Protecting Civilians in the Georgia Conflict
When conflict between Georgia and Russia over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia broke out in August, Human Rights Watch immediately dispatched its researchers to gather first-hand information on harm being done to civilians. For days we were the only independent international observers in South Ossetia, and we became the go-to source for reliable and timely information on the conflict for the media and policymakers. Each party to the conflict accused the other of atrocities and offered dramatically different accounts of the number of civilians killed, fueling tensions and raising the risk of reprisal attacks. We moved quickly to temper the discourse by reporting that both Russia and Georgia bore blame for civilian deaths and showing that the death toll in South Ossetia was far lower than early claims of thousands. The information we put out had an effect in constraining local actors. For example, shortly after we documented the looting and burning of ethnic Georgian villages by Ossetian forces as Russian troops stood idly by, the conduct of some Russian troops changed, and they acted to stop the mayhem, at least for a period of time.
We also exposed the use of cluster munitions by both Russia and Georgia. As a result, Georgia said it was actively considering joining the new treaty banning this weapon—and in response to our urgent appeal immediately started a program to educate its citizens about the danger of unexploded cluster ordnance.
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Moving Congress to Prosecute Recruiters of Child Soldiers
In a major victory for our campaign to stop the use of child soldiers, Congress passed a law that will permit the US to prosecute foreign military commanders who recruit child soldiers abroad. The Child Soldiers Accountability Act makes it a federal crime knowingly to recruit or use soldiers under the age of 15 and permits the US to bring charges against both US citizens and non-citizens if they are on US soil. Human Rights Watch advised Senator Dick Durbin, who sponsored the bill, from its inception, and our staff members testified on the use of child soldiers in congressional hearings. We have already had word that a person responsible for the recruitment of child soldiers in Sri Lanka has cancelled a trip to the US following passage of this new legislation, which puts him at risk of arrest and prosecution. Human Rights Watch is making it more and more difficult for armies and rebel groups to recruit children as soldiers. Our investigations into the use of child soldiers in more than a dozen countries have provided ample evidence of coerced recruitment, family separation, and the deep psychological harm done to these most vulnerable recruits.
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Pressing South Africa on its Treatment of Zimbabweans
Human Rights Watch’s advocacy work and our report “Neighbors in Need: Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa” pressured the South African government to open a new Refugee Reception Office on the border to register Zimbabwean asylum claims. We held extensive meetings with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which resulted in the agency accepting our assessment that Zimbabweans left their country involuntarily and agreeing with our recommendation that they deserve temporary protection in South Africa. UNHCR also accepted our assessment to consider as refugees the victims of Zimbabwe’s politically motivated forced evictions of 700,000 people from their homes in 2005, which we had documented thoroughly. We supported South African human rights groups in their own advocacy and highlighted the plight of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the southern African media. The new Refugee Reception Office near the border makes it possible for tens of thousands of Zimbabweans to make their claims as soon as they arrive in South Africa. We succeeded in creating an environment in which it is now far less likely that Zimbabweans seeking asylum will be sent back to economic and political chaos in Zimbabwe.
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Pressuring Burma through Targeted Sanctions
September 2008 marked the one-year anniversary in Burma of a brutal government crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protesters. To bring pressure to bear on the repressive military junta that rules Burma, Human Rights Watch has promoted targeted sanctions against those in power. We exposed the major business interests of the abusive military, including the lucrative international trade in gems mined in Burma, which puts millions of dollars into the military’s pockets. We called for strong action to block sales of Burmese gems, including consumer boycotts and targeted government sanctions—sanctions that directly affect abusive individuals and not the general population. Such public pressure helped secure unanimous congressional support for US legislation to tackle the gem trade. President Bush signed the bill into law, and on September 27 it went into effect. The new law closes a loophole in the ban on Burma’s “blood gems." Imports of Burmese rubies and jade are now completely outlawed in the United States, as they already were in the European Union and in Canada. There are signs that these targeted sanctions, alongside consumer boycotts, are having an effect and reducing the gem profits earned by Burma’s ruthless rulers. We are continuing to push for international action in numerous high-level meetings, calling on all governments to design and adopt appropriate multilateral sanctions on Burma that narrowly focus on the individuals responsible for abuses and the businesses that finance the Burmese government.
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