Civilians under fire: Sudan, Israel and Lebanon
Sudan
"We heard the Janjawid decide to open fire on the mosque and so we decided to run out… They captured the women… The men were holding their throats and sitting on their bodies so they could not move, and they took off their clothes and then used them as women. More than one man would use one woman. I could hear the women crying for help, but there was no one to help them." A woman speaking to Amnesty International about an attack on Djorlo, Chad, on 7 November 2006. It is impossible to know how many women have been raped since the armed conflict began in Darfur in 2003. There have certainly been thousands.
Despite a peace agreement in May, fighting escalated in Darfur, as the government and the only other signatory, a rebel armed faction, launched a new offensive against the non-signatory armed groups. Cross-border attacks by government-backed Janjawid militias took the devastation of war and attendant human rights abuses into Chad, threatening growing destabilization in the region. Hundreds of civilians were believed killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes in direct and targeted attacks by government and allied forces. AI’s campaigning focused on the need for international peacekeepers to protect the civilians of Darfur and eastern Chad despite the resistance of the Sudanese government.
Denied access to Darfur by the Sudanese authorities, AI delegates visited Chad in May, July and November. In camps in eastern Chad, they heard harrowing accounts from refugees from Darfur and from Chadians attacked as vast areas of eastern Chad were depopulated in cross-border raids ( Chad/Sudan: Sowing the seeds of Darfur – Ethnic targeting in Chad by Janjawid militias from Sudan, AI Index: AFR 20/006/2006). In November AI delegates recorded the deaths of over 500 individuals in eastern Chad – the numbers killed as attacks continued were undoubtedly many times higher. They went to destroyed villages and spoke to the survivors of attacks and rapes.
Numerous witnesses testified to the failure of the Chadian government to deploy its troops to protect civilians, even those stationed near the scene of attacks. AI renewed calls to the UN Security Council to deploy an international peacekeeping force in eastern Chad.
In March the African Union called for the peacekeeping duties of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in Darfur to be transferred to a UN force. AMIS forces lacked equipment and funding, and the Sudanese government had restricted their activity. In July, AI produced a briefing on the resources, authority and mandate that a peacekeeping force needed, and in December developed an Agenda for effective protection of civilians in Darfur (AI Index: AFR 54/084/2006).
AI members protested at attacks on individuals and communities by the government and allied forces in North Darfur through Urgent Actions and appeal cases, including after 70 men, women and children were killed in attacks in July in Korma, and 67 people died in the Jebel Moon area in October. From September, hundreds more civilians were killed, tortured and raped, and thousands forcibly displaced in a renewed counter-insurgency offensive in northern and west Darfur.
On a Day for Darfur in September, AI campaigned in coalition with other human rights organizations for UN peacekeepers to be allowed to protect civilians in Darfur. In three weeks, 23,000 people had signed AI’s online petition to the UN Security Council and the number continued to rise. Another day dedicated to campaigning on Darfur in December focused the campaigning of AI and other groups on the plight of women (Sudan/Chad: ‘No one to help them’ – Rape extends from Darfur into eastern Chad, AI Index: AFR 54/087/2006).
The effective imprisonment by Janjawid of hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the camps was reported in October in Sudan:
Crying out for safety (AI Index: AFR 54/055/2006). In November, as Sudanese forces carried out indiscriminate aerial bombardment using Russian- and Chinese-supplied planes and helicopters, AI called for the 2005 UN Security Council arms ban on all parties to the Darfur conflict to be implemented and fully enforced (Sudan/China: Appeal by Amnesty International to the Chinese government on the occasion of the China-Africa Summit for Development and Cooperation, AI Index: AFR 54/072/2006).
In November, AI called on the African Union to press the government of Sudan to consent to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission (The African Commission: Amnesty International’s oral statement on the human rights situation in Africa, AI Index: AFR 01/012/2006). AI reported on the tens of thousands of people at risk as insecurity and restrictions imposed on humanitarian organizations by the Sudanese government forced cutbacks in the aid operation in Darfur in Sudan: Darfur – Threats to humanitarian aid (AI Index: AFR 54/031/2006).
In December, AI protested at the timidity of the resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in a Special Session on Darfur. The Council agreed to send its own assessment mission to Darfur, but failed to respond to the urgency and magnitude of the human rights crisis on the basis of the existing, compelling evidence of close government links to Janjawid abuses.
AI was given the names of people killed in a Janjawid attack from Sudan on the town of Koloy in eastern Chad, November 2006. “In parting the Imam thanked me, thanked Amnesty International for coming,” an AI delegate reported. “He stressed that he had gone to the capital two times to speak with authorities. He speaks frequently with local government and military officials, various international agencies have been by, but no one had ever asked for the names before. And he stressed: that matters so much.”
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/sdn-index-eng
Israel and Lebanon
“I have lost all my children, my mother, my sisters. My wife is in a very serious condition… How do you tell a mother that she has lost all her children?” Ahmad Badran spoke to AI delegates in al-Ghazieh village in south Lebanon after watching the bodies of eight members of his family being dug from under a pile of rubble. On 7 August an Israeli missile hit his home, killing his four children, his mother, his two sisters and his niece, and critically injuring his wife.
In July a major military conflict erupted between Israeli forces and Hizbullah forces based in Lebanon after Hizbullah fighters crossed into Israel and attacked an army patrol. By the time a ceasefire was agreed 34 days later, Israeli attacks had killed more than 1,000 civilians in Lebanon, displaced around a million people, and destroyed thousands of homes and much of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. Hizbullah launched missiles into civilian areas of Israel, causing the deaths of 43 civilians, displacing many thousands of people from their homes in northern Israel and damaging hundreds of buildings.
AI delegates visited both Israel and Lebanon during the fighting and in the immediate aftermath to research violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, by both sides. AI delegates interviewed hundreds of people whose lives had been devastated by unlawful attacks, visited numerous sites where rockets, artillery shells and bombs, including cluster munitions, had struck, and spoke to non-governmental organizations. AI met and obtained information from senior Israeli military and government officials, the Lebanese authorities and Hizbullah. It also repeatedly requested information about specific military operations from Israel and Hizbullah.
From the outset of the conflict AI called on both sides to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law (the laws of war), particularly those relating to the protection of civilians. However, civilians were bearing the brunt of the conflict and AI joined the call for a ceasefire made by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other world leaders. In July, AI published Israel/Lebanon: Israel and Hizbullah must spare civilians – Obligations under international humanitarian law of the parties to the conflict in Israel and Lebanon, a reminder to the parties of their legal obligations (AI Index: MDE 15/070/2006).
Following the end of the hostilities, and after conducting further research and discussions with officials, AI issued two briefings covering aspects of the conflict. In August it published Israel/Lebanon: Deliberate destruction or “collateral damage”? Israeli attacks against civilian infrastructure (AI Index: MDE 18/007/2006). AI found that Israeli forces had committed indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, pursuing a strategy that appeared intended to punish the people of Lebanon and their government for not turning against Hizbullah, as well as harming Hizbullah’s military capability.
In September, AI published Israel/Lebanon: Under fire – Hizbullah’s attacks on northern Israel(AI Index: MDE 02/025/2006). This concluded that Hizbullah had committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes. Its rocket attacks amounted to deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate attacks. The attacks also violated other rules of international humanitarian law, including the prohibition of reprisal attacks on the civilian population.
In November, AI published Israel/Lebanon: Out of all proportion – civilians bear the brunt of the war (AI Index: MDE 02/033/2006). This covered further aspects of the conduct and consequences of Israeli military actions in Lebanon. It analysed patterns of Israeli attacks and a number of specific incidents in which civilians were killed in Lebanon. It highlighted the impact on civilian life of other Israeli attacks, including the legacy of the widespread cluster bomb bombardment of south Lebanon by Israeli forces in the last days of the war. It also summarized AI’s conclusions with regard to the overall conduct of both Israeli forces and Hizbullah fighters.
AI called for the UN to set up an international commission empowered to investigate the evidence of violations of international law by both Hizbullah and Israel, and to make provision for reparations for the victims. AI also called for an arms embargo on both sides, and an immediate moratorium on the use of cluster weapons. It urged all parties involved in the conflict to investigate alleged violations of international human rights law and ensure reparation for the victims.
After the conflict, AI members around the world focused their energy on calling for Israel immediately to hand over to the UN maps showing the areas in which it had used cluster munitions, in order to assist the clearance of unexploded cluster bomblets which continue to kill and maim Lebanese civilians. Up to a million unexploded bomblets littered south Lebanon when the ceasefire came into effect, presenting a long-term threat to the civilian population.
In December an AI delegation, including Secretary General Irene Khan, visited Lebanon and Israel and the Occupied Territories for high-level talks with officials. To coincide with the visit, AI published a campaign briefing, Israel and the Occupied Territories: Road to nowhere (AI Index: MDE 15/093/2006) that focused on the spiralling human rights crisis in the Occupied Territories over the previous six years.