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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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U.S. Account Of Fallujah Killings Contradicted By Rights Group |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jim Lobe
(No verified email address) |
17 Jun 2003
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In the first incident HRW said it could find no conclusive evidence of bullet damage to the walls of the school where the soldiers were based, "placing into serious question the assertion that they had come under fire from individuals in the crowd," the report said.
Moreover, the group found extensive evidence of multi-caliber bullet impacts in the buildings across the street from the school that were not consistent with the U.S. contention that the troops responded with "precision fire." If not indiscriminate, the response in that incident was clearly excessive, HRW concluded.
In the second incident the circumstances and interviews with all parties suggested that, once again, U.S. troops responded with "disproportionate force," according to HRW. |
A major U.S. human rights group charged Tuesday that the account given by the U.S. military of two protests that resulted in the deaths of 20 Iraqi demonstrators appears to be incorrect. It called for an independent and impartial investigation by U.S. authorities of the two incidents in al-Fallujah in central Iraq.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW -- http://www.hrw.org) challenged the military's contention that its troops came under direct fire in either of the April 28 and April 30 incidents. The group also took issue with the military's insistence that its soldiers responded with "precision fire" against what they assumed to be Iraqi gunmen.
Separately, Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org) reiterated its call for the UN Security Council to immediately deploy human rights monitors to Iraq.
In the six weeks since the fatal demonstrations al-Falluja, located about 35 miles west of Baghdad, has become a major center of resistance to the U.S. occupation. At least four U.S. soldiers have been killed in a series of guerrilla attacks, while many more have been injured.
"The U.S. military presence in al-Fallujah began with these tragic events in late April, and it has been troubled ever since," said Hanny Megally, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division. "What is needed is a thorough investigation of possible violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. troops."
Al-Fallujah, located in the heartland of Iraq's Sunni Muslim population, has emerged as a major source of concern to U.S. occupation forces, which last week conducted armed house-to-house searches for banned weapons and suspected rebels as part of Operation Desert Scorpion. The operation was combined with civic action projects, such as construction of a new soccer field for the 300,000 people who live there.
U.S. military officials say the town remains a stronghold for members of former President Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, while the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, a major war booster, cited reports that these forces may have been joined by followers of the militant Islamic Wahabi faith to fight against the occupation.
But recent news reports--particularly in the wake of last week's campaign--suggest that U.S. actions in Al-Fallujah may themselves be helping those opposed to the occupation to recruit more followers.
"...U.S. soldiers battling small guerrilla cells linked to the ousted regime have had a hard time distinguishing between ordinary civilians and enemy fighters," the Wall Street Journal reported Monday from near the town. "The show of force [in Operation Desert Scorpion] so far has failed to stop the attacks, while many Iraqis say the tactics and resulting civilian casualties have raised support for America's foes."
The 18-page HRW report released today, "Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Fallujah," (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/) is based on interviews with soldiers, officers, townspeople and other witnesses, as well as an investigation of ballistic evidence at the scene of the two attacks.
According to the report, the town had been spared from the ground war in March and April, but had been bombed from the air, contributing to local resentment from the day U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived April 23 and occupied a local school.
Five days later a demonstration called to protest the military presence in the town turned violent. According to the military, soldiers returned "precision fire" on gunmen in the crowd who were shooting at them. But the Iraqi protesters insist that the troops fired on them without provocation, killing 17 people and wounding more than 70, in what was the worst incident of its kind to date.
On April 30 a U.S. military convoy driving through the town in the midst of another demonstration opened fire on protesters, killing three and wounding at least 16 more. The soldiers said they thought they had come under fire, while the townspeople insisted that no shots had been fired from the Iraqi side. They admitted that rocks had been thrown at the army vehicles, breaking the window of a truck and injuring a soldier.
In the first incident HRW said it could find no conclusive evidence of bullet damage to the walls of the school where the soldiers were based, "placing into serious question the assertion that they had come under fire from individuals in the crowd," the report said.
Moreover, the group found extensive evidence of multi-caliber bullet impacts in the buildings across the street from the school that were not consistent with the U.S. contention that the troops responded with "precision fire." If not indiscriminate, the response in that incident was clearly excessive, HRW concluded.
In the second incident the circumstances and interviews with all parties suggested that, once again, U.S. troops responded with "disproportionate force," according to HRW.
Under international humanitarian law the United States, as the occupying power in Iraq, is obliged to ensure public order and safety and, when engaged in law-enforcement activities such as crowd control, should use lethal force only "when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life." At all times, they must act with restraint and in proportion to the seriousness of the threat posed.
The report, according to HRW, highlights some of the problems with putting a powerful combat force in a law-enforcement role, particularly when, as in this case, the troops involved had come straight from battle where they suffered casualties.
"Regardless of the possible responsibility of the individuals involved in the shooting that led to the killing of up to 20 and wounding of scores of others," the report said, "one conclusion is inescapable. U.S. military and political authorities who placed combat-ready soldiers in the highly volatile environment of al-Falluja without adequate law-enforcement training, translators, and crowd control devices (such as tear gas) followed a recipe for disaster."
Many critics of the U.S. campaign in Iraq have pointed to these incidents as evidence of major failures in U.S. post-war occupation planning, and the Pentagon has tried to improve its capacity for law enforcement by introducing thousands of military police with riot-control training--although they have so far been confined mainly to Baghdad.
Some of the same critics have assailed the Pentagon's leadership under the Bush administration for its aversion to allowing U.S. troops to participate in peacekeeping operations or learn peacekeeping skills. Last year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cut off most of the funding of the Army War College's Peacekeeping Institute.
HRW stressed that it was still possible that U.S. troops had been fired on by provocateurs in either incident, but that it could not find the evidence. It also said it was unable to review intelligence and other classified information that could shed more light on the two incidents--all the more reason, it added, why a full investigation should be carried out.
Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net
http://www.OneWorld.net |
See also:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/
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Many Iraqis In The Triangle Say They've Had Enough Of America's Help |
by Tom Lasseter and Natalie Pompilio
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jun 2003
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U.S. soldiers put a bag over the head of an arrested man at Khaldiyah, 70 kms (40 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday June 16, 2003. Hundreds of U.S. troops backed by tanks and helicopters raided several cities and villages on the second day of 'Operation Desert Scorpion'. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Ahmed Manaa's face was dark with anger. He was tired of the U.S. troops rumbling up and down his city's streets in their big tanks, pointing their guns at passing cars. They are nothing but occupiers, he said, and they should go back to America, before another war begins.
Ahmed doesn't fit the profile of anti-U.S. elements whom American army commanders so often describe: He doesn't mourn the fall of Saddam Hussein and has never been an al Qaida sympathizer. In fact, Ahmed is 13 years old, with a buzz cut, a frame a bit small for his age and views about U.S. forces that are widely shared in Fallujah, where he lives, and other towns northwest of Baghdad.
"We wish that Allah would have revenge on the Americans," he said.
U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have been killed in violent confrontations in recent weeks in Fallujah and other towns in what's known as the Triangle, a large territory from Saddam's hometown of Tikrit to the north, south to Baghdad and west almost to the Syrian border.
The United States contends the problems are due largely to holdovers from Saddam Hussein's regime; the former dictator is a Sunni Muslim, and so are most of the people who live in the area.
In dozens of interviews during the past five days, however, most residents across the area said there was no Baathist or Sunni conspiracy against U.S. soldiers; there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops.
Add to those complaints the shortages of water and electricity and delays in establishing a new government, and many Iraqis said they had had enough of America's help.
In the past week there have been three large-scale U.S. military operations in the triangle: a roundup of some 400 people in towns along the Tigris River to the north, an attack in which more than 80 suspected anti-American fighters were killed outside the western town of Rawah and a raid on Fallujah early Sunday that brought more than 1,000 soldiers to town, looking through homes for weapons and militant leaders.
The Fallujah raid was the first leg of the Army's Operation Desert Scorpion, which went farther west Monday with house searches in Khaldiyah and Ramadi.
During the past few days, the U.S. military also has set up checkpoints on roads in and around Baghdad to check for weapons. The lines take up to an hour to get through and leave motorists sweating in the 120-degree heat.
Many Iraqis said it was beyond belief that Americans would enter houses or stop cars and take assault rifles without paying for them. The practice particularly grates in small towns, where people believe the weapons are necessary for protection.
The harder the Americans press, many Iraqis said, the more enemies they make.
Ahmed said U.S. soldiers shot his older brother Omar in the leg earlier this month and took him into custody, saying he had fired on them from the shadows. Omar Manaa was a security guard for the mayor. Shot alongside him - and killed - was Montassar Hamad, a local policeman.
Omar Manaa was released from U.S. custody during the past week. There were metal pins in his leg to keep the bone in place. He said he and Hamad were chasing looters when the American soldiers began shooting at them.
Police officer Safa Shaikon was at the mayor's office that evening, June 8, and said that in the confusion of the night U.S. soldiers mistook Manaa and Hamad for the looters. Neither man fired a shot at the soldiers, Shaikon said. The police commander for the mayor's office backed up that version of events.
The incident, which Maj. Gen. Buford Blount of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division said was under investigation, has become yet another rallying cry for the people of Fallujah, where at least 15 people were killed in a demonstration in late April. American soldiers said they were fired on first; residents deny that.
Farmers, police, politicians, tribal sheiks, businessmen, cabdrivers and religious leaders across the Triangle say there may well be more bloodshed.
"What do you expect from people defending themselves?" said Mahdi Alsumaidy, the imam, or spiritual leader, of the influential Um-Al Tubol mosque in Baghdad. If the United States doesn't get out of Iraq soon, he said, "more and more people will be killed, the Iraqi people will make a revolution against the American and coalition soldiers ... we believe that if they have many losses, they will leave."
The deaths have been increasing. Some recent cases:
-June 5. Fallujah. One American soldier was killed and five were wounded after their vehicle was shot with a rocket-propelled grenade.
-June 7. Tikrit. One soldier was killed, five were wounded by small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
- June 8. Al Qaim, west of Baghdad. One American soldier was killed at a checkpoint. A group of people in a car said they needed help for a sick person, and two people jumped out with pistols, opening fire.
-June 13. Outside Balad, north of Baghdad. Iraqis attacked a tank convoy with rocket-propelled grenades. Afterward, U.S. Central Command issued a statement saying 27 Iraqis were killed during and after the skirmish. Military officials later said the correct number was seven.
The U.S. military has refused to release the number of Iraqis killed overall by American bullets.
"We understand that nobody wants an `occupying force,'" said an Army spokesman who demanded anonymity under the rules of a briefing. "We really don't like using that word, but it is the only word available."
Even Iraqis who say it's the Baath Party that's making trouble concede that many people who were never part of the party are reaching the boiling point.
Dr. Fath Allah al Ankar, a returned exile and head of the Iraqi Society for Freedom and Democracy, a new political party, said Baathists were trying to stir things up, but added: "We are angry because since the Americans took over here, they are not taking care of human beings."
Thekra Aftan said soldiers took her husband, Ahmed Jomaa, early Monday morning from their home in Khaldiyah. Family members said Jomaa had lost his left foot in the Iran-Iraq war. The soldiers came barreling through their house at dawn, grabbed Jomaa from his bed and searched for weapons, Aftan said. They probably were drawn to the house because of empty military crates outside that once were used to store TNT and guns. The family bought the boxes as scrap for firewood, Aftan said.
The United States is guilty of terrorism, she said: "If I find any American soldiers, I will cut their heads off."
Last Thursday, residents in At Agilia - a village north of Baghdad - said two of their farmers and five others from another village were killed when U.S. soldiers shot them while they were watering their fields of sunflowers, tomatoes and cucumbers.
On Friday, the American tank convoy in nearby Balad was attacked. It's impossible to say whether the two incidents were linked, but residents clearly were shaken by the At Agilia incident.
Hitamer Muhammed, a farmer near the shooting, said the Americans opened fire because "they suspected us because we had something in our hands."
"There are no human rights here," he said. "Where is the democracy rule, as they claimed? Tell Mr. Bush we are waiting."
Lasseter and Pompilio reported from towns in the Sunni Triangle.
Copyright 2003 Knight-Ridder
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/ |
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