By Ali Al-Bassam Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria — Fierce fighting continued in Damascus between Syrian troops and rebels for the second day in a row. According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), the clashes that occurred across the country last Sunday left 105 dead including 48 civilians, 16 rebels, and 41 soldiers.
Clashes between government and rebel forces broke out in several Damascus neighborhoods. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)
The fighting on Monday briefly closed the highway between the capital and Damascus International Airport, which is located to the city’s south. Troops backed by armored vehicles are said to have advanced through the central neighbourhood of Midan, driving out rebels who had secured a foothold within striking distance of major state installations. The military deployment has been described as the largest one in the capital since the start of the uprising. Monday’s offensive reportedly battered several other neighbourhoods in the capital, including Midan, Tadamon, Kfar Souseh, Nahr Aisha, and Sidi Qadad.
Fighting between government and rebel forces also occurred in the town of Qatana, 20 kilometers away from the capital. Elsewhere, government troops shelled the besieged Homs districts of Khaldiyeh, Jourat al-Shiah, and Qarabees. SOHR also reported that government forces raided the city of Hama, just north of Damascus.
UN observers again visited the central Syrian village of Treimsa, where, according to SOHR, Thursday’s shelling and fighting left more than 150 people dead, including dozens of rebels. The opposition and part of the international community declared it a “massacre.” In a statement made Sunday night, the UN mission said that “more than 50 houses were burned and/or destroyed” in Treimsa, stating the presence of “pools of blood and body parts.”
On Monday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused the west of “elements of blackmail,” warning that the UN observer mission would not see its mandate extended later this month if Moscow did not agree to UN sanctions. Russia, which has strong ties with Syria and has vetoed several calls for foreign intervention , circulated its own draft resolution calling for the mandate’s extension but without the threat of sanctions. Mr. Lavrov said that it was “not right” to say that pressure should only be brought upon the government of Bashar Al-Assad and not on the opposition.
“We do not support Assad,” he said. “We support what has been agreed on by all sides.”
Mr. Lavrov also said it was unrealistic to expect Russia to persuade Assad to step down.
Kofi Annan, who is acting as the UN and Arab League’s special envoy for Syria, arrived in Moscow on Monday. He will meet with Mr. Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Mr. Annan is expected to urge Russia to put more pressure on Syria’s leaders to begin a political transition.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will meet with Chinese leaders in Beijing next week. Like Russia, China has also vetoed several Western-backed UN draft resolutions. Friday is the deadline for the end of the UN observer mission’s mandate will expire.
MOSCOW, Russia – Last year, Human Rights Watch joined other rights groups in demanding an investigation into the murder of rights activist Natalia Estemirova. Little has been done in the past year and the group, once again, urged Russian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation, including an inquiry into possible official involvement, of her death.
Human rights activist, Natalia Estemirova. (Photo courtesy of Human Rights Watch)
Estemirova reported on human rights abuses committed by the Chechen government, such as extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances. On July 15, 2009, Estemirova was kidnapped outside her home in Grozny. Her body was later discovered in Ingushetia, covered with multiple gunshot wounds.
Although three years have passed since her murder, those responsible for her death have yet to be identified. Russian authorities stated that investigations are still ongoing, but believed that Estemirova’s death was likely caused by Chechen insurgents as a result of her exposing some of their crimes.
Their preliminary conclusion left both leading Russian human rights activists and Human Rights Watch unconvinced. Human Rights Watch criticized the authorities for failing to conduct an in-depth investigation that considered more plausible theories, including one that involved government officials. The group also pointed to the number of discrepancies in the evidence that the authorities have provided in order to bolster their belief that Estemirova was murdered by insurgents.
The group called the authorities to reveal and make public all the steps that were taken to examine the possibility of official involvement in the killing.
The situation for human right defenders in the region continues to worsen after Estemirova’s death. Aside from Estemirova, Maksharip Aushev, Zarema Sadulayeva, Alik Dzhabrailov, Andrei Kulagin, and Stanislav Markelov have also been slain.
In its recent statement, Humans Rights Watch expressed concern regarding the safety of other Russian rights activists and groups. It noted that the Chechen authorities have repeatedly harassed rights groups providing legal aid and assistance to victims of law enforcement abuses in Chechnya.
One rights group being targeted is the Joint Mobile Group, which sends rotating teams of human rights lawyers to Chechnya to provide legal assistance. The group was founded in response to the death of Estemoriva. Igor Kaliapin, one of the co-founders of the Joint Mobile Group, have been threatened with criminal proceedings for allegedly disclosing confidential information in his blog, articles, and interviews about cases of human rights abuses.
Human Rights Watch have called on the authorities to cease all criminal inquiry against Kaliapin, and instead, focus their investigations on the attacks and murders of other activists in the region.
It’s a massacre. No, it’s a firefight. They used helicopter gunships. No, they didn’t… But the real story is simple and the patterns are clear: it’s ethnic cleansing and it’s taking place over a wide swath of territory in central Syria. Tanks, heavy artillery and helicopter gunships are being used, while the intended victims have only light weapons and limited munitions at their disposal as they try to resist. But for those who still doubt that it’s all about ethnic cleansing. Perhaps this report and the attached map produced by BBC mapping the major instances of violence since the beginning of the Revolution can help change their perspective. Even the Arab League chief now agrees that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Syria.
Sunday July 15, 2012
Today’s Death toll: 81. The Breakdown: 18 in Damascus, 16 in Homs, 15 in Deir Ezzor, 10 in Aleppo, 7 in Idilb, 5 in Daraa, 3 in Hama, 3 IN Hassakeh, 1 in Suweida and 1 in Quneitrah.
New Account of Syria KillingsNew evidence on last week’s killings in a village in central Syria suggests the bloodshed followed a raid by government forces to arrest male rebels, rather than a deliberate massacre of around 200 civilians as some Syrian opposition leaders and their Western allies first reported.
Syrian townspeople describe government shellingResidents of Treimseh tell U.N. investigators that their town was shelled and suspected rebels were apparently executed, contradicting the official account.
Syria crisis: What happened in Tremseh?• UN: evidence points to battle between fighters and troops • Locals: Troops “shot at anything moving” • Government: No heavy weaponry was used • Red Cross: This is now a civil war
Comment: If anyone still doubts that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Syria, check out this report by BBC and the map included showing patterns of the major incidents that took place since the beginning of the revolution:Syria: The violence mapped
If people are fighting back to defend themselves, then it’s a firefight not a massacre and the victims will have brought it upon themselves by bringing light weapons to a showdown featuring tanks, heavy artillery and helicopter gunships.
If people fight back, then it’s a civil war. But if they don’t fight back, then they will likely be killed, in which case they can have the world’s sympathy and retain the moral high ground.
I say: the moral high ground be damned! Fight back.
Old Homs: some snipers are revolutionaries, and their targets are pro-Assad troops patrolling the relics that used to be their neighborhoods http://youtu.be/nI1nnKrmVXI It’s this kind of incidents that make the situation in Syria a civil war, and that calls for launching a major peacekeeping operation.
In Khalid Bin Al-Walid Street in downtown Damascus, young activists interrupted traffic by burning tires in protest of the poudnding of Tadamonhttp://youtu.be/SpVVyRNXxo4
In Marei, Aleppo, local resistance tests an anti-aircraft battery that they managed to acquire after a raid on a local checkpoint http://youtu.be/alsyJh3iF6s Similar batteries are often used to pound the city. In fact, the city came under such pounding todayhttp://youtu.be/Ev8pUjI8YQM
16 July 2012 – Today, Natalia Magnitskaya, mother of the late Sergei Magnitsky, wrote an open letter to Valentina Matvienko, head of the Russian Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament), demanding answers over the defamatory remarks made posthumously against her dead son in Washington DC last week by Russian multi-millionnaire senator Vitaly Malkin, who was previously named as “a member of a group engaging in organized or transnational crime” by the Canadian government in court proceedings.
Russian multi-millionnaire senator Vitaly Malkin. (Photo Courtesy of Forbes)
“I believe that an attempt to slander the good name of my son posthumously looks shameful and not deserving of the honorable title of people’s representative,” said Natalia Magnitskaya in her open letter to the leader of the Russia’s Federation Council (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D524.pdf).
On the trip, Mr. Malkin and three other Russian senators met with U.S. congressmen to lobby against the passing of the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation which would impose U.S. visa bans and asset freezes on corrupt officials and human rights abusers. In their meetings, Vitaly Malkin and his Federation Council colleagues circulated a report defaming Sergei Magnitsky, which they claimed was the result of an official “parliamentary investigation”. The mandate of the Malkin’s report was immediately put into question by Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council’s Foreign Relations Committee, who stated that it was not “a parliamentary investigation in the accepted meaning of the word” (see further Interfax news agency http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/2012/07/senator-denies-russian-report-on-magnitskiy-case-based-on-official-inquiry/).
It has now transpired that Mr. Malkin, who led the Russian delegation to DC and lobbied against visa sanctions, had a conflict of interest due to his visa applications being repeatedly rejected by the Canadian government on the grounds of his reported links to “organized or transnational crime”, and “association with individuals involved in money laundering, arms trade and trade in Angolan “conflict diamonds,” according to court documents revealed by Canadian National Post and The Moscow Times (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/billionaire-senator-cant-get-canadian-visa/378307.html).
According to the Moscow Times, between 1994 and 2009, Mr. Malkin applied for a permanent residence permit in Canada and subsequently for a tourist visa to Canada. Both applications were rejected because of his reported links to individuals involved in organized or transnational crime.
“A visa officer told the Canadian court that Malkin was a shareholder in a company thought to have received money diverted from a debt-reduction deal with Angola. “Mr. Malkine is reported to have personally received some $48 million in the transaction,” a passage published by the court in May reads,” reported Moscow Times in 2009.
“The visa officer also noted Malkin’s association with individuals involved in money laundering, arms trade and trade in Angolan “conflict diamonds, the document say,” according to the Moscow Times.
Mr. Malkin filed a lawsuit in Canada over his entry being denied, the outcome of the proceeding is not known.
“It’s remarkable that a Russian official, who has been linked to organized crime and arms trading by a major Western government, would be sent by the Russian parliament to lobby against US legislation to ban similar types of Russians coming to the United States. It is even more remarkable that such a compromised character would have the nerve to slander Sergei Magnitsky on US soil. Mr Malkin should go back home and publicly apologize to the Magnitsky family for the disgraceful way he insulted Sergei Magnitsky’s memory,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.
During the trip to Washington Mr. Malkin made a number of public and defamatory statements about Sergei Magnitsky claiming Magnitsky was a “drunk”, “out of shape” and that he didn’t die from his injuries after a severe beating. Mr. Malkin’s report has been condemned by Sergei Magnitsky’s mother as echoing the same false accusations made by the Russian Interior Ministry officials who had tortured and killed her son in custody.
In her open letter, Ms. Magnitskaya said:
“The statements by Russian senators are identical to the misleading version of events concocted by the investigators and prosecutors who are responsible for my son’s death. They completely ignore the conclusions of the Moscow Public Oversight Committee and the President’s Human Rights Council.”
The Russian President’s Human Rights Council concluded that Magnitsky had been arrested illegally, using a falsified report from the FSB (the Russian secret police), that Magnitsky was denied justice and was persecuted by the same investigators he had accused of a corrupt scheme to steal $230 million of budget funds, and that all attempts to investigate the role of officials in the thefts have been blocked by the Russian government.
Ms. Magnitskaya stressed that the report released by the Federation Council members in Washington was prepared secretly and that the authority of the Russian officials who presented it has not been disclosed to the public. She asked Valentina Matvienko, head of the Russian senate, to address three points:
1) Disclose which senators in the Federation Council made the decision to carry out the secret investigation into the Magnitsky case and under what authority the senators carried it out;
2) Provide Magnitsky’s family lawyer all documents that the senators claimed to have received from government bodies and the notes they drafted;
3) Disclose the budget and sources of financing of the senators’ trip to Washington.
On the trip, Mr. Malkin was accompanied by three other Russian senators: Valery Shnyakin, Alexander Savenkov, and Aslambek Aslakhanov.
“Abusing their status, these people allowed themselves to posthumously defame the memory of my son. They used the fact that my son can no longer defend himself. I ask of you as the leader of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament to give an objective assessment of the actions of these individuals,” said Ms. Magnitskaya in her letter to the leader of the Federation Council.
Mr. Malkin, head of the Federation Council’s delegation to DC, has represented the East Siberian republic of Buryatia in the Federation Council, Russia’s senate, since 2004. He is a multi-millionaire currently ranked 7th on the Forbes’ list of Russia’s richest officials, and is the 163rd richest businessman in Russia, with a net worth estimated at US$ 600 million (2012) (http://www.forbes.ru/profile/vitalii-malkin).
BAMAKO, Mali—The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has called for the formation of a Malian “national unity government” in light of present humanitarian disaster.
Islamists Gain Ground Against Tuareg Rebels. (Photo Courtesy of Mail and Guardian)
Led by Captain Amadou Sanogo, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a largely Tuareg rebel group, staged a coup d’état on March 22, ousting former President Amadou Toumani Toure one month before elections were to take place. The Islamist group, Ansar Dine, meaning “Defenders of Faith,” soon joined the rebellion.
The coup was internationally condemned by the United Nations Security Council, the African Union, and ECOWAS, among others. After facing considerable regional and international pressure, the rebels agreed to relinquish power over the area to a civilian government. However, the coup stagers have retained substantial influence in the northern parts of the country.
The instability of the current interim government, led by President Dioncounda Traore, has alarmed the international community, especially considering of the eighteen million people presently at risk of starvation and one million children facing immediate danger.
In May, President Traore sustained injuries after a group of coup supporters attacked him in his office. He has been treated in Paris, France and has not returned to Mali since the incident. The rebel alliance, too, has recently ruptured as Islamist fighters reportedly chased Tuareg rebels out of several northern towns.
Last week, Islamist fighters invaded cemeteries housing the remains of Sufi Saints of Timbuktu, a city listed on the World Heritage List by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as one of particular international significance.
The rebels, who believed the memorial to be inconsistent with Islamic law, methodically destroyed the six of the most famous tombs, an attack that may be considered a “war crime” by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The destruction of historical sites is outrageous,” said UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson. “Extremist groups and criminal networks are spreading rampant fear and insecurity. Weapons are being [trafficked] over porous borders.”
Earlier this month, six West Africa leaders met in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and, after considering the crisis in northern Mali, identified strategies for Malian authorities to implement as a “roadmap to end the crisis.”
Although leaders of the Ivory Coast, Niger, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, attended the meeting, the interim Malian President and the nation’s Prime Minister, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, whose relations with ECOWAS have been strained, were absent. In a similar vein, a number of northern representatives walked out just prior to the opening of the meeting for unknown reasons.
While some blame the President’s nonattendance on the attack suffered in May, others believe his failure to report had more to do with his perceptions of Mali.
In addition to the formation of a new regime, ECOWAS and the United Nations (UN) has urged Malian leaders to end the political strife in Mali by July 31, before the Ramadan Muslim month of fasting. According to ECOWAS, failure to do so will result in Mali’s suspension from sub-regional groups and forfeiture of ECOWAS recognition.
Furthermore, ECOWAS has encouraged President Traore to request the deployment of ECOWAS forces to restore order to the area. ECOWAS has approximately 3,300 troops ready to enter the conflict zone.
“[The leaders] are asking the ICC to proceed with necessary investigations to identify those responsible for war crimes and to take the necessary action against them,” read a statement issued by ECOWAS.
However, in a telephone conversation from an undisclosed location in northern Mali, a representative told Al Jazeera that Ansar Dine did not recognize either the UN or the ICC.
