Mt Merapi Volcano and Jogjakarta Earthquake-May 2006--Set 9

World Humanitarian Day

Mt Merapi Volcano and Jogjakarta Earthquake-May 2006--Set 8

Bad Things in Forgotten Places

BY MICHAEL BEAR

Darfur is sexy. Or, at the least, rarely lacking for public attention. (As the title of Rob Crilly's upcoming book proclaims: Saving Darfur - Everyone's Favourite African War.) Even Congo - the uber forgotten conflict - has been getting a fair amount of attention of late.

Yet what if you're forced to flee your home and there's no media attention, much less public outcry? You're still screwed. On one hand, it certainly makes sense to think in terms of specific conflicts like Darfur, or Congo. Any specific conflict is, on some level, comprehensible. You can analyze a given situation, learn the history, the place-names and tribe-names. You can imagine concrete solutions.

On the other hand, conflict as a whole, as a topic or a category, is far more ephemeral. It's only comprehensible as metaphor - everyone's favorite apocalyptic horseman - or in ever-more generalized, theoretical terms.

Our outrage might be finite, yet at the end of the day a village burned in Darfur is a village burned in the Central African Republic. A woman raped in Congo is a woman raped in Mindanao.

As the man said: "Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel."

So, without further ado, bad things in semi-forgotten places - at least forgotten by those who don't have the misfortune of actually living there:

- Flooding worsens the plight of displaced civilians in Sri Lanka

- The Lord's Resistance Army - everyone's favorite Ugandan rebels - are wreaking havoc in South Sudan

- Fighting in the Central African Republic forces 125,000 to flee their homes. (And, map.)

- More than 250,000 people remain displaced in central Mindanao, in the Philippines

- Eastern Congo - not so good. An impressively long roster of combatants has succeeded inforcing around 2 million people to flee their homes.

- And, tho the Israeli-Palestinian is hardly forgotten, the humanitarian disaster caused by the Israeli blockade of Gaza gets surprisingly little attention

Aid Worker Fatalities in 2009

This is a regularly updated list of aid worker fatalities in 2009. So far this year, 81 aid workers have been killed:

- Seventeen aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan - fifteen as reported by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office report covering the period of July 16th - 30th, 2009, and then two UN staff killed on August 18th.

-Thirteen aid workers have been killed in Pakistan, including two in February, five in April, five in June and one in July.

- Ten aid workers (including UN contractors) have been killed in Gaza since December 27th, as have thirteen medical personnel. The aid worker fatalities include five UNRWA staff, three UNRWA contractors, one WFP contractor and one aid worker with CARE.

- Ten aid workers have been killed in Somalia, including two in January, two in April, one in July and five in August. (In addition, a former WFP contractor was also killed in March, and aformer CARE staff member was killed in April.)

- As many as nine aid workers (including family members) were killed in Yemen in June. (Still difficult to get accurate figures.)

- At least seven aid workers have been killed in Sri Lanka, including two in February, two in March, one in April and two in May. The actual number is probably higher.

- Four aid workers have been killed in Darfur - two in February, one in March, and one in May (as reported by an aid agency on the ground)

- Three aid workers have been killed in Mozambique

- Two aid workers have been killed in Chechnya

- One aid worker has been killed in Bangladesh

- One aid worker has been killed in Benin

- One aid worker has been killed in the Central African Republic

- One aid worker has been killed in Zanzibar

- One aid worker has been killed in DR Congo

- One aid worker has been killed in Mauritania

Updated as of August 19th, 2009. This is by no means a comprehensive list.

A Terrible Dilemma

18 Aug 2009 14:54:00 GMT

Written by: Antonio Guterres

A suicide attacker set off a truck bomb on August 19, 2003, outside a Baghdad, Iraq, hotel housing the U.N. headquarters. At least 20 U.N. workers and Iraqis were killed, including Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, the chief U.N. official in Iraq. REUTERS/Rob Gauthier/POOL

UNHCR is still in shock over the recent brutal killing of staff member Zill-e-Usman, who was shot by unidentified gunmen in the Katcha Gari camp on the border of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Another staff member, Ishfaq Ahmad, was wounded in the July 16 incident. A guard working with the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees, a government-funded agency, was also killed. Four to five gunmen reportedly opened fire on Mr. Usman as he was walking back from the camp administrative office to his car during a routine visit to the site.

Mr. Usman was the third UN refugee agency staff member to be killed in Pakistan this year. On June 9, Aleksandar Vorkapic died in the bombing of the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar; on February 2, Syed Hashim, UNHCR senior driver, was killed in the kidnapping of John Solecki, head of the Quetta office, who was later released. As I wrote to Mr. Usman's family, his murder is a cruel blow. There is no justification for attacks on humanitarian workers dedicated to the protection and care of the world's most vulnerable people. The killing of Mr. Usman was an outrage and a tragedy that affects us all.

This August 19, on the occasion of the first ever World Humanitarian Day, we will pause to remember Mr. Usman and hundreds of other UN and non-governmental organization workers who have lost their lives while carrying out their duties around the world. The date is important: it was on August 19, 2003, that a massive bomb blast in Baghdad took the lives of then UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.

The ongoing death toll of humanitarian workers raises fundamental questions about how we can ensure staff security in unstable environments. Globally, it reminds us of the major dilemma facing humanitarian agencies around the world - how do we meet the life-or-death needs of the world's most vulnerable people while making sure those who provide that help are kept safe? Our ability to assist those who need it most is being severely tested by the shrinkage of the so-called 'humanitarian space' in which we must work.

The nature of conflict is changing, with a multiplicity of armed groups -- some of whom view humanitarians as legitimate targets. Another example of this is the brutal murder last month of Ms. Natalia Estemirova, a staff member of UNHCR's partner, Memorial, in the Russian Federation. Ms. Estemirova was found dead in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia following her abduction from her home in Chechnya. Since 2000, in addition to her work as a prominent human rights investigator, Ms. Estemirova had been a social worker with Memorial and its UNHCR-funded legal and social counselling project in Grozny. She worked on issues related to internally displaced people in Chechnya and their safe return to their homes.

Memorial has been an implementing partner of UNHCR in the North Caucasus since 2000 and received UNHCR's annual Nansen Refugee Award in 2004. Humanitarian personnel work in the most dangerous places in the world and risk their own lives in the effort to help vulnerable populations to preserve theirs. Ensuring staff safety must be a top priority of every humanitarian organization and the United Nations as a whole.

This is non-negotiable. And yet, with the evolving nature of armed conflict and the changing attitudes of some belligerents, the deliberate targeting of humanitarian workers has increased, establishing a tension -- and in some situations a contradiction -- between the imperatives of staff safety and humanitarian action. UNHCR has continuously struggled to determine the 'acceptable' level of security risk to which its staff members can be exposed.

As this month's commemoration demonstrates, it is a truly terrible dilemma.

Mt Merapi Volcano and Jogjakarta Earthquake-May 2006--Set 7

International Humanitarian Law

GLOBAL EFFORTS TO HUMANISE WAR

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is the set of international rules and legal instruments that seek to minimise the destructive effects of war and prevent needless suffering. Enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, it does not concern itself with questions of war's legality, but aims to regulate the way wars are fought once a conflict has started. Above all, it is designed to provide legal protections on humanitarian grounds for those who are either not taking part in a conflict - such as civilians - or for the most vulnerable people who are no longer fighting (such as the wounded, the sick and prisoners).

Perhaps paradoxically, IHL represents a global attempt to humanise armed conflict. Particularly since World War Two, the evolution of IHL has been deeply influenced by the development of human rights treaties such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which have reinforced global consensus that everyone is entitled to basic human rights in both peace and war. But IHL should not be confused with Human Rights Law, although the two regimes overlap, notably in areas such as the right not to be tortured. Certain human rights, such as the right of assembly, can be legally restricted during times of war.

IHL, on the other hand, is - at least theoretically - universally applicable when fighting breaks out. The reality is, of course, more complicated. In recent decades, the rise in the number of civil wars and ethnic insurgencies has complicated the application of the Geneva Conventions, the bulk of which govern cross-border international armed conflicts. Although there are articles and protocols that apply to non-international armed conflict, many countries have been hesitant to implement IHL in the context of internal violence. The U.S.-led "war on terror" has complicated matters even further amid arguments from some quarters that the fight against violent Islamist fundamentalism is an entirely new kind of conflict that simply falls outside the parameters of IHL.

ORIGINS OF IHL

Mankind's attempts to protect individuals from the worst consequences of war can be traced back as far as recorded human history. African tribal cultures have promoted the protection of women, children and elders since the dawn of time, along with the dignified treatment of prisoners. An ancient Hindu text, the Mahabharata, includes guidelines on compassion for unarmed or injured enemies and prohibits the use of weapons that create needless suffering.

Both the Bible and the Koran speak of respect for one's enemy. And the European medieval knights and Japanese Samurai respected sophisticated codes of conduct during hostilities. Concerted efforts to codify a universal law of war, as opposed to regulations governing one conflict or one group, began in the 17th century with a treatise on conflicts between nations by Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. "On the Laws of War and Peace", published in 1625, set out theories of when war is just and addressed questions of what rules should govern the conduct of war once it had begun.

The birth of IHL as we know it today followed the publication in 1862 of "A Memory of Solferino", an eye-witness account of the horrific aftermath of a battle between French and Austrian armies in northern Italy three years previously. The author, a Swiss businessman named Henri Dunant, had been travelling in the region and was appalled by the lack of medical care for the wounded soldiers.

His book, which called for the formation of national societies to care for war wounded, led to the creation of the International Committee for the Aid to the Wounded, which later became the International Committee of the Red Cross. That in turn led to a diplomatic conference in Geneva in 1864, which adopted the First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. IHL was born.

AN EVOLVING BODY OF LAW

Subsequent conventions were added in the years that followed. A second convention addressed the protection of the wounded at sea and the shipwrecked and the third in 1929 dealt with the status and treatment of prisoners of war. In 1949, another diplomatic conference responded to the horrors of World War Two, revising the first three conventions and adding a fourth, which stated the rights and duties of an occupying power and expanded the protections due to civilians.

But international law has always needed to catch up with the changing nature of modern warfare, and it became apparent in the following decades that further legislation was required. The years after World War Two saw an increase in the number of wars fought within the borders of single countries, as opposed to cross-border conflicts. The Vietnam War in particular, along with the wars of independence primarily in Africa, made it clear that further protections were needed, especially for civilian populations.

In 1977, two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions were adopted, the first of which reinforced protections for civilians in international armed conflicts, the second in non-international confrontations. Aside from outlining protections for those considered to be no longer taking part in hostilities, various treaties also specifically prohibit the use of certain weapons and military tactics deemed to cause unnecessary suffering, including:

• The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
• The 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention and its five protocols
• The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention
• The 1997 Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines.

PRINCIPLES OF IHL

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which acts as the guardian of the Geneva Conventions and promotes awareness of them around the world, also provides humanitarian support in conflict zones. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), on the other hand, is the official umbrella body that ties together the 180 national societies in the Red Cross Red Crescent movement. They are primarily concerned with emergency response and training within their own countries. The ICRC summarises seven fundamental principles of IHL.

• Parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked. A civilian is only loosely defined, even in the Geneva Conventions, as someone who's not a combatant.

• Attacks may be made solely against military objectives. People who do not or can no longer take part in the hostilities are entitled to respect for their lives and for their physical and mental integrity. Such people must in all circumstances be protected and treated with humanity, without any unfavourable distinction whatever.

• It is forbidden to kill or wound an adversary who surrenders or who can no longer take part in the fighting.

• Neither the parties to the conflict nor members of their armed forces have an unlimited right to choose methods and means of warfare. It is forbidden to use weapons or methods of warfare that are likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.

• The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. Medical personnel and medical establishments, transports and equipment must be spared.

• There are now three distinctive signs indicating that medical persons and objects carrying them must be respected - the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal on a white background. AlertNet has an explainer on the symbols, or you can find out more on the ICRC website

• Captured combatants and civilians who find themselves under the authority of the adverse party are entitled to respect for their lives, their dignity, their personal rights and their political, religious and other convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence or reprisal. They are entitled to exchange news with their families and receive aid. They must enjoy basic judicial guarantees.

WHAT IS A CRIME OF WAR?

The legal precedent for the prosecution of war crimes was set at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders in 1945 and 1946, followed by a similar process for Japanese military commanders in 1948.

Those prosecutions were based largely on Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines war crimes as: "Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including... wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, ...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

The broader category of crimes against humanity is defined as acts of persecution or any large-scale atrocities against a body of people. Examples include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape and persecution on political, racial and religious grounds. The term genocide applies to "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial or religious group".

These include killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

THE CHALLENGE OF COMPLIANCE

Even the most cursory glance at the world today tells us that IHL is routinely violated. Implementation of IHL is first and foremost the responsibility of the countries that sign the conventions. States have an obligation to teach the rules of IHL to their armed forces as well as the general public. They must also prevent violations and punish them if they occur. Where governments have signally failed to prosecute those guilty of war crimes after mass atrocities, the international community has in recent decades moved to intervene with the establishment of United Nations tribunals.

In May 1993, the U.N. Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) to try those responsible for violations of IHL in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. The International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) was created in late 1994 in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha to prosecute those most responsible for the genocide during which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered.

Most recently, a joint national and international court was set up in 2007 to try those responsible for the mass extermination of Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge's three-year reign of terror in the 1970s. Similar processes are under way in Sierra Leone and East Timor. Perhaps the most significant attempt to address the apparent impunity of combatants in times of war came in 1998 with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The treaty, which gives the court jurisdiction over cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, came into force in 2002. The effective functioning of the court, however, continues to be weakened by the United States' refusal to ratify the statute. Washington argues that its soldiers might be the subject of politically motivated prosecutions, but it has not ruled out cooperation in specific contexts such as Darfur, in western Sudan.

Currently, 108 states have ratified the Rome Statute. Those wanted by the court include Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army rebel movement in Uganda. The ICC is also investigating alleged crimes in Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

IHL AND THE 'WAR ON TERROR'

The United States has suggested that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to what it calls "the war on terror", particularly with regard to prisoners, who it says do not necessarily qualify for IHL protection as prisoners of war. Human rights organisations, the ICRC and international lawyers all point to explicit statements in IHL that call for independent tribunals to decide on the status of prisoners.

The military tribunals set up by the United States to try cases in Guantanamo Bay are widely viewed as falling short of the required independence. They also point to the absolute and universal prohibition on torture, which U.S. forces have allegedly flouted, most notoriously in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. And although there is no clear definition of "terrorism" in IHL, organisations such as the ICRC argue that acts of terrorism in war time are covered in the Geneva Conventions, which forbid indiscriminate violence against civilians.

Under IHL, other acts of "terrorism", such as the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, are still subject to both domestic and international law and cannot be placed in a legal vacuum where torture, kidnap and unlawful detention are regarded as permissible.

Evicted from their homes, Palestinians live on the street in Jerusalem

Written by: World Vision

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

Sarah Al Ghawi and her mother are just two of the 53 Palestinians living on the street in Jerusalem for the past week. Sarah turns 2 next month. Photo by Jennifer Chiodo.

By Jennifer Chiodo, Advocacy/Communications Associate
Aug. 11, 2009

"Have you eaten? We're all eating lunch now and there's some if you are hungry." Those were Maher Hannoun's first words to us as we approached the street corner in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, where he and his family have been living for more than a week after being evicted from their home by Israeli authorities on the dawn of Aug. 2. While they live on the street, Israeli settlers have moved into their home.

My friend and I, both humanitarian workers living in Jerusalem, assured him a couple of times that we had just eaten. "If you'll excuse me a few minutes I'll eat and then come back and talk to you. I can't say 'feel at home'... but feel 'at street'." Talk about Palestinian hospitality?! Here a family of 18, with Maher and his two brothers' families, including six children, is homeless and is offering us food and drink. We take plastic chairs and sit in the shade of an olive tree, joining the group of 20 people just hanging around. Having followed the news of their eviction, we came to show our support.

We start talking to the lady in front of us while we wait for Maher to eat his lunch. She introduces herself as 'Im Kamal' (the mother of Kamal) and it takes me a few minutes to realise she's Ms Al Kurd, whom I recognise from news reports. She has been living in a tent next to her house in the same neighbourhood since last November when Israeli authorities evicted her family from their home. Her husband, who suffered from chronic heart and kidney disease, died days later.

The Al Kurd family and the Hannoun family (and the Al Ghawi family also living on the street after being evicted Aug. 1) were refugees in 1948 and resettled in Sheikh Jarrah under the protection of the Jordanian government and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "What is it like to be homeless, to live on the street?" I ask myself as we sit there. Where do you brush your teeth, get dressed, charge your cell phone, etc? Some of this is evident - cushions are stacked up and some weary internationals lean against them on the neighbour's wall. More cushions are just inside the gate. An electric cord hangs over the wall and a cell phone is being charged. I ask Im Kamal if she gets bored and what she does all day.

She motions to sitting in the chair: "What else can I do?" But this is Ms Al Kurd, and street living is not new for her. She's my hero. She's strong and resilient and not backing down. She's not leaving Jerusalem, her home. This I can tell by her eyes. She appreciates that we are there sitting with them, she tells me in Arabic. Maher comes over at this point and begins telling us bits and pieces of his family's story. It's a long story, a struggle for the last 37 years to keep his house. He doesn't accept charity from the UN or Red Cross. "We don't need a tent or food or blankets. We want their help to return to our house.

Friends, family, and neighbours have been extremely gracious. I eat better now than I did before. They help us with whatever we need and one day we will return the favour when they are in need." The deeply ingrained hospitality again amazes me. Two nights later, as part of a candlelight vigil in Sheikh Jarrah, I find myself sitting with the Al Ghawi family - another homeless family. They live one street over from the Hannouns. Their neighbours are present with them. They too are worried because the whole neighbourhood is under threat and they know it is just a matter of time before they are in the same situation.

We are speechless, disgusted, angry. There is nothing to say in response. The situation is utterly absurd, yet it goes on. We see Israeli settlers come and go from their house while Palestinians sleep on cushions in the street. The Hannoun and Al Ghawi family evictions are not isolated instances; they must be seen in the larger context of Israeli settlements which continuously chip away at Palestinian land. Sheikh Jarrah is particularly vulnerable to illegal Israeli expansion because it connects Jewish West Jerusalem with the Old City.

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THE FREE GAZA MOVEMENT

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