. The higher estimate is closer to 400," said a UN source. He said the figures referred to civilian deaths.
The army spokesperson told Reuters: "There are no clashes between the Sudanese army and the forces of Abdel Wahed's movement." Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur is the leader of a branch of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir declared the war in Darfur over last Wednesday, announcing the release of 57 rebel captives after reaching an initial settlement with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Darfur's most powerful rebel force. Al-Bashir's government signed an agreement in Doha last Tuesday committing Sudan to reaching a final peace deal with the JEM by March 15. But the SLA and other rebels have rejected the deal, demanding that security be restored on the ground before talks begin.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Showing posts with label Darfur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darfur. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Darfur: International Criminal Court’s Decision on Bashir Arrest Warrant
On February 3, 2010, the International Criminal Court (ICC) appeals chamber decided to reject the standard used to exclude genocide charges in the ICC's arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.
Last year, on March 4, 2009, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. At that time, the Pre-Trial Chamber rejected the inclusion of genocide charges in the warrant on the basis that the prosecutor did not present "reasonable grounds to believe" that the Sudanese government possessed the necessary intent for the crime of genocide.
"Today's decision is a strong reminder that President al-Bashir is wanted for heinous crimes committed in Darfur," said Elise Keppler, International Justice Program senior counsel at Human Rights Watch. "President al-Bashir is a fugitive from justice who needs to appear in The Hague to answer to the allegations against him."
With today's decision, the appeals chamber instructed the pre-trial chamber to reassess the inclusion of genocide charges under a revised standard and amend the arrest warrant as necessary.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Last year, on March 4, 2009, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. At that time, the Pre-Trial Chamber rejected the inclusion of genocide charges in the warrant on the basis that the prosecutor did not present "reasonable grounds to believe" that the Sudanese government possessed the necessary intent for the crime of genocide.
"Today's decision is a strong reminder that President al-Bashir is wanted for heinous crimes committed in Darfur," said Elise Keppler, International Justice Program senior counsel at Human Rights Watch. "President al-Bashir is a fugitive from justice who needs to appear in The Hague to answer to the allegations against him."
With today's decision, the appeals chamber instructed the pre-trial chamber to reassess the inclusion of genocide charges under a revised standard and amend the arrest warrant as necessary.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Darfur rebels hail court decision on al-Bashir
A leading Darfur rebel group hailed an international appeals court's decision on Wednesday to order a review of the dropping of genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir in March last year on five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes committed in Darfur, but did not press genocide charges, a decision it must now reconsider.
"The decision taken by the ICC was a good decision, a natural decision given the role of al-Bashir as head of the army and state," said Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesperson for the Justice and Equality Movement, the most heavily armed of the Darfur rebel groups. "It is a great victory for the population of Darfur and justice," he said.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, having implicated the Sudanese leader in the deaths of 35 000 people, had lodged an appeal against the court's decision not to include the three counts of genocide he had asked for. He accuses al-Bashir of having "personally instructed" his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups -- the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa in Darfur.
The judges of the appeals court said in their decision that the standard of proof on which the pre-trial chamber of the court rejected the genocide charge against al-Bashir was too demanding. They directed it to issue "a new decision using the correct standard of proof". Moreno-Ocampo has claimed to have "detailed evidence on the mobilisation and use of the entire Sudanese state apparatus for the purpose of destroying a substantial part of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in the entire region of Darfur during more than six years"."His intent was genocide," Moreno-Ocampo said, adding that al-Bashir had ordered his forces "not to bring back any wounded or prisoners".
The United Nations says up to 300 000 people have died and 2,7-million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003. The Sudanese government says 10 000 people have been killed.
Source: Mail & Guardian
"The decision taken by the ICC was a good decision, a natural decision given the role of al-Bashir as head of the army and state," said Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesperson for the Justice and Equality Movement, the most heavily armed of the Darfur rebel groups. "It is a great victory for the population of Darfur and justice," he said.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, having implicated the Sudanese leader in the deaths of 35 000 people, had lodged an appeal against the court's decision not to include the three counts of genocide he had asked for. He accuses al-Bashir of having "personally instructed" his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups -- the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa in Darfur.
The judges of the appeals court said in their decision that the standard of proof on which the pre-trial chamber of the court rejected the genocide charge against al-Bashir was too demanding. They directed it to issue "a new decision using the correct standard of proof". Moreno-Ocampo has claimed to have "detailed evidence on the mobilisation and use of the entire Sudanese state apparatus for the purpose of destroying a substantial part of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in the entire region of Darfur during more than six years"."His intent was genocide," Moreno-Ocampo said, adding that al-Bashir had ordered his forces "not to bring back any wounded or prisoners".
The United Nations says up to 300 000 people have died and 2,7-million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003. The Sudanese government says 10 000 people have been killed.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Omar Hassan al-Bashir
On June 30, 1989, Lieut. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a military leader in Sudan, seized power in a bloodless coup backed by Islamists. He assumed the presidency in 1993.
He has been accused of genocide by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and has been vilified throughout the world as an incorrigible mass murderer bent on slaughtering his own people in the conflict-riddled region of Darfur.
He has stayed in power, appealing to national pride and causing deep-seated fears that the nation could tumble into Somalia-like chaos if he were removed.
In February 2009, judges at the International Criminal Court approved a warrant for his arrest. According to court lawyers and diplomats, the judges rejected diplomatic requests to allow more time for peace negotiations in Darfur.
The criminal court judges took more than seven months to examine the evidence on Mr. Bashir before charging him, on March 4, 2009, with five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. The two counts of war crimes were for attacks against a civilian population and for pillaging. In their statement, the judges said the court did not recognize immunity for a head of state and called for the cooperation of all countries - not just the 108 nations that are members of the court - to bring Mr. Bashir to justice.
The question of whether genocide was being committed in Darfur has been divisive, and was so among the judges, who said 2-to-1 that the prosecutor had not provided sufficient evidence of the government's intent, the key issue in determining genocide. The Bush administration and other governments, as well as some human rights activists, have called the attacks on civilians government's actions genocide. The United Nations has stopped short of doing so.
It is the first time the court has sought to detain a sitting head of state, and it could further complicate the tense, international debate over how to solve the Darfur crisis.
In announcing his request for a warrant, the prosecutor in the case, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said that Mr. Bashir had "masterminded and implemented" a plan to destroy three main ethnic groups in Darfur, the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa. The prosecutor said that the president, responding to attacks by rebel groups seeking greater autonomy, had used government soldiers and Arab militias and had "purposefully targeted civilians" belonging to these groups, killing 35,000 people "outright" in attacks on towns and villages.
Although there has been sporadic fighting in Darfur for decades, the conflict significantly intensified in 2003, when the rebel groups attacked Sudanese forces. The Arab-led government responded with a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign, which the prosecutor called a genocidal strategy against Darfur's black African ethnic groups.
The Sudanese forces and government-sponsored militias swept the countryside. They burned down villages, raped countless women and drove hundreds of thousands of people off their land, all part of an effort to put down the rebellion. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has accused Mr. Bashir of being the mastermind of this strategy, the one with "absolute control."
There is broad concern that removing Mr. Bashir from power could threaten a landmark peace treaty between the Sudanese government and other rebels in the southern part of the country. The treaty was signed in 2005 to end a civil war in which 2.2 million people died, far more than in Darfur.
Source: New York Times
He has been accused of genocide by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and has been vilified throughout the world as an incorrigible mass murderer bent on slaughtering his own people in the conflict-riddled region of Darfur.
He has stayed in power, appealing to national pride and causing deep-seated fears that the nation could tumble into Somalia-like chaos if he were removed.
In February 2009, judges at the International Criminal Court approved a warrant for his arrest. According to court lawyers and diplomats, the judges rejected diplomatic requests to allow more time for peace negotiations in Darfur.
The criminal court judges took more than seven months to examine the evidence on Mr. Bashir before charging him, on March 4, 2009, with five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. The two counts of war crimes were for attacks against a civilian population and for pillaging. In their statement, the judges said the court did not recognize immunity for a head of state and called for the cooperation of all countries - not just the 108 nations that are members of the court - to bring Mr. Bashir to justice.
The question of whether genocide was being committed in Darfur has been divisive, and was so among the judges, who said 2-to-1 that the prosecutor had not provided sufficient evidence of the government's intent, the key issue in determining genocide. The Bush administration and other governments, as well as some human rights activists, have called the attacks on civilians government's actions genocide. The United Nations has stopped short of doing so.
It is the first time the court has sought to detain a sitting head of state, and it could further complicate the tense, international debate over how to solve the Darfur crisis.
In announcing his request for a warrant, the prosecutor in the case, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said that Mr. Bashir had "masterminded and implemented" a plan to destroy three main ethnic groups in Darfur, the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa. The prosecutor said that the president, responding to attacks by rebel groups seeking greater autonomy, had used government soldiers and Arab militias and had "purposefully targeted civilians" belonging to these groups, killing 35,000 people "outright" in attacks on towns and villages.
Although there has been sporadic fighting in Darfur for decades, the conflict significantly intensified in 2003, when the rebel groups attacked Sudanese forces. The Arab-led government responded with a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign, which the prosecutor called a genocidal strategy against Darfur's black African ethnic groups.
The Sudanese forces and government-sponsored militias swept the countryside. They burned down villages, raped countless women and drove hundreds of thousands of people off their land, all part of an effort to put down the rebellion. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has accused Mr. Bashir of being the mastermind of this strategy, the one with "absolute control."
There is broad concern that removing Mr. Bashir from power could threaten a landmark peace treaty between the Sudanese government and other rebels in the southern part of the country. The treaty was signed in 2005 to end a civil war in which 2.2 million people died, far more than in Darfur.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, September 7, 2008
South Africa's Human Rights Reputation Tarnished
As a member of the United Nations security council for two years, South Africa has had many opportunities to speak out forcefully for human rights - or to join those speaking out against them. Again and again, it has chosen the latter course. The South African government's unwillingness to confront President Robert Mugabe on his extremely abusive governance of Zimbabwe is well known to South Africans, and justly controversial. Less well known are the many other important international issues on which the South African government has sided with reactionary rather than progressive forces.
Burma is the best-known case. With Russia and China, South Africa has blocked efforts to condemn the military government's lethal crackdown on peaceful protesters last year. Perhaps the department of foreign affairs has forgotten that, when Burma was still democratic, it demanded that the evils of apartheid, including the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, should be brought before the security council.
The international solidarity movement against apartheid constantly confronted the argument that what happened inside a country's borders was none of the rest of the world's business. That is precisely the argument that the South African government now makes frequently at the security council. It narrowly defines what constitutes a "threat to international peace and security", and insists that all other matters be taken up at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Meanwhile, in Geneva, outside the limelight, South Africa has demonstrated a similar pattern - failing to support key resolutions condemning human rights abuses in countries from Iran to Uzbekistan, and aligning itself with countries whose human rights records are, by anyone's standard, abysmal.
At the UN this month, a diplomatic struggle is shaping up to be South Africa's lowest moment yet. The issue is Darfur, and more specifically the request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president. The accusation: genocide and crimes against humanity, the world's most serious crimes. News of the warrant request was greeted with joy among the millions of Darfuris who have been driven from their homes by government forces acting in concert with janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of Africans have died in this civil war, most of them civilians, and most of them as a result of Sudanese government actions.
The Sudanese government has begun a concerted campaign to evade justice for these crimes and the South African government has become its accomplice. Together with Libya, also on the security council, South Africa has been leading an effort to suspend the International Criminal Court's request for the next 12 months. Suspending the request for an arrest warrant would send a clear signal, not only to the Sudanese government, but also to tyrants everywhere that they can continue to cheat justice through international political machination. I was present at the negotiations on the treaty for the International Criminal Court 10 years ago in Rome, and listened with admiration to the speech of Dullah Omar, the South African justice minister, in ringing support of this important new human rights institution. Achieving a strong treaty at those talks was an uphill battle, but we won. Only the steadfast leadership of South Africa, along with a handful of others, overcame the opposition of major powers such as the United States, China and Israel.
The International Criminal Court is not an anti-African institution, as some have alleged. It is a pro-African institution: pro-civilians in Darfur whose villages have been burned to the ground, pro-women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been raped in wartime, pro-children in northern Uganda who have been abducted as child soldiers. It is opposed to government and rebel leaders responsible for such crimes, no matter where they live.
The prosecutor has also been looking into situations in Colombia and Afghanistan, as well as crimes committed in the Russian-Georgian armed conflict. It is truly heartbreaking to see South Africa preparing to abandon the court at a critical juncture in its history. Sadly, it appears to be part of a trend that is putting Pretoria's foreign policy on the wrong side of history. Perhaps only a fervent and sustained outcry from South African society can restore the country to its rightful path and begin to repair the damage that has already been done to its reputation.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Burma is the best-known case. With Russia and China, South Africa has blocked efforts to condemn the military government's lethal crackdown on peaceful protesters last year. Perhaps the department of foreign affairs has forgotten that, when Burma was still democratic, it demanded that the evils of apartheid, including the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, should be brought before the security council.
The international solidarity movement against apartheid constantly confronted the argument that what happened inside a country's borders was none of the rest of the world's business. That is precisely the argument that the South African government now makes frequently at the security council. It narrowly defines what constitutes a "threat to international peace and security", and insists that all other matters be taken up at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Meanwhile, in Geneva, outside the limelight, South Africa has demonstrated a similar pattern - failing to support key resolutions condemning human rights abuses in countries from Iran to Uzbekistan, and aligning itself with countries whose human rights records are, by anyone's standard, abysmal.
At the UN this month, a diplomatic struggle is shaping up to be South Africa's lowest moment yet. The issue is Darfur, and more specifically the request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president. The accusation: genocide and crimes against humanity, the world's most serious crimes. News of the warrant request was greeted with joy among the millions of Darfuris who have been driven from their homes by government forces acting in concert with janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of Africans have died in this civil war, most of them civilians, and most of them as a result of Sudanese government actions.
The Sudanese government has begun a concerted campaign to evade justice for these crimes and the South African government has become its accomplice. Together with Libya, also on the security council, South Africa has been leading an effort to suspend the International Criminal Court's request for the next 12 months. Suspending the request for an arrest warrant would send a clear signal, not only to the Sudanese government, but also to tyrants everywhere that they can continue to cheat justice through international political machination. I was present at the negotiations on the treaty for the International Criminal Court 10 years ago in Rome, and listened with admiration to the speech of Dullah Omar, the South African justice minister, in ringing support of this important new human rights institution. Achieving a strong treaty at those talks was an uphill battle, but we won. Only the steadfast leadership of South Africa, along with a handful of others, overcame the opposition of major powers such as the United States, China and Israel.
The International Criminal Court is not an anti-African institution, as some have alleged. It is a pro-African institution: pro-civilians in Darfur whose villages have been burned to the ground, pro-women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been raped in wartime, pro-children in northern Uganda who have been abducted as child soldiers. It is opposed to government and rebel leaders responsible for such crimes, no matter where they live.
The prosecutor has also been looking into situations in Colombia and Afghanistan, as well as crimes committed in the Russian-Georgian armed conflict. It is truly heartbreaking to see South Africa preparing to abandon the court at a critical juncture in its history. Sadly, it appears to be part of a trend that is putting Pretoria's foreign policy on the wrong side of history. Perhaps only a fervent and sustained outcry from South African society can restore the country to its rightful path and begin to repair the damage that has already been done to its reputation.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Friday, September 14, 2007
State of Anarchy
Since mid-2005, hundreds of civilians have been killed, more than 10 thousand houses burned, and approximately 212,000 persons have fled their homes in terror to live in desperate conditions deep in the bush in northern Central African Republic (CAR). Bordering eastern Chad and war-ravaged Darfur in Sudan, this area has been destabilized by at least two major rebellions against the government of President Franois Boziz.
The vast majority of summary executions and unlawful killings, and almost all village burnings, have been carried out by government forces, often in reprisal for rebel attacks. While both main rebel groups have been responsible for widespread looting and the forced taxation of the civilian population in areas they control -and rebels in the northeast have committed killings, beatings, and rape -their abuses pale in comparison to those of the Central African Armed Forces (Forces armes Centrafricaines,FACA) and the elite Presidential Guard (Garde prsidentielle, GP). As the International Criminal Court (ICC) begins investigations into atrocities committed during the 2002-2003 rebellion against former President Patass, it should also investigate possible war crimes under its jurisdiction committed in the current round of fighting.
This report documents the human rights abuses and breaches of international humanitarian law being committed in northern CAR and describes the make-up, origins, and aims of the most significant rebel groups. The Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (Arme populaire pour la restauration de la Rpublique et la dmocratie, APRD) is active in the northwestern provinces of Ouham, Ouham-Pend, and Nana-Grbizi. The Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (Union des forces dmocratiques pour la rassemblement,UFDR) is most active in remote northeastern provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran and Vakaga.
In February and March 2007 Human Rights Watch researchers visited the majority of towns and villages affected, documenting summary executions, unlawful killings, beatings, house burnings, extortion and unlawful taxation, the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, and many other human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed over 100 persons, including many victims and witnesses, local and regional government officials, military commanders, rebel officials, religious leaders, and representatives of local and international humanitarian organizations active in northern CAR.
Until quite recently there was little international awareness of the situation in northern CAR. However, in 2006, human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law began to receive some attention. The killings, village burnings, displacement, and humanitarian suffering are now occasionally reported in the international press and are the subject of increasing diplomatic notice, usually being seen as "spill-over" from the continuing crisis in Darfur.
Little attention, however, has been paid to the actual dynamics of conflict, which are largely home grown. The main rebel protagonists are Central Africans with local grievances. Human Rights Watch's research suggests that the degree of linkage with the situation in Darfur has been exaggerated. The APRD in the northwest is so poorly equipped that it is difficult to imagine it has foreign sponsorship. Human Rights Watch has found no other evidence of such support. Although there have been contacts between the UFDR and Sudan-sponsored Chadian rebels opposed to the Chadian President Dby based in the northeast of CAR in early 2006, foreign support does not appear to be a driving force behind this rebellion.
Neither has attention been paid to the issue of responsibility for human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law, nor to action to ensure accountability. The sorry fact is that the perpetrators of violence and abuse, the majority of them government soldiers, have so far enjoyed total impunity for acts that include war crimes.
The APRD Rebellion
The APRD rebellion in the northwest was launched almost immediately after controversial 2005 elections led to the election of General Boziz as President. These had excluded the candidacy of ex-President Patass, who had been overthrown by General Boziz in March 2003. The leadership of the APRD rebellion consists mostly of former Presidential Guards of Patass, himself from the region. The APRD has about 1,000 poorly equipped members, including 200 rebels armed with automatic weapons, and another 600 with home-made hunting weapons. They claim their aim is to engage in "dialogue" to address the political exclusion of Patass and his supporters and to improve the security situation in the northwest, rather than to overthrow the government.
One of the main grievances of the population of the northwest is lack of security. Armed bandits, known as zaraguinas or coupeurs de route, regularly attack villagers and have taken advantage of insufficient security provided by the state to increase attacks. The zaraguinas commonly kidnap children for ransom and regularly kill civilians during raids. Many cattle-herders from the Peulh ethnic groupin the northwest, particularly targeted because of their valuable livestock, have fled to the safety of larger towns and refugee camps in Chad. Along with the political grievances of former Patass supporters, the failure of the CAR security forces to protect local communities from banditry is an important element in the development of the APRD, and many local armed self-defense groups have merged into the rebel group.
The UFDR Rebellion
From October to December 2006, the UFDR rebel movement gained international attention by seizing military control of the major towns in the remote Vakaga and Bamingui-Bangoran provinces of northeastern CAR, right on the border of Sudan's Darfur region. The UFDR's bold military offensive led to French military intervention on behalf of the CAR government in December 2006, allowing the security forces to regain control of urban centers.
The UFDR rebellion has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped. Elements from the Gula ethnic group, many of them trained militarily as anti-poaching units, are at the core of the rebellion, citing grievances such as discrimination against their community and the alleged embezzlement by the CAR authorities of compensation funds received from the Sudanese government following clashes perpetrated by Sudanese nomads in 2002. As the rebellion has grown, a backlash of anti-Gula sentiment among government officials, the military, and the general population has developed. As a result, most of the Gula population has fled government-controlled areas in fear of retaliation.
A second element making up the UFDR is Boziz's own former colleagues, so-called ex-librateurs, who participated in his overthrow of former President Patass in 2003. They accuse Boziz of betraying his promises and failing to compensate them for their support.
Abuses by FACA and GP Forces
Since the beginning of the conflict in mid 2005 with rebel forces in northern CAR, the CAR security forces have committed serious and widespread abuses against the civilian population, including multiple summary executions and unlawful killings, widespread burning of civilian homes, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, which have instilled terror in the civilian population. In most instances, these village burnings and killings were in direct response to recent rebel activity in the area and amount to unlawful reprisals against the civilian population. It is the FACA and GP that have been responsible for the vast majority of the most serious human rights abuses in the conflict, and they have carried out these atrocities in full confidence of impunity from accountability for their crimes.
During the course of its research, Human Rights Watch documented 119 summary executions and unlawful killings committed by government security forces in both the northwest and northeast (the vast majority in the northwest), including at least 51 committed since late 2005 by a single military unit, the Bossangoa-based GP unit, commanded at the time by Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss.
Human Rights Watch believes that the killings it has documented are only a fraction of the total number of those committed by government security forces. Since the beginning of the conflict these are estimated to amount to many hundreds. Killings committed by security forces have often involved dozens of civilian deaths in a single day and have often included unspeakable brutality. For example, on February 11, 2006, a single GP unit killed at least 30 civilians in more than a dozen separate villages located along the Nana-Barya to Bmal road. On March 22, this same GP unit beheaded a teacher in Bmal, cutting off his head with a knife while he was still alive. Other civilians have simply "disappeared" in military custody, arrested and not seen alive again.
Since December 2005, government forces, particularly the GP, have also been almost solely responsible for the burning down of more than 10,000 civilian homes in northwestern CAR. Hundreds of villages across vast swathes of northern CAR have been destroyed. Troops arrive in villages and indiscriminately fire into the civilian population, forcing them to flee before burning down their homes, sometimes looting them first. In December 2005, GP forces burned down 500 to 900 houses in the Markounda area. A Human Rights Watch count in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago-Kaga Bandoro area found a total of 2,923 burned homes, including more than 1,000 homes in the large market town of Ouandago alone. In some places every single home in every single village was burned. Similarly massive destruction can be found all around the town of Paoua, all the way east to Nana Baryahundreds of kilometers of villages destroyed by government security forces.
The reprisal and counterinsurgency tactics of the CAR security forces have affected the lives of over 1 million people and have forced an estimated 212,000 civilians to abandon their road-side homes and live deep inside the bush, too fearful to return to their burned villages in case of repeat attack. Another 78,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Chad and Cameroon. The level of civilian fear in northern CAR is palpable. People are simply not to be seen in many areas, hiding far away. At the sound of approaching cars, everyone flees, dropping their possessions, sometimes even abandoning babies in their haste.
Living conditions for the displaced are life-threatening. They have no access to clean water, are often desperately short of food supplies, and their widely dispersed shelters are beyond the reach of the humanitarian community. Educational facilities have been closed, and aside from mobile clinics run by international organizations in some areas, health care is non-existent.
Rebel Abuses
APRD rebels in the northwest have engaged in widespread extortion, forced taxation, kidnappings for ransom, and beatings of civilians, particularly in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago area of Ouham province. In that area, particularly on the Batangafo-Ouandago road, almost all villages have been systematically looted of all livestock, and village leaders have been regularly kidnapped for ransom. APRD rebels also have large numbers of child soldiers in their ranks, some as young as 12. APRD commanders expressed willingness to Human Rights Watch to demobilize the child soldiers if the post-demobilization security of the children could be guaranteed.
During its investigation in the field, Human Rights Watch documented one summary execution by the APRD (the killing of Mohammed Haroon in June 2006, in Gbazera) and did not identify any cases of home-burning by the group. Human Rights Watch has not received any credible additional reports of summary killings or village burnings by APRD rebels from local or international human rights organizations or journalists. On June 11, 2007, APRD rebels fired upon a vehicle of the international humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders (Mdecins Sans Frontires, MSF), killing Elsa Serfass, an MSF nurse. While the APRD immediately apologized for the incident, saying it had been a "mistake," the persons responsible should be held to account.
Human Rights Watch's research found that UFDR rebels in the northeast have carried out widespread abuses against the civilian population. During attacks on villages and towns they have often indiscriminately fired at fleeing civilians, leading to unlawful killings. Meanwhile, UFDR rebels have been responsible for summary executions of captured civilians. From October to December 2006, the rebels carried out massive looting of the belongings and livestock of the civilian population in areas they controlled. There have been allegations of rape by UFDR rebels, although Human Rights Watch has only been able to corroborate one case-a woman raped by five UFDR rebels during their brief capture of Birao in March 2007. The UFDR also has child soldiers in its ranks, and Human Rights Watch found that some of them had been forcibly recruited.
The Need for Protection
Establishing credible mechanisms to protect the civilian population from abuses is fundamental to addressing the human rights crisis in northern CAR. The responsibility for civilian protection lies first and foremost with the CAR authorities: they must take immediate steps to end military abuses and to re-establish a functioning police force and court system that serve to protect the rights of the civilian population.
However, the international community can also do more. A stronger international protection presence in the north is urgently needed. There already is a substantial UN human rights presence in CAR, in the form of a 19-person human rights unit in the office of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in the Central African Republic (Bureau d'appui des Nations Unies pour la consolidation de la paix en Rpublique centrafricaine, BONUCA), a long-standing UN peace support mission established in 2000. However, the human rights unit has been largely passive to date and does not effectively monitor or report on human rights abuses in the north. The UN should take the necessary measures, including changes to the mandate of the human rights section, to ensure that the BONUCA human rights unit effectively monitors and reports on human rights abuses in the north, in the same way that the human rights units of UN peacekeeping missions operate in neighboring Sudan and DRC.
If the UN Security Council moves ahead with the deployment of a UN protection mission to CAR and Chad, that mission should focus on the real protection needs of the civilian population of both countries, and not focus solely on neutralizing the "spill-over effect" of the Darfur crisis.
The Need for Accountability
The crimes being committed in northern CAR by government security forces are no secret inside the country. Local newspapers and radio frequently report them, opposition parliamentarians have prepared public reports documenting the atrocities, and diplomatic envoys regularly raise their concerns with President Boziz. Despite this, the government has not investigated, prosecuted, or punished a single military officer, or even publicly reprimanded them for any of the abuses. Even in the capital, Bangui, security forces carry out summary killings of suspected bandits and rebels with impunity. During Human Rights Watch's visit, two handcuffed Chadian rebel suspects were executed on the outskirts of Bangui by security forces. The commander of the most notorious of the units, Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss of the Bossangoa-based GP unit that has killed dozens of civilians and is directly implicated in most of the village burnings in the north, remains a free man and an active duty military officer to date.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor's office is already involved in the CAR, having announced in May 2007 that they would investigate crimes committed in CAR during the 2002-2003 fighting, and that they would continue to monitor possible crimes committed during the current conflict. The investigations of the ICC in CAR should not, however, detract from the primary obligation of the CAR authorities to end impunity and bring about accountability for crimes committed by its armed forces and others. Ultimately, the crisis in northern CAR will only be resolved when law and order is restored, and the institutions of justice have the capacity to punish those who commit crimes against the civilian population, including members of the army and the elite GP.
The international community-particularly France, without whose direct military support the government of President Boziz would not survive-have an obligation to speak out about the abuses in northern CAR and to demand accountability for the crimes committed in northern CAR.
Source: Human Rights Watch
The vast majority of summary executions and unlawful killings, and almost all village burnings, have been carried out by government forces, often in reprisal for rebel attacks. While both main rebel groups have been responsible for widespread looting and the forced taxation of the civilian population in areas they control -and rebels in the northeast have committed killings, beatings, and rape -their abuses pale in comparison to those of the Central African Armed Forces (Forces armes Centrafricaines,FACA) and the elite Presidential Guard (Garde prsidentielle, GP). As the International Criminal Court (ICC) begins investigations into atrocities committed during the 2002-2003 rebellion against former President Patass, it should also investigate possible war crimes under its jurisdiction committed in the current round of fighting.
This report documents the human rights abuses and breaches of international humanitarian law being committed in northern CAR and describes the make-up, origins, and aims of the most significant rebel groups. The Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (Arme populaire pour la restauration de la Rpublique et la dmocratie, APRD) is active in the northwestern provinces of Ouham, Ouham-Pend, and Nana-Grbizi. The Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (Union des forces dmocratiques pour la rassemblement,UFDR) is most active in remote northeastern provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran and Vakaga.
In February and March 2007 Human Rights Watch researchers visited the majority of towns and villages affected, documenting summary executions, unlawful killings, beatings, house burnings, extortion and unlawful taxation, the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, and many other human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed over 100 persons, including many victims and witnesses, local and regional government officials, military commanders, rebel officials, religious leaders, and representatives of local and international humanitarian organizations active in northern CAR.
Until quite recently there was little international awareness of the situation in northern CAR. However, in 2006, human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law began to receive some attention. The killings, village burnings, displacement, and humanitarian suffering are now occasionally reported in the international press and are the subject of increasing diplomatic notice, usually being seen as "spill-over" from the continuing crisis in Darfur.
Little attention, however, has been paid to the actual dynamics of conflict, which are largely home grown. The main rebel protagonists are Central Africans with local grievances. Human Rights Watch's research suggests that the degree of linkage with the situation in Darfur has been exaggerated. The APRD in the northwest is so poorly equipped that it is difficult to imagine it has foreign sponsorship. Human Rights Watch has found no other evidence of such support. Although there have been contacts between the UFDR and Sudan-sponsored Chadian rebels opposed to the Chadian President Dby based in the northeast of CAR in early 2006, foreign support does not appear to be a driving force behind this rebellion.
Neither has attention been paid to the issue of responsibility for human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law, nor to action to ensure accountability. The sorry fact is that the perpetrators of violence and abuse, the majority of them government soldiers, have so far enjoyed total impunity for acts that include war crimes.
The APRD Rebellion
The APRD rebellion in the northwest was launched almost immediately after controversial 2005 elections led to the election of General Boziz as President. These had excluded the candidacy of ex-President Patass, who had been overthrown by General Boziz in March 2003. The leadership of the APRD rebellion consists mostly of former Presidential Guards of Patass, himself from the region. The APRD has about 1,000 poorly equipped members, including 200 rebels armed with automatic weapons, and another 600 with home-made hunting weapons. They claim their aim is to engage in "dialogue" to address the political exclusion of Patass and his supporters and to improve the security situation in the northwest, rather than to overthrow the government.
One of the main grievances of the population of the northwest is lack of security. Armed bandits, known as zaraguinas or coupeurs de route, regularly attack villagers and have taken advantage of insufficient security provided by the state to increase attacks. The zaraguinas commonly kidnap children for ransom and regularly kill civilians during raids. Many cattle-herders from the Peulh ethnic groupin the northwest, particularly targeted because of their valuable livestock, have fled to the safety of larger towns and refugee camps in Chad. Along with the political grievances of former Patass supporters, the failure of the CAR security forces to protect local communities from banditry is an important element in the development of the APRD, and many local armed self-defense groups have merged into the rebel group.
The UFDR Rebellion
From October to December 2006, the UFDR rebel movement gained international attention by seizing military control of the major towns in the remote Vakaga and Bamingui-Bangoran provinces of northeastern CAR, right on the border of Sudan's Darfur region. The UFDR's bold military offensive led to French military intervention on behalf of the CAR government in December 2006, allowing the security forces to regain control of urban centers.
The UFDR rebellion has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped. Elements from the Gula ethnic group, many of them trained militarily as anti-poaching units, are at the core of the rebellion, citing grievances such as discrimination against their community and the alleged embezzlement by the CAR authorities of compensation funds received from the Sudanese government following clashes perpetrated by Sudanese nomads in 2002. As the rebellion has grown, a backlash of anti-Gula sentiment among government officials, the military, and the general population has developed. As a result, most of the Gula population has fled government-controlled areas in fear of retaliation.
A second element making up the UFDR is Boziz's own former colleagues, so-called ex-librateurs, who participated in his overthrow of former President Patass in 2003. They accuse Boziz of betraying his promises and failing to compensate them for their support.
Abuses by FACA and GP Forces
Since the beginning of the conflict in mid 2005 with rebel forces in northern CAR, the CAR security forces have committed serious and widespread abuses against the civilian population, including multiple summary executions and unlawful killings, widespread burning of civilian homes, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, which have instilled terror in the civilian population. In most instances, these village burnings and killings were in direct response to recent rebel activity in the area and amount to unlawful reprisals against the civilian population. It is the FACA and GP that have been responsible for the vast majority of the most serious human rights abuses in the conflict, and they have carried out these atrocities in full confidence of impunity from accountability for their crimes.
During the course of its research, Human Rights Watch documented 119 summary executions and unlawful killings committed by government security forces in both the northwest and northeast (the vast majority in the northwest), including at least 51 committed since late 2005 by a single military unit, the Bossangoa-based GP unit, commanded at the time by Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss.
Human Rights Watch believes that the killings it has documented are only a fraction of the total number of those committed by government security forces. Since the beginning of the conflict these are estimated to amount to many hundreds. Killings committed by security forces have often involved dozens of civilian deaths in a single day and have often included unspeakable brutality. For example, on February 11, 2006, a single GP unit killed at least 30 civilians in more than a dozen separate villages located along the Nana-Barya to Bmal road. On March 22, this same GP unit beheaded a teacher in Bmal, cutting off his head with a knife while he was still alive. Other civilians have simply "disappeared" in military custody, arrested and not seen alive again.
Since December 2005, government forces, particularly the GP, have also been almost solely responsible for the burning down of more than 10,000 civilian homes in northwestern CAR. Hundreds of villages across vast swathes of northern CAR have been destroyed. Troops arrive in villages and indiscriminately fire into the civilian population, forcing them to flee before burning down their homes, sometimes looting them first. In December 2005, GP forces burned down 500 to 900 houses in the Markounda area. A Human Rights Watch count in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago-Kaga Bandoro area found a total of 2,923 burned homes, including more than 1,000 homes in the large market town of Ouandago alone. In some places every single home in every single village was burned. Similarly massive destruction can be found all around the town of Paoua, all the way east to Nana Baryahundreds of kilometers of villages destroyed by government security forces.
The reprisal and counterinsurgency tactics of the CAR security forces have affected the lives of over 1 million people and have forced an estimated 212,000 civilians to abandon their road-side homes and live deep inside the bush, too fearful to return to their burned villages in case of repeat attack. Another 78,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Chad and Cameroon. The level of civilian fear in northern CAR is palpable. People are simply not to be seen in many areas, hiding far away. At the sound of approaching cars, everyone flees, dropping their possessions, sometimes even abandoning babies in their haste.
Living conditions for the displaced are life-threatening. They have no access to clean water, are often desperately short of food supplies, and their widely dispersed shelters are beyond the reach of the humanitarian community. Educational facilities have been closed, and aside from mobile clinics run by international organizations in some areas, health care is non-existent.
Rebel Abuses
APRD rebels in the northwest have engaged in widespread extortion, forced taxation, kidnappings for ransom, and beatings of civilians, particularly in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago area of Ouham province. In that area, particularly on the Batangafo-Ouandago road, almost all villages have been systematically looted of all livestock, and village leaders have been regularly kidnapped for ransom. APRD rebels also have large numbers of child soldiers in their ranks, some as young as 12. APRD commanders expressed willingness to Human Rights Watch to demobilize the child soldiers if the post-demobilization security of the children could be guaranteed.
During its investigation in the field, Human Rights Watch documented one summary execution by the APRD (the killing of Mohammed Haroon in June 2006, in Gbazera) and did not identify any cases of home-burning by the group. Human Rights Watch has not received any credible additional reports of summary killings or village burnings by APRD rebels from local or international human rights organizations or journalists. On June 11, 2007, APRD rebels fired upon a vehicle of the international humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders (Mdecins Sans Frontires, MSF), killing Elsa Serfass, an MSF nurse. While the APRD immediately apologized for the incident, saying it had been a "mistake," the persons responsible should be held to account.
Human Rights Watch's research found that UFDR rebels in the northeast have carried out widespread abuses against the civilian population. During attacks on villages and towns they have often indiscriminately fired at fleeing civilians, leading to unlawful killings. Meanwhile, UFDR rebels have been responsible for summary executions of captured civilians. From October to December 2006, the rebels carried out massive looting of the belongings and livestock of the civilian population in areas they controlled. There have been allegations of rape by UFDR rebels, although Human Rights Watch has only been able to corroborate one case-a woman raped by five UFDR rebels during their brief capture of Birao in March 2007. The UFDR also has child soldiers in its ranks, and Human Rights Watch found that some of them had been forcibly recruited.
The Need for Protection
Establishing credible mechanisms to protect the civilian population from abuses is fundamental to addressing the human rights crisis in northern CAR. The responsibility for civilian protection lies first and foremost with the CAR authorities: they must take immediate steps to end military abuses and to re-establish a functioning police force and court system that serve to protect the rights of the civilian population.
However, the international community can also do more. A stronger international protection presence in the north is urgently needed. There already is a substantial UN human rights presence in CAR, in the form of a 19-person human rights unit in the office of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in the Central African Republic (Bureau d'appui des Nations Unies pour la consolidation de la paix en Rpublique centrafricaine, BONUCA), a long-standing UN peace support mission established in 2000. However, the human rights unit has been largely passive to date and does not effectively monitor or report on human rights abuses in the north. The UN should take the necessary measures, including changes to the mandate of the human rights section, to ensure that the BONUCA human rights unit effectively monitors and reports on human rights abuses in the north, in the same way that the human rights units of UN peacekeeping missions operate in neighboring Sudan and DRC.
If the UN Security Council moves ahead with the deployment of a UN protection mission to CAR and Chad, that mission should focus on the real protection needs of the civilian population of both countries, and not focus solely on neutralizing the "spill-over effect" of the Darfur crisis.
The Need for Accountability
The crimes being committed in northern CAR by government security forces are no secret inside the country. Local newspapers and radio frequently report them, opposition parliamentarians have prepared public reports documenting the atrocities, and diplomatic envoys regularly raise their concerns with President Boziz. Despite this, the government has not investigated, prosecuted, or punished a single military officer, or even publicly reprimanded them for any of the abuses. Even in the capital, Bangui, security forces carry out summary killings of suspected bandits and rebels with impunity. During Human Rights Watch's visit, two handcuffed Chadian rebel suspects were executed on the outskirts of Bangui by security forces. The commander of the most notorious of the units, Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss of the Bossangoa-based GP unit that has killed dozens of civilians and is directly implicated in most of the village burnings in the north, remains a free man and an active duty military officer to date.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor's office is already involved in the CAR, having announced in May 2007 that they would investigate crimes committed in CAR during the 2002-2003 fighting, and that they would continue to monitor possible crimes committed during the current conflict. The investigations of the ICC in CAR should not, however, detract from the primary obligation of the CAR authorities to end impunity and bring about accountability for crimes committed by its armed forces and others. Ultimately, the crisis in northern CAR will only be resolved when law and order is restored, and the institutions of justice have the capacity to punish those who commit crimes against the civilian population, including members of the army and the elite GP.
The international community-particularly France, without whose direct military support the government of President Boziz would not survive-have an obligation to speak out about the abuses in northern CAR and to demand accountability for the crimes committed in northern CAR.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Government Responsibility for International Crimes in Darfur
This 85-page report documents the role of more than a dozen named civilian and military officials in the use and coordination of “Janjaweed” militias and the Sudanese armed forces to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur since mid-2003.
Omar al-Bashir, as commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, played a pivotal leadership role in the military campaign in Darfur. His public statements were precursors to military operations and to peaks in abuses by Sudanese security forces. There are indications that they echoed the private directives given to civilian administration and military and security services. For instance, on December 30, 2003, al-Bashir announced that: "Our top priority will be the annihilation of the rebellion and any outlaw who carries arms." A few days later, in January 2004, the Sudanese security forces began an offensive that used systematic force in violation of international humanitarian law to drive hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas in Darfur. The methodological use of aerial support to target civilians in the military campaign, despite protests from air force officers, also appears to reflect the involvement of high-level officials in Khartoum.
Human Rights Watch concluded that beginning in May 2002, even before the more devastating phases of the conflict, al-Bashir was very likely aware of abuses committed by the security forces in Darfur. By mid-2004, reports of tens of thousands of displaced people and information from dozens of police complaints, press accounts, and reports by numerous organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made it clear that massive abuses were taking place in Darfur. Apart from this specific information, the government's previous use of ethnic militias in the southern Sudan conflict provided ample warning that such forces invariably targeted civilians and committed other war crimes.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Omar al-Bashir, as commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, played a pivotal leadership role in the military campaign in Darfur. His public statements were precursors to military operations and to peaks in abuses by Sudanese security forces. There are indications that they echoed the private directives given to civilian administration and military and security services. For instance, on December 30, 2003, al-Bashir announced that: "Our top priority will be the annihilation of the rebellion and any outlaw who carries arms." A few days later, in January 2004, the Sudanese security forces began an offensive that used systematic force in violation of international humanitarian law to drive hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas in Darfur. The methodological use of aerial support to target civilians in the military campaign, despite protests from air force officers, also appears to reflect the involvement of high-level officials in Khartoum.
Human Rights Watch concluded that beginning in May 2002, even before the more devastating phases of the conflict, al-Bashir was very likely aware of abuses committed by the security forces in Darfur. By mid-2004, reports of tens of thousands of displaced people and information from dozens of police complaints, press accounts, and reports by numerous organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made it clear that massive abuses were taking place in Darfur. Apart from this specific information, the government's previous use of ethnic militias in the southern Sudan conflict provided ample warning that such forces invariably targeted civilians and committed other war crimes.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)