| New York Times | - |
GENEVA - The United Nations Security Council should refer Syria
to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prosecute those
responsible for war crimes and other abuses committed in nearly two
years of conflict, Carla del Ponte, a United ...
U.N. Rights Panel on Syria Urges War Crimes Charges
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
Published: February 18, 2013
GENEVA — The United Nations Security Council should refer Syria
to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prosecute those
responsible for war crimes and other abuses committed in nearly two
years of conflict, Carla del Ponte, a United Nations human rights investigator, said on Monday.
“Now, really, it’s time — it’s time,” Ms. del Ponte said. “We are
pressuring the international community to act because it’s time to act.”
Ms. del Ponte was speaking as the United Nations Human Rights Council
commission investigating Syria, of which she is a member, said violence
in Syria was worsening, “aggravated by increasing sectarianism” and
radicalized by the increasing presence of foreign fighters. It said the
conflict was also “becoming more militarized because of the
proliferation of weapons and types of weapons used.”
The panel’s 131-page report detailing evidence of war crimes and other
abuses in the six months to mid-January said, “The issue of
accountability for those responsible for international crimes deserves
to be raised in a more robust manner to counter the pervasive sense of
impunity in the country.” The top United Nations human rights official,
Navi Pillay, has also urged that Syria be referred to the International
Criminal Court. Authority to make such a referral, however, lies
exclusively with the Security Council or the country concerned.
“It’s incredible the Security Council doesn’t take a decision,” said Ms.
del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor for international tribunals on
the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. A referral must be made urgently, she
said, “because crimes are continuing, and the number of victims is
increasing day to day. Justice must be done.”
The report released on Monday is due to be discussed in the Human Rights
Council in March, when member states look likely to extend the
commission’s mandate. Diplomats in Geneva point out that the panel
represents the only United Nations-mandated machinery shedding a
spotlight on abuses, and that its reports provide the most comprehensive
and factual account of how Syria’s conflict is being waged.
In their report on Monday, based on 445 interviews, the investigators
said they found credible evidence of war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed by both government and opposition forces in the six
months to mid-January. The report cited accounts of massacres, summary
executions, torture, attacks by armed groups on civilians, sexual
violence and abuses against children.
Pro-government forces committed massacres in August in Daraya, where
more than 100 people, including women and children, reportedly died, and
in Harak in the Dara’a governorate, where witnesses said more than 500
civilians were killed.
Government forces involved in Harak included the Syrian Army as well as
military and political intelligence units, the report said, noting that
they may have been accompanied by members of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps. The panel said it was still investigating
other reports of mass killings.
Drawing on the accounts of defectors and “insiders,” the report said
government forces had deliberately targeted civilians to punish
populations in areas seen as supportive of the opposition. Entire
neighborhoods of Damascus have been shelled and destroyed by government
forces, and bread lines in several towns have been targeted at times
when the concentration of civilians would be at their highest.
“Indiscriminate and widespread shelling, the regular bombardment of
cities, mass killing, indiscriminate firing on civilian targets, firing
on civilian gatherings and a protracted campaign of shelling and sniping
on civilian areas have characterized the conduct of the government,”
the panel said.
Investigators also cited “credible admissions against their own
interest” by witnesses of the mass killing of five members of one family
whose execution was filmed and posted on the Internet. They said a
member of the Free Syrian Army acknowledged that his brigade had
captured and executed five Alawites, members of the Shiite Muslim
minority that provides the bedrock of support for President Bashar
al-Assad.
The panel expressed particular concern over “an increase in acts of
unrestrained violence” associated with the proliferation of armed groups
that appeared to serve no strategic purpose but to foment sectarian
tensions and spread terror among the civilian population. The report
warned that “this trend risks becoming a malignant feature of the
conflict.”
It also said that foreign intervention had helped radicalize the
conflict, “as it has favored Salafi armed groups such as the Al Nusra
Front and even encouraged mainstream insurgents to join them owing to
their superior logistical and operational capabilities.”
The report added that “regional and international actors hampered the
prospects of a negotiated settlement owing to their divergent interests.
The position of key international actors remains unchanged.”
However, panel members said Monday that their ability to report on
activities of the opposition was seriously hampered by the Assad
government’s persistent refusal to give its investigators access to
Syria.
The panel said last year that it had already accumulated a “formidable
and extraordinary body of evidence” against those responsible for war
crimes, and it again said that it would provide the United Nations human
rights office with the names of leaders who may be responsible for
abuses, as well as the individuals and units that carried them out.
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