Human Rights Watch Condemns Hamas Rocket Attacks

By Ann Flower Seyse
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERUSALEM, Israel – On August 5 the international human rights watch dog Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report that condemns the Palestinian Organization Hamas for rocket attacks that occurred predominantly between November 2008 and January 2009.

The report accuses Hamas, as the ruling organization of Gaza, of war crimes for these rocket attacks.  The report also implicates other militant groups in Palestinian territories.  However, HRW states that, as the governing group in Gaza, Hamas is responsible both for the attacks that it carried out, and for the attacks of other groups which could have been prevented by Hamas. Hamas has previously used its influence to stop rocket attacks by other groups in Palestinian territories.

The rockets used in the attack were made in Gaza with simple materials like pipes and fertilizer. Due the home-made nature of the rockets, they are nearly impossible to aim with accuracy. Using a rocket that is more likely to inadvertently harm citizens is more likely to violate the Geneva Conventions ban on the use of indiscriminate weapons.

The rocket attacks violate the first additional protocol to the 1977 Geneva Convention (Protocol I), and the 1907 Hague Regulations, as the attacks intentionally or indiscriminately targeted civilians.  According to HRW, these laws apply to non-governmental groups like Hamas, just as the rules apply to other nations. Intentionally targeting civilians is prohibited by both of these covenants, as well as general human rights principles. The 1977 Geneva Convention Protocol I Article 48 requires militants to distinguish combatants from civilians, and to avoid civilians while targeting only military objectives and other combatants if possible. Civilians can lose their immunity but only for the time which they participate directly in the hostilities.

The rockets unlawfully struck populated areas up to 40 kilometers inside Israel, placing roughly 800,000 Israeli civilians at risk. Rockets that fell short of their intended targets in Israel killed two girls and wounded others in Gaza during this period. Palestinian armed groups that launched rockets from densely populated areas also unlawfully put Gazan civilians at risk of Israeli counterstrikes.

“Hamas forces violated the laws of war both by firing rockets deliberately and indiscriminately at Israeli cities and by launching them from populated areas and endangering Gazan civilians,” HRW Program Director Iain Levine said.

HRW recognizes the much larger number of Palestinian casualties because of Israeli attack. However, they emphasize that one human rights e violation or war crime, does not justify another for retaliation.

HRW recommends that all such rocket attacks being conducted by Hamas should be stopped, and Hamas should prevent other organizations from continuing the attack. Additionally, Hamas should publicly denounce the attacks and conduct an investigation on the attacks, and stop perpetrating the acts from densely populated areas in Gaza which thereby put Palestinian civilians at greater risk. 

For more information, please see:

Haaretz – Human Rights Watch slams Hamas rocket fire as war crime – 9 August 2009

AFP – Hamas Rockets a War Crime: Human Rights Watch – 6 August 2009

Human Rights Watch – Gaza/ Israel: Hamas Rocket Attacks on Civilians Unlawful – 6 August 2009 

VOA News – Human Rights Watch Says Hamas Rocket Attacks are War Crime – 6 August 2009

Human Rights Watch – Rockets from Gaza Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups’ Rocket Attacks – 5 August 2009

Thai Ruling May Free “Merchant of Death”

 

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand– A Thai judge issued a ruling rejecting extradition of the world’s most notorious weapons dealer, Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death.”  Bout was arrested in 2008 by U.S. agents in a sting operation at a Bangkok hotel. 

In addition to charges for illegal arms trafficking, the U.S. authorities accused Bout of terrorism offenses, including conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and conspiracy to provide material support to designated terror organizations.

However, the Bangkok Criminal Court ruled Tuesday that Bout’s crimes of selling weapons to Colombia and threatening the lives of U.S. citizens are classified as “political offenses,” and extradition is not allowed for such offenses.  Furthermore, the Thai court said the Thai-U.S. Extradition Treaty does not apply, because Bout’s alleged crimes could not be prosecuted in Thailand and did not involve Thai citizens or Thailand’s national interests.

Viktor bout2 Viktor Bout holds up the victor sign after U.S. extradition request rejected (Source: Getty Images)

Thai prosecutors filed their intent to appeal with the court today in hopes of delaying freeing Bout, but this court decision has been a victory for the Russian government, which has been working to free Bout since his arrest. The appeal could delay Bout’s release for a few months with a possibility of reversal of Tuesday’s ruling by a higher Thai court.

Michael Braun, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official who masterminded Bout’s capture, expressed his disbelief saying, “To say I was shocked would be an understatement.”  American Congressman Ed Royce said, “It is unacceptable that this man goes free…Something is rotten in Bangkok,” while the U.S. Justice Department also released a written statement saying they are “disappointed.” 

Bout has denied any wrongdoing and has never been tried although he is subject to UN sanctions.  Vanda Falbab-Brown of Brookings Institution explained that “Bout has knowledge of Russia’s military and underworld,” and if Bout were to testify in a U.S. court, this “would make a lot of people in Russia uncomfortable”

Bout is reported to have begun building his arms business in the early 1990’s and have shipped arms to various conflict zones from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan.

For more information, please see:

ABC – Ruling Could Free ‘Merchant of Death’ – 13 August 2009

CNN – Thai court rejects U.S. extradition request for ‘Merchant of Death’ – 11 August 2009

Los Angeles Times – Thailand won’t extradite Russian arms dealer to U.S. – 12 August 2009

Ria Novosti – Thai prosecutors to appeal Bout extradition case in higher court – 13 August 2009

Rwandan Genocide Suspect Arrested in Congo

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KINSHASA, DR Congo – Gregoire Ndahimana, the man accused of planning a massacre that killed at least 2,000 Rwandan Tutsis during the 1994 genocide, was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said a government official.

(Source:About.com)

He has been hiding for 15 years.

Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said, “He was discovered by our units operating in North Kivu … He was hiding among the FDLR.”

Ndahimana was not arrested while fighting, however, but was caught by surprise during a civilian operation.  A UN-backed operation to stamp out Hutu rebel group FDLR (the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) led Congolese soldiers into North Kivu on Sunday when they discovered him.

“He was captured while he was coming to look for some food within the local population,” said national army spokesman Olivier Hamuli.

During the 1994 genocide Ndahimana was a local administrator in the Rwandan town of Kivumu.  He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for the bulldozing of a local church where at least 2,000 Tutsis were being held.

The ICTR, based in Arusha, Tanzania, sought Ndahimana’s arrest for genocide or complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity for extermination.  According to Mende, “(Ndahimana) is now in the hands of the military’s operational authorities awaiting his transfer to Arusha.”

Rwandan and Congolese officials call this one of the “largest achievements in military operations against the Hutu rebels to date.”

“He’s one of the big ones,” said Rwanda’s justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama, adding that the arrest was the first of its kind in recent time. “But others are still out there.”

Twelve other ICTR indictees remain at large.  The UN Security Council has given the court until the end of 2010 to complete its prosecutions, an extension from the original completion date of 2008.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Genocide Suspect Found in Congo – 12 August 2009

Daily Nation – Top Rwanda Genocide Suspect Captured in Congo – 12 August 2009

NY Times – Congo Arrests Rwandan Genocide Suspect – 12 August 2009

Reuters – Congo Arrests Rwandan Genocide Suspect – 12 August 2009

Former Argentinean Commander Sentenced to Prison

By Don Anque
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Santiago Omar Riveros, age 86 and former chief of the Argentinean Military Institutes Command, was sentenced to life in prison for human rights abuses while he commanded the Campo de Mayo military barracks on the outskirts of Buenos Aires during the 1970s.

He is accused of more than 40 crimes against humanity involving victims of the era’s so called desaparecidos or “disappeared.”

Amid the wave of accusations, Omar-Riveros was found guilty of torturing and beating to death 15-year-old Floreal Avellaneda, a member of the Communist Youth Federation, and abducting his mother, Iris. Floreal Avellaneda and his mother were abducted in 1976 by a military squad and tortured to find out the whereabouts of the boy’s father, a Communist Party union leader.

“They applied an electric current to my armpits, breasts, mouth, genitals and did exactly the same to my son,” Iris described her torture experience to the Argentinean court.

Floreal and Isis were first taken to the police station at Villa Martelli and tortured.  Afterwards, they were taken to Campo de Mayo.

Over the court of the trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Floreal was thrown into the River Plate from a plane that departed from Campo de Mayo. In August of 1976, Floreal’s body was found impaled on the shores of Rio de La Plata in the Uruguayan city of Colonia de Sacramento.

The court found the defendants tactics “unacceptable.”  Their main argument was that Floreal’s death was part an accident.

Another former Military Institutes Command intelligence chief, Fernando Verplaetsen, was also sentenced to 25 years in prison in connection with the human rights abuses.  Four other defendants were sentenced to serve between eight to 18 years in prison.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – ‘Dirty war’ general found guilty – 13 August 2009

Yahoo News – Perpetua para Santiago Omar Riveros – 12 August 2009

Yahoo News – Argentine general gets life for rights abuses – 12 August 2009

Telam Noticias – Dan a conocer la sentencia en el juicio por el secuestro y asesinato de Floreal Avellaneda – 12 August 2009

Child Malnourishment at Alarming High in Central African Republic

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

BANGUI, Central African Republic – According to the UN Children’s Fund, 700,000 Central African Republic children under the age of five are suffering from severe malnutrition.

“In both the conflict-affected north and the more stable south, almost 700,000 children under five are living below acceptable standards, and now many are moving toward the outer edge of survival.  The situation of children in the south is of particular concern due to the rapidly deteriorating nutritional status in tandem with an increasingly bleak funding outlook,” said UNICEF’s acting representative in CAR Jeremy Hopkins.

Three provinces – Mambere Kadei, Sangha Mbaere, and Lobaye – were preliminarily assessed.  An estimated 16,710 children there are at risk.  The assessment found that 16 percent of children under five are acutely malnourished and 6.6 percent are severely acutely malnourished.

This comes on top of already high rates of malnutrition where more than one in ten children aged between 6 and 59 months suffers from global acute malnutrition and 2.3 percent suffer from severe acute malnutrition.  These alarming rates are attributed to devastating poverty, the ongoing conflict and lack of security, and the loss of income due to the decline in diamond mining affected by the global economic downturn.

According to UNICEF, this is “far above the emergency thresholds of two per cent for severe acute malnutrition.”  The risk of death is nine times higher for severely malnourished children.

UNICEF has appealed to donors for $1.5 million.  The agency would like to use the funding for lifesaving supplies, food, and drugs.  In addition, UNICEF wants to conduct a national nutritional survey and use some of the money to train community health workers in early detection for compromised nutritional status.

“These children’s lives, their ability to learn, to earn, and to lead productive lives is being stunted by this tragic crisis,” said Hopkins. “These children could be leading normal lives. We must try harder to fulfill their rights.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – 700,000 Children Malnourished in Central African Republic: UN – 11 August 2009

UNICEF – Malnutrition Among Children in Southern CAR Alarming – 11 August 2009

UN News Centre – UN Seeks $1.5 Million to Tackle Rising Malnutrition Among Central African Children – 11 August 2009

VOA – Children Acutely Malnourished in Central African Republic – 11 August 2009