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U.N. Panel Report Describes Worsening Brutality in Syria’s War Syria and Security Council Criticized by Rights Panel
(about 5 hours later)
GENEVA — Syria’s warring parties are using ever more brutal tactics, including sieges, starvation and barrel bombs causing mass civilian casualties, a United Nations panel said on Wednesday, pinning some responsibility for the escalating violence on world powers that have failed to act. UNITED NATIONS — A commission of inquiry established by the United Nations to investigate human rights abuses in Syria singles out the government and its allied militias for “systematically committing murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance,” while pointing a sharp finger at the Security Council for allowing both sides in the three-year-long war to continue breaking international laws with impunity.
Despite evidence of war crimes, members of the United Nations Security Council are “failing their responsibility to promote international peace and security by fighting impunity in Syria,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the four-member panel, told reporters in Geneva. “We think accountability, fighting impunity will be a contribution to halt the crimes and violations that occur in Syria.” “The warring parties do not fear being held accountable for their acts,” the three-member panel wrote in its seventh report, released Wednesday.
Three years into Syria’s civil war, fighting has widened in scope and intensity as the warring factions seek to strengthen their bargaining positions ahead of the next session of the now-stalled Geneva peace process, with both sides increasingly dependent on foreign fighters, the panel said in its seventh report to the Human Rights Council. The report listed jails and government offices where people were detained and tortured, and accused the government of using sieges as part of its strategy, withholding water, food and medical care in violation of international law. While it did not blame anyone in particular for a chemical attack on Ghouta, a Damascus suburb, last August, the report said, “The perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary.”
Sieges and bombardment of civilian areas by both sides, but mainly by government forces, are causing mass civilian casualties and starvation, the report said, and hospitals, medical workers and humanitarian workers have been deliberately targeted. Bombardment and sieges of civilian areas are causing mass casualties and starvation, the report said, and hospitals, medical workers and humanitarian workers have been deliberately targeted. Until recently, the government’s use of so-called barrel bombs, which are cheaper and can be dropped by transport helicopters, had increased markedly, according to the report, which said that the aerial bombardment of opposition-controlled Aleppo had been “prosecuted with shocking ferocity.”
Government and allied forces and armed opposition groups continue to commit war crimes like murder, hostage-taking, torture, rape and sexual violence, and using children for fighting, the panel said, documenting the abuses in gruesome detail, but “the warring parties do not fear being held accountable for their acts.” The chairman of the commission, Paulo Pinheiro, told reporters in Geneva that his team had been compiling a list of names of people suspected of being war criminals. He declined to identify them or to say how many are on the list, except that they are from the “higher echelons,” rather than rank-and-file fighters.
The panel, which was set up in September 2011, has consistently called for the Syrian government to be referred to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution, but that referral can be made only by the Security Council, where major powers are backing opposing sides in the conflict. The commission has repeatedly called on the Security Council to refer the warring parties in Syria to the International Criminal Court for possible criminal prosecution, an unlikely prospect at the moment. Russia and the United States, two permanent members of the Council that seem to disagree on virtually every other aspect of the Syrian conflict, are both reluctant to take that action.
The panel said the failure of the Security Council to take action on grave violations of human rights had opened space for the proliferation of actors in Syria’s conflict, “contributing to the radicalization and escalation of violence.” It concludes, “The Security Council bears this responsibility.” There has been no agreement on the Security Council as to whether the warring parties in Syria should be referred to the international court or prosecuted in some other forum. An early draft of a Security Council resolution ordering the warring parties to let in humanitarian aid contained specific language for referral to the International Criminal Court, but it was taken out of the final text and replaced with a vague accountability provision.
To support eventual accountability, the panel is submitting a fourth list of perpetrators of human rights abuses to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, Mr. Pinheiro said. Nevertheless, Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, praised the report. “We know there are horrendous crimes being committed every day in Syria,” he said in an interview from Geneva. “What’s important is that this report puts responsibility squarely on the Security Council to do something to end the violence.”
The panel and its team of investigators, denied government permission to visit Syria, said they based the report on 563 interviews with Syrians who had fled to neighboring countries, and on telephone conversations with people inside the country. The resolution that ordered a halt to the blockades of humanitarian aid stopped short of calling for the punishment of those who failed to comply, and it has not had any visible effect in curbing siege tactics or opening humanitarian access.
The panel said the government had regained control of several strategic areas through the use of heavy weapons, foreign fighters from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, “particularly in critical operations,” but had failed to regain control of rural areas. “The report is an urgent reminder of the need for follow-up action,” Mr. Houry said. “The key is how to make the words of the resolution meaningful for Syrians on the ground.”
The government’s use of barrel bombs, which are relatively cheap and can be dropped by transport helicopters, has increased markedly in the last few months, according to the report, which said the aerial bombardment of opposition-controlled Aleppo had been “prosecuted with shocking ferocity.” In another development on Wednesday, Syria’s longtime ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, was barred from traveling beyond a 25-mile radius from his Manhattan home without permission, said the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, declining to elaborate.
Opposition groups, increasingly fighting among themselves, have also shelled civilian areas but have increasingly adopted “asymmetric warfare,” including suicide bombings, car bombs, improvised explosive devices and land mines that may have been aimed at military targets but caused heavy civilian casualties. Diplomats from nations that are under sanction, like Iran, face similar restrictions. The Syrian Mission in New York did not respond to a request for comment.
Focusing on events from July to January, the panel found evidence that chemical weapons, mainly sarin gas, had been used on multiple occasions, citing the Aug. 21 attack on Ghouta, a suburb of the capital, Damascus, and two other attacks in early 2013. In addition to listing crimes by forces backing the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the report cites numerous violations by antigovernment forces in the Sunni-led uprising. Two 15-year-old boys were killed in August when a radical Islamist group’s demands were not met — and video of their killings was posted online. The panel names opposition groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Nusra Front, which it says committed public killings and crimes against humanity against prisoners in the town of Raqqah. Since May, the report said, armed groups operating in Sunni villages have “routinely abducted and killed” farmers belonging to Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
Mr. Pinheiro said the panel had heard of 15 to 20 attacks with chemical weapons, but given the lack of access to Syria, the evidence was not sufficient to allow investigators to identify the perpetrators. Focusing on events from July to January, the panel found evidence that chemical weapons, mainly sarin, had been used on multiple occasions, citing the attack on Ghouta and two other attacks in early 2013. Mr. Pinheiro said that the panel had heard of 15 to 20 chemical weapons attacks, but most were still under investigation, and that given the lack of access to Syria, the panel did not have sufficient evidence to allow investigators to identify the perpetrators of any of them.
As a previous United Nations investigation noted, the panel said that whoever conducted the Ghouta attack had had access to the Syrian Army’s stockpile of chemical weapons as well as the expertise and equipment to manipulate large quantities of chemical agents. Denied entrance to Syria, the panel’s investigators based their report on 563 interviews with Syrians who had fled to neighboring countries, and on telephone conversations with people inside the country. It cites specific instances of targeted killings, often naming specific Syrian Army divisions and rebel groups. In mid-September, people being treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life threatening were found dead after soldiers entered their operating rooms. “One male relative who witnessed the soldiers was asked for identification and shot upon discovery of his family ties to the victims,” the report said.
Investigators described a “sniper campaign” by government forces in the northern city of Aleppo targeting civilians, including women and children. In October, doctors treated six pregnant women shot in the abdomen and, on one day alone, six men who had been shot in the groin. In July, internally displaced people in Homs were apprehended and killed. During Ramadan, it said, government forces and militiamen went house to house, arresting people, later returning their bodies. The commission is scheduled to brief the United Nations Human Rights Council this month on its findings.
The report, due to be presented to the Human Rights Council in mid-March, also implicates both sides in widespread use of torture. The panel identifies s a number of government security and intelligence agencies that are said to routinely torture detainees, and for the first time specifies opposition groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Nusra Front, which it says committed crimes against humanity against prisoners in the town of Raqqa.
“The rise in torture and the inhumane treatment of the civilian population in areas controlled by ISIS and affiliated groups provide reasonable grounds to believe that such groups promote the widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population,” the report said.