CARE & Amnesty International on Darfur

CARE International:

”We work in 70 countries worldwide and this situation is extraordinary and appalling – to see repeated sexual assaults on women and girls when they are struggling to gather water and firewood for their families,” said Denis Caillaux, secretary general of CARE International. “We call on all parties to this conflict to comply with their ceasefire agreement and halt these assaults on civilians immediately.”

The violence also has disrupted the vital humanitarian lifeline to hundreds of thousands of people. Food deliveries have been disrupted by banditry and humanitarian assets have been wantonly destroyed.

"At least a quarter of a million people have not received their food rations for almost two months," said Geoffrey Chege, regional director for CARE International. And lack of food is not the only problem. “Most of the clean water and public health infrastructure we've built has been reduced to rubble in the recent raid on the El Geer camp for internally displaced people. This will have a terrible and immediate impact on thousands of vulnerable and malnourished people, especially young children.”

CARE International welcomes the African Union’s decision to deploy additional observers and to give them a stronger mandate to protect civilians and safeguard the delivery of humanitarian supplies. International donors have been generous but there are not enough AU troops in place and they are grossly under-equipped. AU monitors need such basics as radio communications and vehicles to patrol the most dangerous areas.

Amnesty International (BBC report):

The human rights group calls on the United Nations Security Council to impose a strict arms embargo on Sudan to try to end the conflict in Darfur. [ .... ]

The BBC has broadcast evidence of mass killings in Darfur, where more than 1.5 million people have been displaced.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has also called for an arms embargo.

[ .... ] Belarus, Russia, China, Poland, France, Iran and Saudi Arabia have supplied Sudan with arms, Amnesty says.

The organisation says these countries should suspend deliveries of arms, if they thought it was likely they would be used "for grave human rights violations".

A group of six aid agencies have also called for action, saying that previous UN resolutions "mounted to little more than empty threats, with minimal impact on the levels of violence".

--Jeff Weintraub

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AlertNet (Reuters)
November 16, 2004

CARE International condemns upsurge in violence against Darfur civilians 16 Nov 2004 11:45:00 GMT Source: NGO latest Lynn Heinisch

CARE International - UK
Website: http://www.care.org

Nairobi and Brussels -- CARE International strongly condemns the escalation of violence by government forces and rebel groups against civilians in the South Darfur region of Sudan. The humanitarian agency urgently calls on the Sudanese government and all rebel groups to abide by the terms of the ceasefire and stop all attacks on civilians. CARE International also calls upon the United Nations Security Council and all governments to ensure all parties are held accountable for their commitments, and to support African Union leaders in immediately deploying the expanded AU monitoring force to protect civilians and safeguard the transport and distribution of life-saving humanitarian supplies.

In South Darfur, lawlessness is rising throughout the region, and rebel groups, militias, bandits, and government forces are contributing to extreme brutality against innocent civilians, especially women and children. The violence includes forced relocations of internally displaced people from camps, separation of children from their parents, and extreme levels of sexual violence.

”We work in 70 countries worldwide and this situation is extraordinary and appalling – to see repeated sexual assaults on women and girls when they are struggling to gather water and firewood for their families,” said Denis Caillaux, secretary general of CARE International. “We call on all parties to this conflict to comply with their ceasefire agreement and halt these assaults on civilians immediately.”

The violence also has disrupted the vital humanitarian lifeline to hundreds of thousands of people. Food deliveries have been disrupted by banditry and humanitarian assets have been wantonly destroyed.

"At least a quarter of a million people have not received their food rations for almost two months," said Geoffrey Chege, regional director for CARE International. And lack of food is not the only problem. “Most of the clean water and public health infrastructure we've built has been reduced to rubble in the recent raid on the El Geer camp for internally displaced people. This will have a terrible and immediate impact on thousands of vulnerable and malnourished people, especially young children.”

CARE International welcomes the African Union’s decision to deploy additional observers and to give them a stronger mandate to protect civilians and safeguard the delivery of humanitarian supplies. International donors have been generous but there are not enough AU troops in place and they are grossly under-equipped. AU monitors need such basics as radio communications and vehicles to patrol the most dangerous areas. “The African Union must now respond when innocent people are being attacked. A stronger AU presence in greater Darfur can make a real difference – it has the potential to deter ceasefire violations and extreme acts of violence perpetrated by all parties and help restore the broken chain of humanitarian access,” said Chege.

”CARE International repeats our call for the Government of Sudan to better protect its citizens, and for the African Union members and donor governments to come together and mobilize the necessary AU troops, equipment, and technical assistance. This is the most direct path to improve the situation for ordinary people who are in danger, and to prevent the deadly lawlessness from reaching a turning point that will require far greater action to bring the armed groups under control,” said Kathleen Hunt, CARE International representative to the United Nations. ”We urge Security Council members gathered in Nairobi this week to seriously deal with the escalating violence and deteriorating humanitarian conditions for nearly two million Sudanese,” said Hunt. “The overall peace process cannot ignore the grim reality of Darfur.”

CARE has been distributing food for 400,000 people in South and West Darfur; delivering plastic sheeting for shelter, blankets, water containers, soap and kitchen sets for aid agencies to distribute to 400,000 people throughout Darfur; providing water, latrines and environmental health services for 150,000 people in South Darfur; and running a therapeutic feeding center in Nyala, South Darfur. In Chad, CARE is managing four refugee camps, including distribution of food and non-food items, providing assistance to roughly 80,000 refugees. CARE has been working in Sudan since 1979, and is continuing its development work throughout the country.

[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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BBC News
November 16, 2004

Amnesty calls for Sudan arms ban

Uncontrolled arms exports are fuelling abuses in Sudan's Darfur region, warns Amnesty International.

The human rights group calls on the United Nations Security Council to impose a strict arms embargo on Sudan to try to end the conflict in Darfur.

The UNSC, which meets this week in Nairobi, has threatened sanctions if security in the region did not improve.

The BBC has broadcast evidence of mass killings in Darfur, where more than 1.5 million people have been displaced.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has also called for an arms embargo.

'Suspend deliveries'

"Amnesty specifically requests the UN Security Council to impose a mandatory arms embargo on Sudan to stop supplies of those arms reaching all the parties to the conflict in Darfur," Amnesty says.

The London-based group says the embargo should only be lifted when measures "are in place to protect civilians from grave human rights abuses".

Belarus, Russia, China, Poland, France, Iran and Saudi Arabia have supplied Sudan with arms, Amnesty says.

The organisation says these countries should suspend deliveries of arms, if they thought it was likely they would be used "for grave human rights violations".

A group of six aid agencies have also called for action, saying that previous UN resolutions "mounted to little more than empty threats, with minimal impact on the levels of violence".

HRW on Monday accused the rebels in Darfur of violating the agreed ceasefire, saying they had "abducted civilians, attacked police stations and other government institutions and raided and looted substantial numbers of livestock and commercial goods".

Attack

On Sunday, the BBC's Panorama programme revealed new evidence of mass ethnic killings and rape in Darfur, adding to fears of genocide in the region.

In one town that the BBC team visited, at least 80 children had been killed, as well as many adults.

Janjaweed militias and government troops attacked Kidinyir throughout the past year, killing huge numbers, reported the BBC's Hilary Andersson.

It is now estimated that more than 70,000 people have died in Darfur and massacres are still going on.

Survivors told the BBC one by one about which family members they had lost.

At least 80 children had been killed.

There were four mass grave sites on the town's fringes.

Sudan's government insists that the killings are the result of tribal chaos in the region. However, African Union observers in Darfur say the government has been arming and directing the Janjaweed militia.

America has called the killings in Darfur genocide because of their ethnic nature.

Britain and many other nations are waiting for the outcome of a lengthy UN investigation into the subject.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/4014165.stm

Published: 2004/11/16 10:16:21 GMT

Darfur - the atrocity continues

Washington Post (November 15, 2004):

NEW AL-JEER SUREAF, Sudan -- The Bush administration has called it genocide. Other governments have labeled it ethnic cleansing and the world's worst humanitarian crisis. There have been calls for collective action and promises of relief. There have been somber reminders of the slaughter in tiny Rwanda a decade ago and solemn vows not to let such a thing happen here, in Africa's largest country.

But months later, the displaced inhabitants of Darfur, in western Sudan, find themselves consoled by little more than words. No Western country has been willing to commit troops to a small peacekeeping mission mounted by the African Union, while aid donors have been distracted by the conflict in Iraq, and U.N. sanctions have been frozen by diplomatic disputes.

[ .... ] Since Sept. 9, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the events in Darfur constituted genocide, U.N. officials estimate that the death toll has nearly doubled, to 70,000, in a region where African rebels have been battling government troops and Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed for the past 20 months.

Daily Telegraph (November 20, 2004):

Aid workers yesterday accused the United Nations Security Council of betraying the victims of the conflict in Darfur after it passed a weakened resolution dropping previous threats of sanctions against the Sudanese government.

Abandoning substance in favour of a show of symbolic unity on its first trip out of New York for 14 years, the council opted for compromise to avoid alienating Russia and China during an extraordinary session in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. [ .... ]

British charity Oxfam led the protests, dismissing the council's visit to Africa as little more than a jaunt.

"From New York to Nairobi a trail of weak resolutions on Darfur has led nowhere," said Caroline Nursey, Oxfam's regional director. "Travel agents will have more to show from this meeting than the people of Darfur."

--Jeff Weintraub


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Washington Post
November 16, 2004

In Sudan, a Sense of Abandonment
Victims See Little Help From Outside

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A01

NEW AL-JEER SUREAF, Sudan -- The Bush administration has called it genocide. Other governments have labeled it ethnic cleansing and the world's worst humanitarian crisis. There have been calls for collective action and promises of relief. There have been somber reminders of the slaughter in tiny Rwanda a decade ago and solemn vows not to let such a thing happen here, in Africa's largest country.

But months later, the displaced inhabitants of Darfur, in western Sudan, find themselves consoled by little more than words. No Western country has been willing to commit troops to a small peacekeeping mission mounted by the African Union, while aid donors have been distracted by the conflict in Iraq, and U.N. sanctions have been frozen by diplomatic disputes.

The depth of the crisis can be felt in this steamy, desolate camp for the displaced, where Fatina Abdullah's family is still on the run from marauding Arab militiamen. She fled her village weeks ago, and her current home is under a wooden cart. Her son Bakheit, 8, is weak from diarrhea, anemia and a chest infection, afflictions that have killed dozens of children here.

"No one cares," said Abdullah, 45, burying her face in work-scarred hands. The ailing boy lay by her side, gasping for air and perspiring heavily. "No one is protecting us."

Since Sept. 9, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the events in Darfur constituted genocide, U.N. officials estimate that the death toll has nearly doubled, to 70,000, in a region where African rebels have been battling government troops and Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed for the past 20 months.

Violence and crime are surging, with almost daily reports of assaults against aid workers and civilians, while squalid tent cities continue to swell. More than 1.4 million people have fled their farms and villages.

In a recent agreement with rebel forces, the government agreed to establish a no-fly zone and the fighters promised to allow food convoys to reach thousands of displaced families. But U.N. officials said both sides had repeatedly violated a long-standing cease-fire, and some fear the new agreement may also collapse.

Meanwhile Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy to Sudan, has warned that Darfur "may easily enter a state of anarchy." Pronk said there were "strong indications" that war crimes had occurred "on a large and systematic scale."

In addition, according to U.N. officials, almost half the families in Darfur still do not have enough to eat, and 200,000 people are unable to receive food rations because of armed attacks on convoy routes. In one turbulent area called Zalengi, some 160,000 civilians have been cut off from food aid since Sept. 25 because roads are blocked.

"We need a political solution quickly here," said Bettina Luscher, a public affairs officer with the World Food Program. "Things are getting far worse and more complicated by the day. We are really concerned about how we will feed these people by the end of the year."

The continuing international reluctance to address the Darfur crisis has led critics -- including diplomats and former peacekeeping officials -- to complain that the United States and other powers have cynically substituted dramatic rhetoric for meaningful actions. One such critic is Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who led the stymied U.N. peacekeeping mission during the 1994 Rwanda massacres.

"The use of the word 'genocide' was nothing more than the U.S. playing politics with a term that should be sacrosanct," said Dallaire, who argues that the American government should back up its words with deeds, in part by "putting a lot more pressure" behind efforts to bolster the African Union mission.

Charles R. Snyder, the State Department's senior representative on Sudan, defended the U.S. role in Darfur, saying the Bush administration took the lead when no other country was willing to do so and has been the largest donor of aid.

"The word 'genocide' was not an action word; it was a responsibility word," Snyder said in a telephone interview. "There was an ethical and moral obligation, and saying it underscored how seriously we took this. . . . If I didn't believe the U.S. was doing enough, I would resign."

An Underfunded Mission

With Darfur edging toward chaos and no Western country willing to send in troops, the burden of trying to contain the situation has fallen to the 700 African observer forces stationed there. The fledgling African Union says it needs $220 million to finance the mission for one year and is still $80 million short.

Beginning late last month, in its first and only regional operation to date, the U.S. military airlifted several hundred African soldiers from Nigeria and Rwanda into Darfur as part of a plan to increase troop strength to about 3,000.

But some experts assert that a force 10 times that number is needed, and that the troops need a stronger mandate so they can intervene in fighting and criminal activity. Some experts and diplomats have also raised concerns that the Africans, who lack military vehicles and helicopters, may not be adequately equipped for the task.

"Sudan is something that all members of the international community have to deal with," said Howard F. Jeter, who was U.S. ambassador to Nigeria from 2001 to 2003. "The Nigerians . . . are willing to risk their own lives to bring stability on the continent. We have to help them do it right."

Dallaire said Darfur needed a force of up to 44,000 peacekeepers, who would set up checkpoints and safe aid corridors, disarm combatants and be given the power to protect civilians. To date, the government of Sudan has refused to permit a peacekeeping force to enter the country.

"The mission of observing will do nothing except destroy the credibility of African Union troops," Dallaire said. He said it was unfair to criticize observer troops as "inept when it's not their fault. Observing people getting beaten up and dying is useless."

Already, the African troops have faced volatile situations in which they are greatly outnumbered and unable to help. Last week, more than 100 Sudanese police officers with guns, sticks and teargas overran a refugee camp in an attempt to force occupants to move to another location. Some refused to leave and took refuge in a mosque, while the soldiers careered through the camp in trucks, swinging their batons.

Two African Union officers arrived from a nearby base to investigate, but they were armed only with notebooks and cameras. Lt. Col. Henry Mejah, a Nigerian, said he tried to interview a Sudanese commander, but the man yelled at him and stormed away. Other police officers screamed at Capt. Rex Adzagba Kudjoe, a Ghanaian, when he tried to take photographs of the site. Shortly afterward, the two officers left.

Two days later, another bulldozer rammed into the camp, crushing homes that had just been rebuilt. Residents said they were beaten when they refused to leave for a new camp in a remote and vulnerable location. An 8-year old girl, Manahula Jacob Ali, was shot in the foot. Sadia Hamiss Adriss, 16, had a zigzagging gash in her cheek.

"Why are they still bulldozing and shooting and beating people?" Matina Mydin, a nurse treating victims in a nearby clinic, demanded angrily. "Where is the will of the international community?"

Shifting Deadlines

Several factors have contributed to the lack of international attention to Darfur, according to experts and officials.

The Bush administration has backed a peace deal in an older, separate conflict between the Sudan government and rebels in the south. Even though it has accused the Khartoum government of genocide, it is reluctant to jeopardize that agreement by pressing too hard on Darfur.

Proposed U.N. sanctions have been frozen because of a veto by China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Sudan is China's fourth-largest supplier of oil. Meanwhile, deadlines for the imposition of sanctions keep slipping.

First, the Security Council set an Aug. 30 deadline for Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed. One month later, the council voted to consider unspecified sanctions if the situation did not improve. Last week, the European Union warned Sudan it would impose sanctions if security in the Darfur region did not improve within two months.

There is also widespread international disagreement over whether genocide has occurred.

The Bush administration had weakened its hand, critics said, by its narrow interpretation of the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which calls on signatories to prevent and punish genocide. The administration's position is that the convention does not require a government to take action after it makes a finding of genocide.

"It's like taking an accused murderer to court," said Ted Dagne, an African analyst with the Congressional Research Service. "The judge declares him guilty, but then he says, 'Sorry, there are no prisons, so you are free.'"

According to Pronk's report, both the Khartoum government and the Janjaweed may be implicated in mass crimes. The report cited human rights observers who said armed security forces had dug up over 40 bodies from a mass grave in northern Darfur.

African rebel groups, in turn, have been stepping up attacks on government outposts. A new group called the National Movement for Reformation and Development is not a party to the cease-fire agreement and is now reportedly fighting another African rebel faction.

Relief officials said there was also insufficient international funding for food and medical aid. Donors have been slow to respond to calls for help, and U.N. officials said their relief agencies had received only about 75 percent of the $534 million they needed to provide food, water and emergency supplies for one year.

Without a political solution, aid officials said, people may remain locked in camps and dependent on food aid for years.

"If the international community continues to waver and equivocate," said Sam Totten, an American expert on genocide, "there is no doubt in my mind that 10 years from now the international community will [be apologizing] to the victims of Darfur [as it once did to] the Tutsis of Rwanda."

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Daily Telegraph
November 20, 2004

Weakened UN resolution 'betrays' victims in Darfur
By Adrian Blomfield, East Africa Correspondent

Aid workers yesterday accused the United Nations Security Council of betraying the victims of the conflict in Darfur after it passed a weakened resolution dropping previous threats of sanctions against the Sudanese government.

Abandoning substance in favour of a show of symbolic unity on its first trip out of New York for 14 years, the council opted for compromise to avoid alienating Russia and China during an extraordinary session in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

Earlier resolutions, pushed through by European members and the United States, which accuses Khartoum of carrying out genocide in Darfur, had warned of sanctions if President Omar al-Bashir's government did not end the violence in the region.

But Russia, arguing that the UN should not interfere in another country's affairs abstained, as did China, which has substantial oil interests in Sudan.

Non-permanent members Algeria and Pakistan also chose not to vote.

The council achieved the unanimity it desired after the word "sanctions" was dropped in favour of a more oblique threat "to take appropriate action against any party failing to fulfill its commitments." British charity Oxfam led the protests, dismissing the council's visit to Africa as little more than a jaunt.

"From New York to Nairobi a trail of weak resolutions on Darfur has led nowhere," said Caroline Nursey, Oxfam's regional director. "Travel agents will have more to show from this meeting than the people of Darfur."

That drew indignant responses from both Britain and the United States, who both insist that they will push for sanctions if Khartoum fails to rein in the attacks on civilians by loyalist militiamen, known as Janjaweed, or continues to hamper the delivery of emergency relief.

"We came here not for a ceremony, not for a photo op, but for results," said John Danforth, the US representative to the UN. "I want to be very clear. The violence and atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur must end now."

Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador, was even more blunt. "We repeat the message that we will come after you if you don't comply," he said.

More than one million people have fled from their homes, while tens of thousands are thought to have been killed, since African Muslims, complaining of repression and marginalization by the Arab-dominated government, rebelled last year.

While atrocities have been committed by all sides, the United States and others say that the most brutal attacks on civilians have been carried out by the Janjaweed.

Seeking to gloss over the lack of progress in resolving the Darfur crisis, the council hailed a pledge by the government and largely non-Muslim rebels in the south to end a separate war, waged for the past 21 years, by Dec 31.

Rebel leader John Garang promised southern Sudanese good news for Christmas - sentiments remarkably similar to those made a year ago in front of former United States secretary of state Colin Powell.

While both sides have agreed on the wording of a peace deal, a final accord formally ending the war has been delayed three times.

Some words of sanity on Iraq from Juan Cole

Wars make it hard for even people of good will to keep their moral and intellectual balance. And in some ways this is especially true for the kind of conflict going on in Iraq right now--involving insurgency and counter-insurgency, terrorism, and a complicated range of armed groups with different aims and tactics, all deriving from a war about which many people already had passionate opinions and feelings.

The videotaped shooting of a wounded insurgent by a US marine in Fallujah was horrible. It looks like a war crime, and if that turns out to be the case, then the soldier involved should be tried and punished.

And as long as we're on the subject of Iraq, it's also worth adding the more general comment that the Bush administration's frequent tendencies to be cavalier about the laws of war (of which Abu Ghraib was one especially conspicuous result) have been inexcusable and appalling--and, even in purely pragmatic terms, idiotic and self-defeating.

=> However, a number of people have wanted to pretend that this shooting in Fallujah shows that the US troops in Iraq (and the whole war against Saddam Hussein & his regime) are morally equivalent to the terrorists among the Sunni "insurgents" who have systematically targeted, murdered, and mutilated Iraqi and foreign civilians; routinely executed captured prisoners; beheaded hostages; and so on. As Juan Cole points out, this is absurd and offensive.

Juan Cole is certainly not the only one to make these points, but he is especially hard to dismiss as an uncritical apologist for either the Bush administration in general or the Iraq war in particular. Cole is a prominent and sympathetic scholar of Islam and the Islamic world, with a strong sense of sympathy for the Iraqi people and for Muslims in general. He could not bring himself to oppose the Iraq war--precisely because of his sense of solidarity with ordinary Iraqis--and he has argued that military action against the Iraqi Ba'ath regime was in principle justifiable on both legal and moral grounds, but he has condemned the way that the war was actually justified and conducted, and he has been very critical (with good reason) of how the post-Saddam occupation of Iraq has been carried out. One may agree or disagree with Cole's positions on these matters (for me, it's some of both), but in either case he has to be recognized as someone who speaks with exceptional knowledge, credibility, and good judgment, and his views deserve to be taken seriously.

=> With respect to these specific issues, Cole's discussions over the past several days strike me as especially cogent. Some highlights:

[Wednesday, November 17]

But as I thought about it, it became clear to me that the author [in the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat] had put the marines and the Sunni Arab guerrillas who murder their hostages on the same level. Since I am after all an American, this equation seemed to me eminently unfair. The guerrillas in Fallujah were responsible for a lot of bombings and killings of innocent civilians in Iraq, which involved deliberately targetting and killing, e.g. Shiites. The Marines are, in contrast, a legitimate miliary force that is operating in Iraq with UN sanction. I personally think that the assault on Fallujah was problematic, ethically and politically. But it doesn't put the Marines in Zarqawi's camp!

The announcement by Iraqi state minister Qasim Daoud that the number of captured fighters stands at 1052 (with 1600 killed) underlines the point I made yesterday, that the murdering of prisoners is not a generalized practice.

[Thursday, November 18]

Readers have written me on all sides of this issue. [ .... ] Others expressed surprise that I declined to accept any comparison between the US Marine Corps and the guerrillas who beheaded aid worker Margaret Hassan. (!) I kid you not. They actually wanted to put them on the same plane.

Let me just clarify my comments. First of all, I did not say that the Iraq war was a legitimate war. It was not. It violated the charter of the United Nations. [I don't agree, but that's a secondary point here. --JW]

What I said was that the role of the US military and other multinational forces in Iraq is now legitimate because it was explicitly sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. This is true. Many readers appear to have forgotten all about UN SC Resolution 1546 (2004), which was adopted unanimously.

[ .... ]

So, the Marines at Fallujah are operating in accordance with a UNSC Resolution and have all the legitimacy in international law that flows from that. The Allawi government asked them to undertake this Fallujah mission.

To compare them to the murderous thugs who kidnapped CARE worker Margaret Hassan, held her hostage, terrified her, and then picked up a butcher knife, grabbed her by the hair, held her head back, and cut her throat completely through the spinal cord as she screamed with increasing difficulty, is frankly monstrous. The multinational forces are soldiers fighting a war in which they are targetting combatants and sometimes accidentally killing innocents. The hostage-takers are terrorists deliberately killing innocents. It is simply not the same thing. [my emphasis --JW]

On the Fallujah operation, and the insurgency more generally:

Now, I don't like the timing of the Fallujah mission. I don't like all the mistakes made along the way, which produced this operation. I don't like its tactics. I don't like the way it put so many civilians in harm's way. I don't like the violations of international law (targetting the hospital, turning away the Red Crescent, killing wounded and disarmed combatants), etc. I protest the latter. I don't know enough about military affairs to offer an alternative on the former issues, and don't mind admitting my technical ignorance. You can't do everything.

But the basic idea of attacking the guerrillas holding up in that city is not in and of itself criminal or irresponsible. A significant proportion of the absolutely horrible car bombings that have killed hundreds and thousands of innocent Iraqis, especially Shiites, were planned and executed from Fallujah. There were serious and heavily armed forces in Fallujah planning out ways of killing hundreds to prevent elections from being held in January. These are mass murderers, serial murderers. If they were fighting only to defend Fallujah, that would be one thing; even the Marines would respect them for that. They aren't, or at least, a significant proportion of them aren't. They are killing civilians elsewhere in order to throw Iraq into chaos and avoid the enfranchisement of the Kurds and Shiites.

Some of my readers still want good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats. That's not the way the world is. It is often grey, and very bleak.

Actually, there sometimes ARE unequivocal black hats. But otherwise, I would endorse these closing thoughts.

Unhappily,
Jeff Weintraub

________________________________

Juan Cole ("Informed Comment")

Thursday, November 18, 2004

More on Marine Mosque Killing

Iraqis continued to be furious Wednesday over the shooting by a US marine of a wounded Iraqi fighter in a mosque in Fallujah. Indeed, the Arab press in general expressed horror and outrage. Unlike US news outlets, al-Jazeera and other Arab satellite news stations actually showed the prisoner being shot, which made the footage more powerful. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that both the Iraqi interim government and the Arab League have condemned the mosque shooting and demanded the perpetrator be tried.

US veterans and military justice experts were less willing to jump to judgment. They point out that the full context is not apparent from the snippet of film. This second team of Marines had not known that a previous team had left these wounded guerrillas in the mosque for subsequent medical pick-up, and appear to have assumed that they were active combatants and that one of them was a suicide bomber only pretending to be dead. Such contextualization and nuance were not part of the debate in the Arab press.

Readers have written me on all sides of this issue. Some have insisted that the wounded guerrillas were not technically prisoners of war, as I had termed them, and that the US marine's action cannot be judged until we have all the facts.

Others expressed surprise that I declined to accept any comparison between the US Marine Corps and the guerrillas who beheaded aid worker Margaret Hassan. (!) I kid you not. They actually wanted to put them on the same plane.

Let me just clarify my comments. First of all, I did not say that the Iraq war was a legitimate war. It was not. It violated the charter of the United Nations.

What I said was that the role of the US military and other multinational forces in Iraq is now legitimate because it was explicitly sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. This is true. Many readers appear to have forgotten all about UN SC Resolution 1546 (2004), which was adopted unanimously. Here is what the Security Council said about the issue at hand:

“9. Notes that the presence of the multinational force in Iraq is at the request of the incoming Interim Government of Iraq and therefore reaffirms the authorization for the multinational force under unified command established under resolution 1511 (2003), having regard to the letters annexed to this resolution;

“10. Decides that the multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq in accordance with the letters annexed to this resolution expressing, inter alia, the Iraqi request for the continued presence of the multinational force and setting out its tasks, including by preventing and deterring terrorism, so that, inter alia, the United Nations can fulfil its role in assisting the Iraqi people as outlined in paragraph seven above and the Iraqi people can implement freely and without intimidation the timetable and program for the political process and benefit from reconstruction and rehabilitation activities;

“11. Welcomes, in this regard, the letters annexed to this resolution stating, inter alia, that arrangements are being put in place to establish a security partnership between the sovereign Government of Iraq and the multinational force and to ensure coordination between the two, and notes also in this regard that Iraqi security forces are responsible to appropriate Iraqi ministers, that the Government of Iraq has authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the multinational force to engage in operations with it, and that the security structures described in the letters will serve as the fora for the Government of Iraq and the multinational force to reach agreement on the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations, and will ensure full partnership between Iraqi security forces and the multinational force, through close coordination and consultation;

So, the Marines at Fallujah are operating in accordance with a UNSC Resolution and have all the legitimacy in international law that flows from that. The Allawi government asked them to undertake this Fallujah mission.

To compare them to the murderous thugs who kidnapped CARE worker Margaret Hassan, held her hostage, terrified her, and then picked up a butcher knife, grabbed her by the hair, held her head back, and cut her throat completely through the spinal cord as she screamed with increasing difficulty, is frankly monstrous. The multinational forces are soldiers fighting a war in which they are targetting combatants and sometimes accidentally killing innocents. The hostage-takers are terrorists deliberately killing innocents. It is simply not the same thing.

Now, I don't like the timing of the Fallujah mission. I don't like all the mistakes made along the way, which produced this operation. I don't like its tactics. I don't like the way it put so many civilians in harm's way. I don't like the violations of international law (targetting the hospital, turning away the Red Crescent, killing wounded and disarmed combatants), etc. I protest the latter. I don't know enough about military affairs to offer an alternative on the former issues, and don't mind admitting my technical ignorance. You can't do everything.

But the basic idea of attacking the guerrillas holding up in that city is not in and of itself criminal or irresponsible. A significant proportion of the absolutely horrible car bombings that have killed hundreds and thousands of innocent Iraqis, especially Shiites, were planned and executed from Fallujah. There were serious and heavily armed forces in Fallujah planning out ways of killing hundreds to prevent elections from being held in January. These are mass murderers, serial murderers. If they were fighting only to defend Fallujah, that would be one thing; even the Marines would respect them for that. They aren't, or at least, a significant proportion of them aren't. They are killing civilians elsewhere in order to throw Iraq into chaos and avoid the enfranchisement of the Kurds and Shiites.

Some of my readers still want good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats. That's not the way the world is. It is often grey, and very bleak.

posted by Juan @ 11/18/2004 06:14:24 AM

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Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Iraqi [actually, Arab] Press Reaction to Fallujah Mosque Killing

Al-Hayat: (trans. J. Cole): "The killing of a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque by an American Marine and the killing of the Iraqi-British hostage Margaret Hassan epitomize the battle taking place in Iraq. As the American military began its investigation of the marine's motives, an Islamic group broadcast a cassette of the slaughter of the female hostage."

"The American forces announced that they had established control over "all of Fallujah," affording the opportunity to Iraqis to gather up the bodies of the dead from the streets. At the same time, the battle shifted to Mosul, in hopes of taking it back from the gunmen who had taken control of its police stations. Gen. George Casey, commander of the US military in Iraq, said that his troops had come upon 15 foreign fighters in Fallujah among 1000 fighters who were all Iraqi. This statement contradicted American and Iraqi official pronouncements that had insisted that it was foreign fighters who had plunged into battle in the city."

I was initially a little surprised that al-Hayat (a Saudi-funded daily published from London, which is generally moderate with regard to attitudes to the US) paired the killing of Margaret Hassan with the killing of a wounded prisoner in Fallujah in this way. It seemed to take the edge off the rawness of the murder of the prisoner, to say that there are bad characters on the Iraqi side, as well.

But as I thought about it, it became clear to me that the author had put the marines and the Sunni Arab guerrillas who murder their hostages on the same level. Since I am after all an American, this equation seemed to me eminently unfair. The guerrillas in Fallujah were responsible for a lot of bombings and killings of innocent civilians in Iraq, which involved deliberately targetting and killing, e.g. Shiites. The Marines are, in contrast, a legitimate miliary force that is operating in Iraq with UN sanction. I personally think that the assault on Fallujah was problematic, ethically and politically. But it doesn't put the Marines in Zarqawi's camp!

The announcement by Iraqi state minister Qasim Daoud that the number of captured fighters stands at 1052 (with 1600 killed) underlines the point I made yesterday, that the murdering of prisoners is not a generalized practice.

Jim Crane of AP expresses healthy skepticism about the US military's hopes of making friends in Fallujah after they had flattened parts of the city. He also predicts that information about the true extent of civilian casualties will start coming out soon, when the Marines' grip on the city lightens.

The Boston Globe reports that the Baath Party had reconstituted itself in Mosul and was behind that city's recent insurrection. The US troops fought on Tuesday to retake police stations in the city of over a million. It appears that most Mosul police defected to the guerrillas.

"Submission" - Theo van Gogh & Ayaan Hirsi Ali

As ReligionNewsBlog once put it: Watch the film Theo van Gogh was murdered for

"Submission, Part I," a short critical film about the treatment of women in Islamic culture, was the product of a collaboration between the provocative Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh and the Somali-born ex-Muslim, feminist activist, and Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (Literally, "Islam" means "Submission.") Both received death threats for making the movie, and on November 2, 2004 van Gogh was murdered by a Dutch Muslim fanatic who then used the knife to pin a note with a manifesto and further death threats to van Gogh's body.

This link allows you to watch the original 10-minute Dutch TV presentation of "Submission, Part I," written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and filmed by Theo van Gogh. This version is in English (with Dutch subtitles, and with the prayers spoken in Arabic).



(Incidentally, this film was shown on the Dutch version of PBS. It's hard to imagine a film like this being shown on PBS here in the US, whether it dealt with Islam, Christianity, or any other major religion.)

Update, June 2005: For further discussion, see the excellent piece by Deborah Scroggins on "The Dutch-Muslim Culture War" (in The Nation).

[Update, February 2008: Several of the links below no longer work. But, as noted above, "Submission" is available HERE.]

--Jeff Weintraub
===================
[....]

Watch The Movie
Update, Mar. 16, 2005:

Shortly after the murder of Theo van Gogh, his 10-minute movie, 'Submission,' was posted for viewing or downloading at various websites. Scripted by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and filmed by Theo van Gogh, the short film addresses the abuse of women in Muslim societies. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons it is sometimes difficult to find the film online.

* As of this writing, you can still download Submission at homepage.mac.com. You may need to install a codec for the movie to play. (At this page, download the codec http://www.own-age.com/vids/XviD-04102002-1.exe (See under 'description'). Once it is downloaded, double click the self-installing file).
* Submission can also be viewed and/or downloaded - in 4 parts - at this site
* 'Submission' includes some prayers in the Arabic language. These prayers are subtitled in Dutch. The Arabic writings shown are quoted from the Quran. The rest of the spoken word is in English. Read a transcript here.

» You may also be interested in this multi-lingual weblog about Ayaan Hirsi Ali

More news articles on Theo van Gogh
News Index: The Latest Headlines
Books about Theo van Gogh

Bin Laden confesses (and gets ignored)

I am a little surprised that most of the discussion of Osama bin Laden's recent videotape (transcript here) has ignored one of the more striking aspects of his message in that videotape. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that bin Laden himself has explicitly acknowledged having planned and carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001. (Other Al Qaeda figures have acknowledged, directly or indirectly, that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks, but never bin Laden himself.)

I suppose that to most Americans (except for conspiracy theorists who believe that the Twin Towers were really brought down by the Israelis, the Bush administration, or whatever), this admission may seem superfluous. And perhaps that's why this detailed confession (or boast) by bin Laden has been so widely overlooked. (Much more attention has been paid to the bits that bin Laden lifted from Michael Moore, his possible impact on the US Presidential election, etc.)

But a great many people all over the world continue to argue that there is no real proof that bin Laden or Al Qaeda had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks. And throughout the Middle East and the wider Islamic world, there is a pervasive tendency simultaneously (a) to express admiration for bin Laden for carrying out the 9/11 attacks, and (b) to deny that he (or any other Muslim) had anything to do with them. [Still true in 2006. --JW] I would assume that maintaining this self-contradictory position should become more difficult after bin Laden's latest videotape (not impossible, human nature being what it is, but more difficult).

Still, that does leave some questions open. For example, why should bin Laden have picked this particular moment to acknowledge his role in the 9/11 attacks and explain his motivations? And, after he publicly confessed to being guilty of the crime of the century, why did this arouse so little attention? (Has the reaction been different in other parts of the world, perhaps? Somehow, I doubt it.)

Cheers,
Jeff Weintraub

====================
Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
2004 Osama bin Laden video

(Redirected from 2004 bin Laden video)

On October 29, 2004, at 21:00 UTC, the Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast excerpts from a videotape of Osama bin Laden addressing the people of the United States, in which he admitted responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Although Al Jazeera, which broadcast the footage on its evening newscast, did not disclose the source of the video, sources within the United States intelligence community have confirmed that the speaker, who appears behind a lectern, is indeed bin Laden. By mentioning 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry by name, the tape would seem to prove that bin Laden was still alive at least mid-way through 2004.

Contents // [showhide]

1 Content 2 Immediate reactions 3 See also 4 Sources

[edit]

Content

In the video, which is reported to be 18 minutes in length although only short pieces of it have been broadcast so far, bin Laden appears wearing a turban and a white robe partially covered by a lavish golden mantle, standing in front of an almost featureless brown background and reading his comments from papers resting on a speaker's stand. He moves both of his arms (dispelling rumors that one of them is limp after a wounding) and looks healthy as far as can be told, but a bit older and greyer than in his former tapes. His remarks, in Arabic but addressed to citizens of the United States, instruct them that "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" (a reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks), was to not threaten the security of Muslim nations.

The tape also contains bin Laden's first public acknowledgement of al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the U.S., noting that he first thought about attacking the World Trade Center in 1982, after watching Israeli aircraft bomb Lebanon (during the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon):

"While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women."

He also admitted for the first time a direct link to the attacks, saying that they were carried out because "we are a free people who do not accept injustice, and we want to regain the freedom of our nation." bin Laden threatened further retaliation against the U.S., noting that the conditions which provoked the 2001 attacks still existed, and compared America to "corrupt" Arab governments.

He dismissed as rhetoric claims by U.S. President George W. Bush that the attacks occurred because Islamic extremists "hate freedom", saying: "If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones."

Bin Laden further accused U.S. President George W. Bush of misleading the American people during the following three years — "Despite entering the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened" — as well as criticizing Bush's actions on the day of the attacks: "It never occurred to us that the Commander-in-Chief of the country would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important."

The release of the tape was reportedly timed to occur just four days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and bin Laden mentions both of the major contenders, telling Americans: "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe."

The United States State Department requested that the government of Qatar discourage al-Jazeera from airing the videotape, a senior State Department official admitted.

[ Etc. ] [....]

****************************************
See also

• Text of 2004 Osama bin Laden videotape
• Osama bin Laden's Declaration of War
• Osama bin Laden Fatwa

****************************************
Text of 2004 Osama bin Laden videotape
(From Wikisource, a repository for free source texts)

Author:Osama bin Laden

This is the text of the 2004 Osama bin Laden videotape released by al Jazeera TV on October 29, 2004.

"O American people, this is what I have to say about the causes and results (of the September 11, 2001 attacks) and the way to avoid another Manhattan.

"I tell you that security is a major pillar of human life. Free men do not renounce their security, irrespective of (US President) Bush's claims that we hate freedom.

"Let him (Mr. Bush) tell us why we did not attack Sweden, for example. It is obvious that those who hate freedom cannot have the pride of the 19 (September 11 suicide hijackers), God rest their souls. If we fought you, it is because we are free men, we do not ignore values, we want to return freedom to our nation. If you play havoc with our security, we play havoc with yours.

"You astonish me. Despite the fact that we are into the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still misleading you and hiding the real reason from you, which means that the reasons to repeat what happened remain.

"I will tell you about the reasons of these events and about the moments in which the decision (to attack) was taken so you will ponder them. I swear we never thought of attacking the towers, but when we saw the injustice and arbitrariness of the US-Israeli alliance against our brethren in Palestine and Lebanon, it became too much and the idea came to me.

"The events which affected me directly go back to 1982 ... when America gave the Israelis the green light to invade Lebanon, with the backing of the US 6th Fleet. It is difficult to describe what I felt in these painful moments, but it created an overwhelming feeling of refusal of injustice and a compelling determination to punish the unjust.

"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me that the unjust should suffer the same, that the towers in America must be destroyed so that America gets a taste of what we went through, so that it will stop killing our children and women.

"We did not find it hard to deal with Bush and his administration given the similarity with the regimes in our countries, half of which are governed by soldiers and the other half by the offspring of kings and presidents. We have a long experience with those. Both categories count people who are arrogant, greedy and embezzle (public) funds.

"The similarity began at the time of visits by Bush the father (former US president George Bush) to the region. At a time when some of our kinfolk were impressed by America and hoped that these visits would impact on our countries, it turned out that he was the one affected by these monarchies and military regimes, envying them for keeping their posts tens of years, embezzling public funds without being held accountable or monitored.

"He transferred tyranny and repression of freedoms to his son and they called it a national law (USA PATRIOT Act) under the pretext of combating terrorism.

"Bush's father thought it was a good thing to put his sons to govern states. And he did not forget to transfer (election-)forging skills from the presidents of the region to Florida to use them in critical times.

"We had agreed with (suicide hijacker) Mohammad Atta, God rest his soul, that he finishes all operations in 20 minutes before Bush and his administration take notice.

"It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the US armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone at a time when they were most in need of him.

"He reckoned that it was more important to preoccupy himself with the talk of the little girl about her goat ... than with the planes and their strike on the skyscrapers, giving us three times the time required to carry out the operations, thanks be to God.

"Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic presidential candidate) John Kerry, Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands. Any (presidential) mandate which does not play havoc with our security would automatically ensure its own security."