January 31, 2000

THEMATIC ISSUES

• Human Rights Defenders

We reiterate our call on the Commission on Human Rights to appoint a special rapporteur on human rights defenders. This is the indispensable next step to implement the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Events during the time since the adoption of the declaration highlight this need in a dramatic fashion. Just in the period since the conclusion of the last session of the Commission at least six human rights defenders lost their lives because of their work on behalf of human rights, and many more were imprisoned, threatened and persecuted. In several countries of the world, no independent human rights monitoring is allowed.

The special rapporteur should be mandated, inter alia, to examine whether national standards and practice conform to the Declaration and to intervene with governments in the cases of harassment or persecution of monitors.

• Violence Against Children

Children throughout the world are subject to violence that results in physical injury, psychological trauma, and even death. Street children are too often subject to arbitrary detention and abuse by police; children in correctional or other institutions may be beaten or tortured by guards or facility employees; children in refugee camps may be beaten or sexually abused; children in schools may be subjected to severe beatings by their teachers; others are victims of summary executions.

Violence against children is too often carried out with impunity. In many cases, the failure of law enforcement bodies to promptly and effectively investigate and prosecute cases of abuses allows the abuse to continue. These acts of violence are often seen as isolated incidents rather than a global phenomenon. And the unique vulnerability of children prevents them from speaking out in their own defense.

Human Rights Watch urges the Commission on Human Rights to consider the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Children whose primary responsibilities would be to monitor adherence to the standards protecting children, investigate abuses, and present recommendations to better protect children from violence and abuse. The specific issues to be examined by the Special Rapporteur include:

• abuse by police and other law enforcement authorities;
• abuse by employees in juvenile correctional facilities, orphanages or other institutions;
• corporal punishment;
• the use of the death penalty against children;
• state failure to prevent violence in the home.

To avoid overlap with the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict, the focus of the Special Rapporteur would not include violence against children in war.

• Draft Convention on "Disappearances"

At its August 1998 session, the Sub-Commission forwarded to the Commission a draft convention on the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances. The current text expands and strengthens the provisions of the U.N. Declaration on "disappearances" adopted in 1992 by the General Assembly and would constitute a valuable tool in the struggle against this grisly practice. The draft convention defines the crime of "disappearance" and declares that its widespread or systematic practice constitutes a crime against humanity. At its regular session in 1999, the Commission chose not to make substantial progress in the elaboration of this treaty.

An intersessional working group should be entrusted with the examination and adoption of a strong draft convention on "disappearances."

• The Working Group on the Enhancement of the Mechanisms of the Commission

Human Rights Watch has actively participated in the process of the review of the mechanisms of the Commission. As the Working Group is due to hold another session before the beginning of the next session of the CHR, we will follow up with a separate letter on this subject. At this moment, however, we want to signal our concern about some developments. It has become apparent that several governments, all of them with poor human rights records, have tried to use the working group as an opportunity to severely weaken the existing monitoring mechanisms. We urge member states of the Commission to make the strengthening of the mechanisms a top priority and to play a pro-active leadership role in the review process.

COUNTRY ISSUES

• China

In China, a government campaign aimed at closing down virtually every possible source of opposition, in the name of preserving "social stability," accelerated over the past year and into 2000. There has a been a clear deterioration of human rights conditions that requires a strong multilateral response. We urge the Commission on Human Rights to adopt a resolution condemning widespread violations in China and calling on the government to take prompt action to end these abuses.

Social organizations and political parties, such as "Corruption Watch" (an NGO) and the China Democracy Party, have been singled out for detentions and in some cases, severe prison sentences. Leaders of worker and peasant organizations, as well as those trying to peacefully organize workers or protesting corruption, have been arrested. The crackdown on the Falun Gong movement that began last July has resulted in widespread violations of basic rights of free expression, association and belief. At least 111 Falun Gong members, according to Chinese officials, have been formally arrested, charged with establishing an illegal organization, organizing illegal gatherings, and using the Internet to promote Falun Gong's message. Many other Falun Gong followers have been sentenced administratively. We are also deeply concerned about serious abuses in Tibet, including beatings, torture and government interference with Buddhist religious activities, as well as the impact of draconian measures imposed against alleged terrorists in Xinjiang such as increasing executions and lengthy prison terms for suspected splittists. The arbitrary detention and then formal arrest of a respected Chinese scholar late last year, combined with tighter official supervision of the publishing and print media and the Internet, have raised serious concerns about freedom of expression.

• Chechnya

Human Rights Watch researchers in the northern Caucasus have interviewed hundreds of civilians fleeing Chechnya since October 1999. Our findings confirm that Russia's military campaign continues to take a horrible toll on civilians. Russian forces have bombed and shelled dozens of towns and villages still inhabited by civilians, actions that have killed and maimed untold numbers of people and shown contempt for international humanitarian law. Soldiers in Russian-controlled areas of Chechnya apparently have carte blanche to strip homes of household goods and valuables; many people have returned briefly to their homes to find them looted bare. Displaced persons also reported summary executions by Russian soldiers after the capture of the town of Alkhan-Yurt. Our information indicates that at least seventeen persons, and possibly many more, were killed -- many of them summarily executed -- in the town between December 1-9, 1999.

Russian military authorities appear to have had little interest in stopping abuses by their forces and have allowed a culture of impunity to develop in Chechnya. For its part, the international community has to date refused to insist on accountability for serious human rights violations committed in Chechnya during the 1994-96 war. While repeatedly condemning the atrocities committed by the Russian forces in Chechnya during the last war, the international community remained silent when the Russian Government refused to investigate or prosecute those responsible. This failure of international policy helped to perpetuate an environment of impunity that facilitates abuses in the current conflict. A concerted effort must be made to avoid the mistakes of the last war in Chechnya, and to begin a process of truth and justice that is a prerequisite for long-term peace in the region.

The Russian offensive has also forced over 200,000 civilians to flee their homes in order to seek safety. The majority of the displaced have fled to Ingushetia and the remainder are displaced within Chechnya itself. Displaced persons suffer restrictions of freedom of movement due to the closure of borders, lack of access to humanitarian assistance, and physical insecurity. Soldiers manning border posts have become notorious for extorting bribes from both those fleeing the conflict zone and those seeking to return. In some cases, they also beat and threaten to arrest young Chechen men, claiming they are fighters. This has turned checkpoint crossings into traumatic encounters. Those displaced inside Chechnya itself have almost no access to humanitarian assistance. Even in Ingushetia, humanitarian assistance is minimal and many of the displaced live in appalling conditions without adequate food, shelter, or medical care.

The Commission should condemn Russia's grave abuses in Chechnya and insist on accountability. A resolution should call on the Russian authorities to stop all indiscriminate attacks on civilians; to conduct thorough investigations of all violations of international humanitarian law and prosecute those responsible; to allow internally displaced persons to move freely within the Russian Federation; to immediately stop all border restrictions, extortion, and abuses; and to give free and safe access to safe areas in Ingushetia and elsewhere in the Russian Federation to displaced persons. No displaced persons should be moved to parts of the conflict zone where their safety and security cannot be guaranteed and where international humanitarian agencies do not have free and safe access. The Russian government must be urged to provide adequate humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons. Where it is unable to provide sufficient assistance, it must be urged to accept international offers of help.

• East Timor

The issue of the return of refugees continues to be one of the most urgent concerns in East Timor. In the weeks following the September 4, 1999, announcement of the pro-independence vote in East Timor, some 300,000 East Timorese, out of a pre-referendum population of 850,000, were internally displaced. An additional 200,000 people fled or were pushed across the border, most of them into West Timor, or elsewhere in Indonesia, as part of an orchestrated strategy to alter the political balance in East Timor and reduce the number of independence supporters, in particular in East Timor's western districts.

As of end January 2000, UNHCR officials estimated a population over 100,000 East Timorese refugees still in West Timor, despite the return of over 130,000. While some of these refugees are choosing to stay in Indonesia, our research shows that significant obstacles remain for East Timorese refugees in West Timor and elsewhere in Indonesia who want to go home. Refugees continue to live in conditions marked by lack of access to humanitarian assistance, deteriorating health conditions, and intimidation and violence in government-run camps infiltrated by the same militia groups responsible for terrorizing the population of East Timor at the time of the independence vote last year. There continues to be a lack of reliable information on conditions for East Timorese on other islands.

The Commission should urge the Indonesian government to take immediate steps to prevent intimidation, harassment, and attacks by militias on refugees in West Timor who wish to return to East Timor, to ensure the strictly humanitarian and civilian nature of the remaining camps and settlements in West Timor and to separate militia members from civilian refugees.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on East Timor recently concluded that ultimate responsibility for the terror rests with the Indonesian army and has called for continued international investigations and the eventual establishment of an international tribunal to bring those responsible to justice. While Indonesia's own commission of inquiry did a remarkable and courageous job, it is too early to say whether their findings will lead to prosecutions by an Indonesian tribunal with sufficient resources or authority to conduct full and impartial trials of military leaders and other personnel believed responsible. International investigations must continue if there is to be any hope of serious pursuit of justice on the Indonesian side. If for any reason Indonesia proves unable or unwilling to stay the course, moreover, the international community will have an obligation to step in. Continued international investigations, and the resources necessary to support them, are therefore imperative.

It is crucial to the future of East Timor that the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the violence be given the resources and support required. An effective, credible process will promote reform, reconciliation, and greater accountability not just in East Timor but in Indonesia as well. Much of the pervasive regional and sectarian conflict in Indonesia today has been fueled by public frustration with lack of accountability for past injustices and a resultant loss of faith in government institutions. There continue to be widespread reports of human rights violations by military units responding to local conflicts, and, in some cases, credible allegations that military units have supplied arms to warring factions or themselves taken sides in partisan conflicts. The impunity with which the military has been able to engage in such abuses must end. Establishing accountability for the abuses in East Timor is a necessary beginning.

• Uzbekistan

There has been a rapid and severe deterioration of human rights in Uzbekistan, meriting the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on that country. Since the end of 1997, and in particular since February 1999, when terrorist explosions struck Tashkent, the government has ordered the arrest of thousands of men for purported anti-government activity. The exact numbers are not known, due to the government's tight control on information. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch describe the universal violations of the detainees' due process rights, including the planting of evidence by police during arrest, denial of access to counsel, beatings and other forms of torture to extract confessions, and patently unfair trials. Those arrested are sometimes convicted not only of anti-state activity but of membership in forbidden Islamic organizations, often purely on the basis of outward acts of piety, such as regular prayer at home or Koranic study. Since 1998, the government has restricted religious freedom by convicting Christians and Muslims of spurious criminal offenses, refusing to register congregations, and forbidding the dissemination of religious literature and religious teaching by persons unapproved by the state. The government similarly severely restricts basic civil rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of association. In an alarming trend, human rights defenders are also increasingly targeted for harassment, arrest, detention and beating, illustrating in dramatic terms the urgent need for the creation of a new rapporteur on human rights defenders.

• Sierra Leone

In July 1999, a peace agreement was signed between the Sierra Leonean government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). During the war, the RUF committed barbarous abuses, including the indiscriminate murder of civilians; mutilation; rape; abduction of civilians for purposes of sexual slavery, forced labor, and training as child combatants; and the use of civilians as human shields. Government forces, including civilian militias and the peacekeeping troops of the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States Military Observer Group (ECOMOG) also committed serious abuses, including summary executions of suspected rebels or collaborators, use of child soldiers, and indiscriminate bombings. Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned about the provision of the peace accord that grants amnesty for all crimes committed during the war.

The consequences of this impunity and the lack of international attention to enforcing the peace agreement can be seen in ongoing human rights abuses. From July through December l999, Human Rights Watch documented violations by members of the RUF and the former Sierra Leonean army (ex-SLA) including looting, rape, murder, torture and abduction. Scores of villages have been attacked, forcing thousands of civilians to flee.

The Peace Agreement included the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) to address issues of impunity. However, the future TRC will be unable to function effectively without a data base from which to work. The Commission on Human Rights should therefore establish a commission of inquiry into past abuses charged with creating a data base necessary for the future TRC.

• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

The conflict in the DRC continued through 1999, notwithstanding the Lusaka peace agreement between the main warring parties. The government and rebels alike routinely resort to extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and inhumane and degrading treatment of their perceived ethnic and political adversaries. Both parties extensively recruit child soldiers and are responsible for violence against women. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been internally displaced or fled to neighboring countries. The rebels' repression of Congolese civil society is rivaled by President Laurent Kabila government's silencing of dissenting voices.

In 1999, the Commission requested the Special Rapporteur on the DRC, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and a member of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to investigate the killings of refugees in 1996-1997, an investigation that had been repeatedly stymied by President Kabila. This remains a matter of utmost urgency, as the failure to punish these killings has fueled a cycle of abuse and impunity. The Commission must renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, including continued investigation into events of 1996-97 and provide the necessary support for the Rapporteur and the High Commissioner's field office in Kinshasa.

• Sudan

The government of Sudan is responsible for systematic violations of civil and political rights. Torture is a serious problem, and the judicial system is used against political opponents of the government, rather than FOR combating impunity. In the most notorious example of such selective prosecution, however, the government in December 1999 finally released Fr. Hilary Boma, chancellor of the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Khartoum, Fr. Lino Sebit, and eighteen others held for sixteen months in connection with an alleged sabotage conspiracy.

There has been no suggestion of reparations or compensation for the torture they suffered. Three other men detained with them died under torture in August 1998. Freedom of assembly, association, and expression have been violated through arrests and bans on meetings, protests, and unregistered organizations. Religious leaders are intermittently detained and harassed. The Khartoum state government continued to destroy Christian structures (schools and worship centers) along with slum housing, preventing the consolidation of southerners and Nubas in urban neighborhoods. Public order police continue to harass women and monitor women's dress for orthodoxy.

The government denied all slavery allegations until May 1999, when it acknowledged the problem of "abduction and forced labor of women and children" and set up a committee to address it. Its work on retrieving children held in forced labor conditions has proceeded, but it has not done anything noticeable to end the militia and army raiding that captures slaves in the south.

The most serious abuse of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is the armed ethnic conflict between its Bor Dinka soldiers and the Didinga tribe which formerly supported the SPLA until its abuses--summary executions, torture, stealing food--led the Didinga to revolt. The SPLA planted antipersonnel land mines freely in the area. Despite many peace delegations, the SPLA has not implemented the recommendations to end this slaughter.

Given these and other serious human rights abuses in Sudan, it is imperative that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur be extended and that the Commission adopt a strong resolution addressing all the principal abuses in that country.

• Colombia

Armed conflict intensified in Colombia during the past year as negotiations between the government and guerrillas stalled. The administration of Andrés Pastrana was slow to develop a plan to improve human rights protections even as guerrillas used territory ceded to them not to talk peace, but to further war. Paramilitary groups working in some areas with the tolerance and open support of the armed forces continued to massacre civilians, commit selective killings, and spread terror. Guerrillas also flouted international humanitarian law, executing and kidnaping civilians and carrying out indiscriminate attacks. Throughout the country, Colombians fled political violence, with waning chances of finding refuge, food, and medical care. The field office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bogotá has been an important mechanism to pressure the government for change. Despite its strenuous efforts to assist the government in improving Colombia's deplorable human rights situation, the office reported in 1999 that its recommendations had largely not been implemented.

Budget issues apparently hampered the work of the field office, jeopardizing the financing of certain staff positions. We call on you to assure the streamlining of the funding for the office so that staff are assured of being able to remain sufficient time in Colombia to conduct their missions effectively.

• Haiti Documents

The United Nations Independent Expert on Haiti has repeatedly called on the United States to return intact approximately 160,000 pages of documents and other materials taken from Haitian paramilitary and military headquarters (see A/54/366). U.S. forces seized these materials from paramilitary FRAPH (Front pour l'avancement et le progrès haïtien) and Haitian military offices in 1994, reportedly including "trophy" photographs of torture victims, audio and videotapes of torture sessions, identification cards, and business records. The materials were taken to the United States without the knowledge or consent of Haitian authorities. Haiti has since sought the return of this material which constitutes a potentially rich source of evidence to establish the truth and bring to justice those believed to be responsible for thousands of cases of executions, torture and "disappearances."

The United States government has maintained that U.S. citizens' names and identifying information must be deleted from the materials before they are returned to Haitian custody. Haiti has demanded that the documents be returned intact and the independent expert has specifically supported this demand. The Commission should request the United States to return these materials promptly and without alteration.

We have the pleasure of enclosing a copy of our most recent World Report in the hope that you will find it useful in your work. Thank you for your kind attention to these important matters. We look forward to working with you before and during the upcoming session of the Commission. Please do not hesitate to contact us at 1- 212-216-1217 (Weschler) or 1-212-216-1206 (Brody).

Sincerely,