Pakistani tribesmen refuse U.S. drone strike compensation

Trend, March 31, 2011
 

Families of those Pakistani tribesmen who were killed and injured in March in U.S. drone strike Thursday refused to accept the government’s compensation and demanded halt to the American drone strikes in the region, Xinhua reported.

The government had announced 300,000 rupees (about 3,530 US dollars) each for those killed and 100,000 rupees for the injured.

Over 40 tribesmen were killed and many others injured in a drone strike on a jirga of council of tribal elders in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan on March 17. According to the local reports, the jirga was called to settle a dispute over the sale of mineral in the area when the deadly strike was launched.

The Pakistan army chief in rare reaction had strongly condemned the U.S. drone strike on the innocent tribesmen following the March 17th incident. In a harsh statement General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani said that “such aggression against people of Pakistan is unjustified and intolerable under any circumstances”.

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Thousands at risk in Duekoue – Amnesty

Morning Star Online, March 30,  2011

 

Amnesty called on the United Nations peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast to urgently protect thousands of displaced people sheltering in a Catholic mission in the west of the country amid fierce fighting.

As many as 10,000 civilians are sheltering in the mission in the town of Duekoue after fierce battles on Tuesday between forces supporting the internationally recognised elected President Alassane Ouattara and militiamen loyal to defeated president Laurent Gbagbo.

Senior Amnesty activist Veronique Aubert said: “The United Nations Operation in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) mandate in Cote d’Ivoire requires the peacekeepers to protect civilians at imminent threat of physical violence.

“They must act immediately to prevent further bloodshed.”

The UNOCI camp is only about two miles away from Duekoue.

The situation in the west of Ivory Coast has been volatile since the November 2010 contested presidential elections.

All parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations.

Wallerstein: The Great Libyan Distraction

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By Immanuel Wallerstein, ZNet, April 1, 2011

The entire Libyan conflict of the last month - the civil war in Libya, the U.S.-led military action against Gaddafi - is neither about humanitarian intervention nor about the immediate supply of world oil. It is in fact one big distraction - a deliberate distraction - from the principal political struggle in the Arab world. There is one thing on which Gaddafi and Western leaders of all political views are in total accord. They all want to slow down, channel, co-opt, limit the second Arab revolt and prevent it from changing the basic political realities of the Arab world and its role in the geopolitics of the world-system.
 

To appreciate this, one has to follow what has been happening in chronological sequence. Although political rumblings in the various Arab states and the attempts by various outside forces to support one or another element within various states have been a constant for a long time, the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi on Dec. 17, 2010 launched a very different process. 

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Who is Embarrassing the United Nations?

By Lawrence Davidson, Media With Conscience, March 26, 2011
 


On 23 March 2011 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the United Nations Rapporteur Richard Falk (Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University) told the world organization’s Human Rights Council that the “continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation..” In fact, he continued, the present process “can only be described in its cumulative impact as ethnic cleansing.” Falk concluded by asking the UN Human Rights Council to request an investigation by the International Criminal Court into whether Israeli actions in the West Bank amount to “colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law.”

This is not a particularly startling or rare point of view. There are many well versed Israelis, including several reporters for Haaretz (such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy), who would probably agree with Falk’s position. There are millions of people around the world who are willing to actively boycott Israel due to, in part, its illegal settlement policies. And, the UN Human Rights Council itself has, in the past, repeatedly condemned Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank of Palestine.

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Iraq: Closing Torture Prison Won’t End Abuse

Independent Inquiry Needed to Investigate Torture at Camp Honor; Fears of Abuse at Other Prisons Remain

Human Rights Watch, March 31, 2011

Shutting down Camp Honor will mean little if detainees are shuffled to other facilities to face torture again. There needs to be a genuine, independent investigation and criminal prosecution of everyone, regardless of rank, responsible for the horrific abuses there.

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Baghdad) – Iraq’s announcement on March 14, 2011, that it will close the Camp Honor detention center after a parliamentary committee uncovered torture there is a positive move but only a first step, Human Rights Watch said today. A pressing need remains for an independent investigation into who was responsible for the abuse there, Human Rights Watch said.

Iraqi officials should establish an independent body with authority to impartially investigate the torture that occurred at Camp Honor and other sites run by the 56th Brigade, also known as the “Baghdad Brigade,” and the Counterterrorism Service – the elite security forces attached to the military office of the prime minister. The investigating body should recommend disciplinary steps or criminal prosecution of everyone of any rank implicated in the abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

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Pakistan’s secret dirty war

In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers. Why is no one investigating and what have they got to do with the bloody battle for Pakistan’s largest province? 

Declan Walsh, The Guardian, March 29, 2011



Lala Bibi with her father and son Saeed Ahmed – and photographs of her murdered son Najibullah and his cousin, who was also abducted. Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian

The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.

This gruesome parade of corpses has been surfacing in Balochistan, Pakistan‘s largest province, since last July. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accounted for more than 100 bodies – lawyers, students, taxi drivers, farm workers. Most have been tortured. The last three were discovered on Sunday.

If you have not heard of this epic killing spree, though, don’t worry: neither have most Pakistanis. Newspaper reports from Balochistan are buried quietly on the inside pages, cloaked in euphemisms or, quite often, not published at all.

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Thousands at risk in Duekoue – Amnesty

Morning Star Online, March 30,  2011

 

Amnesty called on the United Nations peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast to urgently protect thousands of displaced people sheltering in a Catholic mission in the west of the country amid fierce fighting.

As many as 10,000 civilians are sheltering in the mission in the town of Duekoue after fierce battles on Tuesday between forces supporting the internationally recognised elected President Alassane Ouattara and militiamen loyal to defeated president Laurent Gbagbo.

Senior Amnesty activist Veronique Aubert said: “The United Nations Operation in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) mandate in Cote d’Ivoire requires the peacekeepers to protect civilians at imminent threat of physical violence.

“They must act immediately to prevent further bloodshed.”

The UNOCI camp is only about two miles away from Duekoue.

The situation in the west of Ivory Coast has been volatile since the November 2010 contested presidential elections.

All parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations.