Rein in impunity or descend further into barbarism

Expedient wars, human targeting, civilian massacre ─ no nation permitted to operate outside law, human rights convention or we descend into utter lawlessness
Editing, re-reporting, commentary by Carolyn Bennett

The work of the United Nations in reining in U.S. impunity, the check on Washington’s callous recklessness, its disregard for life is welcome indeed.

United Nations

The inquiry into extrajudicial killings, the ordering and deployment of assassination drones is long past due and the investigation must be thorough and effective for the sake of moral order and the rule of law, for the sake of people all over the world ─ not only, but especially the innocents (in a civilized world, people are presumed innocent until proved guilty through judicial process) and civilians of all ages and kinds.  

Leader of killer drone inquiry

Ben Emmerson QC

UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights

Leading the United Nations investigation of drones is international lawyer Ben Emmerson QC who specializes in cases involving human rights, international humanitarian law, criminal law, and public law.

Nonviolence symbol
UN

A profile of Emmerson says he has conducted more than 30 cases as an advocate appearing before the European Court of Human Rights, acting both for and against the government of the United Kingdom and other Council of Europe Member States.  He has been particularly recognized for his work in developing the law governing the protection of the right to life in Article 2 and the state’s duty to prevent torture and inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3.

While he has a particular reputation in the application of international standards to criminal law and procedure, Emmerson has extensive experience in all aspects of ECHR litigation and has acted in cases covering a wide range of international law issues including diplomatic and state immunity, parliamentary privilege, judicial independence, and discipline within the armed forces.

E

mmerson is currently the British judge on the Residual Mechanism of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  He has previously acted as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court and Special Adviser to the international judges of the UN backed Khymer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia.

  

 In June 2011, he was elected by the UN Human Rights Council as UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights. In this capacity he reports annually to the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and relevant entities established by the Security Council. He also conducts country visits and reports, and provides technical and other advice to States.

Killer drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs)

Echoes of U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

U.S. President Harry Truman calculated that the atomic bomb “might be used to defeat Japan in a way less costly of U.S. lives than a conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland” so in 1945 he laid waste to hundreds of thousands of innocent people in a distant land.  

The combined heat and blast of the U.S. atomic bomb (the United States is the only nation that has used the nuclear bomb against human beings) on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, pulverized everything in the explosion’s immediate vicinity, generated spontaneous fires that wiped out, burned completely, almost 4.4 square miles, killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people, and injured more than 70,000 others. A second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killed between 35,000 and 40,000 people, injured a like number, and devastated 1.8 square miles. (Britannica note]

F

ifty-one countries possess the technology to use drones but the United States “is responsible for the vast majority of the world’s drone strikes and the practice of targeted killing has become a central component” of the government of U.S. President Barack Obama in its “efforts to combat al-Qaida.”

The UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights announced yesterday that he will lead an inquiry that examines the impact of drone strikes on civilian populations in five countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Palestinian territories and Somalia.

Pakistanis protest
U.S drone strikes

Ben Emmerson QC told the Guardian that the aim of this inquiry is to “shine the light of truth on competing allegations that there are disproportionate civilian casualties on the one hand and that there are few or no civilian casualties on the other.” The critical deficit in the current UN debate concerning the legality of drone strikes, he said, “is the absence of independent, objective verification of the facts.”

Pakistanis protest
U.S drone strikes

Prompting inquiry into killer drone attacks

Between June 2004 and September 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports, drone strikes killed between 2,562 and 3,325 people in Pakistan of whom between 474 and 881 were civilians ─ including 176 children.

In Pakistan alone, BIJ updated, CIA drone strikes have resulted in as many as 3,461 deaths ─ including up to 891 civilians.

Yemenis protest
U.S. drone strikes

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the deaths of three American citizens killed by U.S. drones in Yemen.

Several nations, including Pakistan and two permanent members of the UN Security Council, called for an inquiry into the use of drones.

Though the UN General Assembly is comprised of 193 member nations, there are only five permanent member states on the UN Security Council: People’s Republic of China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States

I

Drone missiles

n statements prior to the coming investigation, Judge Emmerson has suggested that some drone attacks – particularly those known as ‘double tap’ strikes where rescuers going to the aid of a first blast have become victims of a follow-up strike – could possibly constitute a ‘war crime.’

Critics have charged that the Obama administration’s targeted killing program is “utterly lacking in transparency and accountability.”

UN Special Rapporteur on
Counter Terrorism and Human Rights
Ben Emmerson

Aim of killer drone inquiry

The UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights told the Guardian that one of the fundamental questions to be raised in the drone investigation “is whether aerial targeting using drones is an appropriate method of conflict … where the individuals are embedded in a local community.

‘Whether, given the local demography, aerial attacks carry too high a risk of a disproportionate number of civilian casualties.’

Drone

Whether ‘the military dependence on UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) carries an unacceptably high risk of civilian casualties’

Twenty or thirty strikes – selected as representative of different types of attacks – will be studied to assess the extent of any civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted, and the legality of strikes in countries where the UN has not formally recognized there is a conflict.

 Killer drone inquiry team

Involved in the inquiry into the impact of drone strikes on civilian populations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Palestinian territories and Somalia together with Emmerson’s coordination through his UN office in Geneva will be a team of experts including, according to the Guardian, “the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald QC, a former prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, and Dr Nat Cary, one of the UK’s most experienced pathologists who specializes in the interpretation of injuries caused by explosions.”

 

The inquiry will report this coming fall to the UN General Assembly in New York City. Depending on its findings, the report might recommend further action.

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he problem as I see it is that those who retain power in Washington ─ the nepotistic, the entrenched, the partisans, the tribal ─ are wedded to a single way, a single model of response. 

They are incapable of evolving to a degree sufficient to forego the baser instinct of barbarism and in its stead embrace a diplomacy of nonviolence as equals in relations among human beings. 

Therefore, these mostly but not only men throwbacks to the dark ages, these obstructionists ─ regardless to their pedigree or position ─ must be reined in, called to account by judicial process. 

Only then has the world a chance to move in concert, to progress as equals for the good of all.  

Sources and notes

Ben Emmerson QC (profile), http://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/Members/49/Ben%20Emmerson.aspx

“UN to examine UK and U.S. drone strikes ─ Strikes will be studied to assess extent of any civilian casualties, identity of militants targeted and legality of actions” (Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 23, 2013 19.37 EST ), http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/24/un-examine-uk-afghanistan-drone-strikes?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

“UN inquiry into US drone strikes prompts cautious optimism ─  Critics of Obama's targeted killing program argue it is lacking in transparency but welcome inquiry examining drones’ impact” (Ryan Devereaux, guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 24, 2013 17.14 EST),

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/24/un-announces-drone-inquiry-human-rights

QC

Queen’s (or Kings’) Counsel (in some jurisdictions the name has been replaced by one without monarchical connotations such as ‘Senior Counsel’ or ‘Senior Advocate’) is a status conferred by the Crown, which is recognized by courts. Members have the privilege of sitting within the Bar of court. Appointments to be one of Her [or His] Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law are made from within the legal profession on the basis of merit rather than a particular level of experience but successful applicants tend to be barristers, or (in Scotland) advocates, or solicitor advocates with 15 or more years’ experience.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)

Deutsche Welle reported January 20, 2013: The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV, or drone) industry is the fastest growing aeronautics industry. Currently 50 countries use drones, three of them for military strikes.

UN Security Council Membership 2012
Colombia (2012)
Germany (2012)
India (2012)
Portugal (2012)
South Africa (2012)

Azerbaijan (2013)
Guatemala (2013)
Morocco (2013)
Pakistan (2013)
Togo (2013)

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Woman reporter threatened for telling FGM story

Silencing begs lifting secrecy

Notes from Liberian journalist Mae Azango’s international interviews on  a secret trauma story and threats for telling it

Edited by Carolyn Bennett

Female genital mutilation …  

Partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs, for non-medical reasons 

Areas practiced Western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, Middle East, Near East, Southeast Asia 

Number affected 135 million women and girls as of 1997 

Age performed A few days after birth to age 15; occasionally in adulthood

“My [March 8, 2012] story,” Mae Azango said, “was about female genital cutting.”

School a mother stood against

Tools in FGM

The “Sande bush” is where these girls go. They call it a “bush school” where female genital mutilation is prerequisite for graduation. “I went and took pictures of these girls coming from the Sande bush,” Mae Azango said.

Azango knows of what she speaks because she barely escaped the blade herself. She said her father, whose origins were in Liberia’s north where genital mutilation is practiced, had insisted that the girls in her family go to the bush school but her mother had other ideas. She “did not agree for her girl children to go to the bush: ‘not in my sight!’” her mother had said. “If my mother had not stood strong, I would have been affected, therefore, I feel sorry for those who were forced into the Sande and cut.”

The cutting and its impact

“Four or five women hold her, a child; and another woman comes and cuts that child,” Mae Azango continued. “You grab a six, seven-year-old child. You cut her [and] that pain remains in her mind. It has a traumatic effect on the child.”

If she lives, and not all do live, the trauma remains in the child’s head into adulthood as “post traumatic stress disorder.” She probably withdraws into herself. Because of this mutilation and the long-term effect, “Women really suffer for it!”

Women must shine light on male-imposed secret, speak out, end women and girls’ suffering

Tools in FGM

“It is a secret that they are trying to hold,” an oath-imposed to silence. Many women suffer but neither an imam nor “even women’s groups have spoken about this.”  Men in society are deciding that women be cut, Mae Azango says, but “who are they to decide what women should go through?” Men are the ones imposing this punishment on women. …

“It was the men’s idea, not the women’s idea, so we women are suffering from what the men want us to do because they feel this is a male-dominant society. …But I want women to stand up. … If we women do not talk over what affects us, who will listen to us?” Women “are feeling bad now because they are troubled and if nobody will talk for them, at least I am able to talk for them.”

On the run, Azango speaks out, urges other women to speak out

“I am getting a lot of threats,” she says. People are saying they “will catch you and carry you to the Sande bush and they will have you cut.… They said traditional women went to look for me…  They went to my offices to look for me. … Before that,  more women went around my house area looking, asking for me, asking for my daughter. I had to take my daughter out of there and ship her to a new destination because I do not know how far they are taking it. ” Azango said, in the face of mounting threats on her life, she has not slept at home and has “just been everywhere.”

 

Truth hurts but must be spoken. “I am getting all these threats [because] I am talking about what I am not supposed to talk about. …  I am discussing a secret and, as a woman, I am supposed to keep this secret.” But shining light on this horror is precisely what women must do.

“The truth hurts,” Mae Azango says, “but it should be said. [This abuse of women and girls] should be spoken about.”

Sources and notes

“A Liberian journalist in hiding,” CBC Dispatches interviews Journalist Mae Azango, in hiding in Liberia,  a reporter with the daily newspaper FrontPage Africa, and the website New Narratives, a development project supporting independent media in Africa.March 25, 2012, http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/episode/2012/03/21/mar-22-25/

“NN Journalist Mae Azango’s Interview with Radio France Internationale,” March 26, 2012, by New Narratives: “Liberian journalist urges women to speak out on excision … Liberian journalist Mae Azango has been forced into hiding after publishing an article in the Liberian daily Front Page Africa on the practice of female genital cutting or excision in the country”(by Laura Angela Bagnetto: Azango, a New Narratives fellow talks to RFI’s Laura-Angela Bagnetto about her experience), http://www.newnarratives.org/featured/nn-journalist-mae-azangos-interview-with-radio-france-internationale/

Wikipedia notes on FGM

• Female genital mutilation … Partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs, for non-medical reasons
• Areas practiced Western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, Middle East, Near East, Southeast Asia
• Number affected 135 million women and girls as of 1997
• Age performed A few days after birth to age 15; occasionally in adulthood

Types I and II

Type I is the removal of the clitoral hood (Type Ia); or the partial or total removal of the clitoris, a clitoridectomy (Type Ib).

Type II, often called excision, is partial or total removal of the clitoris and the inner labia or outer labia. Type IIa is removal of the inner labia only; Type IIb, partial or total removal of the clitoris and the inner labia; and Type IIc, partial or total removal of the clitoris, and the inner and outer labia.

Type III

Type III, commonly called infibulation or pharaonic circumcision, is the removal of all external genitalia.

Type IV

A variety of other procedures are collectively known as Type IV, which the WHO defines as ‘all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, for example, pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.’

This ranges from ritual nicking of the clitoris—the main practice in Indonesia—to stretching the clitoris or labia, burning or scarring the genitals, or introducing harmful substances into the vagina to tighten it.[2] It also includes hymenotomy, the removal of a hymen regarded as too thick, and gishiri cutting, a practice in which the vagina's anterior wall is cut with a knife to enlarge it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation

World Health Organization (WHO) notes on FGM

WHO estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to one of the first three types of female genital mutilation. Estimates based on the most recent prevalence data indicate that 91,5 million girls and women above 9 years old in Africa are currently living with the consequences of female genital mutilation. There are an estimated 3 million girls in Africa at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation every year. http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/fgm_trends/en/index.html

Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways.

It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and hence interferes with the natural function of girls’ bodies and women’s bodies. The practice causes severe pain and has several immediate and long-term health consequences, including difficulties in childbirth also causing dangers to the child.  http://www.who.int/topics/female_genital_mutilation/en/index.html

Countries where female genital mutilation has been documented

Listed below are countries in which female genital mutilation of Types I, II, III and ‘nicking’ Type IV has been documented as a traditional practice.
 Prevalence is derived from national survey data (the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) published by Macro, or the Multiple Cluster Indicator Surveys (MICS), published by UNICEF).

Country	Year	Estimated prevalence of female genital mutilation in girls and women
		15 – 49 years (%)
Benin	2006	12.9
Burkina Faso	2006	72.5
Cameroon	2004	1.4
Central African Republic	2008	25.7
Chad	2004	44.9
Côte d’Ivoire	2006	36.4
Djibouti	2006	93.1
Egypt	2008	91.1
Eritrea	2002	88.7
Ethiopia	2005	74.3
Gambia	2005/6	78.3
Ghana	2006	3.8
Guinea	2005	95.6
Guinea-Bissau	2006	44.5
Kenya	2008/9	27.1
Liberia	2007	58.2
Mali	2006	85.2
Mauritania	2007	72.2
Niger	2006	2.2
Nigeria	2008	29.6
Senegal	2005	28.2
Sierra Leone	2006	94
Somalia	2006	97.9
Sudan, northern (approximately 80% of total population in survey)	2000	90
Togo	2006	5.8
Uganda	2006	0.8
United Republic of Tanzania	2004	14.6
Yemen	2003	38.2

http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/prevalence/en/index.html

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy