HOME | INFO | -> NEWS <- | DOSSIER| BACHECA / TERMINE |
EDICOLA / KIOSK | LADINBolzano/Bozen, Göttingen, 29. Februar 2008
Violence against women: The case of
GuatemalaDespite the peace treaty of 1996 which was meant to put an end
to the horror of the war and to pacify the country, violence in
general and in particular against women have been growing
alarmingly fast in Guatemala. On 8 March 2005, a Special
Commission for the Investigation on Feminicide in Guatemala was
established, chaired by the Minister of Women's Affairs, Mrs
Gabriela Núnez Pérez. This special focus on the
tragic fate of more and more women in Guatemala who become
victims of sexual abuse and homicide is highly appropriate.
Among the victims is a considerable number of women of Maya
descent. No one knows exactly how many are to be bemoaned as
there is no data material that indicates indigenous status.
Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) acts on the assumption that
the number of victims of feminicide of indigenous origin can
hardly be overestimated. In fact Maya women are at the losing end
of the social scale in many respects: as women in a
male-dominated country, as members of a discriminated indigenous
people that is being suppressed despite the fact that it forms
the majority of the population, and as female victims of
harassment, sexual abuse and homicide. They are an eminently
vulnerable group, easy prey for violence. Therefore, in order to
recognize the dimension of the tragic fate of indigenous women in
Guatemala, it would be preferable not only to prosecute cases of
violence a lot more extensively than it is being done but to
analyze the data also according to ethnic criteria.
During counterinsurgency campaigns led by the Guatemalan army
during the early 1980s the vast majority of women who became
victims of human rights violations were members of Mayan
indigenous groups living in rural areas. Today most of the
reported murder victims in Guatemala are ladino women living in
urban areas of the country. But many cases remain unreported
because relatives are too scared to approach the authorities.
Women - mostly between the age 13 and 30 - are raped, tortured,
mutilated, murdered, and often left behind in very public places.
These brutal murders and the failure of the state to address them
properly have left women terrified. Cases of violence against
women are rarely prosecuted. Therefore it is impossible to
provide exact data on the number of victims. All sources agree,
though, that since 2000 homicides against women in Guatemala are
increasing considerably each year. Thus according to one source,
665 cases were registered in 2005; 527 in 2004; 383 in 2003 and
163 in 2002. Altogether up to 3,200 women were murdered from 2000
until the end of 2007. Their murderers have been encouraged by
the failure of the prosecution to bring them to court and the
high probability to remain unpunished.
STP acknowledges that Guatemala has ratified the majority of
international and regional instruments providing protection for
women's rights, among others the UN Convention on the Elimination
of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1982), its Optional
Protocol (2002) as well as the Inter-American Convention on the
Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women
(1995). Moreover Guatemala's Constitution affirms the principle
of equality between the sexes. However, the authorities failed to
install an effective justice system offering the women efficient
protection. Characteristically, the penal code does not define
violence against women in the family, including marital rape, and
sexual harassment as a criminal offence. But domestic violence is
responsible for many of the crimes committed against women.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to:
- address feminicide in Guatemala,
- urge the Government of Guatemala to end impunity for
perpetrators of sexual violence and to provide a more efficient
protection for women,
- ask the Government of Guatemala to launch special programmes to
assist and support indigenous women who are especially threatened
to become victims of sexual violence.
China announced its plan to invest 100 billion Yuan 180 development projects in the rural areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) until 2010. Infrastructure and capital have been invested in the Tibetan region, but they are channelled into the development of industrialized areas in eastern China. New roads and highways either branch off to railway routes, airports or to the sites of the mining industries. The new airports and railways facilitate the easy access for tourists and migrants to Tibet. Many dams were constructed and diverted the flow of rivers and their hydro-energetic potential to eastern China. The hydropower projects are designed largely to provide power and other benefits to the Chinese population in the region. Oil and gas are piped away from Tibet to fuel Beijing, Shanghai and other coastal cities. Regrettably benefits invested from Tibet are rarely reinvested in human and social development, for instance in local health and education. Thus, Tibet still remains one of the poorest regions in China economically as well as educationally.
Forced Resettlement and Poverty
Since 2000 the Chinese government has been implementing
resettlement, land confiscation, and fencing policies in pastoral
areas inhabited primarily by Tibetans, drastically curtailing
their livelihood. The policies have been particularly radical
since 2003 in the Golok and Yushu prefectures of Qinghai
province, but have also been implemented in Gansu, Sichuan, and
Yunnan provinces and TAR.
In the last few years the Tibetan herders based in the pastoral
regions have been facing eviction from their traditional places
into the new towns and urban areas. In the new settlements the
movement of the herders and their livestock is restricted to the
fenced-in grassland provided to them. The government strictly
limited the number of cattle the herders are allowed to keep when
shifted to the new towns. Normally the size of the herds is
reduced to only a half or third. At the same time the area
provided is too small even for these smaller herds to graze there
throughout the year. Hence numerous cattle have to be slaughtered
to abide by the orders.
The resettlement programme has subjected herders to compulsory or
forced relocation, compulsory livestock reduction, bans on
grazing, compulsory change of land use, and evictions to make way
for public works schemes. Claims of non-payment are endemic and
there are also allegations of corruption and discrimination in
the compensation process. The number of Tibetans affected by
forced resettlement is unknown but it easily runs into the tens
if not hundreds of thousands.
The Chinese Constitution and the PRC´s laws guarantee the
right to consultation and compensation to those who are moved off
their land or whose property is confiscated. In the case of
Tibetan nomads, the Chinese authorities failed to adequately
consult with the affected herders. They also did not provide them
with adequate compensation or procedures for complaints, thereby
failing to fulfil their obligations under the Chinese
Constitution.
The Chinese government cited environmental protection and
development as the key reasons behind the resettlement of the
nomadic population. However, the emphasis has been heavily placed
on the latter. So far the government has mainly encouraged the
expansion of heavy industries on nomadic lands. Similarly, the
mining activities have greatly increased since the launch of the
Western Development Programme, while nomads have been evicted on
the pretext of environmental protection.
The development of Tibetan nomads and their livelihoods by
involving them in the market economy is another highly
questionable endeavour, because most of them are illiterate and
command no special skills. Prior to forcing them into new towns
and urban settlements or introducing them to the market economy,
the nomads were not given any vocational training or workshop to
enable them to find alternative livelihoods. Likewise their
inability to speak Chinese is posing a serious problem when
seeking long-term employment.
Hence, the resettlement programme is impoverishes the Tibetan
nomads who were otherwise living at subsistence level. According
to official Chinese figures, by the end 2007 around 60,000
Tibetans were moved to new towns in Qinghai, with the number
likely to rise to 100,000 by 2010. Despite the fact that similar
resettlement projects in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang resulted in
considerable impoverishment in the 1990s, the project is
vigorously implemented in the Tibetan regions.
Education and Assimilation
The illiteracy rate in Tibet continues to be very high (54.86
percent) and was the highest among all the 31 provinces of China.
The education policy implemented in Tibet is strongly influenced
by China's integration policy. For instance, bilingual education
is available only until primary school. In the middle and higher
schools the language is exclusively Mandarin. Such a policy is
clearly heading towards linguistic assimilation. Instead of
building or upgrading schools and universities in Tibet the best
Tibetan students are sent to Chinese cities for educational
purposes at a tender age. This places the children at secondary
school age in a completely Chinese and Mandarin-speaking
environment, away from their families and traditional
surroundings.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway: Threat to Survival of the
Tibetan Culture
The Qinghai-Tibet railway is officially designated a key "Great
Western Development" project, which has transported 1.5 million
passengers into Tibet during its first year of operation. The
unprecedented movement of Chinese migrants to Lhasa, has put
pressure on the local Tibetans and their day-to-day livelihoods.
Inadequate information provided by the Chinese government about
passengers travelling on the Qinghai-Tibet railway hampers the
objective assessment of the railway's alleged role in
accelerating the influx of non-Tibetan residents into the
region.
In the middle of September 2006, the railway's third month of
operation, Jin Shixun, the director of the TAR Committee of
Development and Reform, provided information about the
occupational categories of passengers-60 percent were business
persons, students, transient workers, traders, and individuals
visiting relatives; 40 percent were tourists. Jin's remark was
based on 270,000 passengers over a period of approximately 75
days, or about 3,600 passengers per day. If a similar proportion
prevailed throughout the remainder of the first year of
operation, then approximately 900,000 of the 1.5 million
passengers could have been non-tourists, and hundreds of
thousands of them could have been non-Tibetan business persons,
workers, and traders who intended to remain for a period in the
TAR.
A Tibetan resident of Lhasa told a radio call-in show in July
2007 that "Tibetans in Lhasa have been overwhelmed by the
frightful explosion of the Chinese population in the city." The
caller said that "wherever you go, you get the impression of
overcrowding." Tibetans "[witness] Chinese tourists becoming
permanent residents," she said, and reported that "Chinese
migrants were moving fast into formerly Tibetan neighbourhoods
and businesses." Another Tibetan caller from Lhasa said "there is
deep scepticism about the aim and whose purpose [the railway] is
serving," and asserted that "the Tibetans are certainly not the
direct beneficiaries."
Existing examples of the establishment of rail links to remote
regions in China indicate that significant changes to the
proportions of ethnic groups occur over time. Rail links were
built into what is now the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
(IMAR) before the PRC was established; a railway reached Urumqi,
the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in
1962; the railway arrived in Kashgar, in the western XUAR, in
1999. Based on official 2000 census data, the ratio of Han to
Mongol in the IMAR is 4.6 Han to 1 Mongol. In the XUAR the ratio
of Han to Uighur is 0.9 Han to 1 Uighur. The ratio of Han to
Tibetans in the TAR stood at 0.07 Han to 1 Tibetan in 2000,
according to census data. Tibetans are concerned that the
Qinghai-Tibet railway will facilitate changes in Tibetan areas of
China similar to those in the IMAR and XUAR. Directly or
indirectly, the new railway is swiftly escalating the pace of
internal colonization and threatening the survival of Tibetan
culture and identity.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to urge the PRC to:
- invest more on human development especially on improving
education and health of the Tibetan and Uighur people,
- impose a moratorium on all resettlement projects,
- uphold the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and
association,
- consult affected people before implementing any projects,
- abide by international legal instruments including ICESC.
The brutal crackdown of the peaceful protests of several
thousand people, led by monks, shocked the world in September
2007. According to reports at least 700 people were imprisoned.
The regime claims that there were 15 casualties, Mr. Pinheiro, UN
Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar said that at least
31 died in the demonstrations. However, the true death toll is
guessed to be higher. The "Saffron Revolution" revealed the
catastrophic situation in the country and the cruelty of the
inhuman regime one more time to the rest of the world.
As a result, the international community put pressure on the
regime. This achieved sporadic releases of prisoners, and the
junta was poised to meet UN envoys. The military government even
agreed for the UN to talk to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi who is kept under house arrest. But all of Gambari's, the
UN Special Representative, attempts to moderate the generals
remained unsuccessful. Imprisonments of dissidents and monks
continued, the repression of civilians is still part of everyday
life. There were no talks between the government and opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The public's obtainment of information
through the internet has been further constrained.
Persisting human rights violations against ethnic
nationalities
For the enrichment of the generals parts of the population are
coerced to do forced labour. Despite an agreement on the
eradication of forced labour in Myanmar between the government
and the ILO on 26 February 2007, there has been no progress
concerning the issue in the country. Time and again there have
been reports on how people - especially in rural areas - were
forced to build streets or plantations; others were used as
carriers or diggers in stem digging. Not only men and women but
also more and more children are affected by this. Myanmar's
regime recruits preferably children for its army. Some reports
estimate the number of child soldiers to be as high as 70,000.
Forced child labour is also used in the digging for gemstones.
Gemstones and noble metals like jade, rubies and gold are mined
in the north, especially in the Kachin and northern Shan state.
The minorities living in the area suffer greatly from the harsh
actions of the military.
Sanctions by the European Union and the United Nations on the
trade with gemstones have sent a clear signal but their effect
remains questionable. Raw gemstones can still get into Myanmar's
neighbouring countries, be finished there and finally sold on the
international market. Especially in Asian countries a great
demand for gemstones has persisted so that the government
receives large amounts of money through the big auctions which
take place at least twice a year. In 2007, it was reported that
five of these gemstone auctions took place.
Expulsions due to dam constructions
Due to the construction of dams along the Salween River the
existence and livelihood of minorities are threatened. The
ecological effects of the dam project are devastating, too.
According to reports, two out of five dam construction projects
have already been launched. At the Ta Sang Dam in the southern
Shan state has already caused the forced relocation of about
300,000 people - most of whom are Shan. Their villages were
destroyed and they cannot maintain their livelihood through the
river any longer. For the Hut Gyi Dam in the Karen State so far
about 15,000 people were expelled by the military.
Many of the displaced persons attempt, among other things, to
cross the border to Thailand. In 2007, the Thailand Burma Border
Consortium (TBBC) identified about 76,000 internally displaced
persons (IDPs). Due to severe human rights violations they had to
leave their homes. At least 167 villages were destroyed by the
military. Many fled in fear of violent assaults, rape or forced
labour. The innumerable rapes, often resulting in death,
committed by SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) soldiers
affected especially members of the minority groups and went along
with expulsion, destruction and forced labour. The military
regime extended its military presence in the northern Karen and
southern Karenni state to about 10 divisions. In the
north-western Chin state the social and economic situation has
deteriorated so drastically that presently about 80,000 Chin live
as unrecognized refugees in the Indian state of Mizoram.
Palm-oil plantations are a threat
Time and again there were reports that palm-oil is planted in
south-eastern Myanmar. Farmers were forced to plant palm-oil
plants. Some reports claim that some 60,000 hectares are supposed
to have been allocated by the government for a Malaysian palm-oil
producer. In March 2007 about 40,000 hectares had been allocated
already in the Irrawaddy River Valley. For this production the
Burmese military also uses forced labour.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to:
- urge the government of Myanmar to free all political prisoners
and to start a credible dialogue with the political opposition on
democratic reforms,
- appeal to the government of Myanmar to abolish forced labour
according to the agreement between Myanmar and the ILO,
- pressure Myanmar to end human rights violations against ethnic
minorities, especially to stop controversial dam projects along
the Salween river,
- appeal to the government of Myanmar to search for a peaceful
solution to all armed conflicts with ethnic nationalities,
- urge an improvement of the situation of refugees in states
adjacent to Myanmar.
In January 2007 Ethiopian-backed government forces ousted the
Islamist rulers from Mogadishu. Ethiopia's original plan, backed
by the US had foreseen a two-month military operation. But the
daily battles of Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) forces against Islamist anti-Government movements
reportedly supported militarily and financially by
Ethiopia´s arch-enemy Eritrea, have led to a sharp
deterioration of the security and human rights situation. The UN
recently called Somalia the most pressing humanitarian emergency
in the world today. The vast majority of Somalis view the
Ethiopian troops as an unacceptable occupying force. Anti
government militias extended their activities in Middle and Lower
Juba. The African Union (AU) force is too weak a peacekeeping
force to replace the Ethiopian forces. Burundi has started
deploying 800 peacekeeping troops to support the 1,600 Ugandan
troops already stationed in Mogadishu. (The new government
arrived in Mogadishu on 20 January.)
Obtaining reliable statistics regarding the death and wounded
toll in Somalia is almost impossible. It is likely that many
cases go unreported. According to the Elman Peace and Human
Rights Organisation that obtains its figures from medical
institutions 6,501 civilians were killed and 8,516 more were
wounded in Mogadishu in 2007. In January 2008, 292 people have
been killed and another 325 wounded. Residents are often caught
in the fighting parties' crossfire. Since January 2007 the
Ethiopian forces face an intensifying insurgency. Assaults on
Ethiopian and TFG forces were followed by a massive bombardment
of residential areas in Mogadishu during March and April 2007 in
which many civilians were killed. Ethiopian and TFG forces
arbitrarily arrested civilians. The clashes in Mogadishu
escalated again in November 2007.
The insurgents summarily executed and then mutilated the bodies
of captured TFG. They use remotely detonated roadside devices,
small arms and heavy weaponry. They repeatedly launched mortar
attacks from urban neighbourhoods. The Ethiopian and government
forces shell urban neighbourhoods with heavy weaponry such as
"Katyusha" rockets without warning the population in advance.
They mass-arrested and detained civilians who were then held in
secret detention centers without charges for long periods. In
June 2007 some detainees were released after an amnesty offered
by the TFG, but supposedly hundreds of people still remain
detained. Several times Ethiopian forces stole medical equipment
from hospitals.
Meanwhile, the anti-Government forces have expanded their
insurgent activities to the Middle and Lower Juba regions. The
military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, al-Shabaab is
reported to be training new recruits and planning attacks. Clan
militias which oppose the TFG rule in the port town Kismayo.
Since October 2007 two groups that belong to the TFG have fought
against each other in Merka, a town 100 kilometers south of
Mogadishu. Both warring parties recruit child soldiers. Fewer
than 1 in 10 Mogadishu children is able to attend school.
Since March 2007 more than 700,000 inhabitants of Mogadishu have
been displaced by the fighting. Entire districts of the town are
vacated. Along the corridor between Mogadishu and Afgoye nearly
200,000 people live in impromptu refugee camps and receive food
rations by the World Food Program (WFP) and its partners. It is
the largest concentration of displaced people worldwide. In
Mogadishu the WFP provides 50,000 meals a day to the remaining
inhabitants.
More than two million Somalis are in desperate need of
humanitarian food aid over the next six months. A large number of
people fled to Bay, Mudug and Hiiraan regions where the host
communities already face an acute humanitarian crisis that is
severed by the disruption of livestock and agricultural markets
in Mogadishu. In the Shabelle regions more than 325,000
agriculturalists and agro-pastoralists suffer from food and
livelihood crisis. 29,500 Somali refugees fled to Yemen in 2007.
1,400 died or went missing during the dangerous journey through
the Gulf of Aden.
The number of attacks targeting humanitarian and human rights
organizations has risen, e.g. the kidnappings of staff, invasion
and looting of non-governmental facilities and warehouses. The
founder of the NGO KISIMA, Isse Abdel Isse, was shot and killed
at close range in Mogadishu on 14 March 2007 by unknown
assassins. In October 2007 the aforementioned Elman Human Rights,
Somalia´s oldest human rights group was ordered to close
its office by the government for "security reasons". After its
head Sudan Ali Ahmed refused to shut down the office he was being
hunted by government troops and had to hide after he received
death threats. On 28 January 2008 a roadside bomb near the
southern Somali town of Kismayo killed three humanitarian workers
working for the international NGO "Doctors without borders" which
in the aftermath withdrew 87 international staff from 14 projects
around the country.
The transport and delivery of food is being impeded by illegal
roadblocks, taxes and banditry. At the end of 2007 truck convoys
were reduced because bribes at illegal roadblocks tripled and
reached up to $ 500. In December 2007 a French naval frigate
provided support to two ships that carried food deliveries and
anchored off the coastal town of Marka.
In 2007 eight Somali journalists were killed in Somalia and four
wounded. In most cases assassins hired by the insurgents were
alleged to have killed the journalists. More than 50 journalists
fled the country while others stopped working as journalists.
Journalists were often detained for long periods without charge
by government security forces. 53 journalists were arrested,
either in southern Somalia, the semi-autonomous Puntland in the
north and in the de facto independent state of Somaliland in the
North-west. The Somali government exerted a strong pressure on
the local press and repeatedly shut down many independent media
outlets, e.g. the Shabelle Media Network or Horn Afrik. On 16
September 2007, after a grenade had been thrown at a patrol in
the area, government forces fired at the building of Radio
Shabelle, breaking all the windows at ground level where the
radio studios were set. Then they besieged the building for hours
before the staff was authorized to evacuate. 16 staff members
were detained for a short period of time. The government closed
Shabelle for two weeks until 2 October. It was closed again by
TFG troops on 12 November 2007.
On 21 January 2008 Somalia's new Prime Minister Nur Hassan
Hussein pledged to put an end to the crackdown against
journalists and promised that the government would make sure
violations against the press were over.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to:
- urge for additional funding of relief operations by
international aid agencies,
- appeal to all actors in the conflict to stop the indiscriminate
attacks on civilians, journalists and human rights
defenders,
- urge the TFG to live up to its promise and ensure freedom of
the press and to start a genuine dialogue with its political
opponents in order to facilitate the creation of a government of
national reconciliation,
- appeal to the international community to work towards a
resolution of the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict that has exacerbated
the Somali war.
On January 2, 2008, the government of Sri Lanka announced the abrogation of the 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which had been brokered by Norway. Hours before a bomb attack on an army bus in Colombo killed five and wounded 28. Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) expects an intensification of the fighting that resumed in April 2006. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has left the country. Some 70,000 people died since the conflict started in 1983.
Displacement situation
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the
Norwegian Refugee Council is currently listing Sri Lanka among
the countries with the worst displacement situations around the
world. Families are often subject to repeated cycles of
displacement. In September 2007 the total number of internally
displaced persons (IDPs) was as high as 503,000.
From August 2006 to October 2007 more than 152,000 new IDPs
returned to their place of origin in the Batticaloa and
Trincomalee districts in eastern Sri Lanka. Due to the lack of
safety and ongoing fighting there, more than 300,000 IDPs
currently live in camps.
The situation of these people is of great concern as many
displaced people suffer from food and water shortages. The
hygienic situation is disastrous. Since hostilities escalated,
the government as well as the LTTE have restricted the access to
conflict areas, leaving IDPs and a large number of other affected
people without adequate international protection and access to
humanitarian assistance.
Due to the A9 road closure the World Food Programme (WFP) has
only been able to ship 20 per cent of its total food allocation
needed on the Jaffna peninsula in the North. On May 23, 2007, the
Red Cross pulled back from the northern district of Vavuniya as a
result of two firing incidents within a week. On June 1, 2007,
two employees of the Red Cross were abducted and murdered. On May
14, 2007, the military began to resettle some 90,000 internally
displaced people in Batticaloa District to their home villages.
With their houses and crops looted they have had to face tough
food and livelihood challenges. International aid organizations
as well as United Nations bodies have voiced concern about the
government forcing IDPs to return to areas ravaged by fighting.
Pressuring displaced persons to return to their homes conflicts
with UN-recognized principles and is contradictory to the Sri
Lankan government's repeated promises not to enforce
resettlement.
Furthermore, the protection of the displaced persons in
Batticaloa cannot be guaranteed. The armed Karuna group, a proxy
force of the government that broke away from the LTTE in March
2004, has been seen in and around various camps situated in
government controlled areas. It has threatened and sometimes used
violence against displaced people and the local population, as
well as against NGOs. Numerous abductions of IDPs by the Karuna
Group were also reported. The Karuna Group and the LTTE are known
to abduct children and to train them to become soldiers in areas
where both operate. The primary responsibility for ensuring the
protection and security of the displaced people within the
country lies with the Sri Lankan government, and the LTTE is
responsible for the protection in the areas under its
control.
Child recruitment
According to Sri Lankan law, forcible or compulsory recruitment
of children is a crime punishable with up to 20 years
imprisonment. The Karuna group and the LTTE are both violating
Sri Lankan and international humanitarian law by recruiting and
using children as soldiers, and by forcibly recruiting adults.
The Sri Lankan government is also violating international law by
facilitating child recruitment by the Karuna group and fails to
take feasible measures to prevent such recruitment and to secure
the release of recruited children and forcibly recruited
adults.
Throughout the two-decade long civil war the LTTE has
consistently recruited and used children in armed combat. From
January 2002 to December 31, 2006, UNICEF was reported about
5,956 cases of child recruitment by the LTTE. 1,012 of them (17
per cent) were children under the age of 15. LTTE established 17
years as its minimum age of recruitment on October 15, 2006. On
October 15, 2007, LTTE raised its minimum age of recruitment to
18 years. The average age of children recruited by LTTE is 15.78
years. Through the Karuna group, the Sri Lankan government is now
involved in some of the same abuse. From November 1, 2006, to
August 31, 2007, 207 children were recruited by the Karuna group.
71 children were released in the same period of time. The average
age of the children recruited by the Karuna group was
approximately 16 years. Reports indicated that families or
recruits receive a monthly allowance ranging from SL Rs 6,000 to
SL Rs 12,000 (approximately $60 to $120). Some of the children
released by LTTE were re-recruited by the Karuna group.
Due to increased insecurity and pressures not to report the
incidents, the true total number of children being recruited by
the LTTE and the Karuna group may be three times higher. The
abductions of the Karuna group have taken place in areas of
strict government control, with myriad military and police
checkpoints. No armed group could engage in such large-scale
abductions and forced recruitment, training abductees in
established camps, without government knowledge and at least
tacit support. The police do not investigate the cases that
parents report. The Sri Lankan government knows about the
abductions and has not intervened.
Enforced Disappearances, Detentions and
Killings
Over 5,000 people, mostly civilians have been killed since 2006.
These civilians were, among others, killed by aerial bombardment,
shelling and claymore mine attacks in northern Sri Lanka. The Sri
Lankan government and LTTE have continuously failed to abide by
their obligations according to international humanitarian law,
thus encouraging abuses against civilians with impunity. Unlawful
killings, indiscriminate shelling of civilian residential areas,
abductions and enforced disappearance are daily occurrences. LTTE
cadres targeting civilian buses with landmines are frequent.
Bombing hospitals and refugee camps is just as common as putting
up military installations and arms next to residential areas
using civilians as human shields.
The official numbers of the conflict's disappearances in the past
have been listed officially with over 30,000. In fact, there are
claims that the real number is higher. LTTE and the Karuna group
as well as government military forces and the police's Special
Task Force are involved. The military and the police were also
implicated in the killing of Tamil civilians: There was an
extrajudicial killing on January 2, 2006, of five Tamil students
in Trincomalee town; eight young men "disappeared" from a Hindu
temple in Jaffna in May 2006. Seventeen employees of the
international aid organization Action Against Hunger were slain
in an execution-style in August 2006.
The involvement of governmental forces is a consequence of the
Prevention of Terrorist Act (PTA) and the Emergency Regulations
(ER). The regulations give the security forces extensive powers
for search, arrest, detention, and seizure of property, including
the right to make arrests without warrants and to hold
individuals in unacknowledged detention for up to eighteen
months. Most of those detainees under the emergency regulations
are young Tamil men deemed to have LTTE ties. Increasingly,
however, the regulations are also used against Muslims and
Sinhalese who have challenged or criticized the state.
Since the middle of 2006 the number of killings, abductions and
disappearances increased drastically. Because victims' families
are too afraid of repercussions, they often do not report
incidents. The perpetrators are insufficiently investigated and
prosecuted. In September 2006 the Sri Lankan government under
international pressure appointed a Commission of Inquiry (COI)
which was supposed to investigate 16 major incidents of human
rights violations. Since it was limited to investigate a specific
list of incidents and only had advisory competences instead of
being able to prosecute, it had very little impact. Despite
international criticism of these shortcomings the Sri Lankan
government extended the COI's mandate for another year.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to:
- urge all parties in the armed conflict in Sri Lanka to protect
the civilian population,
- express its concern about the failure of the ceasefire
agreement and to call on all conflict parties to start a genuine
and credible dialogue and to give priority to a political
solution of the conflict,
- urge a far-reaching constitutional reform in Sri Lanka in order
to improve the protection of minority rights.
No end to impunity for crimes against humanity in
Darfur
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC),
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, urged the international community on
September 20, 2007 to ensure that Sudan turns over two Darfur war
crimes suspects. "World leaders must understand that if the
justice component process is ignored crimes will continue and
affect the humanitarian and security operation in Darfur",
declared Moreno-Ocampo. On April 27, 2007 the ICC had issued
arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun, the deputy Interior Minister of
Sudan in 2003 and 2004, and the Janjaweed-Commander Ali Kushayb
for 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in
Darfur. But no concrete action of the Sudanese authorities
followed. In September 2007 the Government appointed the then
State Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun despite the
arrest warrants to co-chair a committee which should analyze the
human rights situation in western Sudan. Haroun still has not
been transferred to The Hague to face criminal investigation by
the ICC. In his position as the government's liaison with UNAMID
he maintains a prominent position in Sudanese politics. Haroun
was quoted as saying that he had been given the authority to
either kill or forgive in Darfur for the sake of peace and
security. According to the ICC he was responsible for organizing
and funding the Janjaweed.
Ali Kushayb who commanded thousands of Janjaweed allegedly stood
by and promoted rape and torture as part of the war strategy. He
was one of the key militia leaders responsible for attacks on
villages in West Darfur in 2003 / 2004. ICC judges are convinced
that he bears responsibility for rapes, destruction of property,
perpetrating inhumane acts as well as attacking and killing
civilians in at least four villages. He was imprisoned in Sudan
from November 2006 to October 2007 on unrelated charges, but then
released without being transferred to the ICC.
In April 2006 the UN Security Council imposed financial sanctions
and a travel ban against Janjaweed-Commander Musa Hilal for
obstructing peace in Darfur. After being convicted in 1998 for
armed robbery against the Central Bank of Nyala he was released
from prison by the Government of Sudan in 2003 to help crush the
rebellion in Darfur. In 2005 Hilal admitted in interviews that he
recruited Arab tribesmen on behalf of the Government of Sudan to
fight against rebels in Darfur. Numerous eyewitnesses named Hilal
as responsible for brutal attacks on the civilian population,
rape, destruction of villages and ethnic cleansing. Despite his
prominent role in the crimes against humanity, Hilal on January
18, 2008 was appointed special advisor for the Ministry of
Federal Affairs in Sudan.
The three cases are clear evidence that the Government of Sudan
is not committed to end impunity in Darfur. Unfortunately the UN
Security Council failed to agree on a presidential statement
supporting the arrest of Darfur war crime suspects and their
extradition to the ICC on December 9, 2007 due to blocking votes
of China and Qatar.
Desperate human rights situation in
Darfur
In March 2007 a UN fact-finding mission led by U.S. Nobel
laureate Jody Williams concluded that the Government of Sudan had
orchestrated militia attacks on civilians in Darfur. The U.N.
Human Rights Council rejected the recommendations of Williams'
team, voting instead to create an expert group. A week after this
group of seven rights experts had accused Sudan of failing to
protect civilians in Darfur from rape, torture and other forms of
violence, the Human Rights Council dissolved this committee on
December 14, 2007 due to demands from African countries to ease
the political pressure on Sudan.
The situation in Darfur has evolved from an armed conflict
between liberation movements and the government into a violent
scramble for power and resources involving government forces,
Janjaweed militias, liberation movements and bandits. But this
complex situation should not divert attention from Khartoum's
responsibility for crimes against humanity. Sudan's government is
responsible for indiscriminate aerial bombing, ground attacks on
the civilian population, complicity in Janjaweed attacks on
villages and for its failure to protect the civilian
population.
Monitors of the African Union, U.N. rights experts, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. agencies, Sudanese and
international human rights organisations and humanitarian
organizations have been documenting crimes against humanity,
ethnic cleansing and other gross human rights violations in
Darfur in dozens of reports. Thousands of pages with testimonies
from victims or their family members have been published. Recent
satellite photos documented the widespread destruction of
villages and the entire ethnic and social system in western
Sudan. According to estimates 2.066 villages in Darfur have been
destroyed in Darfur since February 2003, a further 685 villages
have been partly destroyed. At least 2.4 million persons became
Internal Displaced People. More than 400,000 were seeking refuge
in neighbouring Chad. In February 2008 around 50,000 people in
Darfur fled their villages due to a military offensive of the
Sudanese army. Nearly every month tens of thousands of civilians
had to flee to protect their lives from attacks by militias,
rebels, bandits or the regular army.
There is no efficient protection for the civilian population in
western Sudan. Not even in the larger towns or in IDP camps,
civilians are protected and safe. In 2007 once again hundreds of
women and girls were raped, especially near IDP camps. Sometimes
Sudanese officials have been pressurised IDP's to leave refugee
camps. In October 2007, U.N. officials accused Sudanese
authorities to chase refugees out of the refugee camp Otash. The
camp is situated near South Darfur's capital Nyala and houses
60,000 refugees. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs, John Holmes, declared that these involuntary relocations
are violating U.N. agreements with Sudan. Inside the camps, guns
are cheap, tensions and violence are mounting. Most of the IDPs
are women, children and youth. Since April 2006 there have been
120,000 newly displaced children. Many of the youth feel
desperate, because they harbour no hope to return in their
destroyed villages.
Escalation of violence in Darfur threatens aid
operation
An upsurge of banditry further complicated all humanitarian aid
operations in western Sudan. Chaos is looming as violence
increases and public order collapses. 4.2 million civilians in
Darfur are currently relying on humanitarian aid. Since the end
of September 2007 the dangers and obstacles relief agencies in
Darfur are facing have continued to increase. Aid agencies were
only able to provide minimal assistance to major IDP camps in
North and South Darfur due to ongoing insecurity. Between January
and November 2007 at least 74 humanitarian transports were
attacked and 128 vehicles hijacked. Some 131 humanitarian staff
was kidnapped and 12 aid workers were killed. Many trucking
companies refuse to send in more vehicles because of the upsurge
in violence and kidnappings. In the first two months of the year
2008 this alarming trend worsened sharply, endangering the
activities of many aid agencies. Some humanitarian organisations
have meanwhile left western Sudan due to the issue of insecurity
and the lack of access to those in need.
UNAMID deployment has been obstructed
On July 31, 2007, the UN Security Council authorised a hybrid
United Nations / African Union peacekeeping operation (UNAMID) in
western Sudan. Six months later, little, if any, additional
capacity has been deployed or is on the horizon to ensure an
effective protection of the civilian population. The government
of Sudan has systematically obstructed the deployment of UNAMID
in at least five ways. Khartoum failed for more than two months
to formally approve the list of UNAMID troop contributions. Troop
proposals from Nepal, the Scandinavian countries and Thailand
were rejected, insisting that only African troops were welcome.
The land allocation for new bases has taken months. Furthermore,
the government refused to grant permissions for new troops to fly
at night and imposed curfews near some bases. Several times
Khartoum tried to impose restrictions on the communication
network of UNAMID.
Society for Threatened Peoples calls on the Human
Rights Council to:
- condemn the crimes against humanity committed by the Sudanese
army and its allied militia, the abuses of the civilian
population as well as the violations of the humanitarian
ceasefire agreement,
- urge the Sudanese government to ensure free access and
protection for aid agencies,
- insist on an immediate end of the persecutions, slaughter and
"ethnic cleansing",
- urge the Sudanese government to refrain from any obstruction of
the UNAMID deployment to ensure the protection of the civilian
population,
- call on the Sudanese government to end impunity for crimes
committed in Darfur and to fully cooperate with the International
Criminal Court in The Hague,
- urge the international community to enhance a new negotiation
of the Darfur Peace Agreement involving all conflict
parties,
- call on the international community to strengthen its political
pressure on the Sudanese government in order to stop crimes
against humanity in Darfur.