Iraq: US and UK forces must deal with situation of lawlessness USA: Call for Inquiry into possible excessive force against anti-war protesters; WHO Health Briefing on Iraq U.S. Use of Clusters in Baghdad Condemned

U.S. Use of Clusters in Baghdad Condemned

(New York, April 16, 2003) – The U.S. Central Command should respond
publicly to evidence that U.S. forces used cluster munitions in a
populated area of Baghdad, Human Rights Watch urged today.

According to a report in yesterday’s Newsday, a Central Command
spokeswoman has anonymously confirmed that U.S. forces have hit urban
areas of Baghdad with cluster munitions, stating that they were aimed at
Iraqi artillery and missile systems located inside the city.

“U.S. commanders should never use cluster munitions in populated areas,”
said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “These are
wholly inappropriate weapons when civilians are around. The reported use
of cluster munitions in Baghdad is a serious charge and the Pentagon
must respond publicly to it.”

Newsday’s reporter provided Human Rights Watch with a photograph he had
taken inside a building in what he described as a clearly residential
neighborhood well inside Baghdad. Human Rights Watch identified an
unexploded cluster submunition in the photograph from either a
ground-based Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or an artillery
projectile. The damage to the surrounding walls and floor were also
consistent with a cluster munition strike. Human Rights Watch has
previously reported that, according to The Pentagon’s own data, these
particular submunitions have an especially high failure rate.

Human Rights Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions in
populated areas may violate the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks
contained in international humanitarian law. Despite the utility of
cluster munitions in achieving certain military objectives, the wide
dispersal pattern of their submunitions makes it very difficult to avoid
civilians if they are in the area. Moreover, because of their high
failure rate, cluster munitions leave large numbers of hazardous,
explosive duds to terrorize civilians even after the attack is over.

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps may be taking less care to avoid civilian
casualties with surface-delivered cluster munitions than the U.S. Air
Force with air-delivered cluster munitions, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. Air Force’s
use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war and the 2001-2002
Afghanistan war. In Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force used cluster bombs
substantially less often in populated areas than they had in Yugoslavia,
and therefore caused far fewer civilian deaths with cluster bombs.

“It seemed that after Yugoslavia, U.S. commanders learned that cluster
munitions cannot be safely used in populated areas,” said Roth. “The use
of cluster munitions inside Baghdad represents a disturbing step
backwards – with deadly consequences.”

It is not yet known if there were civilian casualties at the time of the
strike, but Newsday reported on several deaths and injuries to children
and others who encountered the explosive duds left by the cluster
munitions which failed to detonate on initial impact as designed. The
duds function as de facto antipersonnel landmines.

This is the first confirmed instance of U.S. use of cluster munitions in
Baghdad or other highly populated areas. There have been many
unconfirmed allegations of use of both air-dropped and surface-delivered
cluster munitions in urban areas by the United States and the United
Kingdom. Most notably, some press accounts attributed the deaths of
scores of civilians near the village of Hilla in central Iraq on April 1
to U.S. cluster bombs, but the facts have not been established.

In light of its admission of use of cluster munitions, and the already
documented deaths and injuries to children and other non-combatants,
Human Rights Watch called on the United States to take responsibility
with the utmost urgency for assuring:
· the provision of warnings and risk education to the civilian
population;
· the clear demarcation of affected areas in order to effectively
exclude civilians;
· the rapid clearance of dangerous cluster munition duds.

“The Pentagon is crowing about the Air Force sparing civilians by using
only precision weapons in Baghdad,” said Roth. “But that’s a meaningless
achievement if the Army then comes along and indiscriminately batters
civilian neighborhoods with cluster munitions.”

 

Iraq: Killings, Expulsions on the Rise in Kirkuk
U.S. Not Fulfilling Duties of “Occupying Power”

(Arbil, April 15, 2003) – Dozens of civilians have been killed in the
northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk since April 10, and looting and forced
expulsions are continuing, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch said that U.S. and coalition forces have failed to
bring law and order to Kirkuk and ensure the security of civilians, and
therefore contravene the Geneva Convention provisions specifying the
obligations of an occupying power.

Widespread looting and destruction of property are affecting all ethnic
groups in the city, while the situation outside of Kirkuk appears even
more precarious, Human Rights Watch said. A Human Rights Watch team
documented the expulsion of Arabs living in villages south of Kirkuk, on
the basis of what one official said were policy decisions by the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

“Kirkuk right now is a tinderbox,” said Hania Mufti, London director of
the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “U.S.
troops must stop the violence. And PUK leaders should take immediate
steps to halt any expulsions of Iraqi Arabs from their homes.”

Human Rights Watch said that the U.S. and interim Iraqi authorities,
including Kurdish representatives, should take steps to establish as
soon as possible a mechanism to settle claims over disputed property and
other assets.

Human Rights Watch researchers spent four days in Kirkuk following the
withdrawal of Iraqi forces from the city on April 10, documenting
civilian deaths, forced expulsions, and other abuses committed by all
ethnic groups. The researchers interviewed Arab families forcibly
expelled from their homes, eyewitnesses to reprisal killings, and
Kurdish and Turkoman officials. The researchers also examined hospital
and morgue records.

Killings of Civilians
Since April 10, at least 40 civilians have been killed in the city. Many
of them appear to have died as a result of clashes between armed
civilians and Ba’ath Party officials. According to forensic records, at
least two died from close range single gunshot wounds to the head, and a
third, whose hands were bound, bore lesions on the neck consistent with
hanging.

Forced Expulsions
On April 13, Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed Arabs from the
al-Shummar tribe who had fled four villages south of Kirkuk soon after
Kurdish forces had taken control of the area. Some of the villagers said
a local Kurdish official had given them written notification to leave
their homes within three days.

Soon thereafter, nearly 2,000 residents from the villages of
al-Muntasir, Khalid, al-Wahda and Umar Ibn al-Khattab took refuge in
tents and homes of fellow tribal members in the village of Sa’ad bin Abi
Waqqas and its vicinity. Several of the displaced said they had been
forced from their homes at gunpoint, while their possessions, including
cars, tractors, and household goods, were taken away. “They would have
killed us if we hadn’t left,” an elderly woman said.

Human Rights Watch investigators found the village of al-Muntasir
abandoned and ransacked. The doors of several homes in the village had
been spray-painted with the names of Kurds to whom the Kurdish
authorities had evidently given permission to eventually occupy the
homes. When Human Rights Watch questioned a PUK official in the nearby
town of Daqouq about the expulsions, he said they had been carried out
on the basis of a policy decision taken by the PUK’s Political Bureau.

This policy, according to the official, stated that all persons who had
been resettled from their original homes to other parts to the country
by the Iraqi government in the past should return to these homes. This
policy, the PUK official said, “has been approved by U.S. and coalition
forces.” No independent confirmation or denial of these forces’
approval was immediately available.

While senior PUK officials in Arbil told Human Rights Watch researchers
that they had given assurances to representatives of the al-Shummar
tribe that they need not vacate their homes, this does not appear to
have been implemented on the ground.

Human Rights Watch said that the United States, as the occupying power,
has a responsibility to act to prevent human rights abuses. According to
international law, an occupying power has a duty to restore and ensure
public order in the territory under its authority. Under the 1949 Geneva
Conventions (Fourth Geneva Convention article 6), the duty attaches as
soon as the occupying force exercises control or authority over
civilians of that territory.

Military commanders must prevent and where necessary suppress serious
violations involving the local population under their control or subject
to their authority. The occupying force is responsible for protecting
the population from violence by third parties, such as newly formed
armed groups or forces of the former regime. Ensuring local security
includes protecting persons, including minority groups and former
government officials, from reprisals and revenge attacks.

Background
In 1973, as part of the Iraqi government’s policy to permanently settle
Arab nomadic tribes from central and southern Iraq, families from the
al-Shummar tribe were resettled in the al-Iskan area, some 28 kms south
of Kirkuk city. They were given homes as well as agricultural land that
belonged to forcibly displaced Kurds. A small number of families had
settled there following the 1991 Gulf war. They had been living in
Kuwait and were part of that country’s bidun community, to whom the
Kuwaiti government had denied nationality. Some of these families fled
to Iraq prior to the war, and the Kuwaiti government later refused to
re-admit them after the cessation of hostilities.

In 1975, following the collapse of the Kurdish revolt led by Mulla
Mustafa Barzani, the Iraqi government embarked on an extensive
“Arabization” program of the northern Kurdish provinces, expelling tens
of thousands of Kurds, Turkomans and Assyrians from their homes and
replacing them with Arab families from southern Iraq. At least 120,000
people belonging to these ethnic minorities were expelled since 1991,
most of them Kurds. For a detailed report on the expulsion of ethnic
minorities from the Kirkuk region, please visit
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/

 

Iraq: Coalition Forces Must Stop Iraqi Looting

(New York, April 12, 2003) -- U.S. and British forces in Iraq must act
more decisively to enforce public order in areas under their authority,
Human Rights Watch urged today.

International law requires that occupying powers must ensure the safety
of the civilian population in areas under their control.

Looters in Baghdad have ransacked hospitals and medical facilities,
endangering the health of the local population. In some areas, armed
clashes between property owners and looters have broken out. Isolated
reports of vengeance killings have begun to emerge as Iraqi civilians
and uncontrolled armed groups begin searching for suspected supporters
of Saddam Hussein.

During the brief 1991 uprisings in Iraq, vengeance killings took the
lives of thousands of people who were suspected of links to the
government of Saddam Hussein. Many were innocent civilians.

Some U.S. government officials have seemed unaware of their obligations
under international law to act promptly to prevent looting and other
disturbances.

“Coalition forces have to stop the lawlessness now,” said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Restoring public order is an
urgent matter and it has to be a top priority if serious harm to
civilians is going to be avoided.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday, “While no one
condones looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pentup
feelings that may result from decades of repression and people who have
had members of their family killed by that regime, for them to be taking
their feelings out on that regime.” Secretary Rumsfeld has also said the
U.S. forces will patrol Iraqi cities to prevent lawlessness, but reports
from the field suggest that coalition forces are not doing enough to
prevent disturbances.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said on April 10 that “Looting is a
problem, but it is not a major threat. People are not being killed in
looting. So that’s something we have to do as we have the time and
capability to do it.”

Under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, an occupying
power has a duty to restore and ensure public order and safety in the
territory under its authority. Military commanders on the spot must
prevent and where necessary suppress serious violations involving the
local population. Ensuring local security includes protecting people
from reprisals and revenge attacks, such as those directed against
members of minority populations or government officials. This may
require that occupying forces be deployed to secure public order until
the time police personnel, whether local or international, can be
mobilized for such responsibilities.

“This lawlessness is something for which the coalition forces should
have been prepared,” Roth said.

An occupying power also has a duty under international law to ensure
food and medical services to the population “to the fullest extent of
the means available to it.” Medical personnel, including recognized Red
Cross/Red Crescent societies, should be allowed to carry out their
duties. Should any part of the population of an occupied territory be
inadequately supplied, the occupying power is obligated to facilitate
relief by humanitarian agencies. However, the provision of assistance
by humanitarian agencies does not relieve the occupying force of its
responsibilities to meet the needs of the population.