Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• originally published 17 February 2010
• AFP

OTTAWA — The Canadian government asked the United States not to use shared evidence to prosecute Canadian Guantanamo inmate Omar Khadr. Canada’s Supreme Court ruled last month that Ottawa violated Khadr’s rights by sharing his statements to Canadian officials with Washington. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Ottawa delivered a diplomatic note to Washington “seeking assurances that any evidence or statements shared with US authorities as a result of the interviews of Mr. Khadr by Canadian agents and officials in 2003 and 2004 not be used against him by US authorities in the context of proceedings before the (US) Military Commission or elsewhere.”

• News source:
• 1 March 2010
• UN Dispatch
• By Mark Leon Goldberg

During the question and answer session at an excellent conference underway Georgetown University Law Center, I asked Judge Richard Goldstone his reaction to the General Assembly vote on his Gaza Report that took place on Friday. The resolution — which passed 98 to 8 with 33 abstentions — gave both sides to the conflict five months to implement credible accountability mechanisms for alleged war crimes. A similar vote occurred at the General Assembly in November, which also passed, though with a greater number of “no” votes and abstentions.

Goldstone cited the difference in the vote count, noting that none of the 27 members of the European Union voted “no” this time around. The only “no” votes were from Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the United States…

• News source:
• 1 March 2010
• Baltimore Jewish Times
• By JTA

A bipartisan slate of U.S. Congress members urged the Obama administration to keep the Goldstone report from advancing to the International Court of Justice.

The U.N. General Assembly is poised to refer to the report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes in last winter’s Gaza war, to the United Nations Security Council. The council is the only body able to refer the report to the court.

“We know you share our concerns about an anticipated U.N. General Assembly resolution that is expected to refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council, and ultimately to the International Court of Justice,” said the letter signed by 95 members of the House of Representatives and sent Thursday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “This is an extremely troubling development that threatens to undermine the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a critical time, and is counterproductive to our foreign policy goals.

• News source:
• 1 March 2010
• Mines Action Canada
• Eleven years after the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty became binding international law, activists worldwide are stepping up their call on the United States to join.
• By press release

The U.S. announced last November that it had initiated a review of its landmine policy. Members of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) are visiting dozens of U.S. embassies worldwide on the 1 March anniversary to urge the U.S. to decide to join the Ottawa Treaty without further delay.

“We are glad that the U.S. has decided to take a fresh look at its stance on banning antipersonnel mines,” said Sylvie Brigot, Executive Director of the ICBL. “During the policy review process, it is crucial that decision-makers listen to the voices of landmine survivors and mine-affected communities.”

• News source:
• updated 25 February 2010
• New America Foundation
• By Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann

This research was last updated on February 25, 2010. For a full analysis of the repercussions and results of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, please click here for “The Year of the Drone,” by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, February 24, 2010.

The research on these pages… draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks—the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC—and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan—the Daily Times, Dawn, and the News—as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network.

Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.

• News source:
• 24 February 2010
• New York Times
• Editorial

Is this really the state of ethics in the American legal profession? Government lawyers who abused their offices to give the president license to get away with torture did nothing that merits a review by the bar?

A five-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s ethics watchdogs recommended a disciplinary review for the two lawyers who produced the infamous torture memos for former President George W. Bush, but they were overruled by a more senior Justice Department official.

• News source:
• 24 February 2010
• UN News Centre

A senior United Nations human rights official today called on international troops fighting militants in Afghanistan to follow directives designed to guard against civilian deaths, drawing particular attention to the plight of children caught up in the conflict.

Last year, some 346 children were killed by warring factions in Afghanistan, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy told reporters in Kabul…

Ms. Coomaraswamy noted a “major change in attitude and tactics” on the part of the military since her last visit in July 2008, but stressed that “these ideas and directives have now to be implemented.”

• News source:
• 16 February 2010
• press release
• By Cluster Munition Coalition

LONDON – Burkina Faso and Moldova ratified the international Convention banning cluster munitions today, bringing the total number of ratifications to 30 and triggering entry into force on 1 August 2010, when the Convention will become binding international law.

“The first 30 states to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions should be proud of their central role in helping to put an end for all time to the suffering caused by these cruel and unjust weapons,” said Thomas Nash, Coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC). “For those not yet on board the Convention, 2010 is the year to get on the right side of history, to get in on the ground floor, and join the ban before the First Meeting of States Parties in November.” (read more…)

• News source:
• 12 February 2010
• Cluster Munitions Coalition

LONDON – Denmark ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 February, taking its place among the visionary group of nations that will soon trigger entry into force of the most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaty in over a decade, the Cluster Munition Coalition said today.

• News source:
• 9 February 2010
• Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

BARDO – The Chamber of Deputies adopted, on Tuesday morning, during a plenary session held under the chairmanship of Speaker Foued Mebazaa, with attendance of some government members, a draft law providing for the ratification of the Cluster Munitions Convention.

• News source:
• 11 February 2010
• Jordan Times

Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

• News source:
• 11 February 2010
• Irrawaddy
• By SAW YAN NAING

Burmese government troops have stepped up their attacks on Karen civilians, burning down dozens of houses and a clinic and forcing schools to close and around 2,000 Karen villagers to flee into the jungle, according to Karen relief groups…

The attacks are the latest in a series of raids targeting civilians in the region. In January, government army troops raided ten villages in Nyaunglebin District, killing four villagers and forcing about 2,000 into hiding in the jungle, according to Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma.

“These attacks are further evidence of the urgent need for the United Nations to take effective action to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, perpetrated by the regime with impunity,” said Aung Din in a press release on Wednesday.

• News source:
• 10 February 2010
• New Yorker
• By Amy Davidson

Why didn’t the Canadian government do its best to resolve, in some way, the case of a Canadian child held at Guantánamo? Because he didn’t come from a nice family.

• News source:
• 8 February 2010
• Guardian
• Britain's use of drones in the war in Afghanistan must be in accordance with international law
• By Philip Alston and Hina Shamsi

The UK use of drones to kill “high-value targets” in Afghanistan should have come as no surprise. British troops are fighting in some of the most dangerous and rugged parts of Afghanistan, and drones have great attractions. They are a relatively cheap way of killing people in areas that are otherwise largely inaccessible. The lives of British troops are not put at risk. Remote pilots carry out an apparently clinical operation, with none of the gore and messiness of military combat.

Nor is it surprising that the Ministry of Defence responds to the news with bland assurances that every effort is made to ensure that drones are used in compliance with the laws of war. There are “no reports” of civilian casualties, the ministry adds. If taken at face value, these are heartening assurances. But they also illustrate the heart of the problem: the use of killer drones is shrouded in secrecy, and the accountability mechanisms that apply to regular warfare are simply absent.

• News source:
• 8 February 2010
• VOA
• By Steve Herman | New Delhi

Nepal has discharged all of the under-aged combatants from the army of the former Maoist rebels. That is being hailed as the closing of a critical chapter for the peace process in the poor, landlocked country between China and India.

More than 200 former child soldiers boarded buses in the rugged highlands of mid-western Nepal for a ride back into civilian life.

• News source:
• 6 February 2010
• CP
• By Rizek Abdel Jawad

The Hamas government in Gaza on Saturday backtracked on its apology earlier this week in which it expressed regret for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks…

Hamas wrote to the U.N. that its primitive rockets were not intended to hit civilians, but often strayed from their course. It said the rockets were meant to defend Gazans against Israeli military strikes, but also maintained that the Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli occupation.

“We apologize for any harm that might have come to Israeli civilians,” the Hamas government wrote.

On Saturday, the government claimed the response to the U.N. was misinterpreted.

“The report that was submitted regarding the Goldstone report does not include any apologies and what took place was an incorrect interpretation of some of its wording,” the government said in a statement.

• News source:
• 5 February 2010
• Jurist
• By Megan McKee

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Wednesday that the Harper administration will not seek the repatriation of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr… Cannon said that while the government is considering options to remedy the violation of Khadr’s constitutional rights, it will not press for his return because he faces charges in the US…

This announcement follows last week’s ruling…, which held that the interrogation of Khadr by Canadian officials while in detention violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms… (see Jurist story with links)

• News source:
• 3 February 2010
• Angus Reid

Canadians remain divided on the eventual fate of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr, and almost half believe the Supreme Court made the right decision in letting the federal government choose its own course of action on this issue, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

• News source:
• 3 February 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Gloria Galloway

The Conservative government will not ask for Omar Khadr to be repatriated from an American detention centre in Cuba despite a Supreme Court ruling that his rights have been violated, the Foreign Affairs Minister said Wednesday…

In a 9-0 ruling last week, the Court found that Canada and the United States are violating Mr. Khadr’s right to life, liberty and security under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but stopped short of ordering the government to ask Washington to send him home.

• News source:
• 24 January 2010
• Haaretz

Israel was set to submit its rebuttal on Thursday to a United Nations reports accusing it of having committed war crimes in Gaza last winter. Though the Israeli response has been kept under wraps, it is expected to list the essential flaws in the report and explain why the report is biased against Israel and tainted with many problems.