Madagascar Army Storms Rebel Barracks

By Daniel M. Austin
Impunity Watch Reporter,  Africa

 

Government forces patrolling streets of Antananarivo, Madagascar. (Photo courtesy of Getty/AFP).
Military forces patrolling in Madagascar. (Photo courtesy of Getty/AFP).

 

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar – The Madagascar military raided the headquarters of a rebel group that was attempting to overthrow the government. The rebel group, made up of 20 senior military leaders, staged the coup attempt on Wednesday, November 17 and claimed to have overthrown the government of President Rajoelina and taken control of the small island nation. However, this declaration seemed unlikely since the rebels had not taken physical control of a single government office or building. On Friday, November 19, Madagascar’s Armed Forces Minister, Lucien Rakotoarimasy, told residents living around the military barracks where the rebels were operating to evacuate. On Saturday, November 20, government forces loyal to President Rajoelina stormed the rebel barracks and arrested the military officers. The rebels had been operating out of a military barracks near the Madagascar capital of Antananarivo.

The operation involved 100 government soldiers and led to the arrest of sixteen people. Initial reports detailing the raid described an exchange of gunfire between government forces and the mutineers that lasted for 15-20 minutes. Furthermore, a Madagascar army official claims that the leaders responsible for the coup attempt were ready to give themselves up but lower ranking soldiers opened fire on the government forces as they approached the barracks. No injuries were reported in the operation.

The raid came a day after rebel leaders had met with government officials in an effort to broker an end to the attempted coup without violence. After talks between the two sides broke down, government forces sprang into action.

The Madagascar government reported that the military leaders responsible for the coup attempt have been arrested and interrogated. Furthermore, the sixteen dissidents have been charged with rebellion and threatening the security of the state. The suspects have now been separated, ten of the suspects were sent to a prison while six others were still being held in military police barracks for further questioning.

Quickly ending the rebellion or attempted coup was an important goal of President Rajoelina’s administration. It was important for the government to appear in control and to remain credible with the citizenry. As the attempted coup dragged on, it was becoming a political issue for President Rojaoelina’s government as news began circulating that government soldiers were no longer following orders and the chain of command was deteriorating.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera — Madagascar forces storm rebel base – 20 November 2010

BBC Africa —Soldiers end Madagascar officer ‘mutiny’ – 20 November 2010

New York Times — Mutineers Split Over Surrender in Madagascar – 20 November 2010

Reuters–Madagascar tells families to leave rebel barracks – 20 November 2010

Free Speech Denied as Singapore Jails 76-year-old Author

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SINGAPORE – 76-year-old British author was jailed on Tuesday for six weeks in Singapore for attacking the judiciary in a book criticizing the city-state’s death penalty.

Outside Singapores High Court building
Outside Singapore's High Court building

Alan Shadrake was also fined £9,589 over his book “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock”, which included a profile of Singapore’s executioner who put about 1,000 men and women to death over 47 years.

Shadrack offered a last-minute apology which was dismissed as a ploy by the judge. He will have to serve another two weeks in jail if he fails to pay the fine designed to prevent him profiting from the book.

Convicted on Nov. 3 of scandalizing the court in his book, “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock,” would also be fined 26,371 Singapore dollars ($15,400), in an effort to send “a signal to those who hope to profit from controversy,” said High Court Judge Quentin Loh.

The judge said the author’s technique was to make “claims against a dissembling and selective background of truths and half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods.

Singapore’s judicial officials feared that passive readers would interpret Singapore’s government as lacking order and justice.

The case has stressed not just the use of capital punishment in Singapore, but the bigger issue of freedom of speech in a country where opposition is rare.

Human rights groups say the Singaporean authorities too often resort to the courts to silence their critics.

Showing no signs of staying quiet, Alan Shadrake, entered Singapore’s High Court building for his first hearing holding up two fingers in a “V for victory” salute.

“Freedom and democracy for Singapore,” he shouted, as he waited to walk through the security scanners.

The judgment was condemned by Human Rights Watch which said it was a “serious blow” and would have a “chilling effect” on anyone who has differences with the Singapore government.

The book contains interviews with human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers, as well as a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Singapore’s Changi Prison. It claims he executed around 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.

US based Human Rights Watch and other rights groups had urged Singapore to exonerate the author.

Abner Koh, of the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965, said “certain restrictions are necessary to ensure harmonious living amongst different communities in Singapore”.

Singapore is not used to that kind of open defiance. This tiny state prides itself on being one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Asia.

BBC reports that, it is as if there is an unspoken but clearly understood deal between citizen and state: the system will look after you, as long as you do not question it.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph World News – British author Alan Shadrake jailed in Singapore – 16 November 2010

Wall Street Journal – Singapore Jails U.K. Author – 16 November 2010

BBC – UK author Shadrake jailed for six weeks in Singapore – 16 November 2010

33 Chilean Women Stage Hunger Strike To Demand Jobs

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America 

Chilean Women Stage Hunger Strike in Mind (photo courtesy of www.calgaryherald.com)
Chilean Women Stage Hunger Strike in Mine (photo courtesy of www.calgaryherald.com)

SANTIAGO, Chile – A group of 33 women have banded together in a Chilean mine 3,000 feet underground to protest the end of a program which, at one time, provided thousands of people with jobs. 

In February, an earthquake devastated Chile.  As a result, the Chilean government created a Military Job Corps program which put people to work clearing debris and constructing emergency housing, amongst other things.

In September, the government failed to extend the program, forcing –by some accounts– 12,000 people out of work, adding additional stress on those who had already lost their homes and livelihoods to the earthquake. 

In an interview with the Santiago Times, protest spokesperson Ivania Anabalón stated that Chileans have “tried several actions at all levels [since September] and cannot make the government understand that all we need is a source of work.”  Anabalón also stated that “[t]he governor wouldn’t even look at us.”

Reports from several news agencies indicate the women have hundreds of supporters and sympathizers protesting and rallying outside the mine, which was operating as a tourist attraction when the women occupied the coal mine.  Javier Matamala, who is currently in charge of the mine, has urged all parties involved to end the protest quickly and peacefully “to avoid damages to this historic location.”

The women sent an open letter to the Piñera Administration, referring to the recent effort to rescue 33 trapped miners in the north of the country. They ask the government to use that same kind of effort to provide assistance for the thousands of Chileans who have lost their jobs and homes due to the earthquake and the failure to reauthorize the jobs bill.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter urged the 33 women on hunger strike to reconsider their protest and said they were “lucky” to have had jobs for a few months.  The governor of the Concepción region, where the mine is located, told Radio Cooperativa that the women’s protest was being orchestrated by Lota municipal chief of staff Vasili Carrillo, a one-time guerrilla who battled the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

For more information, please see:

Epoch Times – Women Stage Hunger Strike in Chilean Mine – 18 November 2010

Latin American Herald Tribune – Chilean Women Mount Hunger Strike to Demand Jobs – 18 November 2010

Hispanically Speaking News – 33 Chilean Women Lock Themselves in 9,000 Feet Deep Mine – 16 November 2010

A Terrorist Gets What He Deserves

By MORRIS DAVIS
New York Times

WASHINGTON D.C., United States – CRITICS of President Obama’s decision to prosecute Guantánamo Bay detainees in federal courts have seized on the verdict in the Ahmed Ghailani case as proof that federal trials are a disastrous failure. After the jury on Wednesday found Mr. Ghailani guilty of only one charge in the 1998 African embassy bombings, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, called on the administration to “admit it was wrong and assure us just as confidently that terrorists will be tried from now on in the military commission system.”

The verdict — in which Mr. Ghailani was found guilty of conspiring to blow up United States government buildings and not guilty on 284 other counts — came as a surprise to many, but the outcome does not justify allowing political rhetoric like Senator McConnell’s to trump reality.

True, prosecutors suffered a major setback when Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Federal District Court in Manhattan refused to permit the testimony of the only witness who could connect Mr. Ghailani to the explosives used in the bombings. The judge did so because Mr. Ghailani claimed that he revealed the identity of this witness after being tortured by the C.I.A. The prosecution did not contest his claim, arguing instead that the identificationof this “giant witness for the government” was only remotely linked to Mr. Ghailani’s interrogation.

Judge Kaplan disagreed, saying that Americans cannot afford to let fear “overcome principles upon which our nation rests.” He said that, given the same circumstances, a military commission judge might have reached the same conclusion and barred the testimony.

Many have scoffed at this claim. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, insists that Judge Kaplan “doomed” the case. Yet a look at the record shows that Judge Kaplan’s assessment of what a military commission judge might have decided was well founded.

Consider Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan teenager who was charged with attempted murder for throwing a grenade at an American vehicle in Kabul in 2002. In 2008 a military judge, Col. Stephen Henley, suppressed incriminating statements Mr. Jawad had made after he was beaten and his family threatened while he was in Afghan custody. The military commission charges were later dropped and last year the United States sent Mr. Jawad home to Afghanistan.

We don’t know for certain whether a military judge would have reached the same conclusion as Judge Kaplan, but given the Jawad precedent it seems very possible. Those who claim to know that the government would have gotten a more favorable ruling in a military commission are ignoring the record.

In any case, Mr. Ghailani now faces a sentence of 20 years to life. Even if he gets the minimum, his sentence will be greater than those of four of the five detainees so far convicted in military commissions. Only one defendant, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, has been sentenced to life, and this was after he boycotted his tribunal and presented no defense.

Of the four detainees who participated in their military commissions, Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was 15 when arrested, is serving the longest sentence after pleading guilty to murder. Yet he will serve no more than eight years behind bars, less than half of Mr. Ghailani’s minimum incarceration. Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver, was sentenced to five and half years in 2008 but given credit for time served; five months later he was free. There is no reason to assume that a military commission sentence will be more severe than one from a federal court.

In addition, Mr. Ghailani may well serve his sentence at the “supermax” federal prison in Florence, Colo., where others convicted in the embassy bombings are confined. If so, he will spend more time in solitary and enjoy fewer privileges than those under the most restrictive measures at Guantánamo.

President Obama is in a no-win situation when it comes to trying detainees — any forum he chooses will set off critics on one side of the debate or the other. I hope he pauses to reflect on what he said at the National Archives in May 2009: “Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and our juries, our citizens, are tough enough to convict terrorists.”

The Ghailani trial delivered justice. It did so safely and securely, while upholding the values that have defined America. Now Mr. Obama should stand up to the fear-mongers who want to take us back to the wrong side of history.

Morris Davis, a former Air Force colonel, was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007. He is the director of the Crimes of War Project.

Published November 18, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/opinion/19davis.htm

Migrants and Refugees Face Inhuman Living Conditions and Abuse in Greek Prisons

By Ricardo Zamora

Impunity Watch Reporter Europe

STRASBOURG, France – A recent investigation in the Greek prison system revealed severe police abuses against detainees.  The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the experts that lead the investigation, report that police conduct, at times, bordered on torture.

In its report, the CPT notes instances of detainees being punched, kicked, beaten with clubs and even threatened with rape.

While the below-par living conditions in Greece’s prisons are not novel, the increasing detention has many human rights and political groups worried that living conditions and abuses will worsen.

In response to such concerns, the Council of Europe is calling on Europe to help Greece process inmates.

The “Dublin II Regulation” is major reason Greece is receiving so many migrants.  The regulation is an EU law that determines which state is responsible for looking into an asylum-seeker’s application.

While it aims to consider the legitimate concerns of asylum seekers and irregular migrants, the living conditions individuals face by being sent to Greek prisons under its guise indicates indifference.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and human rights groups are calling for the stop of returns under the regulation because of the inadequate protection against inhuman conditions in Greece.

The European Court of Human Rights seems to share those concerns.  In a recent opinion it appealed to Austria, the Netherlands and Britain not to send any individuals back to Greece.

“Greece should not carry the burden of receiving the vast majority of all irregular migrants entering the European Union,” said Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture.  “In a number of Criminal Investigation Departments, I found more than 40 foreigners held in administrative detention in office space temporarily used as make-shift cells,” he added.

Nowak stressed that such conditions clearly violated Articles 7 and 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  Articles 7 and 10 were adopted to curtail inhuman and degrading treatment.

Monsters and Critics reported that while the Greek government is planning on changing its system of expulsion centers, it has rejected the allegations of serious abuse of detainees.

For more information, please see:

Monsters and Critics – Council of Europe Group Blasts Greece Over Prison Abuses – 11.17.2010

Radio Free Europe – EU Sends Border Team To Greece Over Immigrants – 10.25.10

Global Nation – EU Urged to Help Greece Deal With Irregular Migrants – 10.24.10