"Obama’s Atrocities Prevention Board: Too quiet to be effective?" | April 05, 2014
Two years ago, President Obama announced the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, an unprecedented interagency committee tasked with trying to prevent atrocities around the world and elevating human rights to the top of the list of key US foreign policy priorities. At the time, humanitarian groups praised the board’s creation as the first systematic effort to stop genocide and crimes against humanity before they are perpetrated, rather than simply punishing those crimes after the fact.
But two years later, the board’s track record has been mixed. Some positive steps have been taken. For instance, Obama ordered the CIA to produce national intelligence estimates on the risks of genocide and war crimes in various parts of the world, while the Treasury Department has stepped up sanctions on human rights abusers.
But on Syria, perhaps the most important human rights catastrophe of the day, the board has been conspicuously silent. Aside from imposing sanctions on dozens of human rights abusers in Syria, little appears to have been done. The board is said to have had more success in countries that are outside the spotlight, such as South Sudan, a potentially explosive conflict where the worst-case scenario did not unfold. But it is unclear how much the Atrocities Prevention Board has contributed to keeping a lid on the violence there, since so much of its work is done in secret. Indeed, secrecy has been its Achilles heel. Members of Congress and human rights activists, who should be its natural allies, are rarely given insight into its activities. Even the center-left think tank Center for American Progress, which often supports Obama’s initiatives, has called the board “aggressively insular.”
It is understandable that administration officials are reluctant to explain openly to human rights groups why they’re unwilling to intervene at a time when there are so few good options in Syria. But that’s not a good reason for radio silence. Other government entities, such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation, have formed successful partnerships with members of Congress, who champion their efforts and ensure adequate resources. The Atrocities Prevention Board would have greater heft and more impact on policy if it pursued a similar strategy. And while the board may have lost prominence when its chairwoman, Samantha Power, stepped down to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations, it must institutionalize itself and prove its worth if it is to survive into the next administration.
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"UN rights panel identifies war criminals in Syria" by John Heilprin | Associated Press March 19, 2014
GENEVA — Brazilian diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said the ‘‘perpetrators list’’ includes the heads of intelligence branches and detention facilities where torture occurs; military commanders who target civilians; officials overseeing airports from where barrel bomb attacks are planned and executed; and leaders of armed groups involved in attacking civilians.
His comments provided the most specific information so far about the identities of suspected criminals on the list. The panel was established by the UN’s Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in Syria and, whenever possible, to identify those responsible so that they can be prosecuted....
Syrian UN Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui told the council his government fully rejects the panel’s investigation as politicized and based on unreliable testimony. He accused the panel of bias and lack of professionalism, saying it ‘‘is unable to continue to perform its functions and should step down.’’
In December, the UN’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said a growing body of evidence points to the involvement of senior Syrian officials, including President Bashar Assad, in crimes against humanity and war crimes. But she was careful to say she hadn’t singled him out as a suspect in Syria’s conflict, now entering its fourth year, that has killed more than 140,000 people.
Pinheiro said the panel is also investigating allegations of mass graves in northern Syria where fighters with the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had ‘‘conducted mass executions of detainees.’’
He said countries are under an obligation not to supply weapons to places where they might be used to commit war crimes. ‘‘Our reports document these crimes,’’ he said. ‘‘No one can claim ignorance of what is occurring in Syria.’’
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"UN rights chief condemns ‘rampant’ torture in Syria" by Nick Cumming-Bruce | New York Times April 15, 2014
GENEVA — Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, condemned the “rampant” and “routine” use of torture by the Syrian authorities, in a paper released by her office Monday, which also records torture by some armed opposition groups and serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment of children.
“Upon arrival at a detention facility, detainees are routinely beaten and humiliated for several hours by the guards in what has come to be known as the ‘reception party,’ ” the report states, drawing on 38 interviews conducted by UN investigators over the past eight months with individuals released from detention centers across Syria.
“Our findings confirm that torture is being routinely used in government detention facilities in Syria and that torture is also used by some armed groups,” Pillay said. “In armed conflict, torture constitutes a war crime. When it is used in a systematic or widespread manner, which is almost certainly the case in Syria, it also amounts to a crime against humanity.”
When Bush and Obama come before you let me know.
Among those interviewed, a 26-year-old woman detained for more than two weeks described how security forces beat her and pulled out her teeth during interrogation sessions held every night and how, on one morning, she was tied up and raped by a security officer.
It also cites the account of a 60-year-old man who had spent three months in different detention centers and described how, every day, “cellmates were taken for 30 or 45 minutes of interrogation and came back with their faces bleeding, barely able to walk, and with open wounds that remained untreated and became infected.”
Such cases were “illustrative of a much broader pattern of torture and ill-treatment,” the paper noted.
Torture by armed opposition groups was rare in the early stages of the conflict but that as of 2013, the report said, “this phenomenon appears to be on the rise.” Two former detainees of the militant jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant cited in the paper described receiving severe beatings with electric cables, wood sticks, and rifle butts....
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Related: Russia, China block UN move to prosecute Syria war crimes
Both did? Usually one abstains. Not a good sign.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Kurd party in Syria accused of abusive acts" by Barbara Surk | Associated Press June 20, 2014
BEIRUT — An international rights group said Thursday that Kurdish authorities ruling three enclaves in northeastern Syria have committed abuses, including arbitrary arrests of political opponents, and have failed to address abductions and unresolved killings in areas under their control.
By the border, right?
Human Rights Watch said in a new 107-page report that the Kurdish Democratic Union Party also has used children in its armed wing, known as the People’s Protection Units.
Didn't I remark on that yesterday as well?
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, making up more than 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million.
They are centered in the impoverished northeastern province of Hassakeh, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq.
President Bashar Assad’s forces largely pulled out of Hassakeh in late 2012 when the Syrian military was stretched thin by fighting with rebels elsewhere in the country.
That effectively ceded control of the area. Their withdrawal sparked a fierce competition between rebels and the Kurds.
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The Kurds are an interesting component as they are not only fiercely independent, they are also a base for USraeli intelligence agencies. That's why the Kurds don't get much coverage, and when they do it's often shallow and superficial.
I wonder what they did wrong to gather attention with this report. Kurds, of all groups, understand double-crosses by the West.
