Group urges alliance to acknowledge casualties and compensate victims
At least 72 civilians, a third of them under the age of 18, were killed by NATO airstrikes, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch — one of the most extensive investigations into the issue. The New York-based advocacy group called on the Western alliance to acknowledge the casualties and compensate survivors.
The decision by the United States and its NATO allies to launch an air campaign that mainly targeted regime forces and military infrastructure marked a turning point in Libya's civil war, giving rebels a fighting chance. But Gadhafi's government and allies in Russia and China criticized the alliance for going beyond its UN mandate to protect civilians.
The number of Libyans killed or injured in airstrikes also emerged as a key issue in the war as Gadhafi's regime frequently exaggerated figures and NATO refused to comment on most claims, insisting all targets were military.
At one point, Libya's Health Ministry said 856 civilians had been killed in NATO's campaign, which began in March 2011, weeks after the uprising against Gadhafi that erupted with peaceful protests evolved into a civil war.
'NATO did everything possible to minimize risks to civilians, but in a complex military campaign, that risk can never be zero.'
—Oana Lungescu, NATO spokesman
The UN-appointed International Commission of Inquiry on Libya said earlier this year that at least 60 civilians had been unintentionally killed and recommended further investigation.
Based on field research conducted in Libya from August 2011 through this April, Human Rights Watch established that 28 men, 20 women and 24 children — 72 civilians in all — had been killed in eight NATO bombings in Tripoli, Zlitan, Sorman, Bani Walid, Gurdabiya and Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte.
The advocacy group noted the figure was relatively low considering the extent of the seven-month campaign, which the alliance has said included 9,600 strike missions and destroyed about 5,900 military targets. It ended after Gadhafi's death in late October.
No examination of strikes on civilians
But the group said it had documented several cases in which there clearly was no military target and criticized NATO for failing to acknowledge the deaths or to examine how and why they occurred.
In Brussels, NATO expressed regret for any civilian casualties but said it had
carried out the bombing campaign with "unprecedented care and precision" and had fulfilled the requirements of international humanitarian law.
"NATO did everything possible to minimize risks to civilians, but in a complex military campaign, that risk can never be zero," spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Monday. "We have reviewed all the information we hold as an organization and confirmed that the specific targets struck by NATO were legitimate military targets."
The alliance did not have troops on the ground during or after the conflict who could have independently checked the results of its airstrikes.
HRW recommended that NATO make public information about the intended military targets in cases where civilians were wounded or killed and provide "prompt and appropriate compensation" to families who suffered from the attacks.
Mohammed al-Gherari lost five family members, including a young niece and nephew, when NATO accidentally struck their compound in the Libyan capital as they slept.
A hospital worker helps an injured man who Libyan government officials say was injured by NATO air strikes in August 2011, in the village of Majer. Libyan officials said dozens of civilians had been killed in the NATO strike on a cluster of farmhouses east of Tripoli, but the alliance said it hit a legitimate military target. (Ismail Zitouny/Reuters)
Nearly a year later, his grief is compounded by threats and allegations from neighbours who believe he and others who survived the attack were harbouring a regime loyalist or hiding weapons for Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
The strike against al-Gherari's compound on June 19, 2011, was a rare case in which the Brussels-based alliance admitted at the time that it had made a mistake.
The Libyan government rushed a group of foreign journalists based in Tripoli to the site, eager to use the deaths as propaganda against the West. Children's toys, teacups and dust-covered mattresses could be seen amid the rubble, and journalists were shown the bodies of at least four people said to have been killed in the strike, including the two young children.
Al-Gherari said government officials disappeared shortly after the fanfare ended and the family received no compensation or financial assistance from either side. Meanwhile the NATO statement, which did not provide details, failed to satisfy neighbours.
"I want NATO to present a full explanation that the reason was a mistake because we're still facing accusations that Gadhafi or a higher regime figure was there and that's why our house was targeted," al-Gherari said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He said five people were killed, including his two-year-old nephew and a seven-month-old niece.
Lungescu, the NATO spokeswoman, said the June 19 strike targeted a missile site in Tripoli but that one weapon malfunctioned and NATO was unable to determine where it landed. "A review concluded it was possible that the failed weapon may have hit the house of the al-Gherari family, which was not the intended target," she said.
Deadliest attack in Majer
Human Rights Watch said it visited the site in the Souk el-Juma neighbourhood in August and December and "did not see any evidence of military activity such as weapons, ammunition or communications equipment." It also said satellite imagery showed no signs of military activity at the home.
The deadliest attack recorded by the rights group was in the rural village of Majer, south of the former rebel stronghold of Zlitan.
The first bomb hit a large, two-storey house owned by Ali Hamid Gafez, a 61-year-old farmer. It was crowded with people who had fled the fighting in nearby areas. That was followed by three more bombs, leaving a total of 34 people dead, including many who had rushed to the site to help after the earlier explosions.
Human Rights Watch said it visited the area the day after the Aug. 8, 2011, strikes and found no evidence of military activity, although it did find one military-style shirt in the rubble.
"I'm wondering why they did this, why just our houses," one of the residents, Muammar al-Jarud, was quoted as saying in the report. "We'd accept it if we had tanks or military vehicles around, but we were completely civilians and you can't just hit civilians."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/05/14/human-rights-watch-libya-report.html
Wow, what a low number!
Impper posted:the 72 dead was for 8 total observed bombings lol
hahaha
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/world/africa/scores-of-unintended-casualties-in-nato-war-in-libya.html
“We have carried out this operation very carefully, without confirmed civilian casualties,” the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in November.
Kristele Younes, director of field operations for Civic, the victims’ group, examined the site and delivered her findings to NATO. She met a cold response. ‘They said, ‘We have no confirmed reports of civilian casualties,” Ms. Younes said.
The reason, she said, was that the alliance had created its own definition for ‘confirmed’: Only a death that NATO itself investigated and corroborated could be called confirmed. But because the alliance declined to investigate allegations, its casualty tally by definition could not budge–from zero.
“The position was absurd,” Ms. Younes said. “But they made it very clear: there was no appetite within NATO to look at these incidents.”
Jerthebear posted:its okay to give vague answers like that cus hey! better to seem stupid than seem like a liar! I mean I'm pretty sure when obama is asked about how many civilians have been killed by drones in Pakistan he's still saying "I don't know, like 4?"
from 2002:
MarcHerold posted:The 'liberal' darling of the State Department establishment, William Arkin, will soon be heading for Afghanistan, leading a Human Rights Watch team gathering data on civilian casualties of U.S bombing. He is the same person who produced the Human Rights Report on U.S bombing of Yugoslavia, which estimated the 78 day bombing campaign had resulted in a mere 500 civilian deaths. Numerous other accounts including estimates by Fred Kaplan, Michael Parenti, etc. and even the NATO's own internal review, cited figures of 1'200 - 2'000- deaths. We can fully expect that Arkin's Afghanistan report will, once again, present one-third of the truth, and be wholeheartedly embraced by the mainstream corporate media and the Washington establishment.
Mainstream sources are already anticipating the 'true' Afghan body count which will be assembled during March 2002, after a team from the New York-based Human Rights Watch visits Afghanistan. But, that report augers to present a gross underestimate of the actual civilians killed in Afghanistan, if the past HRW documents on the Iranian and Yugoslav conflicts and the October 22/23rd midnight bombing of the small farming village, Chowkar-Karez, are any indication.
A reasonable question is: who are the people behind Human Rights Watch? How does the organization fit into the foreign policy establishment? George Soros, international financier, is the main financial backer and the board contains many persons linked to Soros institutions. Stephen Gowan of the Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalisation. presents an interesting assessment:"And what of New York-based Human Rights Watch? Is it part of Washington's propaganda machine, part of its plan to prevent the public from rethinking its support for the war?
You wouldn't think so, at first. Didn't Human Rights Watch document the deaths of 500 Yugoslav civilians, and chastise NATO for not taking sufficient care in its bombing of Yugoslavia? And didn't the group establish that there were between 25 and maybe as many as 35 civilians killed by US warplanes at Chowkar-Karez?
Yes, it did. But its estimate of the number of civilians killed in Yugoslavia (500) was on the low side of other estimates, even less than NATO's own initial estimate. And Human Rights Watch never accused NATO of war crimes, not even for the bombing of Serb Radio-TV.
The group's finding that between 25 and 35 civilians were killed at Chowkar-Karez is consistent with its estimates of casualties in the 1999 NATO air war against Yugoslavia -- both contradict the other side's estimates and therefore corroborate the Washington line that the number of civilian casualties is being exaggerated. The Pentagon never denies that civilian casualties have occurred. Instead, it argues that the true number is inflated (although how it could know since it doesn't have soldiers on the ground is a question the media steers clear of), making the case that the enemy has an interest in inflating the numbers, which, of course, it does (just as the Pentagon has an interest in minimizing them.)
Human Rights Watch, presenting itself as an impartial observer, corroborates the charge by producing lower estimates than the enemy government does, and thereby underscores Washington's claim that the enemy is exaggerating for propaganda purposes. The result is that attention is deflected from more pertinent matters: there are civilian casualties; the reasons for inflicting harm on civilians are entirely bogus; the civilian casualties may not be unintended at all. So it is that Human Rights Watch will grant that there were civilian casualties at Chowkar-Karez, making the point that there are fewer casualties than the Taliban says, without addressing the issue of whether US warplanes committed a war crime by deliberately attacking the civilians? Absurdly, the question becomes, were there 35 killed or 100? as if 35 is all right.
Who is Human Rights Watch, anyway? Take a look at the organization's web site and it becomes immediately clear that this isn't a group of financially struggling human rights advocates, camped out in a low-rent office in some crummy part of town, proudly maintaining its independence from government and corporate elites. On the contrary, it's well-funded, and it's well-connected. Its links snake through the foreign policy establishment of the United States, through the State Department, and through the government's propaganda arm, Radio Free Europe."William Arkin, Human Rights Watch chief investigator for its report on NATO's the Kosovo air campaign, spent two weeks in former Yugoslavia rushing around in a car, visiting 250 of the documented 900 targets, admittedly a mere sample of the total universe. Small wonder that the corporate media and Western government agencies quickly stamped the HRW report as truth independently verified. Numerous other civilian casualty assessments came out with much higher figures. In an internal report, NATO itself estimated 1'200 - 2'000 civilians having been killed. Another report covering only the first month of the NATO air war, documented at least 1'000 civilians killed.
Andrew Gumble in an article captioned "Who is winning the War of Lies?" , lays out contrasting 'stories' about different bombing incidents---the Red Crescent clinic attack of October 31st, the Red Cross warehouse hit in Kabul on October 16th, the case of the military hospital in Herat on October 21st, and the destruction of Karam village on October 11th. He mentions the attack upon Chowkar-Karez.
A chronology of important markers of the Chowkar-Karez attack follows:
• October 22/23 : night of the attack, picked up by the international media on October 24th ;
• October 25th : the Pentagon claims ignorance of civilian casualties in the attack;
• October 26th : the Pentagon admits that an AC-130 gun ship fired on the village because it was a legitimate target, adding later that "the people are dead because we wanted them dead." If fleeing unarmed civilians sympathize with the Taliban, we will kill them.;
• October 30th : HRW releases a brief report based upon interviews with 6 wounded survivors in a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan;
• November 2nd : the mainstream U.S press picks up the story, with articles in the New York Times on page B3 and in the Washington Post on page 21 ;
• November 3rd : the Canadian press---the Toronto Globe & Mail---publishes an article on the Chowkar incident.
Whereas the foreign presses --- of Britain and Pakistan, Qatar and India but also the Agence France-Presse --- had been running stories on the bombing of Chowkar-Karez, the North American press remained mute, up until a western organization mentioned the bombing. When mention was finally made, the figures of casualties cited were exactly those of HRW on the basis of its limited interviewing six victims outside of Afghanistan.
A pattern is revealed: HRW in both the Chowkar-Karez and the Yugoslav instances, reports figures which are about one-third those from other reputable sources. In the case of Yugoslavia, HRW counted ~500 civilian casualties whereas others mentioned 1'200-1'500. Fred Kaplan, a staff writer for The Boston Globe, put the death toll in Yugoslavia at 1'200. In the Chowkar-Karez attack, HRW mentions 25-35, whereas others report 60-100. Recently, Human Rights Watch offered an estimate of at least 1'000 civilians killed in Afghanistan, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3rd of my estimate.
Let us examine this case more closely. Chowkar-Karez is a small farming village in the Daman district of Kandahar province, located about 40 kilometers north of the capital. The Pentagon said Chowkar was a "fully legitimate target" because it was a nest of Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers. HRW interviewed a mere 6 survivors in a hospital in Quetta and concluded that 25-35 persons had been killed in the attack, including the family of Mehmood. This figure was also reported by the DAWN newspaper in Pakistan and The Hindu in India.
The Taliban claimed 90-100 civilians died.
Reports in The Independent and DAWN cited respectively the figures of 35 and 60 deaths. The Agence France-Presse mentioned 50, which was also reported in The Oman Observer . The Al-Ahram daily put the toll at 93. Al Jazeera, and the BBC News Online reported the 93 figure. Al Jazeera reported greater detail, including photos, citing 93 deaths including 18 members of one family, and 40 other injured . Both the Hindustan Times and the Jordanian Times reported a figure of "at least 52 civilian deaths."
Villagers said several aircraft were involved in the midnight attack. The strike lasted for one hour, from 11 p.m. until midnight of the 22/23rd. An initial series of bombs pulverized the mud walls of houses and left gaping craters 15 feet deep. The planes then returned and opened fire on the terrified villagers running through the streets, which created most of the deaths . The entire family of Naseer Mohammed, including his14 year old niece, Najia, was killed by gun fire after they had run out into the open after the initial bombing. This suggests an initial strike by U.S Navy jets dropping the 500 lb Mark 82 bombs which create craters of the size noted, followed with strafing by the AC-130 gun ships. A BBC journalist reported that 40-50 houses were completely destroyed. The average size of the Afghan family is 7-8 persons and the U.S attack took place in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. A single man, Mangal, said he alone had lost 30 relatives . The HRW report likely did not count this. Witnesses told Western reporters there were no Taliban in the region.
The 'evidence' from the sources cited in the hours and days after the U.S midnight raid upon Chowkar Karez, suggest a death toll close to 90, the figure reported in the media of four nations . Just the two families of Mangal and of Mehmood give a total of 49 deaths. The 'method' employed by HRW of merely relying upon interviewing six survivors in a Quetta hospital, leads to a gross underestimate of the civilians who died……
an estimate of about one-third the likely deaths.
http://www.libyaherald.com/detained-migrants-face-harsh-conditions-legal-limbo/
“People sometimes ask us to work on their farms, and we do for a few months. But then we are taken back to the detention centre,” Hassan,* an Egyptian migrant told IRIN. “I was taken to work as an agricultural labourer for about 300 dinars a month ($240). If we go out to work, why can’t we just be released? Why do we have to come back here again to the centre?”
A Somali migrant, Abdul Mahmoud,* also said he had been taken out to work on a construction site and then brought back to the centre. Another said he had worked on a farm and was paid 200 dinars a month ($160).
“We are certainly concerned about labour exploitation, and abuse,” said Cheung. “There are some unconfirmed reports of migrants not receiving their wages, or their wages used for the upkeep of the centre. But then at times, detention centres also do release people to work and give them the chance to get regularised.”
getfiscal posted:the government of canada is planning on reducing the free viagra it gives to soldiers because the program is so popular it's become a significant cost.
countin the days til they let me join the army ~~~
littlegreenpills posted:countin the days til they let me join the army ~~~
i would join the army if they let in fat people who have been diagnosed psychotic.
getfiscal posted:littlegreenpills posted:countin the days til they let me join the army ~~~
i would join the army if they let in fat people who have been diagnosed psychotic.
*Martin Sheen walks slowly into jungle fortress, rasterbation of Joseph Stalin hangs on wall*
Edited by Goethestein ()
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:no im saying like i want posters of COOL dudes not a bunch of beardo jews. like i want a poster w/ a picture of like Murad II or Trae the Truth and Z-ro or Jaques Anquetil or something
never heard of those people, they sound unemployable.
