Editor’s note: Mary Wareham is the Arms Division’s Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and chief editor of ‘Cluster Munition Monitor 2012.’

(CNN) — It was cloudy the afternoon of January 3 when residents say the cluster bombs fell on the Syrian town of Latamneh.

Three rockets containing the cluster munitions fell in nearby fields, apparently doing no harm, but a fourth landed on the street between residential buildings. Its impact was devastating.

One man was driving down the street when submunitions from the rockets exploded, killing him instantly, residents said. Fifteen civilians walking down the street or in their homes were wounded, including women and children, according to two residents and video evidence. Residents said that an hour after the attack, a submunition that had failed to detonate on impact killed a man who tried to remove it from his yard. It exploded in his hands.

Mary Wareham

Since mid-2012, Human Rights Watch and others have reported several times on civilian casualties caused by Syrian use of air-dropped cluster bombs, but Latamneh and other recent attacks are the first known instances of Syrian use of ground-based cluster munitions. The rockets were apparently launched from the vicinity of nearby Hama airport, which is under government control.

Evidence we have seen suggests that Syrian government forces delivered the 122mm cluster munition rockets containing submunitions using a BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launcher, a truck-mounted system capable of firing 40 rockets nearly simultaneously with a range of 4 to 40 kilometers (2.5 to 25 miles). Grad rocket launchers are notorious for their inability to be accurately targeted due to their lack of a guidance system. This exacerbates the danger from the wide-area effect of the submunitions the rockets contain.

More: Syrian regime denies use of cluster bombs

Many countries, including Lebanon and Cambodia, have experienced civilian casualties from similar types of submunitions, both at the time of attack and from submunitions that didn’t explode on initial impact. Each submunition is the size of a D-cell battery with a distinctive white ribbon, and the design of their fuze system makes each one very sensitive and liable to detonate if disturbed.

After years of civilian harm caused by cluster munitions, Israel’s massive use of the weapons in southern Lebanon in 2006 helped propel governments into action. Working with civil society groups such as Human Rights Watch and international organizations, a broad-based coalition of like-minded governments sought to do something to reduce the unacceptable harm caused by cluster munitions.

The resulting Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted May 30, 2008, comprehensively prohibits cluster munitions and requires their clearance and assistance to victims. A total of 111 nations, including many former users, producers, and stockpilers of the weapon, as well as countries contaminated by cluster munition remnants, have embraced the ban convention.

Yet there has been limited interest in the Middle East and North Africa regions, where just three countries—Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia—are onboard the treaty banning cluster bombs. Some nations, such as Jordan, say they need more time to study the convention’s provisions, while others including Egypt, Iran, and Israel have produced, imported, exported, and stockpiled cluster munitions.

The 122mm cluster munition rockets used by Syria bear the markings of the Egyptian state-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization and an Egyptian company called Sakr Factory for Development Industries. Syria could have bought these cluster munitions from Egypt, received them through military cooperation, or acquired them another way. With no transparency, it is impossible to say how or when they were made or transferred, though it is likely Syria acquired them long ago.

Syria’s relentless use of cluster munitions, including in populated areas, is yet another sign of its blatant disregard for international law and the protection of its own civilians. Syria’s use of cluster munitions runs counter to the new international standard being created by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, rejecting any use of the weapons.

The preventive impact of the convention and the standard it is establishing can already be seen as countries that have joined the ban rapidly destroy their stockpiles of cluster munitions.

In Syria, every time the government has used cluster munitions and other explosive weapons, a lethal legacy of unexploded ordnance is created. Given the terrible humanitarian impact, all governments, regardless of their position on joining the ban convention, should press Syria to stop using cluster munitions.

By David Enders | McClatchy Newspapers

At least 33 people were wounded in running clashes between pro- and anti-Damascus regime supporters in Lebanon’s second largest city of Tripoli, security and army officials said on Tuesday.

The fighting erupted days after a wave of kidnappings targeting Syrians in Lebanon, in a new sign that violence in neighbouring Syria is exacerbating tensions in the small Mediterranean country.

Lebanon lived under three decades of Syrian hegemony and remains deeply divided between supporters and opponents of Damascus.

Exchanges of gunfire erupted on Monday and continued through the night between Tripoli’s mainly Sunni district of Bab el-Tebbaneh and the largely Alawite area of Jabal Mohsen.

“Clashes are ongoing, and the army is currently intervening,” a military official told AFP.

Several houses caught fire and cars were damaged in the fighting, which has added to fears that the conflict in Syria is increasingly spilling over into Lebanon, destabilising the already fragile security situation.

Ten soldiers were wounded as were 23 civilians, both Sunni and Alawite, security and army officials said.

The violence was centred around the aptly named Syria Street, the symbolic “dividing line” between the rival Tripoli districts, and many civilians have fled the area.

The Sunni-majority port city has been the scene of intense and sometimes deadly clashes between Sunni supporters of the anti-Syrian opposition and Alawite Muslims loyal to a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting an increasingly bloody 17-month uprising against his regime, hails from the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The fighting in Tripoli erupted after a wave of mass kidnappings of Syrians in Lebanon, with the opposition Syrian National Council accusing the authorities of failing to act over the attacks.

“Syrians in Lebanon have been abducted by political parties, and subject to arbitrary arrests by security agents, without the authorities so much as lifting a finger,” the SNC said in a statement, implicitly blaming Hezbollah.

Last week, an armed Shiite clan claimed it had kidnapped around 20 Syrians in retaliation for the abduction of a family member by a Syrian rebel group, which accused him of being a Hezbollah sniper.

Many more were reportedly seized as rioters went on the rampage in Beirut, attacking shops and cars belonging to Syrians.

Hezbollah, considered the most powerful military force in Lebanon, has denied any connection with the clan member or the kidnappings.

The SNC also said Lebanese army intelligence on Monday raided the home of a Syrian humanitarian activist and arrested two of his colleagues, and that they also arrested a Syrian lawyer.

President Michel Sleiman on Tuesday urged Lebanon’s judiciary to “issue immediate arrest warrants for the kidnappers” and called on security officials to “act to free those abducted.”

New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Lebanese authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the kidnappings.

“Lebanese authorities need to enforce the law and end impunity for kidnappings and other violent acts carried out against Syrian citizens in the name of reprisal,” said Nadim Houry, HRW’s deputy Middle East director.

Human rights organisations must start coping with reality: The victors write the laws and hold the trials.

Human rights organisations should not be so quick to put rebel militias to the same standard as a standing army [AFP]

08/08/2012

Cambridge, UK - Human rights organisations pride themselves on being impartial, on not taking sides in the conflicts they report on.

On July 31 in Aleppo, when Syrian rebels summarily executed the head of a pro-regime Shabiha militia, Ali Zeineddin al-Berri - and some of his men - there was a chorus of condemnation from Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and the UN.

“What it looks like is execution of detainees and if that is the case, that would be a war crime,” said a senior legal advisor for HRW.

To be sure, these same organisations have assiduously investigated the atrocities of the Assad regime.

But what are we to make of the idea that the violence of the regime and that of the rebels should be measured against the same standard? Does it make sense to be impartial about a war?

Al-Berri was a regime thug who allegedly killed 15 Syrian rebels during a recent truce. Some of the worst massacres of the conflict have been carried out by Shabiha militia. Killing al-Berri may have been simple revenge; or it may have been a calculated message to encourage militiamen to stay home.

Maybe the killing was a mistake. It might convince regime dead-enders that they have no choice but to go down fighting. It certainly generated negative media coverage among the rebels’ supporters in the West.

But for the human rights community, assessing al-Berri’s killing is a legal not a strategic matter. Note the language used by HRW’s lawyer: the Syrian rebels had unlawfully killed a “detainee”.

The Syrian rebels are a collection of different groups, with no clear political direction or command structure. They are fighting a desperate war against a regime that will bomb and massacre its own people to stay in power, and which would prefer to see Syria destroyed than surrender.

The Syrian rebels actually doing the fighting mostly lack training, organisation, and leadership. Needless to say, they have not prioritised hiring lawyers, writing legal codes, and setting up a judiciary. It is unlikely the Syrian opposition has a consistent or enforceable “policy” on “detainees”, whatever statements its campaign spokesmen outside Syria may make.

Yet HRW talks as if the rebels were just like a state. It seeks to hold them to the same standards with respect to discriminating between combatants and civilians, treatment of prisoners and so on.

What bias in human rights talk is revealed in this attempt at impartiality?

Firstly, the laws of war were written by states. There is a systematic bias favouring the official, uniformed armed forces of states. From the point of view of the state, a rebel is at best an “unlawful combatant” or a criminal, at worst a traitor or even a barbarian.

According to the Geneva Conventions, the definition of a legal combatant is one who carries weapons openly and ideally wears a uniform or distinguishing mark.

When rebels are strong and in control of territory, they can carry weapons openly. To do so in other situations is to surrender one of their few advantages. Had the Free Syrian Army carried weapons openly and worn uniforms when they infiltrated into Damascus and Aleppo, the regime would already be victorious.

From the point of view of these great standards of civilisation - the Geneva Conventions - a Syrian soldier fighting rebels bearing arms is perfectly legal. But the rebels who kill regime officials in their homes are war criminals.

How far would the rebellion against Assad have gotten if every rebel had to identify himself by openly carrying arms, engaging only in “fair fights” with the Syrian Armed Forces?

The problems with human rights talk go deeper.

NATO deploys lawyers en masse and its air forces are meticulous and expert in their targeting. But it could not satisfy HRW in the Libyan campaign. In May, HRW released a report asking NATO to account for 72 “civilian” casualties caused by air strikes. (Even if HRW is entirely correct, 72 dead civilians is a remarkably low price to pay for NATO’s contribution to unseating Gaddafi.)

The definition of a civilian may seem straightforward. In fact, it is a very difficult matter, even in wars between states. Are arms workers civilians? Are soldiers not on duty civilians? Are unwilling conscripts civilians or soldiers? The Geneva Conventions evade the matter. They essentially say that a civilian is anyone who is not a legal combatant, that is, someone who is not carrying arms openly.

In war, the question of carrying weapons openly is a tactical issue and camouflage is a principal military art. Under sustained air attack, Gaddafi’s military did not seek to advertise its “distinguishing marks” as the uniformed armed force of a sovereign state. After the first few days, for example, Libyan commanders did not use military radios or military vehicles. To do so was to invite death from the air from their enemies. After the war, HRW investigators found no evidence of military equipment at bombed out buildings that NATO said were Libyan command and control facilities. They naively assumed in such cases that civilians had been killed.

HRW now demand NATO investigate and account for these deaths. The idea here is that, ideally speaking, every death in war can be clearly adjudicated in legal terms. But given the ambiguity in the core distinction between civilian and combatant how could this ever be so?

The fantasy that matters of right and wrong in war are subject to legal determination creates a bogus position of moral superiority. It is a position occupied by those who believe human rights talk elevates them above the politics of war. They presume an imaginary world in which all war crimes will be investigated and punished, irrespective of who committed them.

Consider in this vein UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remark that “Aleppo… is the epicentre of a vicious battle between the Syrian government and those who wish to replace it. The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes. Such acts must be investigated and the perpetrators held to account.”

By reference to the notion of war crimes, Ban Ki-moon creates a moral equivalence between the murderous regime of Assad and those who are fighting against the odds to defeat him. Whatever the failings of the rebels, and they are many, there is no such equivalence for any right thinking person.

Ban Ki-moon’s comment also implies there will be some grand trial where good and bad, right and wrong, legal and illegal all will be decided.

In the real world, we know that the powerful write the laws and the victors hold the trials.

While HRW and Amnesty issue reports, and UN officials make grand statements, no US or UK official will ever be tried for war crimes in Iraq or for the on-going torture and imprisonment of terrorist suspects.

Human rights talk is a way of evading having to take sides in war and of pretending to be above war. But the only reason we have the UN and the human rights community is because of the victory of the Allies in World War II and of the West in the Cold War.

Perhaps it is time for human rights organisations to dispense with the lawyers and start studying politics and the paradoxes of war.

Tarak Barkawi is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, New School for Social Research.

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press – 2 hours ago  

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of the U.N. observers in Syria said Friday that a recent spike in bloodshed is derailing the mission to monitor and defuse more than a year of violence and could prompt the unarmed force to pull out.

The observer mission is the only functioning part of an international peace plan that Kofi Annan brokered two months ago. Western powers have pinned their hopes on the plan, in part because there are no other options on the table. There is little support for military intervention, and several rounds of sanctions have done little to stop the bloodshed.

“Violence over the past 10 days has been intensifying willingly by the both parties, with losses on both sides and significant risks to our observers,” Maj. Gen. Robert Mood told reporters in Damascus. “The escalating violence is now limiting our ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue and stability projects.”

Mood also said there was a concern among the states providing observers that the risk is approaching an unacceptable level for continuing the mission. He did not provide further details.

Mood’s comments were a clear sign that Annan’s peace plan is disintegrating. The regime and the opposition have ignored a cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect April 12.

The presence of the observers is considered critical to understanding the conflict in a country where the government prevents reporters from operating independently.

On Friday, the Syrian regime kept up a ferocious offensive on rebel areas across the country this week to reclaim territory held by rebels.

An activist in the northern city of Aleppo said troops backed by helicopters and tanks were engaged in “raging battles” in the rebel-held town of Anadan and several other locations in the province.

The violence did not stop thousands of Syrians in Aleppo city, and other areas throughout the country from demonstrating against President Bashar Assad on Friday. They marched from mosques, gathered in town squares, chanted, sang and danced against the regime.

“Even if I die, I will still be a rebel,” sang the leader of a demonstration in the northern city of Idlib, according to amateur video. “Oh Bashar, you will flee.”

Eight protesters were killed in the southern town of Busra al-Sham after Syrian forces fired a shell near the Khaled Bin Walid mosque, according to activists and amateur videos that appeared to show bloodied men sprawled lifeless on a street.

The video could not be independently verified.

More than 20 people were reported killed when security forces opened fire on protests across the country, but the toll could not be independently verified.

One area that Syrian forces have recently reclaimed is Haffa, which they overran on Wednesday. They pushed out hundreds of rebels from the town in the coastal Latakia province, after intense battles that lasted eight days.

U.N. observers entered the nearly deserted town Thursday and found smoldering buildings, looted shops, smashed cars and a strong stench of death, according to U.N. spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh.

The siege of Haffa, a Sunni-populated village, had become a focus of international concern because of fears the uprising against the Assad regime is evolving into a sectarian civil war pitting the president’s minority Alawite sect against the majority Sunnis and other groups. Recent mass killings in other Sunni-populated areas have fueled those concerns.

U.N. observers have reported a steep rise in violence in Syria in recent weeks.

On Friday, Mood said there appears to be a lack of willingness to seek a peaceful transition.

“Instead there is a push toward advancing military positions,” he said.

“What we have seen on the ground is that the attacks by the armed opposition on official buildings and government checkpoints are becoming more effective and the government is taking great losses,” he said.

Activists say some 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.

An international rights watchdog, meanwhile, accused Syrian government forces of using sexual violence to torture men, women and boys detained during the uprising. In a report released Friday, The New York-based Human Rights Watch also quoted witnesses and victims as saying that soldiers and pro-government armed militias sexually abused women and girls as young as 12 during home raids and military sweeps of residential areas.

“Sexual violence in detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian government’s torture arsenal and Syrian security forces regularly use it to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

HRW said it does not have evidence that high-ranking officers commanded their troops to commit sexual violence but said it had information indicating that no action has been taken to investigate or punish government forces who did.

Also Friday, Syrian opposition members began a two-day meeting in Turkey to discuss a vision for a post-Assad Syria and steps need to be taken to ensure a transition to democracy. The meeting was headed by the main Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Council.

“The international community must take initiative and they must do whatever is necessary to save the civilian population — whether it’s a security zone or a security corridor — whatever it is, it must be done in order to help civilians,” said Mahmoud Osman, an SNC member.

(Reuters) - Syria’s state media is fighting hard to cast the country’s unrest as an Islamist terrorist conspiracy rather than a popular uprising against the dynastic rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

State television airs interviews with men confessing to acts of violence, sullying the image of Assad’s opponents. But the interviews are mocked by many Syrians and an ex-producer says that many confessions are bogus.

Although an ardent supporter of Assad, the former employee said she is distressed by what she describes as a campaign of misinformation waged by the official “Suriya” television channel.

“I used to arrive at work and one of the editors would tell us that we have a person to confess,” she told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from her former employer.

“Some of the men are just normal people who were arrested in anti-government demonstrations and others were thieves and criminals who were nearing the end of their sentence,” said the producer, in her late twenties. “They were told they will be set free if they confess to the made-up crimes.”

One confession was that of Qusai Shaqfeh from Hama, a city that has seen fighting between rebels and government troops in recent months and has a long history of dissent against the Assads - Bashar’s late father Hafez sent troops to crush an uprising there in 1982, killing thousands.

Shaqfeh, 29, said in the aired programme that rebels killed members of the security forces and threw them off a bridge. He also said he contacted journalists working for foreign media and sent them footage of faked peaceful demonstrations to use as propaganda against Assad.

Another confession gained particular fame in Syria when the confessor, Ghassin Selawaya from the coastal city of Lattakia, appeared to be playing to the demands of the producer.

“Er…we burned buses…er…we resisted security patrols, it was all rioting,” he muttered, sitting in a T-shirt surrounded by a shotgun and pistols, weapons the presenter said police found on him.

Opposition activists said that Selawaya’s family said he was in fact arrested before the uprising for unrelated crimes. The Syrian government restricts media access, making it hard to verify reports.

REPORTS OF TORTURE

For more than a year, peaceful protesters demanding Assad’s overthrow have been arrested, tortured and killed, human rights groups say. But dissidents have increasingly resorted to armed ambushes and bomb attacks on elements of state security, and a recent Human Rights Watch report accused the armed opposition of kidnappings, torture and executions.

State media has never reported on government abuses but aired “terrorist confessions” early last year when activists posted videos of Assad’s troops firing on demonstrations and there was little evidence of an armed uprising.

For many Syrians, pro- and anti-Assad, the confessions are a running joke.

“I do not think that Syrian television lies in all its stories, but the information in these confessions is really conflicting and confusing,” said Rami, 33, a government worker who, like other ordinary Syrians quoted in this article, was interviewed via Skype from Damascus and asked to be identified by his first name only, for security reasons.

Reem, a 32-year-old journalist, said she never trusted state media, seeing it as a mouthpiece of Assad’s inner circle, but the TV confessions were a new low.

“If they were actually criminals, they should be sent to courts, not to a TV studio,” she said.

“The confessions can be pretty funny,” the producer said. “They are clearly illogical.”

“Our editors would ask us to think up stories that will be believable. For example, if we had a man who was from a certain city, we would tell him to talk about specific streets or confess to a crime committed recently in that city,” she said.

“There were some confessors who seem to have signs of torture but I did not ask too many questions,” she said.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

In late April, pro-government news channel “Addounia” aired what it said was a confession by “terrorist” Ali Othman, who activists say was arrested in March after he helped foreign journalists escape from the besieged city of Homs.

The interview, which was over an hour long, was publicised a few days beforehand.

In the teaser, the Addounia interviewer walks through dark corridors as tense music plays. He creaks open a metal-barred door and walks inside a prison cell, where Ali Othman sits with his head in his hands.

Othman rises and the next shot shows him sitting opposite the presenter, both spotlighted in a dark room.

“Stay tuned… Inside Baba Amr,” words on the screen read, referring to the district in Homs that was heavily shelled by the Syrian government because it was supposedly swarming with “armed terrorists.”

In the interview, Othman said that people attending anti-Assad protests pretended to be peaceful but had hidden guns under their jackets to attack security members.

He also described running a media centre in Baba Amr, smuggling foreign journalists in and out of the country and organising dissident protesters.

Fellow activists said the interview was conducted under duress and Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement just after Othman was arrested that there were reports that he had been tortured.

Suriya’s ex-producer said that many who confessed appeared afraid.

“I sometimes used to wonder why Suriya wanted people to make these confessions,” she said.

“My managing editor once told us that the goal is to show people that the government is in control and also so that parents see what happens if they let their children oppose the government.”

Aisha, a 42-year-old housewife who comes from the same minority Alawite sect as President Assad, said that although she does not trust the confessions, she knows they have a use.

“I watch the confessions in front of my children and try to convince them that they are real because I want them to be scared of what will happen if they look for trouble,” she said.

An international human rights group has accused the Syrian military of committing war crimes just before a ceasefire came into effect on 12 April.

Human Rights Watch says fighting around Idlib province, in the north, may meet the definition of an “armed conflict”, as laid down by international law.

All forces engaged in armed conflict have to comply with internationally agreed minimum standards of conduct.

Separately, activists said 15 soldiers had been killed in a rebel ambush.

The attack occurred at dawn near the village of al-Rai, in Aleppo province, where the military had “scaled up” operations since the ceasefire came into force, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Two members of the rebel Free Syrian Army also died, it added.

Another six soldiers were reportedly killed in clashes near Damascus.

Russia said it “decisively” condemned the “new terrorist sorties”.

Rebel groups, a foreign ministry statement said, had “unleashed a large-scale campaign to destabilise the situation and disrupt” the peace plan negotiated by the UN and Arab League special envoy, Kofi Annan.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, said 10 people had been killed by security forces across the country on Wednesday, and 800 since the government agreed to Mr Annan’s plan on 27 March.

“These numbers were verified in the context of 2,400 breaches of the ceasefire by the regime’s army and shabiha [militia],” it added.

‘Broken promises’

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said there was clear evidence Syria breached the international laws governing armed conflicts by carrying out summary executions and destroying houses as the negotiations that led to the 12 April ceasefire continued.

The group said the Syrian army killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in Idlib province in late March and early April.

“It was as if the Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause harm,” said Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at HRW. “Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another.”

The 38-page report, ‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib During Peace Plan Negotiations, documents dozens of executions, killings of civilians, and destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as detention without trial and torture.

It includes accounts of children being executed by government forces.

“The security forces also arbitrarily detained dozens of people, holding them without any legal basis,” HRW said.

“About two-thirds of the detainees remain in detention to date, despite promises by President Bashar al-Assad’s government to release political detainees,” it added.

The HRW report told how the mother of Mohammed Saleh Shamrukh - an anti-government protester from Idlib province - had to watch security forces take him away.

“I didn’t say goodbye so as to not make him sad. He didn’t say anything either. When they left, the soldiers said I should forget him,” she said.

Mr Shamrukh was executed on March 25, according to HRW.

The 12 April ceasefire is a key element of the peace plan brokered by Mr Annan. Levels of violence have declined since it came into force.

But UN monitors who are now deployed to Syria report that clashes are continuing, and that both sides continue to have heavy weaponry in civilian areas, in breach of their ceasefire obligations.

The Syrian government has not commented on the HRW report.

Officials blame foreign-backed “terrorist” groups for the violence and for killing more than 2,450 civilians and 1,340 members of the security forces since protests against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. The UN estimates that more than 9,000 people have been killed.

Security Council Sanctions, ICC Referral Needed

April 9, 2012

(New York) – Syrian security forces summarily executed over 100 – and possibly many more – civilians and wounded or captured opposition fighters during recent attacks on cities and towns, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 25-page report, “In Cold Blood: Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias,” documents more than a dozen incidents involving at least 101 victims since late 2011, many of them in March 2012. Human Rights Watch documented the involvement of Syrian forces and pro-government shabeeha militias in summary and extrajudicial executions in the governorates of Idlib and Homs. Government and pro-government forces not only executed opposition fighters they had captured, or who had otherwise stopped fighting and posed no threat, but also civilians who likewise posed no threat to the security forces.

“In a desperate attempt to crush the uprising, Syrian forces have executed people in cold blood, civilians and opposition fighters alike,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They are doing it in broad daylight and in front of witnesses, evidently not concerned about any accountability for their crimes.”

Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to ensure that any UN mission mandated to supervise the six-point plan brokered by the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan would be in a position to document such crimes. This would be best achieved by sending, alongside military observers, properly equipped human rights monitors able to safely and independently interview victims of human rights abuses, while protecting them from retaliation.

Since the end of 2011, when Syrian forces intensified their military campaign on cities and towns that they believe to be opposition strongholds, hundreds of other people have died as a result of artillery attacks, sniper fire, or lack of medical assistance.

The exact number of victims of the extrajudicial executions is impossible to verify given the difficulties of accessing and evaluating the information from Syria. But Human Rights Watch documented at least 12 cases of executions in Idlib and Homs governorates. Human Rights Watch has received additional reports of many more similar incidents, but included in this report only cases in which researchers personally interviewed witnesses to the incidents.

In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, at least 85 victims were Syrian residents who did not take part in the fighting, including women and children. The report describes in detail several cases of mass executions of civilians, including the killing of at least 13 men in the Bilal mosque in Idlib on March 11, the execution of at least 25 men during a search-and-arrest operation in the Sultaniya neighborhood of Homs on March 3, and the killing of at least 47 people, mainly women and children, in the `Adwiyya, Karm al-Zaytoun, and Refa`i neighborhoods of Homs on March 11 and 12.

In these cases, Syrian security forces, operating alone or together with pro-government Shabeeha militias, captured and executed people who were trying to escape as the army took over their towns, shot or stabbed people in their homes as the security forces entered the captured towns, or executed detained residents while conducting house searches.

For example, Louai, a resident who stayed in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs after the army took it over, described the execution of his brother and four of his neighbors on March 2. Louai, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of reprisals, said that the army first entered his neighbors’ house, dragged the four men who were there outside, and slaughtered them with knives in front of their families. The soldiers then came into Louai’s house, and, when he and his brother raised their hands, shot at them both, wounding Louai and killing his brother.

Human Rights Watch also documented the executions of at least 16 opposition fighters, whom the Syrian security forces shot point blank after they had been captured or wounded and were no longer fighting. Those cases raised concerns that the army has adopted a policy, official or unofficial, of taking no prisoners.

An opposition fighter from Kafr Rouma in Idlib governorate described to Human Rights Watch an execution of fighters from his unit in the beginning of March:

One of the fighters was injured in his right leg by machine gun fire. He was lying on the street and we could not rescue him as the army was firing and shooting at our position. Then a tank approached, around 15 soldiers with military uniforms surrounded our comrade and started insulting him and kicking him. They were shouting to us that we should surrender or they would kill him. Then they put a black cloth around his eyes, handcuffed him, and one of them shot him dead with an [assault rifle]. When they left, we buried him in the graveyard in the village.

International human rights law unequivocally prohibits summary and extrajudicial executions. In situations of armed conflict in which international humanitarian law applies, combatants are legitimate targets if they are taking part in hostilities. But deliberately killing injured, surrendered, or captured soldiers would constitute a war crime.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented and condemned serious abuses by opposition fighters in Syria. These abuses should be investigated and those responsible brought to justice. These abuses by no means justify, however, the violations committed by the government forces, including summary executions of opposition fighters.

Human Rights Watch has called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government, and impose sanctions on Syrian officials as well as rebel commanders involved in serious human rights violations. Human Rights Watch also urged other countries to join the mounting calls for accountability by supporting a referral to the ICC as the forum most capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting those bearing the greatest responsibility for abuses in Syria.

“Syrian security forces will stop the executions only if they sense that accountability is inevitable,” Solvang said. “It is up to the Security Council to send this message.” 

23/03/12

(New York) – Human Rights Watch issued the following statement on March 23, 2012, concerning the Russian Foreign Ministry’s use of a Human Rights Watch statement to support a one-sided position on Syria:

In its March 22, 2012 statement, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its “deep concern” over human rights violations committed by armed groups affiliated with the Syrian opposition, extensively citing an open letter on this issue published by Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch also learned that Russian diplomats used the open letter in informal Security Council discussions on March 22 in an attempt to equate the violence by both sides.

Russia’s attention to concerns expressed in the letter to the Syrian opposition is a positive development. Human Rights Watch is committed to objective documentation and exposing abuses by all sides in Syria. The selective use of the findings, however, causes serious concern.

Since the beginning of the protests in Syria, Human Rights Watch has produced over 60 publications, including three extensive reports, on human rights violations by Syrian government forces. These publications contain detailed documentation of widespread and systematic abuses, including killings of peaceful protesters, shelling of residential neighborhoods, large-scale arbitrary detention and torture, “disappearances,” executions, denial of medical assistance, and looting.

Human Rights Watch concluded that that some of these violations constitute crimes against humanity and repeatedly called for an end to abuses and accountability for the perpetrators. Human Rights Watch presented the findings directly to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, urging Russia to use its strong bilateral relations with the Syrian government as well as its weight in the international arena to put an end to government abuses.

None of these findings have been ever acknowledged by Russian officials.

Instead, despite overwhelming evidence of egregious crimes committed by the Syrian security forces, Russia provides diplomatic and military support to Bashar al-Assad’s government and has repeatedly blocked international action aimed at stopping the violations and bringing those responsible for these crimes to justice.

Abuses by opposition fighters are also not an argument for the international community, including Russia, to wash its hands of the Syria crisis, on the grounds that it is too complicated. On the contrary, they are an argument for intensifying pressure on the Syrian government to stop its abuses.

Russia should not pick and choose. If it relies on Human Rights Watch’s findings to support its condemnation of abuses by the Syrian opposition, it should pay equal attention to the extensive documentation of violations by government forces and support international efforts to stop those violations.

We are a group of Syrian bloggers, writers, activists, and independent citizens. We would like to commend your efforts to bring to light violations of human rights whatever their nature or source may be. We have read your letter to the leaders of the Syrian opposition highlighting “increasing evidence…of kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members”, and we would like to respond with the following:

All efforts to expose criminal actions and violations of human rights are commendable. The Syrian uprising began with human rights at the forefront of its values. “Freedom” was one of the first words uttered in the chants of this uprising. It was also accompanied, at least in the beginning, with the chants of “Selmiya, Selmiya” (peaceful, peaceful). In one of the most memorable scenes of this revolution captured on video, Mohamed Abd Al Wahab from the town of Baidah (near to Banias) exclaims: “I’m a human being, not an animal!”, referring to the dehumanizing treatment of citizens by the security forces. The essence of the Syrian uprising is the people’s struggle for their human rights: the right of every Syrian citizen to freedom and dignity. The Assad regime has denied and suppressed these basic human rights for decades, employing every fear tactic imaginable: systematic murder (including but not limited to the massacre of Hama, 1982); mass imprisonment; and torture. These tactics of brutality have paralyzed the Syrian people in silence and fear, until March 2011.

Hence, we believe that the violations outlined by this report do not, and cannot, represent the entire opposition movement. We reject any implication that taints the entire opposition with these actions. This report has already been put to political use by mouthpieces and propagandists of the Syrian regime in order to bolster the notion that there are two equal sides to this crisis and that violence is more or less equal. This proposition is a gross exaggeration and utterly untrue. Criminal actions by armed opposition members, while appalling, are minuscule compared to the systematic criminal repression of the regime.

Many Syrians, understandably, have reacted to your report with anger and frustration. There is simply no mechanism in place to investigate these allegations or bring the perpetrators to justice and put them through fair trials. We can only realistically expect human rights to be ingrained and firmly upheld by state laws when Syria is free and democratic. Our struggle is not only with the Assad regime, but with a legacy of thuggery and Mukhabarat torture that infiltrated every aspect of life in Syria.

Finally, we must stress a very significant point in the HRW letter: it’s not always easy to identify armed opposition. As mentioned in the letter:

“Some reports received by Human Rights Watch indicate that in addition to armed groups with political motivations, criminal gangs, sometimes operating in the name of the opposition, may be carrying out some of these crimes.”

Indeed. This has exactly been the case of many kidnappings according to frequent reports from inside Syria, especially the city of Aleppo. When calling family members to demand ransom, the kidnappers identify themselves as members of the Free Syrian Army. While the reality suggests that there are far more likely suspects of these kidnappings: the criminals released from jail at the beginning of the uprising with a presidential pardon. These individuals have often been involved in the thuggish repression of peaceful protesters, and they would not miss the opportunity to smear the Free Syrian Army as well.

In conclusion, while we appreciate Human Rights Watch’s efforts to shed light on the current Syrian crisis and we join HRW in condemning all violations of human rights in Syria, we strongly oppose tainting the Syrian opposition as a whole with these isolated cases. We strongly oppose an attempt to equalize the country-wide spread of atrocities by the Assad regime and the isolated cases by a few anti-regime operatives. As HRW knows from its own previous reports on Syria, there no comparison between the two in the number of dead and imprisoned, and the sheer, indiscriminate brutality directed towards innocent civilians.

Posted : Thu 22 March 2012 - 12:04pm

Last Updated : Thu 22 March 2012 - 12:07pm

AFP - 20/03/2012

DAMASCUS — Security was tightened in Damascus Tuesday in the wake of deadly clashes, activists said, as the UN Security Council aimed to back up peace envoy Kofi Annan’s mission to end the bloodshed in Syria.

Fresh clashes broke out in the capital and security forces killed at least 30 people, all but two of them civilians, in violence elsewhere across the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Abu Omar, an activist in Damascus, said security forces were deployed in force in most districts of the capital, especially around Abbasid Square, and reported raids on several outlying towns including Douma and Dmeir.

Traffic around the square — on Baghdad, Qusayr and Tijara streets — was clogged because of checkpoints and sandbags blocking access to roads leading to government and security buildings.

The Observatory said gunfire rang out in the Qaboon and Barzeh districts, while the Local Coordination Committees, which organises protests, reported shooting around Arnus Square as well.

Abu Omar said the army backed by armoured cars had violently dispersed a sit-in by hundreds of Douma residents demanding the return of bodies of people killed several weeks ago.

The capital’s security clampdown follows deadly twin suicide car bombings targeting security buildings in Damascus on Saturday.

It also followed what activists said was a hit-and-run attack in the heavily guarded Mazzeh neighbourhood on Monday that killed at least three rebels and a member of the security forces.

The foreign ministry said the same “deadly hand” was behind the wave of attacks in Iraq on Tuesday that killed at least 45 people and the weekend car bombings in Damascus.

Elsewhere, four civilians were killed on Tuesday when a rocket hit their home in Homs and three others — a man, woman and their little girl — were killed in Rastan, both cities in central Syria, the Observatory said.

A total of 18 civilians were killed as security forces bombed the Khaldiyeh district of Homs, it said.

The Britain-based monitoring group said the army also raided a makeshift clinic, killing two civilians who were being treated for injuries in the city of Idlib, northwest Syria.

On the diplomatic front, Russia on Tuesday made it clear its support of any UN Security Council statement on the crisis in Syria would be conditional.

“We are ready to back the mission of UN and Arab League representative Kofi Annan and the proposals to the government and opposition to Syria,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

However, the council “should approve them not as an ultimatum.”

Lavrov’s comments came ahead of a Security Council meeting to discuss a draft statement urging President Bashar al-Assad and the armed opposition to “implement fully and immediately” Annan’s peace plan.

The Western-drafted statement, which France submitted on Monday, says the Security Council will “consider further measures” if nothing is done within seven days of any adoption.

Ahead of the meeting in New York, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned: “We have no time to waste, no time to lose, because one minute, one hour of delay will mean more and more people dead.”

Monitors say a crackdown by the regime on dissent since last March has cost more than 9,100 lives.

Former UN chief Annan’s plan includes a halt to the year-long violence, humanitarian access, the release of detainees and withdrawal of security forces from protest cities.

Russia and China have since October twice used their powers as permanent members of the 15-nation council to veto resolutions on Syria. They said the resolutions were aimed at regime change and that they opposed any sanctions.

Before Lavrow’s latest statement on the UN draft, the United States had welcomed what State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland termed “an evolution in the Russian public position” on the crisis in Syria.

Her comments followed a meeting between Lavrov and international Red Cross chief Jakob Kellenberger in Moscow on Monday at which they called for a daily humanitarian truce in Syria.

Amid growing concern at the plight of civilians caught up in an increasingly armed conflict, a technical mission sent by Annan arrived in Damascus at the weekend for talks on a monitoring operation.

Separately, technical experts from the UN and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are taking part in a Syrian government-led mission to assess the impact of the crackdown on protest hubs battered by security forces.

Human Rights Watch warned on Tuesday that the armed opposition was carrying out serious human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and execution of security force members and government supporters.

“The Syrian government’s brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups,” it said.

20 Mar 2012 18:47

Source: Reuters // Reuters

Demonstrators protest against Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad in Marat al-Numan near the northern province of Idlib March 2, 2012. REUTERS/Handout

* Russia issues sharp criticism of Syrian leadership

* Human Rights Group accuses opposition of abuses

* At least 31 die in violence around country (Adds Russian criticism of Syrian authorities, quotes)

By Oliver Holmes and Crispian Balmer

BEIRUT, March 20 (Reuters) - Rebel fighters fled the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Tuesday in the face of a fierce army assault, as Russia issued its toughest criticism yet of President Bashar al-Assad’s handling of the year-long revolt.

The flight from the remote desert city, which lies on the road to Iraq, marked the latest setback for the armed opposition, which also faced accusations of torture and brutality from a leading human rights body.

However, just as he was making advances on the ground, Assad also appeared to suffer a setback on the diplomatic front, with key-ally Moscow adopting a new, sharper tone after months of publicly endorsing his government.

“We believe the Syrian leadership reacted wrongly to the first appearance of peaceful protests and … is making very many mistakes,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian radio station Kommersant-FM.

Lavrov also spoke of a “future transition” period for Syria but continued to reject calls from most Western and Arab states for Assad to resign, saying this was “unrealistic”.

It was not immediately clear if the change in language would translate into a tangible difference in the way international powers, hitherto divided on Syria, might deal with the crisis.

The uprising started with non-violent demonstrations last March, but the situation deteriorated rapidly amid a ferocious army crackdown and there are now daily clashes between rebels and security forces around the country.

The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed so far, but the toll is rising rapidly, with at least 31 men, women and children dying on Tuesday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The majority of the deaths, 21 in total, were in the central Homs province due to heavy army shelling. Government troops also pounded residential areas in the city of Hama and the town of Rastan, while a soldier died in a raid on a checkpoint in the south, opposition sources said.

CIVIL WAR FEARS

Lightly armed rebel forces have been forced into retreat across the country in recent weeks, with the army using heavy weapons to chase them from towns and cities, chalking up its latest victory in Deir al-Zor.

“Tanks entered residential neighbourhoods, especially in southeastern areas of Deir al-Zor. The Free Syrian Army pulled out to avoid a civilian massacre,” a statement by the Deir al-Zor Revolution Committees Union said.

After failing to hold significant stretches of land, analysts say the rebels appear to be switching to insurgency tactics, pointing to bloody car bomb attacks in two major Syrian cities at the weekend and the sabotage of a major rail link.

Diplomats warn the fighting could develop into a civil war pitching Assad’s Alawite sect and its minority allies against the majority Sunni Muslim population.

The government says 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed by foreign-backed “terrorists” and denies accusations of brutality and indiscriminate violence.

In a new twist, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the rebels were guilty of serious crimes, citing cases of kidnapping, torture and cold-blooded killings.

“The Syrian government’s brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, in an open letter to dissident groups.

Washington said it would “absolutely denounce” human rights violations by the rebels, but stressed that most of the abuse was being carried out by pro-Assad forces.

RUSSIAN CONDITIONS

Russia has previously vetoed two Western and Arab-backed U.N resolutions condemning government violence, arguing that the actions of rebels should also be criticised.

In a fresh effort to form a united international front, France has circulated a Western-drafted statement for the U.N. Security Council deploring the turmoil and backing peace efforts by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Russia announced it would back the text on two conditions - that there was no ultimatum imposed on Assad and that Annan release full details of his peace plan.

Annan dispatched a team of five experts to Damscus on Monday to discuss ways of implementing the peace drive, including a mechanism to let international monitors into the country. Syria has questioned the value of such a mission and talks continue.

Lavrov also dismissed media reports of Russian warships entering Russia’s naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartous as “fairy tales”. Some reports had said Russian ships were delivering weapons or special forces troops.

Lavrov said a Russian tanker with fuel for Russian warships involved in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden was docked at the port. Russia has repeatedly said its arms sales to Syria violate no laws and it sees no grounds to suspend them.

The Free Syria Army, a disparate group of fighters led by army deserters, has proved little match for Assad’s well-armed security apparatus, and experts said the opposition appeared to be changing tactics.

Car bomb attacks in the capital Damascus and second city Aleppo killed at least 30 over the weekend, while rebels also destroyed a railway bridge linking Damascus to Deraa, according to official Syrian media.

“The Syrian opposition prematurely tried to hold territory and take on the Syrian Army. This was a bad and costly mistake,” said Joshua Landis, the head of Middle East Studies at the U.S. University of Oklahoma.

“In the new phase of the battle that is shaping up to combat the Assad regime, opposition leaders are likely to champion new tactics of militancy and Islamization,” he wrote on his blog Syria Comment. (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

by Paul Conroy (click link source for Facebook page)

The Butcher of Homs

Last Tuesday I was asked to join a panel discussion at the House of Commons. I readily agreed as it was to screen Jonathan Miller’s fantastic and ground breaking film ‘Syria’s Torture Machine. One of the most insightful and inspiring pieces of filmmaking I have seen in many years.
The event was hosted by Anne Clywd MP with representatives from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, a Syrian torture victim, a representative from the Russian federation and me.
After an introductory round of speeches we watched Jonathan’s superb film and the panel then opened for answers. By this time I had moved back to the audience as my leg injuries were not ideal for sitting up front. Still wishing to take part in the panel discussion and perhaps do a little Q&A I asked if I could have a microphone. My colleague asked one of those media study, large red glasses and tight jeans assistant producer types if this was possible “It’s not going to happen” he was told in a rather bolshie and self-important way. “I think you will find he’s doing it anyway” my colleague Miles Amoore from the Sunday Time grinned.
The point in this is that all week I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a comment from the Russians regarding arms supplies to Syria. Now, right there in front of me, was a real life, in the flesh card carrying representative of the Russian federation and a Channel 4 work placement fruit bat wouldn’t give me a microphone.
I was reduced to putting up my hand and rather grumpily waiting my turn. In the event the wonderful Ann Clywd chairing the proceedings saw my rather desperate outstretched hand, similar to that of a child at school who finds he miraculously knows the answer to a question and is desperate not to go unnoticed.
Given that I had had a large piece of Russian shrapnel removed from me a few days previously I was eager to ask about the Russians continued supply of arms to Syria. I started by reminding him that it was a piece of a Russian made shell that had just been removed from my back. He looked suitably embarrassed but said nothing.
My main question I said was a three part yes or no question which he agreed to have a pop at
Q Is it true that Russia is supplying arms and heavy artillery munitions to Syria
A. Yes
Q. Are you are aware that these weapons and munitions are being used against civilians
A. Yes
Q. Knowing this will Russia stop selling weapons and heavy munitions to Syria
A. No (brief gasp from me and others) if we don’t do it somebody else will.
Now excuse me but that seems like an answer that a crack dealer would resort to when caught outside of a primary school with a huge bag of class A drugs he has been peddling to pre-teens, not the answer of a representative of one of the most powerful (and dangerous) nations on the planet.

So there we have it, direct from the horse’s mouth. Vladimir Putin ‘The Butcher of Homs’ as he so fondly known on the streets of Babr Amr is indeed supplying the Assad regime weapons, munitions and who know what else on the solid conviction that ‘If they don’t sell it someone else will’.

It’s little wonder we live on such a peaceful and harmonious planet.