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- Immediately issue clear public orders to all TFG security forces to cease attacks on and mistreatment of civilians, and looting of civilian property.
- Ensure humanitarian assistance to all civilians in need, including by facilitating humanitarian agencies in their access to all displaced persons in and around Mogadishu.
- Publicly reassure all displaced residents of Mogadishu that they are welcome to return to Mogadishu and that the TFG is cognizant of its responsibility to provide security to all Somali civilians under its control, regardless of clan affiliation.
- Cease all mistreatment of detainees and ensure that they have access to family members, legal counsel, and adequate medical care while in detention. Immediately and publicly communicate these instructions to all police and other security forces in Mogadishu. Encourage independent monitoring of detention facilities.
- Investigate allegations of abuses by TFG forces and hold accountable members of the TFG forces, whatever their rank, implicated in abuses.
- Take all necessary steps to build a competent, independent, and impartial judiciary that can provide trials that meet international fair trial standards. Abolish the death penalty as an inherently cruel form of punishment.
- Support efforts to deter abuses in Somalia in the future, such as by inviting and facilitating UN and independent international human rights organizations to investigate allegations of abuses by all sides.
- Invite the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to increase the number of staff monitoring and reporting on human rights abuses in Somalia and request technical support for the judiciary and the establishment of an independent national human rights commission.
- Cease all attacks on civilians and civilian objects. Commanders and other leaders of the Al-Shabaab and other armed groups should ensure that civilians are never targeted for attack. International humanitarian law defines civilians to include government officials and employees not directly participating in the hostilities, school teachers and other non-combatant civil servants, humanitarian aid and development workers, journalists, and doctors.
- Cease all attacks that cause indiscriminate or disproportionate harm to civilians or civilian objects. Insurgent forces attacking military targets must take all feasible steps to minimize harm to civilians. No attack should be carried out that uses means and methods of war that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants or are expected to cause excessive civilian harm. The insurgency should avoid any attacks in crowded civilian areas, such as busy roads, village or city streets, markets, or other public gathering places.
- Avoid locating, to the extent feasible, insurgent forces within or near densely populated areas, and where possible remove civilians from the vicinity of such forces. Avoid using populated areas to launch attacks and cease threatening civilians who protest the use of their neighborhoods as launching sites. Never purposefully use civilians to shield insurgent forces from attack.
- Publicly commit to abide by international humanitarian law, including prohibitions against targeting civilians, using indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, and using civilians as “human shields.”
- Cease all attacks that deliberately target civilians and cease using means and methods of combat that cannot discriminate between civilians and military objectives. Civilian objects such as schools, hospitals, and homes must not be attacked unless currently being used for military purposes.
- Cease all indiscriminate attacks and attacks in which the expected civilian harm is excessive compared to the concrete and direct military gain anticipated. In particular, cease the use of area bombardments of populated areas of Mogadishu.
- Avoid locating, to the extent feasible, military assets such as bases in or near densely populated areas.
- Protect medical facilities and other protected sites.
- Issue clear public orders to all forces that they must uphold fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and provide clear guidelines and training to all commanders and fighters to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.
- Investigate and discipline or prosecute as appropriate military personnel, regardless of rank, who are responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law including those who may be held accountable as a matter of command responsibility.
- Call for accountability and oppose amnesties for serious violations of international law committed by all parties to the conflict to help ensure the rights of individual victims to justice and an effective remedy, and to build a genuine and lasting peace.
- Acknowledge the plight of women, displaced persons and minorities and allow their representatives to participate meaningfully in the National Reconciliation Conference.
- Publicly condemn the serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law committed by all parties to the conflict in Mogadishu in 2007, and specifically call on the Ethiopian government and Transitional Federal Government to take all necessary steps, including public action, to ensure that their forces cease abuses against all persons in custody.
- Support measures to promote accountability and end impunity for serious crimes in Somalia, including through the establishment of an independent United Nations panel of experts to investigate and map serious crimes and recommend further measures to improve accountability.
- Remind the Ethiopian and Somali governments of their obligations under international law to investigate and discipline or prosecute as appropriate military personnel, regardless of rank, who are responsible for serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, including those who may be held accountable as a matter of command responsibility.
- Reiterate that amnesties at the national level are not applicable to international crimes.
- Publicly and privately demand that the Ethiopian government cease summary executions, deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian objects, and the use of area bombardment in populated areas, reminding the government that these are grave violations of international humanitarian law that can amount to war crimes.
- Publicly promote and financially support civil society efforts to provide humanitarian assistance, services such as education, monitoring of the human rights situation, and efforts to promote national solidarity, and also TFG efforts to improve the functioning of the judicial system and to establish a national human rights commission. Provide voluntary contributions to support an expanded OHCHR field operation in Somalia.
- Investigate reports of abuses by Ethiopian forces, identify the specific units involved, and ensure that they receive no assistance or training from the United States until the Ethiopian government takes effective measures to bring those responsible to justice, as required under the “Leahy law,” which prohibits US military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity.
- Ensure that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) publicly raises concerns over violations of international human rights and humanitarian law with all parties to the conflict in Mogadishu.
- Establish dialogue mechanisms with TFG and Ethiopian commanders as well as the insurgency about rules of engagement, tactics and international humanitarian law.
- Provide adequate pre-deployment training and establish a human rights monitoring mechanism by AMISOM contingents regarding protection of civilians, especially women and children, and sexual violence.
To the UN Security Council
- Condemn serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that have been and continue to be perpetrated in Somalia by all parties to the conflict.
- Support measures to promote accountability and end impunity for serious crimes in Somalia, including through the establishment of an independent panel of experts to investigate and map serious crimes and recommend further measures to improve accountability.
- Ensure that any peacekeeping operation authorized by the United Nations Security Council, whether a regional or UN operation, includes robust protection of civilians within its mandate, and gender and child specific components.
- Call on the UN secretary-general to take immediate action on the grave human rights situation in Somalia including by:
- Providing monthly progress reports on the human rights situation to the Security Council; and
- Establishing an independent panel of experts to investigate abuses associated with the recent conflict in Mogadishu, retrospectively map the most serious crimes in Somalia’s recent history, and present recommendations for accountability.
To the UN Secretary-General
- Support an increase in the number of OHCHR staff monitoring and publicly reporting on human rights abuses in Somalia and urge donors to provide additional voluntary contributions for this operation.
- Establish an independent panel of experts to investigate abuses associated with the recent conflict in Mogadishu, retrospectively map the most serious crimes in Somalia’s recent history, and present recommendations for accountability.
To the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
- Increase the number of human rights officers monitoring and publicly reporting on human rights abuses in Somalia, and include staff with expertise on child and minority protection and sexual and gender-based violence.
- Explore the possibility of providing technical support to the Somali judiciary and to Somali government efforts to establish an independent national human rights commission.
To the UNDP Resident Representative (and head of the UN Country Team)
- Ensure that the program and advocacy work of the UN agencies operating in Somalia highlights the protection of displaced and conflict-affected populations and that it is based on international human rights and humanitarian law standards.
- Support an increase in the number of OHCHR staff monitoring and publicly reporting on human rights abuses in Somalia and urge donors to provide additional voluntary contributions for this operation.
- Ensure that all TFG forces participating in UNDP-funded training programs have been screened for human rights abuses.
August 2007
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