Reports

In spite of the peace accord signed in October 1992 between government forces and RENAMO rebels, innocent civilians are maimed and killed by landmines in Mozambique on a daily basis.

On October 1990, the Rwandese Patriotic Front launched an invasion from neighboring Uganda, aimed at overthrowing the Rwandan government. While the war has stopped in an uneasy peace, an estimated 4,500 people died in the conflict and nearly one million civilians are refugees.

For the first time ever, scientists have been able to prove the use of chemical weapons through the analysis of environmental residues taken years after such an attack occurred.

Landmines have rendered large areas of arable land and pasture, many roads, bridges, river banks, villages, and some important economic installations unfit for the people of Angola.

Decades of internal conflict with the Kurds and another nine years of international strife — first with Iran and then with the U.S.-led coalition — have left much of northern Iraq littered with millions of unexploded landmines.

This report applies the rules of war governing international armed conflicts to examine civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects from bomb and missile attacks carried out by the allied forces against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, and from missile attacks by Iraq against Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The purpose of this newsletter, the fourth released by Middle East Watch since January 17, is to provide information and analysis concerning compliance by the U.S. and coalition forces under its command with binding restraints on methods and means of combat as they apply to the conduct of air warfare.