• • AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:

  • LIBYA: NTC MUST TAKE CONTROL TO PREVENT SPIRAL OF ABUSES

    • • 13 September 2011

      • AI Index: PRE01/454/2011

        • The National Transitional Council (NTC) must get a grip on armed anti-Gaddafi groups to stop reprisal attacks and arbitrary arrests, Amnesty International warned as it released a major report into human rights violations during the Libyan conflict.

        • The 107-page report The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture reveals that while al-Gaddafi forces committed widespread crimes under international law during the conflict, forces loyal to the NTC have also committed abuses that in some cases amounted to war crimes.

        • “The new authorities must make a complete break with the abuses of the past four decades and set new standards by putting human rights at the centre of their agenda” said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director at Amnesty International.

        • “The onus now is on the NTC to do things differently, end abuses and initiate the human rights reforms that are urgently needed."

        • “A top priority must be to assess the state of the justice sector and start its reform, to ensure due process and deliver access to justice and reparation for victims.”

        • Amnesty International found evidence that during the conflict al-Gaddafi forces committed war crimes and abuses which may amount to crimes against humanity, including indiscriminate attacks, mass killing of prisoners, torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests. In most cases it was civilians who bore the brunt of these violations.

        • But the organization also documented a brutal "settling of scores" by some anti-Gaddafi forces when al-Gaddafi forces were ejected from eastern Libya, including lynchings of al-Gaddafi soldiers after capture.

        • Dozens of people suspected to be former security agents, al-Gaddafi loyalists or mercenaries have been killed after capture since February in Eastern Libya.

        • When Al-Bayda, Benghazi, Derna, Misratah and other cities first fell under the control of the NTC in February, anti-Gaddafi forces carried out house raids, killings and other violent attacks against suspected mercenaries, either sub-Saharan Africans or black Libyans.

        • It is a war crime for any party to a conflict to kill prisoners.

        • Amnesty International warned that as fighting continues, with some parts of the country still contested, there is a danger these patterns could be repeated.

        • Foreigners from African countries continue to be particularly at risk, the organization said. Between a third and a half of all those in detention centres in Tripoli and al-Zawiya are foreign nationals – Amnesty believes that most of these are migrant workers and not fighters.

        • Amnesty International found that widespread rumours that al-Gaddafi forces used large numbers of sub-Saharan African mercenaries in February had been significantly exaggerated. But NTC officials have done little to correct false assumptions that sub-Saharan Africans were mercenaries.

        • The organization welcomed the fact that in May, the NTC issued guidelines for its forces to act in accordance with international law and standards and in August the NTC Chair called on anti-Gaddafi forces to refrain from reprisal attacks. The NTC also sent text messages to Libyan mobile users telling them to avoid revenge attacks and treat detainees with dignity.

        • Presenting a comprehensive “Human Rights Agenda for Change” to the NTC, Amnesty International called on the new authorities to immediately bring all detention centres under the control of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and to ensure that arrests are only conducted by official bodies rather than the “thuwwar” (revolutionaries).

        • Prison officials in Tripoli and al-Zawiya have told Amnesty International that they report to military and local councils rather than the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

        • Amnesty International, which has taken testimonies from more than 200 detainees since the fall of al-Zawiya and Tripoli, believes that hundreds of people have been taken from their homes, at work, at check-points, or simply from the streets.

        • Many have been ill-treated upon arrest, being beaten with sticks, backs of rifles, kicked, punched and insulted, at times while blindfolded and handcuffed. In some cases, detainees reported being shot after being seized.

        • The organization called on the NTC to prioritise the investigation of those on all sides of the conflict suspected of responsibility for abuses, with a view to prosecution in fair trials that meet international standards and ensuring reparation for victims.

        • “Those responsible for the dreadful repression of the past under Colonel al-Gaddafi will need to be held accountable.” said Claudio Cordone. “The thuwwar must be judged according to the same standards. Without this, justice would not be done and a vicious cycle of abuses and reprisals risks being perpetuated.”

        • “Libyans have had to endure great suffering for decades. They deserve to participate in the building of a new Libya where these kinds of abuses are no longer repeated and tolerated.”

        • Notes for editors:

        • The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture is largely based on Amnesty International’s fact-finding visit to Libya between 26 February and 28 May 2011, including to the cities of al-Bayda, Ajdabiya, Brega, Benghazi, Misratah and Ras Lanouf. Amnesty International delegates returned to Libya in late August, days before opposition forces stormed Tripoli.

        • Spokespeople:

          • From Tripoli: Amnesty International Senior Director Claudio Cordone (English, Italian) and Libya specialists Diana Eltahawy (English, Arabic) and Samira Bouslama (French, Arabic) are available for interview.

          • From London: Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser, who was in Libya between February and May, is available for interview in English, French, Spanish or Italian.

        • Contact: For more information, to obtain an embargoed copy of the full report and “Agenda for Change” in advance, and to arrange interviews, please contact the Amnesty International Press Office on +44 (0) 20 7413 5566 or email press@amnesty.org

BY GLENN GREENWALD

The Washington Posttoday describes the failure of regimented programs in Afghanistan to reintegrate Taliban teenagers ("Taliban" (alt.: "Terrorist") means "any Afghan who fights against the presence of foreign military forces in their country" and "reintegrate" means "persuading or compelling them to passively acquiesce to those forces"):

The teenage insurgents spend their days learning to make shoes and bookshelves, listening to religious leaders denounce the radical interpretation of Islam they learned as children.

But when they return to their cells at Kabul's juvenile rehabilitation center, the boys with wispy beards and cracking voices talk only of the holy war from which they were plucked and their plans to resume fighting for the Taliban.

As the Taliban presses its efforts to recruit teenage fighters, Afghan officials and their international backers have crafted a program to reintegrate the country's youngest insurgents into mainstream society. But that ambition is coming up against the intransigence of the teens, who say they would rather be on the battlefield.

"We'll fight against America for a thousand years if we have to," said Ali Ahmad, 17, sitting at a desk that has hearts and Koran verses scratched in the wood . . .

"They bring us here to change us," said Nane Asha, in his late teens. "But this is our way. We cannot be changed." . . .

The Taliban visited Asha’s school when he was about 13,preaching the evils of American interlopers and the value of violent jihad. Asha approached the speaker after the sermon ended. "How can I join you?" he asked. . . .

Within a few weeks, Asha was enrolled in a six-month training course, learning how to fire a Kalashnikov and to connect a nest of wires and explosives that could take out a U.S. tank. He studied the material obsessively. . . .

Reintegration is at the heart of U.S. and Afghan government strategies to wind down the war, with schooling and employment being offered to coax fighters away from the insurgency.

To summarize: our invasion and occupation is what enables the Taliban to recruit massive numbers of Afghan teenagers into their cause. And now, we have to stay until we either kill all the people who hate us and want us gone from their country or propagandize deradicalize them into meekly accepting our presence. Once there are no more Afghans left who want us gone, then we can leave. For those of you who have been cynically claiming that this war has no discernible purpose other than the generalized benefits of Endless War for political officials and the Security State industry, now you know.

(Of course, the goal of ridding Afghanistan of all those who want to fight us will never happen precisely because the American military presence in their country produces an endless supply of American-hating fighters -- just as the Soviet military presence there once did, and just as the general War on Terror [and its various bombings, detentions, occupations, assassinations and the like] ensures that Terrorism never ends by producing an endless supply of American-hating Terrorists -- but that's just a detail. All wars have challenges. At least we can now see the very important purpose of the war in Afghanistan: we stay until there's nobody left who hates us and wants us gone, then we triumphantly depart.)

• • More: Glenn Greenwald

[1]

Libya's rebels accused of illegal arrests and revenge killings

Tracey Shelton [2]September 13, 2011 09:14

Tripoli prisons alleged to have cases of abuse and discrimination.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya’s National Transitional Council, the country's new governing authority, must bring rebel forces under its control and stop what appears to be arbitrary arrests and revenge killings, Amnesty International said today.

While the war crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi and his forces are comparatively well known, Amnesty International said in a report that the rebels had also committed widespread abuses since the revolution began in February, including the execution of dozens of pro-Gaddafi prisoners. Hundreds of black migrant workers, assumed to be mercenaries, have also been detained and are being held illegally, the rights group said.

“The new authorities must make a complete break with the abuses of the past four decades and set new standards by putting human rights at the center of their agenda,” said Claudio Cordone, a senior director at Amnesty International.

MORE: National Transitional Council leader Jalil calls for Sharia law [3]

More than half the prisoners detained in Tripoli and Zawiya are believed to be foreign nationals. Most are believed to be migrant workers and not fighters. Migrant families have also been the target of harassment and discrimination, forcing many to leave their homes.

The problem is apparent In Tripoli’s Al Jadaida prison, where both Libyan and foreign nationals pleaded their innocence through the bars of overcrowded, sweltering cells on one recent day. More than half of the 760 detainees at Al Jadaida are black migrants.

“I have lived here with my Libyan wife for 23 years,” said Faisal Mohammed from a dark dreary cell that held 29 Sudanese men. “The new government arrested me as I walked in the street with my wife two weeks ago. I have not been allowed any contact with my family since.”

Although conditions under which the Libyan war prisoners were kept appeared similar to those of the foreign nationals, the Libyan prisoners who spoke to GlobalPost had all been allowed contact with their families. The foreigners, meanwhile, had not been permitted any contact with their family, lawyers or their Libyan employers, whose testimony could clear their names.

“The treatment is the same, the environment is the same, but I don’t think the judgment will be the same,” said Victor Baboa, a prisoner from Liberia, who said he has worked in Libya for 5 years as an engineer. “We have no lawyers, no case, no communication. How can we defend ourselves?”