|
||
|
TWN Info
Service on UN Sustainable Development (Mar21/05) Geneva, 12 Mar (Kanaga Raja) – Over the past 10 years, parties to the armed conflict in Syria have perpetrated the most heinous violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of international human rights law, including acts that are likely to constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes and other international crimes, including genocide, according to a United Nations report. This is one of the main conclusions highlighted in a report presented by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is currently holding its 46th regular session. In its report (A/HRC/46/54) presented on 11 March, the Commission said over the course of its 33 reports, it had made hundreds of recommendations to parties to the conflict, to the international community and to international organizations. In its present report, which covers the period from March 2011 to 24 December 2020, the Commission reiterated those recommendations in full and made one overarching recommendation: immediately institute a permanent ceasefire, endorsed by the Security Council and enforced by the key Member States supporting the Government of Syria and armed groups. “Such a ceasefire must be genuine, and safeguards should be put into place to ensure that it is not simply used as a means to prepare for fresh offensives, but instead provides the space for Syrian-led negotiations and for the restoration of the basic human rights that have been so long denied,” it said. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic is comprised of Mr. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro (Chair), Ms. Karen Koning AbuZayd, and Mr. Hanny Megally. In presenting the report to the Human Rights Council on 11 March, Commission chair Mr Pinheiro told the Council that they were “on the cusp of the 11th grim year of the crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic.” “With the anniversary of this lamentable and preventable ten-year tragedy only four days away, Syria remains a tinderbox,” he said. While the March 2020 ceasefire resulted in a significant decline in hostilities, it has only been a relative reduction from peaks of suffering inflicted at the beginning of last year. Many would have seen little difference in their daily lives, and the country remains far from a safe environment for civilians, he added. According to Mr Pinheiro, a decade in, it is the civilians – children, women and men – of Syria who have suffered the brunt of this conflict. “Terrorist groups proliferated and inflicted their ideology on the people, preying particularly on women, girls and boys, as well as ethnic and religious minorities and dissenting civilians.” Pro-Government forces have deliberately and repeatedly targeted hospitals and medical facilities, decimating a medical sector prior to the arrival of the most catastrophic global pandemic in a century. The provision of humanitarian aid has been instrumentalized, diverted and hampered – even with Security Council authorization, he said. “Military solutions in Syria by all parties have led to a decade of death, denial and destruction. Opportunistic foreign funding, arms and other support to the warring parties poured fuel on this fire that the world has been content to watch burn,” said Mr Pinheiro. It is far past time to finally put Syrians first – and expend every effort to support a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the conflict, beginning with an immediate nation-wide ceasefire, he added. According to the report by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, for 10 years, the massive crimes, violations and abuses have gone unpunished, and perpetrators have not been held to account. Yet, despite inaction at the Security Council, gains in terms of criminal prosecution have been made through the creation of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism and, more practically, by the use of universal and other forms of jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators globally for crimes committed in Syria. “The time is long overdue for similarly innovative initiatives to fill gaps in other areas of justice, including by identifying the missing and disappeared, working towards universal release of the arbitrarily detained, supporting the families of victims and survivors, providing reparations to victims, demobilizing fighters, in particular children, providing holistic psycho-social support, in particular for children and victims of sexual violence, and collating, preserving and authenticating civil documentation records and housing, land and property records.” All such processes should be led by representative groups of Syrians, with technical support as requested from the international community, said the Commission. EVOLUTION OF CONFLICT IN SYRIA Tracing the evolution of the conflict in Syria, the Commission said amid unrest that started across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, in February 2011, Syrians began protesting rural poverty, corruption, the detention of political prisoners and the lack of freedom of expression and democratic rights. The Commission said that the intensity and duration of the conflict, combined with the increased organizational capabilities of anti-government armed groups, met the legal threshold for a non-international armed conflict as of February 2012. Despite a fleeting effort at a ceasefire and the brief deployment of a United Nations monitoring mission in the second and third quarters of 2012, the conflict continued to intensify, with widespread arrest and detention campaigns conducted by government forces, the formation of more armed groups and the imposition of sieges. As armed groups, and later United Nations designated terrorist groups, gained control over increasing numbers of Syrian population centres between 2012 and 2016, the Government imposed sieges and bombarded areas of suspected opposition activity, including densely populated civilian areas. In September 2014, the United States of America announced the formation of an international coalition to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Initially focused on combating ISIL in Iraq at the request of the Government of Iraq, the coalition, although not all of its members, has also conducted operations against ISIL in the Syrian Arab Republic, which continue to date. The Commission said that both the Russian Federation and Turkey would also invoke combating terrorism as the rationale for their interventions, at the invitation of the Government and on the basis of self-defence, respectively. Prior to the conflict, the Syrian Arab Republic had an estimated population of more than 22 million persons. As of the time of reporting, on 7 January 2021, more than half of the pre-war population had been displaced, with 6.2 million people internally displaced and 5.3 million registered as refugees, primarily in neighbouring countries but increasingly as a global diaspora. The Commission said on the cusp of the eleventh year of the conflict, the Syrian State authorities and associated militias, with the support of Iranian and Russian forces, have regained significant territory. However, it noted that large swaths of the country remain out of their control, with Turkey and the United States backing different coalitions of anti-government groups, while Israeli airstrikes on purported Iranian or Lebanese Hezbollah-linked targets occur with increasing frequency. While the Russian Federation and Turkey have avoided most direct confrontations, they remain aligned behind diametrically opposed forces on the ground. “Although the March 2020 ceasefire still largely holds, the Syrian Arab Republic remains a tinderbox, with five foreign militaries active therein. Without concerted, immediate action to further a permanent ceasefire and a good faith Syrian-led peace process, the conflict may yet descend to new levels of inhumanity,” the Commission said. CONDUCT OF HOSTILITIES According to the report by the Commission, the Syrian Government has long claimed combating terrorism as a justification for its military action, without distinguishing between United Nations-designated terrorist groups and other armed groups. The Commission said it has repeatedly recalled that, while States have an obligation to defend their citizens from terrorism, they must do so in full compliance with international human rights law and, if applicable, international humanitarian law. The Syrian Government has consistently failed in its obligations in that regard. From the end of 2011 through the end of 2020, its army and air forces have used artillery and airstrikes in a clearly indiscriminate manner, it added. Such use of heavy weapons in civilian populated areas, which killed and injured civilians, in the period prior to the start of the armed conflict amounted to clear violations of the right to life, said the Commission. “From the outset of the armed conflict, government forces have indiscriminately bombarded civilian populated areas and deliberately targeted protected objects, in particular hospitals and medical facilities, and what are clearly civilian locations, including markets, bakeries, schools and civilian neighbourhoods. Protected religious sites have also been struck in indiscriminate attacks.” In addition to the widespread commission of those war crimes, there are also reasonable grounds to believe that Government and pro-government forces, on multiple occasions, have committed crimes against humanity in the conduct of their use of airstrikes and artillery shelling of civilian areas, said the Commission. Pro-government forces used air-delivered cluster munitions in civilian populated areas on multiple occasions, and the Commission has documented the use of ground-to-ground artillery shelling with cluster munitions by Syrian ground forces. The Syrian Air Force also deployed barrel bombs, improvised explosives dropped by helicopters, on densely populated civilian neighbourhoods where such munitions could not be accurately targeted. “The use of such weapons in civilian populated areas was inherently indiscriminate and amounted to war crimes,” said the Commission. “Both the Syrian military and the Russian air force attacked civilian neighbourhoods, including crowded markets during the day, with explosive bombs with wide-area effects, killing and injuring civilians in attacks that amounted to war crimes.” Although in some instances the Commission said it could not make the determination that specific attacks were unlawful, it documented a systematic failure to take any precautions to spare civilians from harm, in violation of international humanitarian law, and numerous instances of the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks causing civilian deaths and injuries and the commission of multiple instances of the war crime of the deliberate targeting of protected objects. The Commission noted the abhorrent, established pattern of pro-government forces targeting hospitals and clinics, clearly documented beginning in 2012 and accelerating in 2016. Those attacks deprived countless civilians of access to health care and amounted to the war crimes of intentionally targeting protected objects and medical personnel and transport, it said. Likewise, armed groups, including ISIL, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, also conducted indiscriminate attacks using mortars and rockets, as well as improvised munitions. “Such attacks rarely appeared to target, or to be able to target, military objectives, with armed groups committing numerous instances of the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks causing civilian deaths and injuries in the Syrian Arab Republic.” The Commission said that it has likewise documented the indiscriminate use of improvised explosive devices by numerous actors in civilian populated areas, amounting to war crimes, most recently in the north-eastern part of the Syrian Arab Republic. The United States-led coalition also conducted airstrikes documented to have caused civilian casualties, failing to take all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, said the Commission. Syrians also endured the resurgent use of chemical weapons, said the Commission, adding that it documented 38 separate instances of the use of chemical weapons, of which 32 met its standard of proof for attribution to Syrian government forces and one to ISIL. In the remaining 5 instances, the Commission could not attribute responsibility, it said, pointing out that each such use of a chemical weapon amounts to a war crime. The Commission also noted that while front-line violence in the Syrian Arab Republic was characterized by the heavy bombardments, the initial phases of the crisis and conflict involved massive arrest and detention campaigns, particularly those undertaken by government security forces. In the context of detention, Government forces, ISIL and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham have all committed crimes against humanity, and all parties have perpetrated war crimes and violations and abuses of human rights law, it said. The Commission also said that it documented the mutilation and murder of hors de combat fighters and military personnel, including by pro-government forces, armed groups and ISIL. “Syrians across the country also suffered violations of the rights to health, food and an adequate standard of living, due to the imposition of sieges, the denial of access to humanitarian aid, the destruction of medical facilities and the resulting lack of access to basic medical care, the denial of access to housing and education and the decimation of the Syrian economy.” The combination of the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, hospitals and medical workers by government forces and the incidental damage to such facilities – at one point rendering approximately half of all medical facilities damaged or destroyed – in addition to the flight of health workers, further imperilled Syrians’ access to health care, said the Commission. It said further endangering already vulnerable populations, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the Syrian Arab Republic, with 11,890 reported cases, including 610 deaths, in government-controlled areas at the time of reporting. An additional 20,500 cases have been reported in the north-western Syrian Arab Republic, and 8,153 cases in the north-eastern Syrian Arab Republic. The Commission said that with a medical sector vastly diminished by the conflict across the country, the actual numbers are likely significantly higher than acknowledged figures, and the impact greater. “In addition to the economic harm associated with the conflict, a number of countries imposed unilateral coercive measures on the Syrian Arab Republic, increasing the economic devastation inflicted upon regular civilians.” While most such sanctions were targeted at specific individuals and institutions, their impact was likely felt across the Syrian economy, including among the most vulnerable, the Commission said. It also noted that civilians’ experiences in the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic have been deeply gendered. Sexual and gender-based violence against women, girls, men and boys has been documented by the Commission since 2011. While the immense suffering induced by those practices affected Syrians from all backgrounds, women and girls were disproportionally affected and victimized on multiple grounds, irrespective of the perpetrator or geographical area. “Government forces and associated militias perpetrated rape and sexual abuse against women and girls, and occasionally men, during ground operations aimed at arresting opposition activists and house raids to arrest protestors and perceived opposition supporters and at checkpoints.” In detention, women and girls were subjected to invasive and humiliating searches and raped, sometimes gang raped, whereas male detainees were most commonly raped with objects and frequently subjected to genital mutilation and sexualized torture. Those acts amounted to crimes against humanity and the war crimes of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including torture and outrages upon personal dignity, said the Commission. Armed groups also committed the war crimes of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including torture and outrages upon personal dignity, it added. QUESTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY The scale and gravity of the myriad violations and abuses of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by the parties to the conflict since March 2011 have generated forceful and persistent demands for accountability, said the Commission. Since the commencement of its work, the Commission said it has compiled confidential lists of alleged perpetrators of violations and crimes in the Syrian Arab Republic from among all parties to the conflict, on the basis of the interviews it has conducted. To date, the Commission has compiled initial information on more than 3,200 alleged individual perpetrators. Of those individuals, the Commission was able to determine that it had sufficient credible information on the involvement in the commission of a crime or violation to meet its standard of proof for 121 of those individuals. That includes individuals from all sides of the conflict, including government forces, anti-government armed groups, including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and United Nations-listed terrorist organizations Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham and ISIL. The Commission has also gathered information linking dozens of State and non-State entities with varying levels of detail to the commission of violations in the Syrian Arab Republic through the course of its public reporting. Initially, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic appeared to recognize the need to investigate allegations of criminal conduct and hold perpetrators accountable, when it formed its independent special legal commission to investigate all cases pertaining to events that had taken place since March 2011, said the Commission. The Government further indicated that it might engage with the Commission after its own special legal commission had concluded its own work. However, to date, the Commission has not received any information concerning the investigation, prosecution, conviction or acquittal of any Syrian military, security forces or government personnel for any criminal violations of international human rights or humanitarian law by the Government. “In addition, for the past nine years, the Commission has consistently found that Syrian national courts are not an effective mechanism through which to pursue justice.” The Commission said it has yet to identify evidence that Syrian courts have either the will or the capacity to fulfil international obligations to prosecute the perpetrators of serious international crimes. To date, there have been no developments towards lifting the immunity of security and intelligence forces who continue to enjoy immunity from prosecution under Legislative Decrees No. 14/1969 and No. 69/2008. “In addition, for crimes and violations committed by non-State armed groups and terrorist entities, the counter- terrorism court, regular criminal courts, ad hoc military field courts and various local religious courts in areas controlled by the Government appear to operate in an arbitrary manner without fair trial guarantees.” The Commission said it remains concerned that the Syrian criminal justice system currently violates international rights to due process and a fair trial, exacerbating and compounding the suffering of victims of the armed conflict. In the absence of avenues to hold perpetrators accountable in the Syrian Arab Republic at present and the failure of the international community to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, the only avenue to hold perpetrators to account in courts that uphold basic fair trial and due process guarantees has been through the use of third-party State national jurisdictions exercising some form of universal jurisdiction, it said. Although numerous States have convicted individuals for terrorism-related offences linked to the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, relatively few have sought to investigate and prosecute individuals for international crimes committed against Syrians, with the bulk of the public investigations and convictions at present concentrated in a small number of Western European States, including Austria, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, it added.
|
||
