War Crimes

UPDATE: As expected,  charges were handed down to the defendants for 11 of the 14 counts today. BBC has more here.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) is expected to hand down its first convictions for war crimes today. Three former militia leaders are to be convicted on a 14-count indictment for crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law. The SCSL was established jointly by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations to try those responsible for grave atrocities committed during the decade long civil conflict there. It is the first such joint tribunal established and the first where the accused sit where the crimes occurred.

Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara, and Santige Borbor Kanu face 14 charges of war crimes, including extermination of civilians, enslavement, use of child soldiers, and sexual slavery. Among the charges include the alleged use of dismemberment as an outrage to personal dignity. The three men were former commanders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which staged a coup in 1997 and later joined with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to gain control over Sierra Leone’s diamond trade.

According to the indictment, “captured woman and girls were raped … AFRC/RUF also physically mutilated men, woman and children, including carving ‘AFRC’ and ‘RUF’ on their bodies.”

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who allegedly backed the rebel groups, has also been implicated for war crimes. He is facing special prosecution at The Hague due to fears of uprising during his trial if it were to occur in Freetown.

It is estimated that 50,000 were killed in the conflict in Sierra Leone.

Commentary: This is a model system of international reconciliation regimes. The Special Court sits in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, and includes judges appointed by the United Nations, Sierra Leone, and the United States. The court also holds all members in custody, except Charles Taylor and those who have died prior to judgment by the court. The Khmer Rouge system is similar to the Special Court, however, the Khmer Rouge system is accused of being tainted by those sympathetic to the convicted.

BBC/Reuters

TODAY IS THE 100TH DAY SINCE BBC JOURNALIST ALAN JOHNSTON WAS CAPTURED IN GAZA. PLEASE SEE ‘A CAUSE’ ON THE RIGHT.

The 2^nd U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday heard a class action claim against 37 producers and suppliers of the chemical herbicide, dioxin, which was used as a component in the defoliant, Agent Orange. Agent Orange, so named for the markings on its shipping containers, was used as a defoliant to destroy cover by communist forces during the Vietnam War. According to the class action suit, the herbicide had caused dioxin poisoning that later manifested itself as cancer, deformities, and organ dysfunction in some 3-million cases. The case cites the ability of the U.S. president to order the use of chemical agents during war; however, the U.S. has sovereign immunity in this case.

The U.S. dropped roughly 18-million gallons of Agent Orange on Vietnamese forests between 1962 and 1971. Lawyers for the plaintiff allege that the chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, knew the harmful effects of dioxin, but did nothing to prevent its use on humans during warfare. Previous cases regarding the chemical manufacturers of the agent Zyklon B – used in Nazi death camps – resulted in convictions for war crimes. But the judges in this case noted that the harmful effects of dioxin were not revealed later and that, unlike Zyklon B, Agent Orange was not deliberately used to cause harm in violation of international law. The ruling in this case will affect diplomatic efforts considering the use of depleted uranium munitions, which the World Health Organization has linked to cancer.

Many pesticides and herbicides have been linked to cancer and other health effects. The international community hailed the emergence of DDT in an anti-malarial campaign, but it was later linked to breast cancer and other deteriorating diseases.

Prosecutors at The Hague Appeals Court have prosecuted the Dutch businessman, Frans van Anraat for war crimes for supplying the dual-use materials, including herbicides and pesticides, converted to chemical weapons used by Iraq during the 1980-1989 war with Iran.

BBC/AP/Reuters

A Croatian district court today opened the trial of two suspected war criminals in the first case transferred from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to a domestic court system. Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi, two Croation army generals, face war crimes charges for atrocities allegedly committed during a land seizure campaign in 1991. Norac is already serving a 12-year sentence for war crimes and Ademi voluntarily surrendered to the tribunal in 2001. Both men are pleading not guilty in the case.

The charges for the men include the killing of 28 civilians and 5 civilians. Allegations detail the murder of an 84-year-old blind villager and the death of a 31-year-old retarded man who was dragged behind an automobile before Croatian troops burned him alive. The two former generals are charged with failing to prevent atrocities and for ordering the “indiscriminate shelling” of Serbian villages in the area known as the Medak Pocket.

The two are the highest ranking Croatian officers being tried for war crimes against the Serbian population. The former generals face 20-year sentences if convicted. The trial is expected to last about a year.

AP

BBC: Montenegro has arrested a former Serbian security chief accused by the UN war crimes tribunal of ordering the killing of Kosovo Albanians. Vlastimir Djordjevic is due to be transferred to The Hague where he is one of four Serbian generals accused of crimes in the breakaway province.

The arrest may mark another step by Serbia towards better ties with the EU.

Earlier in June, Belgrade helped arrest Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Zdravko Tolimir, who is now at The Hague.

Vlastimir Djordjevic is due to be transferred to The Hague where he is one of four Serbian generals accused of crimes in the breakaway province.

The arrest may mark another step by Serbia towards better ties with the EU.

Earlier in June, Belgrade helped arrest Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Zdravko Tolimir, who is now at The Hague.

Prediction: Mladic & Karadzic will be captured by September

Former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim died yesterday of heart failure.  Waldheim served at the head of the world body from 1972-1981 and later held the largely ceremonial presidency of Austria from 1986-1992.  His tenure was tarnished by his service in German high command during World War II.  In response, the U.S. Justice Department placed him in an immigration watch list, preventing him from entering the country.  He was 88. 

During his presidential term in Austria, documents surfaced showing Waldheim had served in the Nazi Brownshirts, a paramilitary force, prior to World War II.  He had later served under General Alexander Lohr, who was executed for war crimes in 1947.  Further allegations surfaced showing Waldheim took part in a German raid on Yugoslavia – Operation Kozara – where thousands of civilians were killed as part of a “cleansing” campaign.  Documents came to light in the mid 1980’s that in 1948 the U.N. War Crimes Commission reached a secret finding stating there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Waldheim for “murder” and “putting hostages to death.”

Waldheim’s term at the U.N. was viewed with contempt by most of the world powers.  American diplomats saw him as largely uncooperative due to his penchant to avoid controversy.  Waldheim had led a U.N. diplomatic mission to Iran to moderate the American hostage crisis there in 1979.  He, and his U.N. team, fled the country in face of violent protests by Iranians.

Waldheim had stated that intelligence agencies of world powers were aware of his involvement in Hitler’s regime. Though he made no mounted efforts to clear his name, there has been no evidence suggesting that he had directly participated in war crimes.

Washington Post/AP/Reuters

In September 2003, British soldiers raided a hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra during operations there. They had detained several Iraqi citizens, including Baha Musa, a receptionist at the hotel whom British soldiers had suspected being an insurgent. Musa was detained with several other Iraqi’s, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions, and beaten over a 36 hour period. He died later from injuries suffered during his detention, including broken ribs, a broken nose, and 93 other injuries. During the hotel raid, five Iraqi civilians were executed by members of British armed forces. Relatives of the Iraqi’s had appealed allegations that UK human rights laws did not apply in their cases.

The executions, as well as the death of Musa, occurred while Britain was an occupying power under international law. The House of Lords yesterday ruled 4-1 that UK human rights law did indeed apply to Musa’s case because he was in British custody at the time of his death. The government had appealed, stating that neither Britain’s Human Rights Act, nor the European Convention on Human Rights applied because British forces were operating in a foreign country during war time. Britain had also dropped a 1972 ban on interrogation techniques, including hooding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation. The House of Lords, however, ruled that prisoners held in British custody are protected by European human rights laws.

Human rights groups hailed the decision. The ruling holds the human rights laws were applicable to any detainee in British custody in any facility in the world. Shami Chakrabati, director of the civil rights group Liberty, stated that “There could now never be a British Guantanamo … The British will never be able to build a prison anywhere in the world and say it is a legal black hole.” In contrast, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 2006 stating that alleged militants held in the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were afforded no constitutional rights. The U.S. attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, also stated that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those in U.S. custody from current conflicts.

The British army officer, Cpl Donald Payne, plead guilty to inhumane treatment of civilian detainees, including Musa. Cpl Payne was detained for a year and dismissed from the army. His is the first Brit convicted for war crimes.

Commentary; It seems more and more that the European Union and its members are evolving to the more socially responsible entity in the international arena. EU membership is being used as a carrot to detain Kosovo suspects, address Turkish human rights issues, and its members are increasingly involved in UN peace keeping forces. This move by the House of Lords seems to be a further segregation of European conduct and American conduct regarding the laws of war.

BBC/AP/Reuters.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as “Chemical Ali”, is expected to be sentenced to death by hanging on June 24, according to the Iraqi high tribunal. Majid is on trial with five other defendants – including several former military intelligence officers and the deputy director of operations for the Iraqi Armed Forces – for atrocities committed during the al-Anfal campaign against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which prosecutors say resulted in the deaths of 180,000 people. The al-Anfal campaign was launched near the end of the Iran-Iraq war to squelch opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime from Kurdish rebels.

Kurds make up roughly 20 percent of the population of Iraq. They have long sought justice for the campaign in which Majid directed the use of nerve agents and mustard gas against rebels in the semi-autonomous northern region.

The al-Anfal campaign was an eight staged assault against the Kurdish rebels. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, men and teenage boys considered to be of the age of military conscription were systematically processed and executed. In statements before the court last year, Majid acknowledged that he ordered poison gas attacks and the destruction of Kurdish villages, saying they were “full of Iranian agents.” Defendants claim Kurdish targets were guerilla’s sympathetic to Iran towards the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the defendants because “they did not have mercy on elderly people or women or children.” Majid faces convictions for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Charges against Saddam Hussein regarding the al-Anfal campaign were dropped when he was executed in December for the killing of 148 Shi’ites in the town of Dujail.

Commentary: al-Majid was one of the most brutal of the former Ba’athist regime and the wide use of chemical agents by his order is widely known. However, after the execution of Saddam Hussein last winter, and several other botched executions – and the subsequent exploitation of the footage – makes the high tribunal smack of victors justice. An international reconciliation tribunal would lend to any shred of legitimacy remaining in the Iraq campaign. With even Rwanda eliminating the death penalty, it seems justice is being supplanted with revenge.

BBC/Reuters/AP

The former president of the Serbian breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina, Milan Martic, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  Martic was found guilty on 16 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war.  Judges dropped one count of “extermination”, or genocide, because the number of casualties did not warrant the charge.  Initially charged in 1995, Martic spent seven years on the run before surrendering to the tribunal in 2002. 

The judgment refers to the breakaway republic as a joint criminal enterprise established in coordination with Slobodan Milosevic to establish a unified Serbian state through ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs, Croats and Muslims during the early 1990’s.  It established that he acted as the Interior Minister and had, as the president, controlled the armed forces and was therefore entrusted to prevent atrocities.  Instead, the judgment says, he “promoted an atmosphere” of ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs and other ethnic minorities.  The indictment also details the bombing of the Croatian capital city of Zagreb in early 1995.  The prosecution played radio broadcasts of Martic revealing he had “personally” ordered the shelling of the city, killing 7 and wounding over 200.  The court had established that the majority of those killed under Martic’s leadership were “elderly, persons held in detention and civilians”.  The indictment continued; “The special vulnerability of these groups of victims adds to the gravity of the crimes.”

The establishment of the Serbian republic was pursued by deporting non-Serbs from parts of Croatia and Bosnia.  Martic was appointed president of the self-proclaimed republic in 1994.  Special forces under his command has systematically razed and looted property to ensure displaced persons would have nothing to return to.  In some Croatian villages, inhabitants were forced from their homes and used as human shields by Serbian forces.

The ICTY has completed the proceedings of 106 out of 161 persons prosecuted by the court since its first hearing in 1994.

Commentary:  It is interesting to note that the judgment continually refers to the breakaway Serbian republic as a “joint criminal enterprise” in its proceedings.  The international protection of such designees could be extrapolated to transnational criminal enterprises, of which al Qa’ida is one.  It would be interesting to see how an international tribunal would deal with the Guantanamo cases, or cases such as yesterday’s ruling in al Mari.  With the consistency of the Bush administration’s roadblocks in the US court system, perhaps and internationally legitimate system, such as the ICTY, should be entertained.

AP/Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush cannot order the military to seize and indefinitely detain a Qatari national and suspected al Qaeda operative, the only person being held in the United States as an “enemy combatant,” an appeals court ruled on Monday.

In a major setback for Bush’s policies in the war on terrorism adopted after the September 11 attacks, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 the U.S. government had no evidence to treat Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as an “enemy combatant.” The court ordered him released from military custody.

The Bush administration has not had a successful experience with the civilian court system in dealing with suspected terrorist operatives in US custody. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled the presidentially mandated tribunals at Guantanamo Bay illegal; the Bush administration did not enjoy its experience with Zacarius Moussaoui in the civilian court system, it was forced to lessen a possible death sentence for an Australian national to 9-months, and it recently had two cases thrown out on jurisdictional grounds at Guantanamo Bay, one of them Hamdan himself, who is alleged to have been UBL’s personal body guard.

A majority of the Rwandan parliament voted to abolish the death penalty there last Friday. The move will eliminate obstacles regarding the extradition of war crimes suspects back to Rwanda to face prosecution. Many countries will not execute extradition treaties with countries that practice capital punishment. The new legislation is somewhat controversial, however. Some of the survivors of the genocide there have expressed strong opposition to the abolishment. The survivors have noted that the death penalty existed in Rwanda before the genocide there in 1994, but it did not “deter people from picking up machetes to slaughter their fellows.” Officials, however, have noted the death penalty is an obstacle to justice. The new legislation will allow fugitives to be transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Rwandan officials have expressed frustration over the ICTR process and want suspects transferred to face to face trial at home. The law has yet to be approved by the senate.

The African Union (AU) contingent in Darfur is calling for cooperation between peacekeepers and rebel groups associated with the Sudanese government. Darfur’s rebel groups are blamed for the rape of one French humanitarian aid worker and other hindrances, including an ambush that killed five AU peacekeepers in April. AU chief of mission, Monique Mukaruliza, said the rebel groups activities had “paralyzed AU activities.” The Sudan Liberation Movement, or SLM, has been implicated in the murder of an Egyptian peacekeeper; the first such incident since international amendments to AU forces began. UN officials, as well as the SLM chief of staff, have not confirmed the allegations, however.

In related news, Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, has tone downed his opposition to the deployment of international military personnel on its border with Sudan. Chad has previously demanded that only police, not soldiers, be deployed in its territory. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner – who co-founded Medecins Sans Frontieres – has called for a humanitarian aid corridor through Chad, though the proposal has been rejected by Chadian officials.

BBC/AP/Reuters