Special Features

War Crimes Prosecution Watch: Volume 12, Issue 17 – October 30, 2017


FREDERICK K. COX
INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTERFounder/Advisor
Michael P. Scharf		 War Crimes Prosecution Watch

Volume 12 – Issue 17
October 30, 2017

 Editor-in-Chief
James ProwseTechnical Editor-in-Chief
Samantha Smyth

Managing Editors
Rina Mwiti
Alexandra Mooney

War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type “subscribe” in the subject line.

Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.

Contents

AFRICA

CENTRAL AFRICA

Central African Republic

Sudan & South Sudan

Democratic Republic of the Congo

WEST AFRICA

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Lake Chad Region — Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon

Mali

EAST AFRICA

Uganda

Kenya

Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)

Somalia

NORTH AFRICA

Libya

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

Iraq

Syria

Yemen

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

Israel and Palestine

AMERICAS

North & Central America

South America

TOPICS

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Terrorism

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

Commentary and Perspectives

WORTH READING

—
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “warcrimeswatch – War Crimes Prosecution Watch” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to warcrimeswatch+unsubscribe@case.edu.

Human Security Centre: Kurdish Fears of New Iranian-Backed Genocide ‘Must Be Taken Seriously,’ Expert Urges

 

The Algemeiner

October 25, 2017

by Ben Cohen

 

Kurdish warnings that they face a potential genocide at the hands of the Iranian-backed forces that have swept through Iraqi Kurdistan over the last ten days “need to be taken seriously,” a leading expert on Kurdish affairs said on Wednesday.

 

“There is a great fear among the Kurds that they could face another genocide at the hands of the Iraqi government and the Shia militia forces backed by Iran,” Julie Lenarz — the executive director of the Human Security Centre, a London-based think-tank with extensive contacts in Kurdistan — said on a conference call organized by The Israel Project, a US group that closely tracks Iran’s growing military power and support for terrorist proxies in the Middle East.

 

Strongly criticizing US President Donald Trump’s policy of “neutrality” in the face of the Iranian onslaught that has resulted in the loss of 40 percent of the territory controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Lenarz said there was a serious risk of US and Western “complicity” in a looming civil war “in which we will see the Kurds crushed again.”

 

Lenarz was speaking hours after the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — one of the main Kurdish political parties — issued a statement noting that “after defeating the Islamic State (ISIS), Kurds are now being drawn into a new wave of sectarian violence by certain radical Shia armed groups that want to impose themselves.”

 

“If the United Nations, Iraq, and the US do not gain control of the situation, the flames of sectarian conflict might lead to the risk of a Kurdish genocide in the Kurdistani disputed areas,” the PUK warned, as it pleaded for urgent help for thousands of civilians in the Kurdish town of Tuz Khurmatu, which lies south of Kirkuk, the main Kurdish city conquered by Iran and its allies last week.

 

Shalal Abdul, the mayor of Tuz Khurmatu, said in an interview with Kurdish broadcaster NRT TV that thousands of Kurdish homes and shops had been burned and looted by Iraqi troops and Shia fighters serving under the banner of the Hashd al-Shaabi militia — known in English as the Peoples’ Militia Units (PMU). The KRG’s Independent Commission for Human Rights has accused Hashd al-Shaabi of committing “war crimes” in areas under its control.

 

Lenarz underlined that the presence of Gen. Qasem Soleimani — commander of the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — in Iraqi Kurdistan over the last week was “no coincidence.” Soleimani is reported by some observers to have explicitly threatened the Kurds with the use of overwhelming force if they refused to withdraw from Kirkuk.

 

“Wherever Solaimani goes, he leaves a trail of death and destruction, and it’s no different this time,” Lenarz said.

 

Lenarz remarked that the Trump administration’s refusal to side with the Kurds meant that “Iran is laughing while a long term US ally is humiliated and defeated.” Meanwhile, she said, her Syrian Kurdish contacts have expressed fear that they are next in line to be abandoned by the US to the Iranians, now that Raqqa — the capital of the ISIS “caliphate” — has fallen to Kurdish and Syrian opposition forces.

 

Lenarz also denounced the use of military equipment supplied by the US to the Iraqi government for external defense — including humvee military trucks and M1 Abrams tanks — in the assault on the Kurds. Earlier this week, hundreds of Kurds demonstrated outside the US Consulate in Erbil, the capital of the KRG, holding signs alerting Americans to “Iranian aggression with your weapons.”

 

 

 

“It’s hard to overstate what the Iranians have pulled off over the last two weeks,” Lenarz remarked. “By denying the clear evidence of Shia militia activities on the ground, and by abandoning the Kurds, Washington effectively legitimized Solaimani’s scheme.”

 

Originally promised independence by Britain and France at the end of World War I, the Kurds were instead divided between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria in 1923. Since that time, their history has been marked by continued attempts to gain independence with little outside assistance, and often resulting in persecution, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

 

In 1988, Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad launched “Operation Anfal” in the same territories now occupied by Iranian-backed forces, using chemical weapons and high-explosive air attacks against the Kurdish population that left thousands dead, around 1.5 million destitute and more than 3,000 communities razed to the ground.

 

Commenting on the Operation Anfal atrocities, the British historian David McDowall wrote that at the time, “the West was generally inclined to dismiss Kurdish claims of genocide, either because they were politically inconvenient, or because it was suggested such reports were probably wild exaggerations.” McDowell went on to note that evidence collected by human rights groups after the First Gulf War “showed that previous Kurdish claims were not only incontrovertible, but also in many cases an understatement of the ordeal through which Iraq’s Kurds were then passing.”

 

The latest assault against the Kurds comes at the close of the military campaign against ISIS, in which Kurdish forces in both Iraq and Syria have played a critical role. On September 25, ninety-three percent of participants in an independence referendum in Kurdistan voted in favor of a sovereign Kurdish state. Kurdish leaders have now offered to “freeze” moves to implement the referendum in the hope of securing an end to the violence.

 

Copyright 2017 The Algemeiner

Generosity: Promoting Transparency and Accountability in NC

$0 USD
raised by 0 people in 4 days
0% of $10,000 goal
DONATE NOW

Info NCCIT

Info NCCIT, Organizer
 for
North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture
Our Story

Watch the video above to learn how North Carolina was part of the U.S. rendition and torture program carried out in the years following 9/11.

 

The North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture is a citizen-driven, non-partisan truth commission established to investigate the state’s role in torture and to issue a report with findings and recommendations.  NCCIT is holding public hearings in Raleigh, NC on November 30 – December 1 to receive witness testimony.  The 11 commissioners will hear from legal experts, doctors, state officials and torture survivors.

 

We need your help to ensure the hearings are a success and have an impact beyond the state.  Financial support for the hearings will increase the reach and effectiveness by going toward:

 

  • High-quality international teleconferencing to bring the live testimony of those directly affected by U.S. torture into the hearing room.
  • Expanding the capacity of the commission by hiring outside counsel and investigators to research facts surrounding North Carolina’s involvement.
  • Airfares and lodging for prominent witnesses from the UK and other parts of the U.S.
  • Paid and free media, including announcements in North Carolina media to invite testimony from local citizens and hearing attendance.

 

Visit www.nccit.org to learn more about the history of the issue and the Commission’s plans.

 

Thank you for your contribution.  It will enhance the work of the Commissioners as they encourage North Carolina to become a human rights leader going forward and ensure our state is never again used in a supply chain for torture.

International Center for Transitional Justice: Photos Capture Lasting Scars of Civil War in Lebanon
ICTJ
Subscribe
Forward this Email
Vivid Photos by Lebanese Young People Became a Window into the Civil War and Its Lasting Scars
Explore ICTJ’s New Report
A new, photo-filled publication from the International Center for Transitional Justice details how photos taken by Lebanese young people across the country helped to spark discussion about the disturbing, often-overlooked legacy of the Lebanese civil war.

Over the last two years, the photos were part of an arts-based, history-telling project that encouraged Lebanese teenagers and young adults to explore how they understand the civil war as part of the country’s past and present.

According to the publication, most of the teenagers and young adults who participated in the project had limited knowledge of the war, how it had started and ended and who had been affected. Most of what they knew had been passed down to them by their parents or neighbors – and were therefore often biased toward their own social group.

“Even though people in Lebanon often feel pressure not to talk about the war or its many victims, we wanted to challenge young people to show how the war and its lasting harms still affect people today,” said Nour El Bejjani Noureddine, manager of the project and author of the publication.

The publication calls on the Lebanese government to develop a common national history curriculum that includes lessons on the civil war. It also calls on schools and nonprofits to provide the post-war generation with unbiased information and facts about the war and the repercussions of political violence.
Read the full report
Twitter
Facebook
Website
Copyright © 2017 International Center for Transitional Justice, All rights reserved.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list