Human Rights Watch
Monthly Email Update
January 2004

1. Iraq: Bringing Saddam Hussein to Justice
2. Indonesia: Uncovering the Hidden War
3. United States: Reaffirming Civil Liberties
4. Iraq: Combating Use of Cluster Munitions
5. Commonwealth Summit: Spotlighting Members' Abuses
6. Become a Member or Make a Contribution

The Human Rights Watch monthly email update highlights the impact of our work around the world, as well as recent campaigns. It does not list everything we produce or on which we work. For the latest information from Human Rights Watch, visit our home page at http://hrw.org. Past monthly updates are archived at http://hrw.org/update/

Iraq: Bringing Saddam Hussein to Justice

A pair of children's slippers found at a mass grave near Moussayib in Iraq. © 2003 Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch literally wrote the book on Saddam Hussein's worst atrocities, including the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds, which killed some 100,000 civilians and destroyed more than 4,000 villages in 1988. That book, "Genocide in Iraq", and other Human Rights Watch reports documenting Saddam Hussein's brutality may now be used to bring the deposed dictator to justice.

But now that Saddam Hussein has been apprehended, the question has grown more urgent: how will the crimes of the past be prosecuted? Will the trials be seen as legitimate and credible in Iraq, in the region and in the world? As currently proposed, the special Iraqi tribunal falls far short of international standards of justice.

"Iraq has no experience with trials lasting more than a few days," said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director. "International expertise in prosecuting cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity must be utilized to ensure a fair and effective trial."

Find out more about why justice for past crimes in Iraq is essential, and what the options for trials are: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/19/iraq6770.htm

Indonesia: Uncovering the Hidden War

Acehnese students walk past Indonesian troops in their village in the province of Aceh on May 19, 2003. © 2003 Reuters Limited

Once the Indonesian government launched a new military campaign in Aceh in May after peace talks broke down with the armed separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), both sides of the conflict made it difficult, if not impossible, for impartial observers to work in the province. Even so, Human Rights Watch managed to lift the shroud of secrecy surrounding the latest phase of the devastating, decades-old conflict.

Barred from speaking directly with victims in Aceh, Indonesia researcher Charmain Mohamed and consultant Matt Easton traveled to Malaysia, where they interviewed 85 Acehnese refugees who had recently fled the fighting by crossing the Strait of Malacca from Aceh, located on the northern tip of Sumatra. Nearly all of the refugees had directly suffered abuses or witnessed them.

"The Indonesian military has tried to hide its campaign from independent journalists, aid workers and certainly human rights investigators," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "Our report provided a picture of the terrible things going on inside that war."

Since May, Journalists who have tried to report from Aceh have been intimidated and harassed. Human Rights Watch documented abuses against them both by government forces and GAM.

On December 17 in Jakarta, Human Rights Watch released its report, "Aceh Under Martial Law: Inside the Secret War," accusing the Indonesian military of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, beatings and arbitrary arrests of civilians in its campaign against GAM. Although GAM also has a poor record on respecting human rights and the laws of war, due to the lack of access, Human Rights Watch could not document abuses perpetrated by the armed separatist group.

Some of the Acehnese refugees interviewed in Malaysia had witnessed a summary execution by Indonesian soldiers, while others had discovered bodies of their family members near military operations. The refugees spoke of forced disappearances, beatings, arbitrary arrests—and the Indonesian army's indiscriminate targeting of young Acehnese men, many of whom have nothing to do with the rebels.

"My older brother—he's just a civilian—was shot. Soldiers came into the village looking for GAM. There weren't any so they shot villagers instead," said one Acehnese man, describing an incident that took place a week after martial law was imposed.

The Indonesian government called the report "ill-informed and one-sided" and summarily rejected its claims without any investigation. But under domestic and international pressure, it has agreed to allow access to Aceh by the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations humanitarian agencies.

In fact, government officials inadvertently confirmed Human Rights Watch's findings. Juwono Sudarsono, a former defense minister and currently Indonesia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, said in a December 17 interview with the BBC that Indonesian soldiers fighting the war in Aceh were "beyond the control" of their military commanders.

"You cannot expect legal accountability in a war situation," Sudarsono told the BBC. "The precise rules of humanitarian law just go out of the window once the shooting starts."

In a subsequent press release, Human Rights Watch reminded the Indonesian government that, under international humanitarian law, it has responsibility for the actions of its armed forces and a legal obligation to punish military personnel who violate the laws of war by attacking civilians.

While in Jakarta for the report's release, Saman Zia-Zarifi, Human Rights Watch's Asia Division deputy director, urged diplomats to press the Indonesian government and GAM on these crucial human rights issues.

Find out more about human rights in Aceh at http://hrw.org/doc/?t=asia&c=aceh

United States: Reaffirming Civil Liberties

During their processing into the detention facility on January 11, 2002, detainees sit in a holding area watched by military police at Camp X-Ray inside the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. © 2003 Reuters Limited

December 18 was a banner day for human rights in the U. S. judicial system. On the same day, two court decisions each dealt a blow to the Bush administration's attempts to flout human rights standards in the name of counterterrorism.

Human Rights Watch advocates have been energetically opposing the erosion of civil liberties by the Bush Administration in the wake of September 11. They have also met regularly with officials at the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Congress to insist that due process and civil liberties be respected in the response to terrorism. Human Rights Watch has also participated in litigation, both as co-plaintiff and friend of the court, challenging the U.S. government's detention policies and urging the courts to protect basic rights.

"The threat to basic rights protections in the United States is very real," said Wendy Patten, Human Rights Watch's U.S. advocacy director. "Increasingly the courts are rebuking the Bush administration for overreaching, and we're making real headway in the court of public opinion, too."

On December 18, the federal court of appeal in New York ordered the release of Jose Padilla, whom President George Bush had labeled an "enemy combatant" and held incommunicado for 18 months in a high-security navy brig in South Carolina. The court ruled that the president did not have authority as commander-in-chief to detain a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil and far from any zone of armed conflict as an enemy combatant. The Justice Department will appeal the ruling on an expedited basis, and the Supreme Court is likely to hear arguments in the case this spring.

Also on December 18, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear claims from detainees at Guantanamo, and affirmed the crucial role that courts play in preventing the executive from running roughshod over individual rights. While the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately resolve this question this spring, the appellate court's decision delivered a strong rebuke to the Bush administration.

Judges do not respond to direct public pressure, but general public opinion is very important. Using Human Rights Watch's research and arguments, supporters of human rights can help influence public opinion by writing letters to the editor and opinion pieces in local newspapers and in blogs. Visit http://hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_detentions to find out more.

Iraq: Combating Use of Cluster Munitions

A father holds his son who was wounded and lost his right foot during the invasion by Coalition forces in Al-Hilla, April 2003. © 2003 Bruno Stevens

When Human Rights Watch published its comprehensive report on civilian casualties in the Iraq war, virtually every major newspaper in the United States ran a story on the findings—as did many media outlets around the world. Now Human Rights Watch is busy making sure that its recommendations have an impact on how the military conducts its operations.

The December 12 report, "Off Target," found that most of the avoidable civilian casualties during the U.S.-led coalition's invasion of Iraq were the result of two misguided military strategies. One was the Pentagon's inaccurate method of targeting the top Iraqi leaders. These "decapitation strikes" resulted in scores of civilian casualties, but did not kill a single Iraqi leader. The other was the use of cluster munitions, a weapon that kills civilians indiscriminately when used in populated areas. In the Iraq invasion, U.S. and British forces used almost 13,000 cluster munitions containing nearly 2 million submunitions, which killed or wounded more than 1,000 civilians.

When cluster munitions explode, spreading hundreds of submunitions (or bomblets) over an area the size of a football field, often 10 percent or more of those bomblets don't explode. These "duds" act like landmines, sitting on the ground until someone steps on them or picks them up—and then they explode.

Human Rights Watch is leading international efforts to address the problem of "explosive remnants of war" like cluster duds, and trying to get international consensus on halting or reducing the use of cluster munitions. Steve Goose, executive director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, is using techniques honed as a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

"The Mine Ban Treaty has become the most rapidly approved international treaty in history," Goose said. "Now it's time to deal with cluster munitions."

Cluster munitions are being treated as part of the bigger problem of "explosive remnants of war." This includes all types of explosive ordnance—such as bombs, rockets, mortars, grenades, and ammunition—that has been used in an armed conflict but failed to explode as intended, thereby posing ongoing dangers.

In late November, some 90 delegations gathered in Geneva after a year of negotiations on explosive remnants of war. The delegations managed to adopt a new protocol on explosive remnants of war, which became an addendum to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons. But the new protocol contained some disappointingly vague language about steps to address the problem: states are to undertake actions "where feasible," "as soon as feasible," "where appropriate," "to the maximum extent possible," and so forth.

In Geneva, Human Rights Watch called for a new round of negotiations on cluster munitions in 2004. Some governments have supported such negotiations, such as Austria, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. But others blocked the proposal, including China, Pakistan, Russia and the United States. Nevertheless, discussions on cluster munitions will continue in the coming year.

Along with Human Rights Watch, 84 nongovernmental organizations from nearly 50 countries launched the Cluster Munition Coalition in mid-November. The coalition is calling for a moratorium on the use of cluster munitions until their humanitarian problems have been resolved.

Find out more about cluster munitions at: http://hrw.org/doc/?t=arms_clusterbombs.

Learn more about the new coalition at: http://www.cmc-international.org/.

Commonwealth Summit: Spotlighting Members' Abuses

Commonwealth leaders meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja last month were spared the presence of two of their more embarrassing peers: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. The countries of both leaders have been suspended from Commonwealth gatherings for their failure to undertake meaningful political reform.

But Human Rights Watch was not ready to let these issues drop. In an open letter and series of opinion pieces ahead of the meeting, Human Rights Watch pressed Commonwealth leaders to get tough with abusive members and create new mechanisms to monitor and protect human rights.

The situation in Zimbabwe has continued to deteriorate in the face of symbolic Commonwealth actions. High levels of political violence against opposition supporters continue. Rallies by human rights groups and civil society organizations are routinely disrupted. And all independent news media has been suppressed.

In Pakistan, members of the political opposition and former government officials continue to be harassed, threatened and arbitrarily detained. Furthermore, far-reaching amendments to the constitution have dramatically strengthened the power of the presidency, formalized the role of the army in governance, and diminished the authority of elected representatives.

Human Rights Watch also made sure the Commonwealth celebrations did not overshadow Nigeria's own human rights problems. The Commonwealth host, President Olusegun Obasanjo, has championed the human rights cause, but the values that he claims to uphold remain beyond the reach of most ordinary Nigerians.

Human rights violations continue to impede Nigeria's democratic transition. Obasanjo's government has been responsible for major rights abuses, including the massacre of hundreds of people by the military in Odi in 1999 and in Benue in 2001. Journalists, human rights activists, opposition politicians and peace activists have faced detention, ill-treatment and other forms of intimidation, simply because they have criticized government policies. Last April's elections were marred by violence and intimidation, as well as widespread ballot-rigging.

Obasanjo has also played host to Liberia's former president, Charles Taylor, who is wanted for war crimes in Sierra Leone. In this unparalleled case, one Commonwealth country is sheltering a war criminal wanted for abuses in another Commonwealth country.

"By tolerating these abuses, the Commonwealth risks being accused of double standards," said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "This will only undermine the effectiveness of the Commonwealth's interventions on Zimbabwe and Pakistan, and the group's commitment to human rights itself."

Read more on Zimbabwe at: http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=zimbab

Read more on Nigeria at: http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=nigeri

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