When armed conflict breaks out, warring parties and their supporters often expect human rights groups to jump to their defense. “See what the other side is doing to our people? Surely our fight is just!”
Human Rights Watch doesn’t do that. We don’t take sides. We look for and document war crimes, no matter which side commits them, and we seek justice for all the victims.
As an example, take our report published this morning on the four-day flare-up of fighting between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan back in September. We found evidence of serious violations of the “laws of war” on both sides.
Kyrgyz forces shot at ambulances and cars carrying civilians and, in one incident, killed at least ten civilians in a laser-guided bomb attack on a town square.
Tajik forces shot at cars carrying civilians, unlawfully killed at least eight civilians in various circumstances, and allowed the large-scale looting and burning of private property in Kyrgyz villages.
The “laws of war” (international humanitarian law) require all parties to distinguish between civilians and combatants at all times. They prohibit attacks that target civilians or attacks that are indiscriminate. Warring parties must take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian harm.
This is exactly what we didn’t see in our examinations of these incidents in the four-day Kyrgyz-Tajik border conflict.
We came to our conclusions after extensive investigations. Our researchers interviewed scores of people on both sides of the frontier, including survivors, witnesses, and relatives of victims. We visited the affected villages, examined remnants of munitions, verified video footage, analyzed satellite imagery, and constructed 3D models of attacks.
None of this research happens overnight. You may have noticed that the fighting occurred in September, and yet here we are publishing in May. It’s far more important for us to be accurate than quick.
And, in a sense, our work on this has only just begun. Now, we have the long struggle ahead to hold the perpetrators accountable and help the families of victims get the reparations they deserve.
It was four days of armed conflict, but there’s a much longer fight for justice.