March 14, 2012

How False Human Rights Claims Create War

The Humanitarian War is a film by Julien Teil which shows the absurdity of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine that is now in fashion to launch colonial wars. I recommend to watch at least the first two parts.

In the first episode we can see the leader of Amnesty International France asserting that Gaddhafi paid black mercenaries to fight the rebels attacking his state. This was of course before Gaddhafi was overthrown. After that happened, the same person was on TV trolling concern about the plight of black Libyans being chased, imprisoned and killed by the rebels based solely on "rumors" of them being mercenaries. So who, one might ask, planted those rumors if not the head of Amnesty International France?

Yesterday Amnesty International claimed it had documented that "widespread torture" is used in Syria.

The London-based human rights group issued a report Wednesday based on interviews with 25 Syrians who said they endured torture in various detention centers before fleeing across the border to Jordan.

One wonder what those interviewees got for or what other interests they might have for coming up with those black mercenaries torture claims. And no, I do not doubt that some people get mistreated in Syrian prisons. But I do doubt the veracity of "widespread torture" that Amnesty claims based solely on witnesses which have an interest in making such claims.

In the second part of the film The Humanitarian War the head of the Libyan League of Human Rights, an organization linked to the International Federation of Human Rights, is interviewed. That League compiled a dossier of "humanitarian crimes" Gaddhafi was supposed to have committed. It included ten thousands of dead, hundreds of alleged rape cases and other ghastly stuff. That list was presented by the League in front of the UN's Human Rights Council and led to Gaddhafi's Libya being removed from that council and referred to the UN Security Council. The same list was used by the prosecutor of the International Cangaroo Criminal Court in his case against Gaddhafi.

But as that head of the League, Dr. Soliman Bouchuiguir, later admits in an interview all his numbers and cases were solely based on hearsay from the rebels National Transitional Council of Libya. Three of those council members and current members of Libya's provisional government are part of or related to his organization and are now directly profiting from making the false case against Gaddhafi.

Yesterday Human Rights Watch made a splash across the media claiming it had first hand accounts of witnesses that the Syrian army is mining the boarder with Lebanon and Turkey. Human Rights Watch claims that those mines are supposed to keep refugees from fleeing from Syria.

But there is nothing new to those land mines. Indeed it was the Syrian government which in November 2011 said that it was planting mines along its borders to keep smugglers from smuggling weapons, like these Kornet Anti-Tank-Guided-Missiles the rebels use, into Syria.

And what by the way did Human Rights Watch say when Israel mined its border with Syria to prevent civilian refugees from Syria from coming into Israel?

Of note - neither the U.S. nor Israel nor Syria is part of the Ottawa Treaty that would prohibit them from using mines. Unlike some of the news reports about the HRW finding claim, using those mines is not internationally prohibited.

Amnesty International as well as human rights organizations have been wrong with regards to Libya. One might even claim that they were the willingly tools used for the colonial destruction of the Libyan state.

Any claim such organizations make should be scrutinized very carefully. Anything they say that is without hard proof should be ignored. No policy decision or judgement, especially for war, should be based on their reports.

Posted by b on March 14, 2012 at 17:23 UTC | Permalink

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