Monday, February 22, 2016

The politics of war crimes in Syria

Evidenced-based reporting of potential war crimes in Syria is needed rather than politicised accusations.

 | War & Conflict, Human Rights, Politics, Syria, ISIS
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Heavy smoke rises from a MSF-supported hospital in Idlib, Syria [Reuters]
Heavy smoke rises from a MSF-supported hospital in Idlib, Syria [Reuters]

About the Author

James Denselow

James Denselow is a writer on Middle East politics and security issues and a research associate at the Foreign Policy Centre.
After almost five years of brutal fighting in Syria, the issue of war crimes has reappeared following the destruction of two hospitals in the north. 
The iconic images of bombed-out medical facilities has set off a firestorm of accusations among some key players in the conflict. Accountability for the crimes of war is noticeable for its absence to date, but it is crucial that the mechanisms of global justice are properly applied, to affect the actions of combatants today and to help heal a Syria of tomorrow.  
For this to happen, the current arms race in the language of accusations must be focused on more practical action towards accountability.
The United Nations has warned that "intentionally directing attacks" at hospitals and medical units would constitute a war crime and Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, confirmed that the raids violated international law.
Turkey has been more forthright about Russia's culpability, claiming that the Security Council permanent member is guilty of an "obvious war crime".
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that "those who make such statements are not capable of backing them up with proof".

Targeting hospitals

MSF, whose hospital was hit, didn't choose to tell the Syrian authorities their exact location for fear of being targeted. Now that the hospital has been destroyed, the Syrian Ambassador to the UN had the temerity to describe the aid agency as an "intelligence" arm of the French government.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his policy of complete denial of any civilian harm from his country's actions, saying that Russia "categorically does not accept such statements".
This is not the first time a healthcare facility in Syria has been hit. Indeed, there has been an exodus of medics from the country while buildings and vehicles supposedly granted protected status have been devastated.
Overwhelmed makeshift hospitals now operate out of basements in Aleppo more akin to air-raid shelters.
According to the Syrian American Medical Society, 2015 was a record year for attacks on health infrastructure, with an attack on average every two or three days. 
So could this latest attack on healthcare in Syria be the trigger for a reasserting of the laws of war into the conflict? 
That the UN stopped counting the Syrian dead in 2014 doesn't bode well for those hoping for accountability for those Syrians yet to be killed.
However, if a mechanism by which evidence of potential war crimes can be collected and processed by credible players, it would send out a clear message to those who order air strikes on hospitals and potentially check the likelihood that they will do it again in future.

Power of evidence

One sample we've seen already as to the power of the evidence of war crimes came in the form of the smuggled work of the Syrian military photographer known only as "Caesar". His thousands of photographs, which eventually found themselves on display in the corridors of the UN, showed the reality of the grisly fate of those whose lives ended in the regime's jails.
Destruction and rubble at an MSF-supported hospital in Idlib province in northern Syria [EPA]
Yet to date nobody has been held to account for the crimes which Caesar exposed. We should not forget that much of the infrastructure around the laws of war emerged following the end of World War II.
Today the Syria crisis has heaped more numbers on what is the biggest refugee displacement since the last global war. War crimes were meant to be deterred and punished, yet they are being flouted with impunity in Syria.
That such crimes are being raised now is a positive step but there is a danger around their being used as a justification for escalation rather than as they were originally intended.
There is a need for evidence-based reporting of potential crimes rather than politicised accusations ratcheting up the rhetoric. This month's hospital attacks could see independent investigators being given a mandate from the international community and allowed to safely access and collect evidence as to what happened as a way of signifying a new approach to the conduct of the fighting. 
One day - soon, we hope - the war in Syria will end and the people who remain will have to come to terms with the horrors of what happened. Without genuine accountability for what happened in the past, the challenge of the future will be even harder. 



The UN has stopped counting the bodies, hospitals are attacked every two or three days, and justice is not achieved for crimes committed against humanity. What is the rest of the world doing in response to this war, simply nothing. The US and Russia have agreed to a peace treaty to end their involvement in the fighting, with rebel groups and the regime having until friday to sign the deal. Yet paperwork is not enough, we need to take action and leave a substantial impact. Sending aid to hospitals and protecting them from attacks. Possibly even punishing those who break the rules of conflict and launch strikes against buildings and people under protected status. Of course this is not the only path of action to be taken, but paperwork just doesn't make the cut, resolute action must be taken to ensure peace and the protection of those who cannot fend for themselves.

Denslow, James. "Aljazeera." 18 February 2016. Aljazeera Media Network. 22 February 2016. <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/politics-war-crimes-syria-russia-msf-isis-160218063450307.html>. 
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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

UN finds 'extermination' of detainees in Syria

Report covering 2011-15 period urges targeted sanctions against individuals and groups guilty of "unimaginable abuses".

 | War & Conflict, Human Rights, Syrian Civil War, Syria
International investigators have said that several thousand prisoners have been executed, beaten to death or otherwise left to die during Syria's civil war, in policies that appear to amount to "extermination" under international law.
The UN-backed Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented a 25-page report on Monday on killings of detainees by President Bashar al-Assad's government.
The report is drawn from 621 interviews conducted between March 2011 and November 2015.
Investigators say that they are short of enough evidence to provide more specific estimates of killings of those in custody.
The report seeks "targeted sanctions" against unspecified individuals or groups responsible for such crimes.
The investigators lamented inaction by the UN Security Council about possibly launching criminal investigations.
The findings painted a stark picture of prisons and detention centres run by the Syrian authorities.
"The mass scale of deaths of detainees suggests that the government of Syria is responsible for acts that amount to extermination as a crime against humanity," Paulo Pinheiro, the commission's head, said.
Pinheiro described how people held in governmental detention centres were "subjected to violations on a mass scale".
He said "prisoners are routinely tortured and beaten, forced to live in unsanitary and overcrowded cells, [and] with little food and no medical care many perish".
"Nearly every surviving detainee has emerged from custody having suffered unimaginable abuses," he said.
The survivors had detailed how their cellmates were beaten to death during interrogation or in their cell, left to die of severe injuries sustained from torture or from unattended medical conditions, the report said.
It also cites execution policies by armed groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Nusra Front.
The report detailed horrific abuses carried out in makeshift detention centres run by ISIL, including massacres and executions of children.
The group, known for its public executions by beheadings and throwing people off high buildings, has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, the report said.
The report also addressed the abuse and killing of detainees by other armed opposition groups, including al-Nusra Front, which it accused of war crimes for torturing and summarily executing mainly captured government soldiers.
Decrying the atmosphere of "total impunity" reigning in Syria, Carla del Ponte, commission member, criticised the UN Security Council for "doing nothing".
The ongoing Syrian conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against the Assad government in March 2011.
It later morphed into a full-blown civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and turned more than 4.3 million others into refugees, according to statistics by the UN.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies




Syria is a nation of broken pieces, with each of those pieces trying to take on the role of the whole piece. As a result of the five years of bitter conflict, thousands of innocents have been caught in the crossfire and killed. Human atrocities and other war crimes have been committed and the UN has been accused of doing nothing. And I'd also have to ask the question, what is the UN doing to restore peace and stop the violence which has torn this country to ribbons? The proposed treaties have all failed and war is still continuing with more and more players entering the conflict each year. The UN does indeed need to take a more permanent and resolute stance in this crisis and establish what it is that they're going to do to stop this.

"Aljazeera.com." 9 Feb 2016. Aljazeera Media Network. 9 Feb 2016. <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/probe-finds-extermination-detainees-syria-160208154624792.html>.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Newborns dying amid siege on Yemeni city

Camel caravans are being used to smuggle medical necessities, including oxygen cylinders, into besieged Taiz.

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Smugglers carry oxygen cylinders on their camels' backs on a road cutting through the mountains [Taha Saleh/Al Jazeera]
Taiz, Yemen - Last month, Hani Mansour took his wife, who was expecting their first child, to the Republican Hospital in the city of Taiz.
After spending hours at the state-run hospital, Mansour's wife gave birth. Mansour was overjoyed to hear the news, but was shocked when the doctor told him that his son needed to stay in an incubator because his lungs were not fully developed.
However, because of Yemen's ongoing civil war in which the Houthi rebel group is besieging Taiz, the Republican Hospital has no oxygen cylinders, and its incubators do not work.
"I tried to move my child to al-Hikma private hospital, but there were no oxygen cylinders there either, so my child died five hours after his birth," Mansour told Al Jazeera.
As the war in Yemen continues to rage, 37 of the 40 hospitals and medical institutions in Taiz, Yemen's second city, have closed. Only the Republican and al-Hikma hospitals have incubators, but because both hospitals usually lack oxygen supplies, the incubators do not work regularly.
Smuggling oxygen cylinders via camel has become 'profitable work' in Yemen [Taha Saleh/Al Jazeera]
"Around 20 oxygen cylinders arrived at the hospital in the last two weeks," Dr Rania Mohammed, the supervisor of the incubators department at the Republican Hospital, told Al Jazeera. "But these cylinders are not enough, as some of the children need to stay in the incubators for several weeks and sometimes for two months, and these cylinders only last for a few days." 
Mohammed added that power cuts further complicate the use of the incubators: "The fathers of the newborn children have to bring generators to the hospital to turn the incubators on."
That was the case for Ridhwan al-Ashari, whose wife gave birth at the Republican Hospital on January 13. The child was in dire need of oxygen, and although there were oxygen cylinders in the hospital, there was no fuel for the generator powering the incubator.
"I brought my own generator from my house and I turned the incubator on. But after two days, the oxygen cylinders ran out, and my child needed to stay in the incubator for two months. So after all these efforts I made, my child died," Ashari told Al Jazeera.
Abdul Hakeem al-Ameen, a doctor on the medical committee in Taiz that is responsible for distributing medicine to hospitals, said that 25 people died last month because of the lack of oxygen cylinders in the city, including 13 children. An additional 30 people died in December, he said, most of whom were children.
"There are around 600 patients waiting for surgical operations, and they cannot do them because of the lack of oxygen. So some of those patients may die if they do not do the operation," Ameen told Al Jazeera.
The Houthi rebel group prevents the import of basic commodities, as well as medicine, propane, and oxygen cylinders, to besieged areas of Taiz.
According to Mohammed, the only way oxygen cylinders can be brought in is by smugglers, who carry goods on the backs of camels on a road cutting through the mountains.
The oxygen cylinders are transported from Aden province to Talooq village, only four kilometres from Taiz. Then, the smugglers take the oxygen cylinders to Taiz's al-Maradei area.
Mohamed Moqbel, 45, a camel owner, is one of these smugglers. He told Al Jazeera that he started this work last month.
"Every morning, I go to Talooq with around 20 camel owners to meet doctors. Then they give each camel owner two oxygen cylinders, and we leave Talooq towards the city. After four hours, doctors meet us in al-Maradei in Taiz to take the cylinders," Moqbel said.
"I get 5,000 rials [$23] for each cylinder, and my camel carries two cylinders at once. So it is profitable work for us, as we get 10,000 rials [$46] a day, but sometimes we do not find cylinders to smuggle."
Moqbel said that he is very proud of his work as an oxygen smuggler, because he is helping patients in the besieged areas. The smugglers also carry medicine and other commodities.
But Abdul Kareem Shamsan, the head of the Taiz-based Humanitarian Aid Coalition, a local coalition of aid organisations, said that the oxygen cylinders smuggled into Taiz "only cover less than 15 percent of the total need, and the casualties because of the lack of oxygen cylinders are increasing every day".
He said that each cylinder, with the added price of transportation, now costs 15,000 rials ($70), compared with only 3,000 rials ($14) before the siege began.



The situation in Yemen has gone from mild, to critical in the last year. Dozens of people are dying in hospitals across the city of Taiz due to the fact that the hospitals can no longer function without the necessary resources needed to save the live of those who are in need. The author of this article does indeed appear to be in support of oxygen smugglers, and very much against the actions of Houthi. Though little is said about the rebel group and the lives that they are claiming each passing day. A treaty or ceasefire of some sort needs to be established quickly so as to allow medical supplies and the necessities for human life to pass through the front lines and into the city. Many are dying because of the lack of resources, and many more will continue to die unless action is taken to ensure the lives of those who still have a fighting chance.
Al-Sakkaf, Nasser. "Aljazeera." 2 Feb 2016. Aljazeera Media Network. 2 Feb 2016. <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/newborns-dying-siege-yemeni-city-160126121135272.html>. 
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