UK and US Forced Displacement of the Chagossians and Ongoing Colonial Crimes
The 106-page report, “‘That’s When the Nightmare Started:’ UK and US Forced Displacement of the Chagossians and Ongoing Colonial Crimes,” documents the treatment of the Chagossians, an Indigenous people whom the UK and US forced from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s so that a US military base could be built on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The UK, with US support, has prevented the Chagossians from returning home. Even though the UK and Mauritius surprisingly announced negotiations on the future of Chagos in November 2022, there has been no clear commitment to meaningful consultation with the Chagossians and to guarantee their right to reparations, including their right to return, in any settlement.
As details regarding a war crimes tribunal develop, we believe that integral to any investigatory effort is a parallel commitment to the safety and integrity of the witnesses who will testify, and to the development and implementation of fair procedural and evidentiary rules.
Helsinki Watch Releases Eight Cases for War Crimes Tribunal on Former Yugoslavia
With great fanfare, the U.N. Security Council, in February 1993, called for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of war crimes in the Balkan conflict.
The Trial of Xanana Gusmao and a Follow-up on the Dili Massacre
The trial of Xanana raised several important human rights issues. It should be noted at the outset that Asia Watch has never taken a position on the political status of East Timor nor on the jurisdiction of Indonesian courts there.
The question of accountability has become increasingly important around the world in recent years, as different states attempting to make a transition to democracy have struggled to achieve a balance between retribution and forgetfulness in the interests of national reconciliation.
Between May 29 and June 6, 1992, nine soldiers and one policeman were tried by military or police courts in Bali for their role in the massacre in East Timor on November 12, 1991 when the Indonesian army opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. The trials were open to diplomatic observers and the press; the sentences were light, ranging from eight to eighteen months.
Over 60 East Timorese, many of them students, remain in detention in Jakarta and Dili, capital of East Timor in the aftermath of the November 12 massacre in Dili in which upwards of 75 demonstrators were killed when Indonesian troops opened fire. All are facing trial, some on criminal charges, some on charges of subversion.
Asia Watch has studied the preliminary report of the National Commission of Inquiry prepared by the seven-person team appointed by President Suharto to investigate the killings in Dili, East Timor on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian armed forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.
The trial of nine Salvadoran army soldiers and officers accused in the November 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter took place in San Salvador on September 26-28, 1991, in front of a host of international observers including Americas Watch.
On November 12, 1991 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, anywhere from 75 to 200 people are estimated to have been killed when Indonesian troops opened fire on a demonstration. The demonstrators were calling for the independence of East Timor, the former Portuguese colony of some 700,000 people on the eastern half of the island of Timor, off the north Australian coast.
For more than a decade, Argentina has commanded the attention of the international community for two widely divergent reasons: atrocious human rights violations, and subsequent efforts to punish those responsible.
Policies that Contribute to the Killings (A Middle East Watch Report)
This report examines three aspects of Israeli policy that have contributed to the frequency of unlawful killlings of Palestinians during the intifada. These are the open-fire regulations issued to Israeli troops operating in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip that are more permissive than what the internationally recognized standards of necessity and proportionality allow; the inadequate procedures followed by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to investigate and punish troop misconduct against Palestinians; and the restrictions imposed by the IDF on independent bodies attempting to monitor its conduct in the occupied territories.
