International Criminal Court - Justice Denied - WikiLeaks: Afghan War Logs

SOURCE http://news.sudanvisiondaily.com/details.html?rsnpid=253698 Justice Denied:The Reality of the International Criminal Court (34) “Imagine if there were a criminal court in Britain which only ever tried black people, which ignored crimes committed by whites and Asians and only took an interest in crimes committed by blacks. We would consider that racist, right? And yet there is an International Criminal Court which only ever tries black people, African black people to be  precise, and it is treated as perfectly normal. In fact the court is lauded by many radical  activists as a good and decent institution, despite the fact that no non-black person has ever  been brought before it to answer for his crimes. It is remarkable that in an era when liberal  observers see racism everywhere, in every thoughtless aside or crude joke, they fail to see it  in an institution which focuses exclusively on the criminal antics of dark-skinned people from  the ‘Dark Continent’…. Liberal sensitivity towards issues of racism completely evaporates when it comes to the ICC, which they will defend tooth and nail, despite the fact that it is quite clearly, by any objective measurement, racist, in the sense that it treats one race of people differently to all others. Chapter Thirteen An Afghan Case Study “Several events have taken place under Mr. Obama’s watch that could bring charges for war crimes.” The Washington Times “War crimes are not investigated in Afghanistan.” Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Afghanistan provides a further example of a developing world nation invaded and occupied by Western states. It also provides another clear example of the ICC’s disinclination, for political reasons, to deal with blatant war crimes allegedly committed and unaccounted for by Western military forces, including prominent European States Parties to the Rome Statute, in the territory of another State Party. The occupation of Afghanistan and the military operations that have been conducted and continue to be carried out in that country fall under the control of two international missions. The first international mission is Operation Enduring Freedom, a joint USA, UK and Afghan military operation. The operation began in 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist outrages in the USA. By the winter of 2001, the USA had unseated the Taliban government. The operation continues against a subsequent insurgency being fought against both the occupation forces and the new Afghan government the USA installed in Kabul, with military direction mostly coming from United States Central Command. The second mission is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led mission in Afghanistan that was established by the UNSC in December 2001 by Resolution 1386, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. ISAF was set up as a UN-mandated international force to assist the new Afghan interim authority to provide security in and around the capital, Kabul, and to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan. On 11 August 2003, NATO assumed leadership of the ISAF operation, and from January 2006 onwards ISAF also assumed some combat duties from the ongoing Anglo-American mission, Operation Enduring Freedom. NATO became responsible for the command, coordination and planning of the force, including the provision of a force commander and headquarters on the ground in Afghanistan. ISAF is made up of military forces from the USA, UK and other NATO member states. ISAF falls under the command of NATO’s Joint Force Command in the Dutch town of Brunssum. The two missions run in parallel. Their personnel are generally known as the coalition forces. Afghanistan is a member of the ICC. William Schabas has confirmed that the court is able to initiate prosecutions of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan: “[The Prosecutor] may…proceed with respect to war crimes committed by American troops in Afghanistan, which is a State Party to the Rome Statute, because there is jurisdiction over all crimes committed on Afghan territory.”873 Philippe Sands QC has confirmed this jurisdiction exists and has outlined the broad extent of the behaviour that could trigger ICC action: “A CIA officer who conducted an abusive interrogation at Bhagram air base could be tried before the court.” If this applies to non-lethal human rights abuses by a citizen of a non-State Party to the ICC in an ICC State Party, how much stronger is the court’s jurisdiction in the case of murder/attempted murder by a citizen of an ICC member state on the territory of an ICC member state? Even The Washington Times has stated that “[s]everal events have taken place under Mr. Obama’s watch that could bring charges for war crimes”, actions that come under the ICC’s remit. There have been numerous incidents amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes since Afghanistan was invaded in 2001, and since the court acquired jurisdiction in 2002. These grave abuses of human rights have implications for both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and for several ICC States Parties who have acted in coalition with US forces in ISAF/NATO operations. Professor Mark Herold has pointed to one incident among many that qualifies as a war crime but that has never been taken up by the ICC. On the evening of 29 June 2007, American warplanes killed between 50 and 130 innocent Afghan civilians in a night-time aerial assault upon the village of Haydarabad, about fifteen kilometres northeast of the town of Gereshk. The village was bombed for at least two hours, killing men, women and children. Another major incident occurred on 4 May 2009, in what may be the single deadliest US attack in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, when American bombers killed as many as 147 Afghan civilians, 93 of them children, in an airstrike in western Afghanistan that locals call the Farah Massacre. With regard to this incident, US Central Command officials stated that US airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Farah Province had killed only “20 to 30” civilians. A member of Farah’s Provincial Council, Abdul Basir Khan, said he collected the names of the 147 individuals who died in the attack. Relatives of the victims showed mass graves to investigators, along with the remains of bombed-out buildings and homes. The International Red Cross reported that women and children were among the dozens of dead. The UN reported that in 2008, US, NATO and Afghan forces were responsible for over 828 civilian deaths.  Most of these deaths were the result of US and NATO airstrikes. In November 2008, for example, US troops bombed a wedding party in the Shah Wali Kot area in southern Afghanistan, killing about forty civilians – mainly women and children. NATO rejected the UN figure of 828 deaths, saying its forces were responsible for only 237 civilian deaths in 2008. In his study of war crimes in Afghanistan, Afghanistan War Crimes: Government, ICC and NGOs, Akbar Nasir Khan has written of the “culture of impunity ingrained in the country’s legal system”. Khan pointed out that there are several indications that the Afghan government has no interest in addressing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan: “The Government of Afghanistan has made no concrete efforts to deal with the issue of war crimes…” Khan has pointed to evidence that the government “is not interested in fulfilling its international obligations and participating against impunity”. These include the fact that suggested draft legislation to make domestic laws conform to Article 68 of the Rome Statute has been ignored by the government; Afghanistan’s seat is still vacant in the ASP of the ICC, and nobody has been appointed to the body yet; and that Afghanistan has never invited the ICC to conduct any investigations of past crimes. In March 2009, the government let an action plan to implement a national “Action Plan for Peace, Reconciliation and Justice”, prepared by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2005, lapse. In January 2007, both the lower and upper houses of the Afghan parliament passed a national stability and reconciliation resolution, which granted blanket amnesty to “[a]ll the political wings and hostile parties who had been in conflict before the formation of the interim administration”. This was enacted as legislation in early 2010, in the Amnesty, National Reconciliation and Stability Law in the Official Gazette (No. 965). Section 3, Clause 2, of the amnesty law extends immunity from prosecution by the government to “armed people who are against the government of Afghanistan, after the passing of this law, if they cease from their objections, join the national reconciliation process, and respect constitutional law and other regulations of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, they will have all the perquisites of this law”. Khan notes: “Legally, this law contradicts Afghanistan’s ‘duty to prosecute’ norm which has been established under different instruments of international laws including Genocide Convention, Convention against Torture, and all four Geneva Conventions.” Khan noted further that “[h]uman rights abusers continued to enjoy almost complete impunity”. He observed: “The Afghan parliament is made up largely of lawmakers who once belonged to armed groups, some of which have been accused of war crimes by human rights groups and the general public.” Afghanistan Human Rights Organization researcher Maghferat Samimi stated that the warlords and their militia commanders continue to commit crimes with impunity, protected by their alliances with foreign nations and comfortable positions within the Afghan government. Impunity, amnesty, warlords, militias and alleged war crimes in Africa are at the top of the ICC’s agenda. In Afghanistan they barely rate a footnote in ICC reports, let alone a full investigation, despite the hundreds of thousands of victims of human rights abuse and forced displacement. It is not as if the Chief Prosecutor does not have documentary evidence with which to work regarding war crimes in Afghanistan.  Much of the investigative work has already been done for the ICC. The Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions in 2009, for example, stated that: [T]here have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings – including possible war crimes – during the United States’ international operations. The Government has failed to effectively investigate and punish lower-ranking soldiers for such deaths, and has not held senior officers responsible under the doctrine of command responsibility. Worse, it has effectively created a zone of impunity for private contractors and civilian intelligence agents by failing to investigate and prosecute them.” In addition, in July 2010 WikiLeaks released a set of documents called the “Afghan War Diary”, a compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Christopher Hall, a legal adviser for Amnesty International, said the WikiLeaks material, together with data collected previously, contained enough evidence of atrocities for the ICC prosecutor to seek permission to launch a full probe on Afghanistan: It is not an issue at this stage whether the leaked information, whose authenticity has not been denied, is admissible evidence in a trial in the ICC. Coupled with all the other reliable information that the office of the prosecutor has been compiling since 2007, concerning all parties to the conflict, the office has more than sufficient information to determine whether to seek authorisation from the ICC pre-trial chamber to open a formal criminal investigation designed to obtain sufficient admissible evidence for the trial of individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Harold Koh, the US State Department’s legal adviser, said the ICC prosecutor should investigate “more immediate” concerns than acts by US forces in Afghanistan. Koh, predictably, said that the WikiLeaks data dump was unreliable as evidence. He added, “frankly I don’t think a prosecutor conducts his business as a serious prosecutor by not first doing investigations in which he gathers evidence, as opposed to things on the web, and determine whether there is basis for a case”. (Interestingly, it emerged in July 2011 that while the ICC prosecutor was not interested in using the huge WikiLeaks material release regarding Afghanistan, he would be relying on one or two leaked American cables released by WikiLeaks as part of his evidence in Kenyan cases before the court. The 4 September 2009 Kunduz massacre A particularly infamous and well-documented incident occurred on 4 September 2009 when a German officer serving with the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, Colonel Georg Klein, called in an airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers on two immobilised fuel tankers, seven kilometres southwest of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, near the hamlet of Omar Kheil on the border of the Char Dara and Aliabad districts. It was the bloodiest German military action since the end of the Second World War. It was also the largest airstrike that had ever been launched in northern Afghanistan. The German Bundestag lower house of parliament would come to describe the Kunduz massacre as “one of the most serious incidents involving the German army since the Second World War”. A political advisor to the German Army, Timo Noetzel, stated that “It was, by far, the most aggressive and in its consequences most deadly operational decision for which a German soldier had been responsible since the end of the Second World War.” The fuel tankers, each carrying some 50,000 litres of petrol, had been hijacked and were stuck on a small island in the middle of the Kunduz River, then a dry river bed. Der Spiegel noted that “the trucks were obviously going nowhere, and had been stuck for four hours”. The US warplanes dropped two GBU-38 bombs, each weighing approximately 250 kilograms (500 pounds), and reported “weapons impact”. The GBU-38 is a highly accurate weapon system, thanks to a GPS guidance system. On the ground, the fuel tankers exploded in a gigantic fireball. The attack killed as many as 140 civilians, many of them burned alive. Many of the victims were women and children trying to siphon fuel. Der Spiegel stated: “It was an unnecessary air strike, that much is certain.” The then Bundeswehr Chief of Staff Wolfgang Schneiderhan, stated: “Now we have lost our innocence.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai was fiercely critical of the attack: “Targeting civilian men and women is not acceptable.” He went on to observe: “What a miscalculation! More than 90 dead for a simple fuel tanker that was stuck in a river bed. Why didn’t they send ground troops to get the tankers back?” Karzai also revealed that in a telephone call to apologise for the tragedy, General McChrystal had distanced himself from the incident, stating that he had not ordered the attack. Der Spiegel reported that Germany: “[C]ame under strong international pressure because of the attack. An informal meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Stockholm on the weekend of Sept. 5–6 turned into an indictment of the German deployment. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the bombing was “a big mistake” and it needed to be thoroughly investigated. His British counterpart David Miliband called for an “urgent investigation” and said it was important to “make sure that it doesn’t happen again”. The German government and ISAF initially said that all those killed in the bombing were Taliban fighters. Defence Ministry spokesperson Captain Christian Dienst told journalists in Berlin on the day of the attack that “According to our knowledge at present, no civilian was injured” and that the attack was ordered because the military was in possession of data “which allowed the conclusion that no uninvolved civilians would be harmed in the attack”. Dienst claimed that German soldiers were “completely in the know” about “what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do”. Dienst also stated: “Had civilians been present, the air strikes could not have been called in.” These claims were all false. In the days that followed the attack, the German government continued to claim that no civilians had died and that only insurgents had been killed. The Defence Ministry then went on to lie about the circumstances of the attack, claiming German use of  reconnaissance drones and reconnaissance vehicles during the night to gather information about the situation in the riverbed before the attack. When questions were asked about the questionable circumstances of the attack, the ministry then claimed on 7 September that there was a “further intelligence source that we are not discussing publicly”. The following day, at a special meeting of the Bundestag’s defence committee, this “third source” was revealed to be nonexistent. The German Defence Minister at the time, Franz Josef Jung, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on 6 September that “the air strike was absolutely necessary” and that no civilians were killed. In the interview with Bild am Sonntag – two days after the airstrike – Jung said: “According to all the information I currently have, only Taliban terrorists were killed in the operation carried out by US aircraft.” On 8 September, in comments to the Bundestag, Jung stated that Klein “had clear intelligence indicating that those involved were exclusively enemies of the state”. These were blatant lies. On the evening of 4 September, the German Regional Military Command in Masar-i-Sharif sent clear reports back to Berlin that there had been civilian casualties, something confirmed in a subsequent German military police report. By David Hoile The Africa Research Centre, 14 hours 48 minutes ago  SOURCE http://news.sudanvisiondaily.com/details.html?rsnpid=253698 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Occupation of Afghanistan & Military Ops Two International Missions = running parallel Mission #1 'Operation Enduring Freedom' Under:  US Central Command joint USA, UK and Afghan military op est. 2001 current at 2015 versus insurgency Insurgency against: 1) USA-installed Afghan govt 2) Occupation forces United States Central Command (USCENTCOM / CENTCOM) Engagements Persian Gulf War Iraq War War in Afghanistan Area of Responsibility (AOR) AOR - extends to 27 countries = Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia = Most notably Afghanistan and Iraq deployed primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat roles support roles | bases Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Pakistan, + central Asia Deployed in Jordan, Saudi Arabia (a small presence remaining as of 2002) Main HQ - MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida Forward HQ - 2002 / Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar Forward HQ - 2009 transition / Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar COMMANDERS GEN Tommy Franks 2000-2003 GEN John Abizaid 2003-2007 William J. Fallon -  here 2007-2008  |   March 2007 to March 2008  See:  Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 USA warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault | 2-hr bombing Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 LTG Martin E. Dempsey 2008-2008 (?) See:  US-NATO Airstrike Killings  |  2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 GEN David H. Petraeus 2008-2010 (?) See:  Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 civilians, 93 children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 ----- (?) See:  Kunduz Massacre 4 September 2009 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein NATO-led ISAF called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds) abt 140 civilians, many burned alive  | women & children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum   Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 LtGen John R. Allen 2010-2010    Gen James Mattis 2010-2013 GEN Lloyd Austin 2013 - Incumbent NOTE -  attempt to match up critical events (from above article) with persons in command (*not* double-checked). source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Central_Command Mission #2 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) NATO-led 2003, NATO leadership assumed est. by UNSC Resolution 1386 (2001) thus UN-mandated, international force to: 1) assist US-installed:  Afghan interim authority 2) support reconstruction of Afghanistan 2006 onwards, ISAF assumes combat duties from 'Operation Enduring Freedom' (ongoing Anglo-American mission) *But: NATO = command, coordination & planning - incl. force commander & HQ, Afghanistan / comprised of USA, UK & NATO military forces ISAF = under command of JOINT FORCES COMMAND,     NATO - Brunssum, Netherlands Joint Forces Command NATO command  Brunssum, the Netherlands History: 1950 Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Dwight D. Eisenhower considered appointing: Commander-in-Chief (CINC) for the Central Region Major powers:  USA, UK & France different views:  air & ground power Decision:  overall control for Eisenhower (no CINC appointed)  Instead:  x3 separate CINC: Allied Forces Centeral Europe Allied Land Forces Central Europe Flag Officer Central Europe (FLAGCENT) reporting to:  SACEUR (Supreme Allied Command of Europe). Headquarters, Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT) activated in August 1953 in Fontainebleau, outside Paris, France. 1953 Eisenhower's successor General Ridgeway established a single Commander-in-Chief (CINCENT) subordinate commanders:  land   - COMLANDCEN air     - COMAIRCENT naval - COMNAVCENT Commander of JFC-B =  'Commander, Joint Force Command Brunssum' Sir Jack Deverell (GB) Mar 2001 - Jan 2004 Gerhard W. Back (GER) Jan 2004 -26 Jan 2007 Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 Wolf-Dieter Langheld (GER) Sep 2010 - Dec 2012 Hans-Lothar Domröse (GER) Dec 2012 - encumbent NOTE initially French commanders 1953 - 1966 All German (bar one) thereafter 1967 - current [source  | wikipedia] AFGHANISTAN Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 Afghanistan civilians USA warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault village of Haydarabad, (abt 15km north-east of town of Gereshk) village was bombed for at least 2 hrs US-NATO Airstrike Killings 2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) most deaths = result of US & NATO airstrikes NATO rejects UN figure Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 Afghan civilians, 93 of them children * US claims:  only 20-30 civilians killed * Farah Provincial Council, Abdul Basir Khan - disputes Kunduz Massacre 4 September 2009 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein NATO-led ISAF called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers  on two immobilised hijacked fuel tankers each carrying abt 50,000 litres of petrol tankers stuck on a small island -  Kunduz River, then dry river bed  x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds) GBU-38 =  highly accurate weapon / GPS guidance system fuel tankers exploded in gigantic fireball abt 140 civilians, many of them burned alive many victims women and children trying to siphon fuel Lies ensue EVENTS MATCHED TO COMMANDERS [ *not* confirmed ]           William J. Fallon -  here             2007-2008  |   March 2007 to March 2008                See:  Gereshk Killings 29 June 2007 USA  warplanes killed 50 to 130 (incl women & children) night-time aerial assault | 2-hr bombing             Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum              Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010          LTG Martin E. Dempsey             2008-2008 (?) See:  US-NATO Airstrike Killings  |  2008 US, NATO & Afghan forces Killed over 828 civilians (UN figure) Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum  Egon Ramms (GER) -   Jan 2007 - Jan 2010             GEN David H. Petraeus 2008-2010                 (?) See:  Farah Massacre 4 May 2009 US bombers killed up to 147 civilians, 93 children Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum  Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010                 -----              (?) See:  Kunduz Massacre                 4 September 2009                 German officer:  Colonel Georg Klein                 NATO-led ISAF                 called airstrike by two US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bombers                 x2 GBU-38 bombs, ea. @ approx. 250kg (500 pounds)                 abt 140 civilians, many burned alive  | women & children           Counterpart:  Joint Force Command Brunssum              Egon Ramms (GER) Jan 2007 - Jan 2010 NOTE -  attempt to match up critical events (from above article) with persons in command (*not* double-checked).  COMMENT Broke text up into more paragraphs than necessary, but it's easier to read like that (for me). Tried to match the command personnel to the events.  NOTE:  have not double-checked. If I have the dates straight, it looks like: Petraeus has two civilian massacres on his watch.  Fallon & Dempsey have one each.  German, Egon Ramms, JFC Brunssum counterpart was in command of the ISAF end of the business, in all instances. The only commander I know is Petraeus.  And I don't remember much about him.  Shared classified information with mistress, I think.  Got caught out through e-mail surveillance, I think.  It was some big, scandalous thing.  I think he was critical of the suits back home, which got him shovelled off from the Middle Eastern post (think that might have been a Michael Hastings expose, Rolling Stone expose - Yes, but it was regarding Gen Stanley A McChrystal).  Head of CIA, I think.  The mistress thing might put an end to that.  lol  UPDATE:  "On November 9, 2012, General Petraeus resigned from his position as Director of the CIA, citing his extramarital affair which was reportedly discovered in the course of an FBI investigation" [wikipedia] UPDATE:  It wasn't Patraeus; it was Gen Stanley A. McChrystal: Following unflattering (and unprofessional) remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a Rolling Stone article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan. [wikipedia] I can just hear everyone yawning, as I do my catching up ... which I'll promptly forget.  lol This is just from vague recollection and I could be completely wrong.  Might have to read up about Petraeus to see if I've got that straight. Fallon & Dempsy will probably be positively boring after Petraeus.  lol Egon Ramms could be interesting.  Long time command. ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Don't expect to remember much of this. Having particular trouble remembering:  International Security Assistance Force.  What I got out of this: People in power lie and cover up. The ICC is selective. The Germans are the same as the Americans. The Afghan US-friendly government is composed of former militants & is in no hurry to seek remedy for atrocities. The WikiLeaks data is used selectively - ie Kenya prosecution. Rome Statute gets a mention. But I'm pretty sure that USA and Israel have not ratified and are not party to the Rome statute. US (I think) backed out after ratifying.  Or something like that.  Would need to do look-up again. Rome Statute  Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)  | Non-Party | Not Ratified  | here 2002, the United States and Israel "unsigned" the Rome Statute, indicating that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, they have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the statute. Sweden's right in the thick of things, with that foreign ministers of the EU meeting. From recollection, William Schabas was given a hard time for heading up an ICC enquiry Human Rights Council Commission regarding Israel war crimes. Yep, that's him: William Schabas ...  stepped down Monday as chairman of a UN Human Rights Council commission investigating [2014] war / jpost Interview with William Schabas, former Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry for 2014 Israeli Attack on Gaza ꕤ