War crimes and peace talks

 by S.B. | CAIRO 

It has come as no surprise that Syrian peace talks in Geneva are drawing to a close with little to offer to the country’s long-suffering people, even by way of aid deliveries. But opposition delegates may feel a tentative satisfaction. Long accused of naïve politicking, their image rose when put alongside regime representatives who railed against terrorism and repeatedly claimed to be protecting Christians, rather than discussing a transitional government.

The opposition was helped further by the carefully timed release of two reports during the week of talks. Both alleged war crimes by the regime (the UN has accused both the regime and rebels of war crimes, with the former’s on a far greater scale and systematic manner). First, a report by three renowned lawyers, accompanied by thousands of photographs smuggled out of Syria, claimed to show 11,000 bodies of detainees who died under torture in the regime’s prisons (see article).

The second report, released today, January 30th, by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby, details another disturbing aspect of the war. According to the report, between June 2012 and July 2013, the regime razed to the ground seven districts in the cities of Damascus and Hama, amounting to an area equalling 200 football fields. Basing its report on satellite imagery and interviews with 16 people, the group says opposition areas were specifically targeted. Witnesses spoke of explosives and bulldozers being used to knock down buildings including a restaurant and multi-storey block of flats.

Take Masha al-Arbaeen, a poor area in northern Hama (see below). Between September and October 2012, an area of 40 hectares was razed. Some locals had joined the rebel fighters but said opposition fighters had only been present in one or two houses in the neighbourhood. 

Another area levelled, in Qaboun, a district of Damascus, in June may have laid the ground for a chemical weapons attack two months later. “Before the attack, there was a month-long campaign to secure land between Qaboun and Jobar,” says Elliot Higgins, a blogger who does investigative work into the war’s weaponry.  “That established an area controlled by the government 1.5 to 2km away from the impact sites on August 21st. We know the range of the rockets [used in the attack] is at least 2km.”

In interviews, government officials said that demolitions were to remove illegal buildings. But Human Rights Watch says some of the people affected say they have documentation for their buildings; no loyalist areas were targeted in the same manner. Demolitions often followed fighting and were supervised by military men.

Under the laws of war, parties to a conflict are allowed to target military sites, which may include civilian areas if they are being used for a military purpose. However, the lobby says this can only be done when there is a specific and imminent threat. And the measure taken must be proportionate. The demolitions documented seem designed as collective punishment, say the report’s authors. Owners were neither given notice nor offered compensation.

Human Rights Watch has urged the UN to refer Syria to the ICC. That remains unlikely. economist