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August 19, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudan has announced it was working to restart oil production in Unity state after more than a year of no operation due to the ongoing conflict in the region.

A Southern Sudanese soldier walks past a crude oil reservoir tank at a field processing facility in Unity State on November 10, 2010. (AFP)

A newly appointed Petroleum Minister, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, said in a statement broadcast by the state owned South Sudan TV on Thursday - after meeting Chinese ambassador to South Sudan - that President Salva Kiir has instructed the resumption of production of oil from unity and other areas in Upper Nile affected by the conflict.

“We have discussed and agreed to resume oil production in unity and other areas in Upper Nile. The president of the republic has given directives. We have also discussed and agreed to review oil contracts with Chinese companies to do exploration and to continue to operate until 2018. The current contracts will be reviewed and extended,” explained minister, a former ally of armed opposition leader and the first vice president, Riek Machar, but who defected because he was not given a national ministry portfolio by Machar.

It was not clear how the oil operations, which was shut down due to conflict, will now resume while the conflict itself has resumed.

The President Salva Kiir removed Machar from his position as first vice president and replaced him with Taban Deng Gai, a move the international community as well as armed opposition leadership, except those loyal to Gai, consider a violation of the peace deal.

Government troops bombarded Machar's residence in Juba and pursued him with his small number of troops as they fled Juba and beyond.

Leading non-armed opposition figures, including Lam Akol, met and held talks in Nairobi, Kenya, on Thursday with Machar's senior officials, where they described Machar's departure from Juba together with several other ministers as a major setback to the agreement.

They called for immediate deployment of protection force and argued that a delay to address the situation may undermine the main element of the power-sharing agreement between SPLM-Juba and SPLM-IO, the main peace partner in the peace deal.

(ST)

Évek óta egyre rosszabb a 131-es megyei út Felsőboldogfalva és Kénosi-tető közti szakasza, a leszakadt útrészek nincsenek kitáblázva, emiatt balesetveszélyesek. Ez az autók hosszú féknyomaiból is kitűnik.
Kategória: Aktuális/Udvarhelyszék

August 20, 2016 (JUBA) – South Sudanese former First Vice President, Riek Machar, has thanked the United Nations system and the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for relocating him from the border and taking care of him, his wife, Angelina Teny, and other senior officials with him.

Speaking through his official spokesperson, James Gatdet Dak, who shared the message on his Facebook page on Friday, Machar also thank President Joseph Kabila of the DR Congo for his government's hospitality.

“The First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, H.E. Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon, Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLM/SPLA (IO), thanked the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or MONUSCO, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), under the leadership of His Excellency President Joseph Kabila, for their hospitality by airlifting him and his officials from the South Sudan-DRC border and for taking good care of him and his officials in the DRC,” Dak posted Machar's message on Facebook page.

Machar, he added, also congratulated the “gallant” opposition forces for courageous fight in self-defence in and around Juba, which successfully evacuated the senior political and military leadership of the armed faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO).

Dak also said his boss is fine, but “exhausted” due to 40 days of walking in the wilderness around Juba and towards the Congolese border.

He added that Machar, whom the SPLM-IO consider as the legitimate First Vice President, is establishing contacts with the leaderships of IGAD, AU and the UN, and will soon tour the IGAD member states.

Machar fled the capital when he was reportedly lured to the presidential palace to get killed, but escaped.

His residence was later on bombed by forces loyal to President Kiir and followed into the bushes around Juba with the aim to capture or kill him.

(ST)

August 19, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), on Friday, said that one of its combatant died from tuberculosis (TB) in his cell at a prison in Khartoum, and accused the Sudanese authorities of refusing to provide the needed treatment to the prisoners of war.

Two JEM members attend their trial session in the city of Omdurman, Sudan Aug. 20, 2008 (File photo/AFP)

A statement by JEM Office of Prisoners and Detainees said the prisoner Mustafa Ismail Adam, died of TB on Thursday in his cell at al-Huda prison, north of Omdurman, where he was detained in a section of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS).

The rebel group said the deceased and others were captured after al-Nikhara battle in South Darfur on 26 April 2015.

"Since that date, the government authorities did not allow the prisoners to communicate with their families, provide them any therapeutic services or bring them to trial," said the group adding that about five prisoners have died from torture and ill-treatment, as well as 29 prisoners infected with TB

"They are on deathbed," stressed the statement.

In April 2015, the Rapid Support Forces militia defeated JEM fighters in South Darfur. At the time, President Omer al-Bashir travelled to al-Nikhara to celebrate their victory. Also, JEM leader Gibril Ibrahim admitted the defeat and the capture of his combatants.

An unofficial statistics released by the National Dialogue mechanism estimate that 93 prisoners from the rebel groups have been convicted, in addition to other rebels detained after several battles.

JEM called on "the United Nations, the African Union, the Red Cross and other international groups working against torture to intervene and put pressure on the Sudanese government "to save the lives of the rest of the prisoners in the prisons, transfer those who are ill to hospitals, allow them to communicate with their families and bring them to trial and lawyers to defend them."

(ST)

Orosz források szerint év végéig a Kuznyecov NK-32-es hajtóművek korszerűsített változata el fog készülni. A Tupoljev Tu-160-as (NATO-kód Blackjack) stratégiai bombázók hajtóműve már évek óta, egészen pontosan 1993-tól nincs gyártásban, ezért a bombázók üzemképességének fenntartása igen nehézkessé vált. Az NK-32.02-es jelzést viselő hajtóművet a korszerűsítésen átesett Tu-160M2-es bombázók erőforrásaként tervezik alkalmazni, első közös repülésükre 2018-ban szeretnének sort keríteni.

Erősíteni szeretnék a BTR-82-es gyalogsági harcjármű fegyverzetét Oroszországban. Az elképzelés szerint az AU-220M Bajkál távirányítású torony kerülne felszerelésre a 8x8-as kerékképletű páncélosra. Ez a BMP-3-57-es tornyát és célzórendszerét takarja, aminek segítségével a BTR-82-es a harckocsikban is nagyobb kárt tudna majd tenni az 57 milliméteres gépágyújával.

Japánban rekord összegű költségvetést szeretne jóváhagyatni a védelmi minisztérium a 2017-es évre. Az 51 milliárd dolláros büdzsét a Kína és Észak-Korea jelentette fenyegetés tenné szükségessé. Meg kell jegyezni, hogy a szigetország védelmi költségvetését a védelmi minisztérium immáron öt éve folyamatosan növelné, de ez csak 2013-tól (11 évet követően) valósult meg. Jövőre az összeg túlnyomó részét a rakétavédelmi pajzs erősítésére költenék el. A tervek szerint az USA-val közösen fejlesztett Standard Missile-3 Blokk IIA-as rakétákat szereznék be a flotta hadihajói számára, ezek jóvalta nagyobb magasságban is képesek a ballisztikus rakéták megsemmisítésére, a jelenleg is alkalmazott Partiot PAC-3-ok.

Majd 2 milliárd dollár értékben kerül beszerzésre Tajvan számára amerikai fegyverzet. Egészen pontosan két, az amerikai haditengerészet állományából kivont OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-osztályú fregatt, 36 AAV-7 páncélozott szállító harcjármű, 13 MK15-ös Phalanx Block 1B közelkörzeti légvédelmi rendszer, valamint 250 darab FIM-92F Stinger kézi légvédelmi rakéta kerül beszerzésre. A szigetországi elképzelések szerint a Phalax-ok a szárazföldön kerülnek elhelyezésre, katonai bázisok légvédelme érdekében.

Argentína Dassault Mirage F1-es lehetséges beszerzéséről újabb információk láttak napvilágot. Párizs ajánlatában öt évig tartó logisztikai támogatás is benne foglaltatik, míg a vadászbombázók darabára 23 millió dollár lehet. Ezt szembe kell állítani az olasz Aermacchi M-346 Master sugárhajtású felfegyverezhető kiképzőgépek darabonkénti 30 millió dolláros árával. Továbbá a francia technika ismerős a földi személyzet számára a Mirage III-as típuscsaládból. Az idő sürget, hiszen 2018-ban az utolsó Lockheed Martin A-4AR Fightinghawk is elveszíti repülőképességét.

Szintén a dél-amerikai országhoz köthető hír, hogy veszélybe került a kiterjedt forgószárnyas modernizációs program. A nagyjából 30 UH-1 Huey korszerűsítéséről szóló tervezetet egy nagyobb arányú beszerzési program juttathatja a süllyesztőbe. A védelmi minisztérium a Sikrosky S-70i Black Hawk, AgustaWestland AW139, Bell 525, Mil Mi-171, Korea Aerospace Industries Surion és Eurocopter H225 típusokból választhatja ki a megfelelő típust.

 

NETARZENÁL GALÉRIA

 

Aermacchi MB-339CD.

Lockheed Martin F-16CJ Fighting Falcon.

Dassault Rafale C.

McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II.

Antonov An-72.

Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat.

AMX International AMX.

Dassault Mirage F1BE.

McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle.

Sepecat Jaguar IS.

Lockheed P-3AM Orion.

MiG-29A.

Saab JAS-39D Gripen.

Embraer E-99.

A senior United Nations official today expressed a deep concern about the deteriorating health of a Palestinian detainee on hunger strike for more than two months in protest of his detention after completing a 14.5-year prison sentence.

Pour la bonne entente et la fraternité, on repassera ! Selon « le Figaro », c'est à Châteaurenard (Bouches-du-Rhône) que Nicolas Sarkozy va organiser, le 25 août, son premier meeting de candidat à la primaire...

Arnaud Montebourg doit annoncer, dimanche à Frangy-en-Bresse (Saône-et-Loire), sa candidature à la présidentielle de 2017. En laissant peut-être planer le suspense quant à sa participation à la primaire...

August 19, 2016 (WAU) – Mayor of Wau town municipal council in South Sudan's newly created Wau state, Akol Akol Ajith, said the security situation in Wau town has returned to normal following, owing it to the newly appointed governor, Andrea Mayar Acho.

SPLA forces patrol the street of Wau town on May 16, 2016 (ST)

He said the security organs operating in the town have been doing their level best throughout the night during their patrols.

“Since the incident of June 25, 2016, the town of Wau did not again witness any insecurity; the situation is normal but only what remains now is hunger, the remaining insecurity is now caused by thieves, those who are stealing at night,” said Ajith.

“Our civilians are now enjoying their night hours, if there is any gunshot at night, these are our night patrol dealing with the night robbers, therefore, our people should not panic,” he said.

The official further added that civilians who fled and were seeking shelter and protection at the United Nations compounds, in churches and schools have now started returning to their homes, indicating the security situation is stable.

“I want to tell our residents in Wau town that those who are at the UN and in the church are just going there during the day of receiving their food ration, nobody now [is] sleeping in these places; they are just going there to receive their food,” he said.

He further said that many of those who fled to UNMISS are people have lost their belongings and depend on the UN to provide them with basic necessities.

He also said the state government has done enough in protecting the civilians' lives by offering strong security against robbers at the residential areas.

(ST)

August 19, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir said he would step down from the presidency and remains away from politics at the end of his term in 2020.

President Omer Hassan al-Bashir (AFP photo)

Al-Bashir who came to power through a coup d'état in June 1989 will have ruled Sudan for 31 years by the year 2020.

In an interview with the Egyptian weekly, Al-Ahram, published on Friday, he said he would not run for a third mandate. "This a final position, God willing .. I ruled for two mandates that will end in 2020 and will not extend it, and the constitution will not be changed."

"I have spent more than twenty years and this is more than enough in Sudan. People want new blood and new impetus to continue construction and development processes," added, the 72-year president.

"We have a party and constitutional institutions and whoever is appointed as chairman of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) certainly would be a candidate for the (Sudan's) presidency," and added, "And then I'll leave the presidential residence and stay away from the world of politics."

The NCP Shura Council, in October 2014, choose al-Bashir again to be the party's candidate for the presidential elections of April 2015, in spite of his pledge earlier to not run for the office of President again.

Bashir is the first sitting head of state ever to be indicted in 2009 by the war crimes court, International Criminal Court (ICC).

His case contributed to the international isolation of the country which is hit by economic sanctions.

(ST)

August 19, 2016 (JUBA) - United Nations headquarters in New York has revealed that its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo airlifted the former First Vice President, Riek Machar, from the South Sudan-DRC border and transported him into the interior part of Congo on Wednesday.

Machar speaks on a mobile phone after an interview with Reuters in Kenya's capital Nairobi July 8, 2015

The UN said the Congolese government has been taking care of the opposition leader who is “exhausted” after five weeks in the bushes around the capital, Juba, and walking towards the DRC border.

The UN spokesperson, Farah Haq, said in a daily briefing to journalists in New York on Thursday that Machar was located in the border of South Sudan and DR Congo by the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).

“We have undergone an extraction operation and so he is currently in the care of the authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” said Haq in New York on Wednesday.

He said Machar was "treated" by the MONUSCO for illness he did not disclose. He said Machar's wife and ten other military generals have been given to the care of DR Congo government.

Machar's officials said their leader is doing fine but had “exhausted” from being in the wilderness for 40 days, walking on foot.

They said he will speak to the media in the next few days as he establishes contacts with leaderships of IGAD, AU and UN. The opposition leader whom they also consider as the legitimate first vice president in South Sudan is also expected to tour the IGAD member countries to share views on the way forward.

He fled Juba last month following street battle which started at the palace on 8 July and in his residence on 10 July between his small number of troops and huge number of forces loyal to President Salva Kiir.

(ST)

August 19, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudan's security operatives have imposed restriction on media coverage of successful escape into Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of the armed opposition leader and the first vice president, Riek Machar.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the seizure of copies of 11 newspapers in a week by Sudanese security officials (AFP)

Machar left South Sudan over fears for his safety after government forces mounted a military offensive hunting for him after he fled the capital Juba when fighting broke out between 8-11 July. President Salva Kiir later sacked him as vice-president and replaced him with Taban Deng Gai, one of his senior officials in his movement before falling out with him after failing appointment of oil ministry.

South Sudanese government which had been on the offensive, trying to hunt him down in the bush where he had been hiding said on Friday that it was not aware of Machar's whereabouts.

“[No] one knows where he is, whether he left South Sudan or still inside the country. Those who say he left the country should be the ones you should talk to,” information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, told reporters on Friday in Juba.

He was reacting to media reports quoting United Nations sources in the Democratic Republic of Congo and at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York about the departure of Machar from South Sudan and his subsequent arrival to Congo on Wednesday.

Minister Lueth also said the changes, in which the president appointed Taban Deng Gai in place of Machar was an internal matter of armed opposition leadership and it was up to them to decide whether or not to welcome Machar and resume his position at the presidency as the first vice president when he returns.

“The government has nothing do with the changes in leadership of the SPLM-IO, whether Riek Machar comes back or not, that is an internal issue of the IO,” said Lueth.

Media covering Machar's departure from the country where troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and his army chief of general staff, Paul Malong Awan, tried to kill Machar in attacks since last month in and around Juba, have been questioned by the security personnel to say the source of information

Observers and security analysts are keen to underline that the motive of restricting media coverage about the departure of Machar from the country is to deny the public knowledge of his departure from the country.

Machar's departure is viewed a failure by government forces instructed to hunt him, many of whom claimed he was barricaded and it was a matter of time before he could surrender or get killed.

(ST)

L’alerte émise par les Nations unies est sans appel : des millions de personnes manquent de soins en Libye et près de 300 000 enfants y sont déscolarisés.

Three of the eight remaining Afghans detained by the United States in Guantanamo have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates. The three had each spent 13 or 14 years in detention. None were captured on the battlefield, but detained after tip-offs or were handed over to the US by Afghan forces. Their files reveal multiple mistakes in intelligence, mistakes in Afghan geography and history, and cases largely made up variously of hearsay, secret evidence and confessions. One of the three was almost certainly tortured and another probably was. AAN’s Kate Clark, who has read through the US military and court documents, says the cases against two of the men were without evidentiary basis, while the third detainee looks to have possibly been a low-level insurgent.

AAN will be releasing a report, “Kafka in Cuba: The Afghan experience of detention in Guantanamo,” based on a study of the cases of the eight last Afghans to be held there, three of whom have now been transferred. This dispatch is based on research for that report.

Afghans were, by far the largest national grouping held in Cuba: more than a quarter of the total detainee population – 220 out of 781. (1) Three Afghans died in Guantanamo (2) and after the transfer of three men this week, just five Afghans remain. They include Muhammad Rahim, the last man to be tortured and rendered to Guantanamo by the CIA (see here).

The three now transferred (announced on 15 August 2016) are Mohammed Kamin and Obaidullah, both from Khost, and Hamid al-Razak (aka Haji Hamidullah) from Kabul. Along with 12 Yemenis, they are now in the UAE, which the US thanked for it “its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.” The Wall Street Journal reported that, although US officials would not discuss specific security arrangements, “people familiar with the matter said the U.S. typically conducts electronic surveillance of former detainees, while local authorities keep physical tabs on them.” A senior official also told the paper that the 15 men would enter a rehabilitation facility designed to ‘de-radicalize’ former detainees and would “be held indefinitely until authorities decide they can be released at a minimum of risk.” It is not yet clear if the men will eventually be allowed to return home.

Mass detentions

Kamin, Obaidullah and Hamidullah were all detained in the early years of the intervention when US Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the CIA were detaining people en masse in their hunt for ‘Taleban remnants’ and to try to get intelligence on what they feared might be the next al-Qaeda plot against America. Some Taleban were detained, but Afghan commanders working with US forces in 2001 were also able to denounce factional or personal enemies as ‘terrorists’ and get them killed or detained. The US practice of giving money for information helped fuel the denunciation of innocent individuals. In trying to fathom why a particular individual was detained, rather than trying to figure out their links to the Taleban or al Qaeda, it often makes more sense to look at the local allies of US forces and their relationship with the detainee. Understanding the particular tribal and factional context, and factoring in the opportunities there were to make money can clarify otherwise bizarre detentions.

In Kunar, for example, the anti-Taleban, Salafist leader, Haji Rohullah Wakil, had been chosen to represent Kunar in a national gathering, the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002. Two months later, in August 2002, he was detained and taken to Guantanamo. It seems a rival, keen to scoop up logging business and contracts for counter-narcotics work and the building of US bases, had told the US he was a terrorist. In the south, Uruzgan’s first post-Taleban governor, Jan Muhammad, a man with close, long-standing ties to the Karzai family, “used his relations with US Special Forces and his reputation as an effective Taliban hunter to target a wide range of tribal leaders and former Taleban officials, particularly from the Ghilzai and Panjpai tribes.” (3) In Kandahar, “entire tribes, like the Ishaqzai in Maiwand, a district west of Kandahar City,” reported van Linshoten and Kuehn were systematically targeted and denounced as Taleban.” (4) The tribes in Maiwand, Kandahar, had indeed supported the Taleban when they first came to power in 1994, but, said Gopal (5), “US forces were unable to recognize when those same tribes switched allegiances in 2001.” This, he said, was precisely what made Maiwand so lucrative in the eyes of the new US-allied governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, and his men, “There were weapons to be requisitioned, tribal elders to be shaken down, reward money to be collected—boundless profits to be made.”

The pattern of arbitrary detentions was seen across the border, as well. Those detained by Pakistan and handed over to the US included some senior Taleban, including ambassador Abdul Salaam Zaeef and governor of Herat, Khairullah Khairkhwa (see AAN reporting here) (both civilian members of the regime), but also many ordinary Afghans. Former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, revealed in his memoirs, for example, that Islamabad had “earned bounties totalling millions of dollars” for such handovers.

The search for information

The Bush administration insisted the detainees in Cuba were all dangerous men who had been “picked up off the battlefield,” had been trying to kill American forces and were “terrorists, bomb makers and facilitators of terror,” “trainers… recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin Laden’s] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11 hijacker.”(6) It was difficult to dispute this at first, as the US government kept details of the detainees secret. The first inkling of how arbitrary many of the detentions actually were came in December 2002 when military officers at Guantanamo (see here) complained about the ‘poor quality’ of detainees being sent:

At least 59 detainees – nearly 10% of the prison population… – were deemed to be of no intelligence value after repeated interrogations in Afghanistan….None of the 59 met U.S. screening criteria for determining which prisoners should be sent to Guantanamo Bay, military sources said. But all were transferred anyway, sources said, for reasons that continue to baffle and frustrate intelligence officers nearly a year after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.

The paper said classified intelligence reports described dozens of Afghan and Pakistani detainees who were “farmers, taxi drivers, cobblers and labourers. Some were low-level fighters conscripted by the Taliban in the weeks before the collapse of the ruling Afghan regime.” Eventually, after many years of legal challenges, determined investigations by journalists and human rights groups, better information came out. The names of the prisoners were eventually released in 2006 after a Freedom of Information Act request and litigation by the Associated Press. However, it was WikiLeaks’ publication in 2011 of secret assessments of the detainees which revealed just how disingenuous the Bush administration has been: the evidentiary basis for its allegations of terrorist activity was frequently hearsay, secondary hearsay (X told Y that Z was a terrorist), unverified intelligence reports, confessions and detainee testimony. The assessments were also rife with basic factual errors about Afghanistan.

The secrecy also worked against the US administration. They released senior Taleban commanders, not knowing who they were, including Mullah Shahzada, against whom there was detailed evidence of his command role in the 2001 massacre of civilians in Yakowlang. “U.S. officials were apparently unaware of the commander’s past record,” the Afghanistan Justice Project said, “which indicates either a serious intelligence failure or indifference to war crimes that do not fall under the official designation of ‘terrorist acts.’”

Generally, though, it was difficult to get out of Guantanamo. The Bush administration had decided detainees would not be covered by either criminal or military law, including common article 3 of the Geneva conventions. There was little protection, then, against arbitrary detention. As the three cases of the men now transferred show, the various military boards eventually set up to screen detainees at Guantanamo frequently failed to uncover the many glaring mistakes and improbable narratives in detainees’ files.

As for the courts, it turned out to be even more difficult to obtain a release through habeas corpus – when the state has to justify its detention of a person in court or free them. Judges have generally accepted the state’s version of events, including allowing secret evidence and at times, testimony obtained by detainees who had been tortured. They also accepted hearsay and pieces of evidence which were individually weak, but together produced a ‘mosaic’ of (apparent) culpability. US justice has moved immensely slow in these cases. Another Afghan still being held, Wali Mohammed who filed a habeas petition in 2005 waited until 2013 for his hearing and then another three years for the judge to rule; she decided he should stay in custody.

The chances of release are now higher since a new review body, the Periodic Review Board, started hearing cases. It is made up of military and non-military personnel, one senior official each from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State and the Offices of the Joint Staff and Director of National Intelligence. In about two thirds of the cases it has heard so far, it has recommended transfer. Of six Afghan cases heard, it has decided that five men be transferred and one should stay in indefinite detention.

One might have thought that, by now, there would only be genuinely dangerous people left in Guantanamo. Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, also appeared to assume this. He criticised the Obama administration for the transfers, portraying those freed as “hardened terrorists.” Yet, a reading of the cases of the three Afghans released this week at least shows no such thing.

Summaries of the allegations and evidence against the three can be read below. Readers can also see the full details, with sourcing, of each case by clicking on the relevant link. As names and the spellings of names vary in different documents, each detainee’s unique Internment Serial Number (ISN) is also given.

A note on sourcing:

The New York Times’ ‘Guantanamo Docket’ website has gathered together all the documents from Guantanamo for each of the 771 detainees known to have been held there. Here can be found summary sheets and transcripts for the military boards which assessed whether detainees were enemy combatants, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CRSTs) and the boards which, every year, assessed whether detainees were still a danger to the US, the Administrative Review Boards or (ARBs). On the same website are secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo Detainee Assessments which were published by WikiLeaks in 2011. They give information about a detainee’s capture, mental and physical health, reasons for his continuing detention, the allegations against him, something of his side of the story and usually the nature of the sourcing on which allegations were based (detainee’s testimony, other detainee’s testimony, Intelligence Information Reports, which are unverified and unprocessed, and reporting by the CIA and FBI. Analysis of the cases also used documents from the Periodic Review Board hearings, habeas petitions and Military Commission trials (these were brought in twice, in 2005 and 2006, during the Bush administration, and declared illegal twice by the Supreme Court, in 2006 and 2008; they were re-introduced in 2009, by President Obama).

Obaidullah, from Khost (ISN 762) 14 years in detention

In July 2002, a ‘walk in’ source, ie a previously unknown informant, told US forces in Khost that Obaidullah was a member of an al-Qaeda bomb-making cell. They raided the shopkeeper’s house and found two dozen anti-tank shells buried on his land which Obaidullah said had been left by PDPA communist government forces in the 1980s. They also found a notebook with bomb-making instructions on Obaidullah’s person. He has given various explanations for this and one interrogator, at least, said Obaidullah did not understand what was written there. However, this remained the strongest piece of evidence against him. Every other piece of evidence, however, has had to be discounted or seriously questioned.

Much of the case against him is made up of his own testimony: under interrogation, he had admitted to being a member of al-Qaeda and also implicated several other men, notably Bostan Karim, his former business partner, who is still in Guantanamo, but also cleared for transfer (all other members of the alleged cell were released years ago). Obaidullah withdrew both confession at the first chance he had to speak publically, at a military review board in 2004, saying he had spoken under torture:

When the Americans captured me… they began punishing me. They put a knife to my throat, tied my hands and put sandbags on my arms. At the airport in Khost I was walked around all night with the sandbags on my arms. They took me to Bagram where the interrogation and punishment increased. I was very young at that time, so whatever they said, I agreed to.

Obaidullah’s testimony is consistent with reports by human rights groups, the media and official US investigations looking into CIA and US interrogations in Khost and Bagram at this time. (7) The US state chose to drop his confession as evidence, rather than contest the accusation of torture in court during Obaidullah’s petition for habeas corpus.

In Obaidullah’s petition for habeas corpus, judges ruling on his petition and its numerous appeals accepted the state’s accusations, even as much of its evidence fell away, shown to be questionable or wrong. Most significantly, the judges did not question the assertion that Obaidullah was a member of al-Qaeda. This was critical as a ‘freelance insurgent’ would not be covered by the US president’s legal authority to detain. Instead, judges deemed retrospectively that the walk-in source’s original accusation that Obaidullah was al-Qaeda must have been correct because his tip-off had led to the note book and anti-tank mines being found on Obaidullah’s property. That informant was the lynch pin on which the state’s case against Obaidullah rested. Obaidullah tried to discover his identity and whether the US paid him money for the information. However, the courts accepted the government’s stance that information about this source is too sensitive for even Obaidullah’s security-cleared counsel to read.

Obaidullah appeared at most to have been a low-level insurgent; if he had been captured a few years later, he would have been sent to Bagram, or even let off with a guarantee from elders for good behaviour. The rationale for holding him in the high security detention camp in Cuba was never apparent.

Mohammad Kamin, from Khost (ISN 1045) 13 years in detention

A dispatch about this case was published after the Periodic Review Board recommended his transfer from Guantanamo (in September 2015).

US documents said that Kamin, a 25 year old imam, was detained in Khost city on 14 May 2003. They do not specify who captured him, but from court documents, it seems he was probably picked up by Afghan forces who may have beaten him prior to US interrogation (the most likely force would have been the then 25th Division of the army, which was made up of former PDPA communists from Kamin’s home area – it still operates, as the Khost Protection Force under CIA command). Kamin was allegedly detained with a GPS device which had grid points for the Afghan/Pakistan border stored on it. If he did possess this GPS, the evidentiary chain is missing.

The US accused Kamin of being a member of, or affiliated to, five different terrorist groups, Afghan, Arab and Pakistani: “Al-Qaida, the North African Extremist Network (NAEN), Taliban, and Jayshe-Mohammed (JEM) terrorist Organizations and leaders; furthermore detainee has admitted ties to the Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM).” NAEN is not an actual group; it only exists as a US intelligence acronym. Such lists are common in detainees’ files, although nowhere does the US explain why or how one man could be affiliated with so many groups. Like Obaidullah, Kamin was supposed to have been working with the al Qaeda commander, Abu Leith al-Libbi. Looking through his documents, however, it becomes apparent that, apart from the alleged GPS device and his possession of a model of watch which is used in bomb-making – and which is also a global best-seller (the Casio F_91W), all the allegations against him come only from his own testimony. He was never accused of any actual attack. 

Hamidullah, from Kabul (ISN 1119) 13 years in detention

The case against Hamidullah was always one of the strangest of all: he was accused of working as a terrorist with multiple Afghan factions, including ones which are enemies of each other, and of working with the “extremists” of Mahaz-e Milli (the National Islamic Front). Derided as being Westernised ‘Gucci guerrillas’ by its Islamist rivals, the monarchist Mahaz was famously the most moderate mujahedin group and laid down its arms in 1992. Many of Hamidullah’s alleged co-conspirators are pro-US intervention, establishment figures, either pro-government or members of the government. Hamidullah is accused, among other things, of scheming to bring back the former king, although the US does not explain why this should be controversial or require his removal to Cuba.

His documents are littered with gross factual errors and misunderstandings, with dates, factions, alliances and whole countries wrong. Moreover, like all three of the Afghans now released, he is accused only of planning attacks or meeting alleged co-conspirators, not of carrying out any actual attack. Explanation for his detention, however, is clear. He actually comes from a prominent Hizb-e Islami family in Kabul. When Hezb-e Islami’s historical enemy, Jamiat-e Islami, the dominant force in the Northern Alliance, captured Kabul after the fall of the Taleban, it took control of the security ministries, including the intelligence agency, the NDS. Hamidullah’s detention, made in 2003 by Afghan forces then under Jamiat control, looks to have been motivated by factional enmity. Less clear, however, is why a series of military boards over many years did not realise how absurd the accusations were against him or question a case riven with factual errors. A Periodic Review Board did, however, reveal in 2016 that it was the NDS which had asserted his links with extremists. His main enemy, his lawyer contended, had not been America, but “the Northern Alliance.”

 

 

(1) Men from 49 nationalities have been held in Guantanamo. The largest contingents have been Afghans (220), Saudis (135), Yemenis (115) and Pakistanis (72).

(2) They were: Inayatullah, ISN 10028, a 37 year old who committed suicide in 2011, Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, who died of cancer on 30 December 2007, and Awal Gul, who died on 2 February 2011 after exercising.

(3) Martine Van Bijlert ‘Unruly Commanders and Violent Power Struggles: Taliban Networks in Uruzgan’, Chapter 7 in Antonio Giustozzi (ed) Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, Columbia University Press/Hurst, 2009.

(4) Alex Strick Van Linschoten And Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: the Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010, Hurst, 2010.

(5) Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living Men: American, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes, Metropolitan Books Henry Holt, 2014.

(6) All quotes are from 2005 from (in order) President Bush, the White House press secretary, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld. Stuart Taylor ‘Falsehoods About Guantanamo’ The Atlantic, 27 June 2005 from. The same ‘worst of the worst’ assertions were also made early on and still continue.

(7) See human rights investigations, including “‘Enduring Freedom’ Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan’”, Human Rights Watch, March 2004, and Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition’, Open Society Foundations, February 2013; and official US investigations, including, ‘United States Senate Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody’, Committee on Armed Services, 20 November 2008, and ‘Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program’, The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 12 December 2014. (the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) lists other government investigations up till 2008, ‘Research Brief: Selected examples of Defence, Intelligence and Justice Investigative Reports into detention and interrogation practices’, 2 November 2008). There was also numerous press reporting, including an investigation by the author for the BBC’s ‘The World Tonight’ (audio no longer available, but cut-down text version available here: Kate Clark ‘Afghans tell of US prison ordeals’, BBC, 21 July 2005) and two reports into Khost by Craig Pyes and Kevin Sack, ‘Two Deaths Were a “Clue That Something’s Wrong”’ The Los Angeles Times, 25 September 2006, and ‘U.S. Probing Alleged Abuse of Afghans’, The Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2004.

(8) Kamin was charged with “providing material support to terrorism” in March 2008. Charges were dropped, without prejudice, on 11 December 2009 and were not re-filed. The charge of ‘providing material support to terrorism’ was thrown out as non-indictable in a 2012 ruling by an Appeals court which said it was not a war crime and new laws could not retrospectively punish actions not illegal at the time.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Justice Minister Alexis Thambwe announced at a press conference on Friday that some of the country’s political prisoners would be released. He also said bans on two media outlets close to the opposition would be lifted as part of an effort to ease political tensions.

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Composite photo showing, clockwise from upper left, activists Fred Bauma, Yves Makwambala, Jean-Marie Kalonji, and Christopher Ngoyi.

© 2016 Human Rights Watch

The list of prisoners includes activists Christopher Ngoyi, Fred Bauma, Yves Makwambala, and Jean-Marie Kalonji, as well as about 20 others who were released weeks or months earlier.

The government arrested scores of activists and opposition party leaders and supporters since January 2015, after they spoke out against attempts to extend President Joseph Kabila’s presidency beyond the constitutionally mandated two-term limit, which ends on December 19, 2016. Others were arrested after participating in peaceful demonstrations or other political activities.

Ngoyi was arrested on January 21, 2015, after he helped mobilize demonstrations against proposed changes to the electoral law. He was held secretly at the national intelligence agency without charge and without access to his family or lawyers for 20 days, before being transferred to Kinshasa’s central prison.

Bauma, a member of the citizens’ movement Lutte pour le Changement (LUCHA), and Makwambala, a webmaster, were arrested with over two dozen others during a March 2015 workshop in Kinshasa to launch Filimbi, a pro-democracy youth platform. The national intelligence agency held them for 50 and 40 days, respectively, before transferring them to Kinshasa’s central prison.

Kalonji, coordinator of the pro-democracy movement Quatrième Voix, was arrested on December 15, 2015, and detained by the intelligence agency for 132 days without charge or access to his family and lawyer before being transferred to Kinshasa’s central prison.

The government put all four activists on trial on trumped-up charges in an apparent politically motivated drive to silence dissent.

The announcement of their release, which comes the day after Kabila met with members of LUCHA in the eastern city of Goma, is a step in the right direction. It indicates a recognition by the Congolese government that the LUCHA and Filimbi youth movements are not “terrorist” organizations plotting “subversive activities,” as some officials have claimed.

But the government needs to do much more. Others held for political reasons remain in detention, including Bienvenu Matumo and Marc Héritier Kapitene from LUCHA, Jean de Dieu Kilima from Filimbi, opposition leader Jean-Claude Muyambo, opposition party member Victor Tesongo, and a number of associates of Moise Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga province who defected from Kabila’s party last September to join the opposition.

Congolese authorities should free all political prisoners and drop all charges against opposition figures and activists who have been targeted because of their political views or peaceful protests. They should also hold accountable those responsible for illegal and arbitrary detentions and political interference in the judicial system. 

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US Secretary of State John Kerry gestures as he speaks at a news conference at the Nairobi Sankara Hotel on May 4, 2015, in Nairobi, Kenya. © 2015 Reuters

(Washington, DC) - United States Secretary of State John Kerry should underscore respect for human rights and civilian protection during his upcoming trip to Kenya, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the secretary of state. Secretary Kerry will meet with senior government officials in Kenya on August 22, 2016, and in Nigeria on August 23-24. He will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss the armed conflict in Yemen on August 24-25.

“Secretary Kerry should press Kenya and Nigeria to ensure that security forces protect instead of prey on marginalized communities, including refugees,” said Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “Kerry needs to tell the Saudis that unless unlawful coalition airstrikes in Yemen stop, US weapons sales will.”

In Kenya, Kerry should urge investigations into security force abuses including enforced disappearances and torture. He should also urge Kenya not to close Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, or forcibly repatriate Somali refugees to their embattled country. In Nigeria, Kerry should continue to press for meaningful reforms in the Nigerian military.

Kerry should also use his Africa visit to address widespread atrocities in South Sudan and urge leaders of countries in the region to impose targeted financial sanctions on individuals responsible for grave human rights abuses and to build international support for an arms embargo. Regarding Somalia, Kerry should push to strengthen accountability mechanisms within AMISOM, the international peacekeeping mission, with all troop-contributing countries.

In Saudi Arabia, Kerry should raise concerns about serious and repeated violations of the laws of war by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that have killed many civilians. He should make clear that the Saudi government needs to end unlawful airstrikes or risk losing US sales of munitions and arms. He should also press the government to allow independent investigations into alleged war crimes by all parties to the conflict.

“The Obama administration will have few remaining opportunities to express its human rights concerns directly to leaders in the region,” Margon said. “It shouldn’t waste this one.”

The Honorable John F. Kerry
US Department of State
2201 C Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20520

August 19, 2016

Dear Secretary Kerry,

We write to you regarding your upcoming visit to Kenya, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. We appreciate the administration’s consistent and engaged policies for both African countries and believe the trip also offers an important opportunity to address challenges in South Sudan and Somalia. In the case of Saudi Arabia, we continue to have concerns about violations of the laws of war in the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen and believe the upcoming trip presents an important opportunity for you to emphasize the potential consequences if Saudi Arabia fails to improve its conduct.  

Throughout your trip in all three countries, we urge you to be clear that the United States expects its partners to protect the equal rights of all, including marginalized communities; to ensure security forces protect instead of prey on civilians; and to commit to, as President Obama said on his 2015 trip to Kenya, “uphold the rule of law, and respect … human rights, and … treat everybody who’s peaceful and law-abiding fairly and equally.” We urge you to reemphasize these sentiments clearly, both in your private meetings and in public commentary.

Kenya

During your visit in May 2015, you called attention to the fact that “President Kenyatta reinforced his agreement with us that human rights and the rule of law have to be respected in the counterterrorism efforts.” While there have been some efforts to move in this direction, they have been mostly cosmetic.

We continue to document serious abuses in counterterrorism operations in Kenya, including enforced disappearances and torture. Over an eight-month period, we documented at least 34 cases of extrajudicial killings and another 11 deaths of people last seen in state custody over alleged links or knowledge of Al-Shabab in Nairobi and the northeastern part of the country.

Our research showed that multiple security agencies, including the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), especially the Directorate of Military Intelligence, units of the Kenya Police, including the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit and the Administration Police, National Intelligence Service, and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers have played a significant role in these arrests and enforced disappearances. Currently civilian oversight mechanisms are either weak or lack the mandate to investigate abuse, particularly those carried out by the KDF. Thus far, senior Kenyan officials have not publicly acknowledged these abuses, not committed to any investigations, nor expressed concern for the whereabouts of those who are missing.

Given multiple units involved in the arrest and custody of people who have been forcibly disappeared, the numerous allegations of enforced disappearances and the government’s lack of commitment to investigate, we believe that the evidence indicates that these abuses are more than simply the work of rogue officers. Rather, we believe there is some level of coordination and control by government or security officials.

We hope you will raise these issues in your meetings with President Kenyatta and senior defense officials. Specifically, we hope you will urge President Kenyatta to publicly call for an end to extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and related abuses. In addition, he should urgently establish an independent and credible multiagency commission to investigate ongoing cases of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and torture in counterterrorism operations country-wide.

Last year, you called on Kenya to “not forcibly repatriate refugees.” However, the Kenyan government’s May 2016 termination of prima facie refugee recognition of Somalis, the dissolution of its Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA), and the announcement that it intends to close Dadaab refugee camp by November puts thousands of lives in jeopardy. Human Rights Watch has long documented Kenyan police abuse of Somali refugees, such as rape, beatings, arbitrary detention, and extortion of money and law enforcement operations marked by discrimination against Somalis. As a state party to the 1969 Africa Refugee Convention, Kenya has a legal obligation to ensure that anyone at risk of generalized violence, including Somali nationals, will not face unlawful forced return. In the specific case of Somali asylum seekers, we are deeply concerned that such returns will result in serious harm due to the ongoing conflict between Al-Shabab, government forces, and clan militia.

Given the government’s stated intention to close Dadaab, we also remain concerned that refugees and asylum seekers could face increased harassment and extortion if the returns process intensifies. Accordingly, we urge you to press the Kenyan government to rescind the decision to repatriate Somali refugees and close Dadaab. In addition, the Kenyan government should commit to uphold their obligations under international refugee law, and ensure that all asylum seekers have equal access to asylum processes. Given the dissolution of the DRA, the large number of unregistered Somali refugees, the high levels of generalized violence in Somalia, and the wider refugee definition in the Africa Refugee Convention, we recommend that you urge the Kenyan government to renew prima facie refugee recognition for Somali asylum seekers.

Finally, as we highlighted in our letter to you in April 2015, Kenyan civil society and the media operate in an increasingly difficult environment. We remain concerned that hostile official rhetoric, buttressed by efforts to enact restrictive new laws, could have a sharp impact on the availability of independent news and analysis and undermines freedom of expression and association, particularly in the run-up to the planned August 2017 elections. We believe you should continue to urge all members of the Kenyan government, both in public and in private, that the protection of civil society organizations – in line with the September 2014 Presidential Memorandum on Civil Society – is a top priority for the United States and that any new legislation should respect international standards on freedom of expression and association. 

Somalia

Given the cross border challenges, Kenya’s security will partly depend upon stability and increased security in Somalia. Your visit to Kenya and meetings with interlocutors of the African Union Forces in Somalia (AMISOM) offers the opportunity to make clear that the US is committed to supporting an international force in Somalia that is accountable for their conduct and that the presence of regional forces in Somalia does not contribute to further harm to civilians on the ground.

We continue to document abuses by AMISOM and associated troops, including sexual exploitation and abuse and unlawful attacks. Commitments to investigate abuses of civilians remain largely unfulfilled. For example, we are currently investigating an incident in which Ethiopian forces indiscriminately killed 14 civilians during an operation against Al-Shabab in Somalia’s Bay region in July. So far, despite public commitments by AMISOM’s leadership, there have been no investigations into the incident.

We hope you will raise this issue in all Somalia-related meetings and push for and support efforts to strengthen accountability mechanisms within AMISOM. Specifically, we encourage you to call on all troop-contributing countries operating in Somalia to deploy additional foreign military and civilian investigators, prosecutors and military courts inside the country, and greater information sharing within AMISOM forces and with the UN.

South Sudan

Your trip offers a timely opportunity to convene regional leaders on the crisis in South Sudan. Although sanctions action may be difficult to achieve multilaterally at the UN, we believe you should use this moment to push South Sudan’s neighbors to join coordinated bilateral sanctions against key human rights abusers. During a mission in July, our researchers documented how government and opposition forces soldiers used light and heavy weapons, used force indiscriminately in densely populated areas, and killed displaced people sheltering in UN camps, including two peacekeepers, and damaged a clinic.

We also found evidence that during and following the fighting in July, government soldiers deliberately killed, raped, and assaulted civilians, often along ethnic lines. Sexual violence was rampant, with the UN reporting more than 200 incidents during and after the fighting. In one brutal attack, soldiers executed a journalist and raped several foreign women working for international aid organizations. Soldiers also extensively looted humanitarian compounds, markets, and homes.

Commanders at the highest levels knew and should have known of these abuses and stopped them. Kenya, Ethiopia, and other regional partners host the assets of many of these individuals. We have urged the UN to impose targeted individual sanctions on those responsible, and hope you will also urge neighboring governments to consider bilateral sanctions.

The recent Juba violence and abuses underscore the need for accountability. We have urged South Sudan’s leaders to investigate and prosecute crimes, and have called on the African Union to proceed with preparations for the Hybrid Court envisioned in the 2015 peace agreement. That court would have jurisdiction over the most serious crimes committed since the beginning of the conflict, in December 2013, and over crimes committed in Juba in July. During your May 2015 visit, you pledged $5 million dollars. We urge you to make clear that some of those pledged funds will be used to assist the African Union Commission in its efforts to move forward with plans to take key steps towards setting the court up by October 2016.

The Juba violence is also a reminder that a comprehensive arms embargo is long overdue. An embargo would increase the cost of importing weapons, reduce civilian harm, immediately stop the maintenance of attack helicopters, and send a message that continued abuses against civilians and obstruction of the UN mission will not be tolerated. The United States has already said that it is prepared to support imposing an arms embargo on South Sudan if obstruction of the UN peacekeepers continues; while we believe that there is no need to wait any longer to move ahead with an arms embargo, it would help to get regional leaders to publicly back the prospect of an imminent arms embargo. Although both the African Union Peace and Security Council and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development have called for an arms embargo in the past, in recent days they have been silent on the issue. We hope that you can use this trip to ask regional leaders to express their public support for imposing a long overdue arms embargo on the country.

Nigeria

While there have been some notable efforts at reform by the Nigerian government in its fight to defeat the militant Islamic group Boko Haram, the group remains a serious threat to civilian security, and official reform has stalled. 

As you are aware, in responding to Boko Haram, government security forces have been implicated in grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including incommunicado detention, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances. The Nigerian police have also been credibly implicated in extrajudicial killings of Boko Haram members or suspects. The Nigerian government is taking steps to address the heavy-handed and abusive response to the insurgency by security forces, but much more needs to be done, especially if the military is to genuinely protect civilians in the northeast while also addressing ongoing Boko Haram threats.

The humanitarian situation in the northeast remains dire. Recent reports suggest that at least 500,000 people in Borno state are displaced or cut off from humanitarian aid. Human Rights Watch has documented a campaign of attacks on schools, students, and teachers by Boko Haram in the northeast, and the inadequate government response has led to over one million children without access to education.

Abusive conduct by security and police forces also extends beyond the northeast. Of particular concern is the attack in Zaria in December 2015, when Nigerian soldiers killed hundreds of Shia Muslims in an attack that appears to have been wholly unjustified. A recent report of an official inquiry into the clashes concluded that the military was involved in unlawful killings and that its response was “disproportionate” and “excessive.”

The United States should ensure that any further support to the Nigerian military – including any impending sales, like the Super Tucano aircraft sale – is tied to clear progress on implementing meaningful reforms. In addition, we hope you will make clear during your trip that a critical part of reform includes meaningful progress on accountability for previous abuses by security and police forces.

Saudi Arabia

Your visit to Saudi Arabia offers an important opportunity to raise concerns about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. Over the last year and a half of the conflict, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous violations of the laws of war by the Saudi-led coalition, including indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes that have caused high civilian casualties. These include repeated strikes on residential homes, markets, medical facilities, schools, civilian factories, and structures that did not appear to be military objectives. In the renewed fighting since the breakdown of peace talks, coalition airstrikes have hit homes, another hospital, a school, and a civilian factory.

Under the laws of war, the United States, by directly assisting coalition military operations such as by providing targeting intelligence and in-air refueling, is a party to the conflict in Yemen. As such, the US has a legal obligation to investigate alleged violations of the laws of war in which US forces may have been responsible and appropriate prosecute war crimes that may have been committed. We are unaware of US participation in any investigations of alleged laws of war violations committed in Yemen.  

The United States has also for many years sold munitions, including cluster munitions, weapons, and weapons platforms to Saudi Arabia. Human Rights Watch has documented that US-supplied munitions have been used in apparently unlawful airstrikes in Yemen.  As you know, members of Congress have made several attempts this year to condition or restrict US military sales and assistance to Saudi Arabia. They are also likely to do so with respect to the $1.15 billion shipment of tanks, guns, and related equipment and services that the Pentagon revealed last week. Human Rights Watch supports a full arms embargo against Saudi Arabia until it adopts serious measures to abide by the laws of war, including impartially investigating alleged violations by its forces. Suspending weapons shipments would encourage Saudi Arabia to improve its compliance with international law.

Given growing congressional concern, we urge you to make clear to the Saudi government that airstrikes and other attacks that violate the laws of war need to end, and to credibly and impartially investigate alleged violations, which to date they have failed to do.

By participating in attacks that violate the laws of war and by providing weapons and munitions to a military force that can be expected to use them unlawfully, the US risks complicity in violations by coalition forces. This would be damaging both for US long-term interests in Yemen, including counterterrorism concerns, and its standing in the region.

We urge you to press the Saudi government to support the presence of independent international observers with access to assist in investigations of alleged laws of war violations by all parties to the conflict. We also ask that you call upon the Saudi government to meet with independent human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, to discuss issues of concern. (To date, our letters seeking information and requests for meetings have gone unanswered.)

We look forward to discussing these and other issues with you or your staff.

Sincerely,

Sarah Margon
Washington Director

Annex:

Kenya

Report: Deaths and Disappearances: Abuses in Counterterrorism Operations in Nairobi and in Northeastern Kenya July 19, 2016: Kenyan security forces have forcibly disappeared at least 34 people in the past two years during abusive counterterrorism operations in Nairobi and in northeastern Kenya. Kenyan authorities should end the abuses in counterterrorism operations and promptly investigate the enforced disappearances and deaths of detainees in the northeast. The 87-page report, “Deaths and Disappearances: Abuses in Counterterrorism Operations in Nairobi and in Northeastern Kenya,” documents 34 instances in multi-agency security operations in which the military was actively involved in raiding homes and compounds to arrest people who were allegedly suspected of links with the armed Islamist group, Al-Shabab. But months, and in some cases over a year, later, suspects have not been charged with any crimes and families cannot locate them. In each case, although families reported the disappearance to the police and sought help from various authorities, the authorities failed to inform them of the detainees’ whereabouts or to properly investigate allegations of abuse.

Investigate Killings of Lawyer, Two Men: Bodies Dumped in River after Enforced Disappearance July 3, 2016: Kenyan authorities must urgently investigate the killing last week of three men, including a human rights lawyer, and ensure that those found responsible are held to account in fair trials, 34 Kenyan and international human rights organizations said.

Police Killings During Protests: Investigate Use of Excessive Force in Western Region June 20, 2016: At least 5 people died and 60 were wounded by gunfire as police tried to obstruct two recent protests in Nyanza region. Kenyan authorities should promptly investigate police use of excessive force during the demonstrations, on May 23 and June 6, 2016, in the Nyanza region of Western Kenya, and bring anyone responsible to account.

Ending Refugee Hosting, Closing Camps: Ensure Required Protections for Refugees May 6, 2016: Kenya’s announcement on May 6, 2016 that it would no longer host refugees is contrary to principles it has pledged to respect.

Report: "You Are All Terrorists": Kenyan Police Abuse of Refugees in Nairobi May 29, 2013: Kenyan police in Nairobi tortured, raped, and otherwise abused and arbitrarily detained at least 1,000 refugees between mid-November 2012 and late January 2013, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The Kenyan authorities should immediately open an independent public investigation, and the United Nations refugee agency – which has not spoken publicly about the abuses – should document and publicly report on any future abuses against refugees, Human Rights Watch said. The 68-page report, “‘You are All Terrorists:’ Kenyan Police Abuse of Refugees in Nairobi,”is based on interviews with 101 refugees, asylum seekers, and Kenyans of Somali ethnicity. The report documents how police used grenade and other attacks by unknown people in Nairobi’s mainly Somali suburb of Eastleigh and a government order to relocate urban refugees to refugee camps as an excuse to rape, beat, extort money from, and arbitrarily detain, at least 1,000 people. The police described their victims as “terrorists,” and demanded payments to free them. Human Rights Watch also documented 50 cases in which the abuses would amount to torture.

Somalia

Report: 'Like Fish in Poisonous Waters’: Attacks on Media Freedom in Somalia May 3, 2016: Both the Somali government and the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab are using abusive tactics to sway media coverage, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today, on World Press Freedom Day. The government should act decisively to end intimidation and violence against journalists by state security forces and Al-Shabab militants. Somalis’ need for a free and vibrant media is especially important in light of the electoral process planned for 2016. The 74-page report, “‘Like Fish in Poisonous Waters’: Attacks on Media Freedom in Somalia,” documents killings, threats, and arbitrary detention of journalists since 2014. The Somali federal government and regional authorities have used various abusive tactics to affect media coverage, including arrests and forced closures of media outlets, threats, and occasionally, criminal charges. Al-Shabab has targeted journalists as part of its campaign against the Somali government and for reporting deemed unfavorable. Government authorities have failed to adequately investigate and prosecute those responsible for abuses, leaving journalists to live in fear.

Forced Evictions of Displaced People: Tens of Thousands at Risk in Capital April 20, 2015: Somali state security forces forcibly evicted about 21,000 displaced people in the capital, Mogadishu, in early March 2015. The authorities beat some of those evicted on March 4 and 5, destroyed their shelters, and left them without water, food, or other assistance. Many of those affected had fled their homes during the 2011 famine and fighting, and have been repeatedly displaced since then. Somali authorities should cease forcibly evicting displaced people in Mogadishu, and adequately protect and assist them, Human Rights Watch said.

Report of the Secretary-General on Somalia May 9, 2016

Report: Hostages of the Gatekeepers: Abuses against Internally Displaced in Mogadishu, Somalia March 28, 2013: Members of state security forces and armed groups have raped, beaten, and otherwise abused displaced Somalis who have arrived in Somalia’s capital fleeing famine and armed conflict since 2011, Human Rights Watch said in a report. The new Somali government should urgently improve the protection and security of Mogadishu’s internally displaced population. The 80-page report, “Hostages of the Gatekeepers: Abuses against Internally Displaced in Mogadishu, Somalia,” details serious violations, including physical attacks, restrictions on movement and access to food and shelter, and clan-based discrimination against the displaced in Mogadishu from the height of the famine in mid-2011 through 2012. Interviews with 70 displaced people documented the ways in which government forces, affiliated militia, and private parties, notably camp managers known as “gatekeepers,” prey upon the vulnerable community.

South Sudan

Killings, Rapes, Looting in Juba: Arms Embargo, Additional UN Sanctions Needed August 145, 2016: Soldiers killed and raped civilians and extensively looted civilian property, including humanitarian goods, during and after clashes between government and opposition forces in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, in July, 2016, Human Rights Watch said. In many cases, government forces appeared to target non-Dinka civilians. As a result of indiscriminate attacks, including shooting and shelling, shells landed in camps for displaced people inside United Nations bases, and in other densely populated areas in the city, killing and wounding civilians. Human Rights Watch researchers visiting Juba in July after the clashes documented multiple crimes, most committed by government soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Dispatches: Giving Justice the Slip in South Sudan June 8, 2016: Experience over the past two decades – including in Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, and Chile – has shown that criminal trials for wartime atrocities have not undermined peace. On the contrary, the failure to pursue justice often fuels further crimes, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo and, most recently, Syria. South Sudan is a prime example of how bad things can get. Despite years, even decades, of atrocities by commanders on all sides, peace deals – including from the North-South conflict – have repeatedly rewarded abusive leaders with plum positions and provided de facto blanket amnesties. Abuse of civilians has been a path to promotion and power.

Civilians Killed, Tortured in Western Region: Provide Justice for Army Abuses in Western Regions May 24, 2016: South Sudanese government soldiers have carried out a wide range of often-deadly attacks on civilians in and around the western town of Wau. Soldiers have killed, tortured, raped, and detained civilians and looted and burned down homes. The abuses in the Western Bahr el Ghazal region took place during government counterinsurgency operations that intensified after an August 2015 peace deal. The attacks underscore the need for the national unity government to take immediate steps toward accountability for crimes by all warring parties since the start of South Sudan’s conflict in December 2013.

Dispatches: Action, not Words, Needed to End Abuses in South Sudan April 27, 2016: South Sudan’s leaders may finally be ready to work toward peace, but they cannot gloss over the crimes with rhetorical niceties. They need to act. Both sides should investigate and prosecute human rights abuses and the government should order national security officials to charge or release the dozens of men arbitrarily detained in Juba. Finally, they need to show their commitment to justice and accountability by reaching out to the African Union Commission – tasked with setting up a hybrid court to try the most serious crimes – to establish the tribunal without delay. These steps, more powerfully than words, will signal their recognition that justice is necessary to redress “the situation we leaders have created.”

Dispatches: Missed Opportunity for an Arms Embargo on South Sudan April 8, 2016: The UN Security Council missed an opportunity this week to move forward with an embargo when the United States, which leads on the issue at the UN, chose to postpone the discussion until June.

Report: “We Can Die Too”: Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in South Sudan December 14, 2015: South Sudanese leaders should help end widespread use of child soldiers by suspending and investigating commanders who have recruited children, Human Rights Watch said in a report. Thousands of children have fought in the South Sudan conflict, including under commanders from both government and opposition forces. The 65-page report, “‘We Can Die Too’: Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in South Sudan,” names more than 15 commanders and officials from both the government Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the rebel SPLA-in Opposition and their allies who have used child soldiers. The report is based on interviews with 101 child soldiers who were either forcibly recruited or joined forces to protect themselves and their communities. They said they lived for months without enough food, far away from family, and were thrown into terrifying gun battles in which they were injured and saw friends killed. Children also expressed deep regret that they had lost time they should have spent in school.

Nigeria

Dispatches: Nigerian Military Used Excessive Force Against Shia Group August 1, 2016: An official inquiry into clashes between members of a Shia minority group and the Nigerian military has stated the Nigerian Army’s response to altercations in Zaria, Kaduna State, between December 12 and 14, 2015 was “disproportionate”.

Report: “They Set the Classrooms on Fire”: Attacks on Education in Northeast Nigeria April 11, 2016: Boko Haram’s attacks on schools, students, and teachers in northeast Nigeria have had a devastating impact on education. The conflict has left nearly 1 million children with little or no access to school, and Nigeria’s security forces have contributed to the problem by using schools as military bases, putting children at further risk of attack from the Islamist armed group. The 86-page report, “‘They Set the Classrooms on Fire’: Attacks on Education in Northeast Nigeria,” documents Boko Haram’s increasingly brutal assaults on schools, students, and teachers since 2009 in Borno, Yobe, and Kano states. Between 2009 and 2015, Boko Haram’s attacks destroyed more than 910 schools and forced at least 1,500 more to close. At least 611 teachers have been deliberately killed and another 19,000 forced to flee. The group has abducted more than 2,000 civilians, many of them women and girls, including large groups of students.

A Year On, No Word on 300 Abducted Children: Government Response to Damasak Attacks Woefully Inadequate March 29, 2016: The Nigerian government should take urgent steps to secure the release of about 400 women and children, including at least 300 elementary school students, abducted by Boko Haram from the town of Damasak in Borno State a year ago. It is unclear whether the Nigerian government has made any serious effort to secure their release.

Dispatches: Protect Lives, Not Just Territory, Against Attacks February 4, 2016: Boko Haram may no longer ‘hold’ key towns, but it continues to commit crimes against civilians. The desire of the government to return the northeast to normalcy cannot be an excuse to press civilians to return to their home areas when they feel these are not safe. Greater efforts to prevent deadly crimes against civilians in the northeast should be the focus of the government, not just the recovery of territory.

Army Attack on Shia Unjustified: Independent, Impartial Probes Essential December 22, 2015: The killing of hundreds of Shia Muslim members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), by Nigerian army soldiers from December 12 to 14, 2015, appears to have been wholly unjustified. The Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by the government should be sufficiently independent and impartial to hold those responsible to account.

Saudi Arabia/Yemen

Report: Bombing Businesses: Saudi Coalition Airstrikes on Yemen's Civilian Economic Structures July 10, 2016: Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes have unlawfully hit numerous factories, warehouses, and other civilian economic structures in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the absence of credible and impartial investigations in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other coalition members should agree to an independent international inquiry into these and other allegedly unlawful attacks. The 59-page report, “Bombing Businesses: Saudi Coalition Airstrikes on Yemen’s Civilian Economic Structures,” examines in detail 17 apparently unlawful airstrikes on 13 civilian economic sites, including factories, commercial warehouses, a farm, and two power facilities. These strikes killed 130 civilians and injured 171 more. Collectively, the facilities employed over 2,500 people; following the attacks, many of the factories ended their production and hundreds of workers lost their livelihoods. Further, with more than 20 million people in desperate need of humanitarian aid, the strikes on factories are contributing to the shortages of food, medicine, and other critical needs of Yemen’s civilians.

Suspend Saudi Arabia from UN Human Rights Council June 29, 2016: Saudi Arabia has committed gross and systematic violations of human rights during its time as a Council member, and it has used its position on the Council to shield itself from accountability for its violations in Yemen. Saudi Arabia leads the military coalition fighting in Yemen, with Riyadh hosting its command control structure. Since 26 March 2015, the coalition has carried out numerous attacks that have violated international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes that have killed and injured many civilians. It has repeatedly used internationally banned cluster munitions, including in civilian populated areas.

US Bombs Used in Deadliest Market Strike: Coalition Allies Should Stop Selling Weapons to Saudi Arabia  Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes using United States-supplied bombs killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children, in northwestern Yemen on March 15, 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The two strikes, on a crowded market in the village of Mastaba that may have also killed about 10 Houthi fighters, caused indiscriminate or foreseeably disproportionate loss of civilian life, in violation of the laws of war. Such unlawful attacks when carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes.

Embargo Arms to Saudi Arabia: US, UK, France Risk Complicity in Unlawful Airstrikes March 21, 2016: The United States, United Kingdom, France, and others should suspend all weapon sales to Saudi Arabia until it not only curtails its unlawful airstrikes in Yemen but also credibly investigates alleged violations.

Ethiopian security forces gunned down at least 100 people a week ago in the bloodiest weekend in the ninth month of anti-government protests. Unlike previous protests, which have been largely confined to the Oromia region, the protests on August 6 and 7 were also in the northern Amhara region. Altogether at least 500 people have been killed since November and tens of thousands have been detained during the largely peaceful protests.

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Protesters chant slogans during a demonstration over what they say is unfair distribution of wealth in the country at Meskel Square in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, August 6, 2016.

© 2016 Reuters

The protests in Oromia started in November over the government’s approach to development, but as the crackdown intensified, protester grievances focused on longstanding abuses and discrimination. In the Amhara region, protesters have voiced concerns over the dominance of those connected to the ruling party in economic and political affairs, complex questions of ethnic identity, and other historic grievances. Protesters vow to continue, and there is no indication of a letup from security forces or new concessions from the government.

Security force torture of people in detention has been pervasive. Girma (not his real name), an 18-year-old student, was released last week from an Ethiopian military camp seven months after he was arrested at a protest with his classmates. He told me when I talked with him after his release that the nightly beatings left him with permanent injuries that make it hard for him to walk. He is banned from returning to school and afraid he will be arrested again if he seeks medical care. He still hears the screams of the “hundreds of protesters still there who were tortured every night.”

Donor countries to Ethiopia have been largely silent about the brutal crackdown, presumably in part due to the Ethiopian government’s strategic relationships on security, peacekeeping, migration, and development. For years, the US, the UK and other influential governments have basically rejected public condemnation of the Ethiopian government’s repressive practices. But a strategy of “quiet diplomacy” is increasingly limited as Ethiopia’s human rights situation declines and its heavy-handed response to the largely peaceful protests is fueling more anger and frustration.

The small bit of good news is that the international silence on Ethiopia was broken on August 10 when the UN’s top human rights official, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, told Reuters that an international investigation and accountability are needed for the killings of protesters.

The protesters I spoke with in recent weeks have been increasingly reassessing the effectiveness of their peaceful protests in the absence of justice, accountability, and international condemnation of the government’s killing, torture and arbitrary arrests. They told me they are losing faith in Western governments to offer even the mildest criticism of their government.

There are few opportunities inside the country to monitor the government’s human rights record, to hold officials to account, or to access justice. After elections in 2015 that did not meet international standards, the government holds 100 percent of the seats in federal and regional parliaments, preventing any serious parliamentary debate. The courts have little independence on politically sensitive cases and the misuse of the anti-terrorism law is illustrated through the ongoing trial of an opposition leader and advocate for non-violence, Bekele Gerba, the ongoing trial of a former World Bank translator, Pastor Omot Agwa, and the conviction of numerous journalists on trumped-up charges. Numerous restrictions on independent media and nongovernmental organizations result in little scrutiny of abusive security forces. International journalists also face restrictions as three journalists detained during the recent protests can attest to.

Ethiopia’s Human Rights Commission should be investigating abuses by security forces. But its lack of independence was underscored by its oral report on the protests to parliament in June. It concluded that the lethal force used by security forces in Oromia was proportionate to the risk they faced from the protesters. It is not known whether a written version of the report is available to justify such a seemingly politicized conclusion. The briefing was issued just a few days before Human Rights Watch issued a report describing the excessive use of force that resulted in the killing of an estimated 400 people during the first six months of the protests.

International scrutiny of Ethiopia’s rights record has also been lacking despite its June election to the UN Security Council, and its membership on the UN Human Rights Council – which requires it to uphold the “highest standards of human rights” and cooperate with UN monitors. Ethiopia has refused entry to all UN special rapporteurs since 2007. Among the outstanding requests are from the special rapporteurs on torture, freedom of opinion and expression, and peaceful assembly.

Ethiopia’s allies should back the call from the UN human rights high commissioner and press for an international investigation. Such a move will send a powerful and overdue message to the Ethiopian government that its security forces cannot shoot and kill peaceful protesters with impunity. And it will also send an important message to the victims and families that their pleas for justice are being heard.

Ethiopia’s allies need to urgently embark on a new approach to Ethiopia before the current situation descends into an even more dangerous and irreversible political and human rights crisis. They could play a leading role in pushing for investigative or monitoring mechanisms to hold the government to account for its brutal response to citizens exercising their fundamental rights to expression and assembly -- or the toll of the dead and the tortured will continue to rise.

Girma, the young student, says he wants to flee the country once his health improves. “I’m leaving because there will never be justice in my country for what happened to me and the world will not do anything,” he told me. “So I will leave rather than wait for death.”

The United Nations human rights arm today expressed concern about the mounting constraints on the democratic space in Thailand – calling for a prompt return to civilian rule.

The heart breaking photograph of Omran Daqneesh, the little boy sitting alone in an ambulance with his face and body covered in blood and dirt after being pulled from a destroyed building has reminded the world, yet again, of the unimaginable horrors that Syrian children face every day, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children&#39s Fund (UNICEF) said today.