| Issue 21 Vol I, August 15, 2006 | Archive |
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Some Peace in a Devastated Lebanon
In fact, the real war in Lebanon begins now, some keen observers of the West Asian crisis and the American hegemony commented on the current ceasefire brokered after long discussions at the UN headquarters. Some may believe that peace would dawn on the trouble and ton sub continent that has lately witnessed a nearly full scale war. The reality is no one should suffer any delusion that this current attack by Israel on the people of Lebanon blessed at least a month in advance and part of the American design to rewrite the history and redraw the geography of West Asia by first capturing Iraq and now threatening Iran and Syria. The Israeli army, reeling under the Hezbollah’s onslaught now faces the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose. This war is borderless with more of Muslim youth joining the bands of what the West calls terrorists and the West Asia calls freedom fighters. This attack has united all sects of Muslims, Sunnis and Shias. In all 43 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past day as Hizbollah guerrillas, still launching missiles into Israel itself; have fought back against Israel's massive land invasion into Lebanon. Israeli military authorities talked of "cleaning" and "mopping up" operations by their soldiers south of the Litani river but, to the Lebanese, it seems as if it is the Hizbollah that have been doing the "mopping up". From now Hezbollah’s operations will be directed solely against the invasion force. And the Israelis cannot afford to lose 40 men a day. As Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent [London], “Unable to shoot down the Israeli F-16 aircraft that have laid waste to much of Lebanon, the Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground.”
Over one million people had been rendered homeless and hapless. At least 1000 innocent Lebanese, at least half of them innocent children besides, helpless women and old people were killed, thousands of apartment buildings, destroyed as schools and other public utilities. Israeli army systematically wanted to devastate Lebanon’s in infrastructure and it did by bombing to rubble scores of bridges and electricity systems. This resolution offers only a limited chance for peace after more than four weeks of fighting that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and inflamed tensions across the West Asia. Drafted by France and the U.S., it was adopted unanimously. U.N Secretary General, Kofi Anan with tough language in remarks before the vote, said hundreds of millions of people around the world shared his frustration that the council had taken so long to act. That inaction has "badly shaken the world's faith in its authority and integrity,'' he said. ``I would be remiss if I did not tell you how profoundly disappointed I am that the council did not reach this point much, much earlier,'' he added with a touch of sadness. The Security Council resolution leaves out several key demands from both Israel and Lebanon in efforts to come up with a workable arrangement. Despite Lebanese objections, Israel will be allowed to continue defensive operations a term that Arab diplomats fear the Israeli military will interpret widely. A dispute over the Chebaa Farms area along the Syria-Lebanon-Israel border will be left for later; and Israel will not get its wish for an entirely new multinational force separate from the U.N. peacekeepers that have been stationed in south Lebanon since 1978. There is also no call for the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel or a demand for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops. The draft resolution emphasizes the need for the "unconditional release'' of the two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by Hezbollah sparked the conflict, but is not included in the list of steps required for a lasting ceasefire. Some diplomats at the U.N headquarters said the negotiators' main goal had been to come up with a draft that spells out a lasting political solution to the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border. The standoff has bedeviled the region for more than two decades. "You never get a deal like this with everybody getting everything that they want,'' Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said. "The question is, has everybody got enough for this to stick and for it to be enforceable? Nobody wants to go back to where we were before this last episode started.'' At the heart of the resolution are two elements: It seeks an immediate halt to the fighting that began July 12 when Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli troops along the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border separating Israel; and it spells out a series of steps that would lead to a permanent ceasefire and long-term solution. That would be done by creating a new buffer zone in south Lebanon "free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL'' _ the acronym of the U.N. force deployed in the region since 1978. The force now has 2,000 troops; the resolution would expand it to a maximum of 15,000. Under the resolution, UNIFIL would be significantly beefed up to help coordinate when 15,000 Lebanese troops deploy to the region. As Lebanese forces take control of the south, Israeli troops would withdraw "in parallel.'' Several diplomats said UNIFIL would essentially become so strong that it will not resemble the weaker force it once was. The resolution gives Annan one week to report back on how well it has been implemented. The council leaves open the possibility of another resolution to further enhance UNIFIL's mandate and other steps to achieve a permanent ceasefire. The draft also asks Annan to come up with proposals within 30 days on resolving various border disputes including the one over Chebaa Farms. Lebanon had wanted a direct demand in the draft that Chebaa Farms be put under U.N. control. Key points of the resolution adopted by the U.N. Security Council on Friday to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah: The resolution calls for the "full cessation'' of fighting, under which Hezbollah would stop all attacks and Israel would end offensive military operations. Once the fighting ends, the U.N. force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL, would be expanded from 2,000 to 15,000 troops to help coordinate the deployment of 15,000 Lebanese troops and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. The two nations' forces would move "in parallel.'' The resolution spells out a series of steps toward a permanent cease-fire and lasting political solution. Those steps include the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon and respect by both parties for the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border separating Israel and Lebanon. Stresses the importance for Lebanon's government to be the only armed force in the country, a provision that is meant to exclude Hezbollah militias from retaining weapons. Measures to enforce that would include banning foreign forces beyond UNIFIL and arms sales without the government's consent. Requests the international community act quickly to extend financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, including funds needed for helping the tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese to return. Makes all parties responsible for ensuring that no action is taken that would endanger humanitarian efforts, including the safe passage for convoys to distribute food and medical supplies. But as Rashid I. Khalidi recently wrote, “There will be no "destruction" of Hezbollah, and no "uprooting" of its infrastructure or that of Hamas, whatever the results of Israel's siege of Gaza and its merciless attacks against Lebanon. The rhetoric about "terrorism" has mesmerized those who parrot it, blinding them to the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas are deeply rooted popular movements that have developed as a response to occupation--of the West Bank and Gaza for nearly forty years, and of southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000. Whatever one might say about the two movements' callousness in targeting civilians (a subject on which Israel's defenders are hardly in a position to preach), both have won impressive victories in elections and have provided social services and protection to their people.” One would lot of evidence to build a counter argument. |
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America and England abet Israel to go berserk in Lebanon
The HRO report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians. Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians. Amnesty accused Israel of trying to convert southern Lebanon into a "free-fire zone" which it said was "incompatible with international humanitarian law." The Israeli government claims that it targets only Hezbollah, and that fighters from the group are using civilians as human shields, thereby placing them at risk. Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack. Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. However, those cases do not justify the IDF’s extensive use of indiscriminate force which has cost so many civilian lives. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack. By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military targets. The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes. This report is based on extensive on-the-ground research in Lebanon. Since the start of hostilities, Human Rights Watch has interviewed victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one settings, conducted on-site inspections (when security allowed), and collected information from hospitals, humanitarian groups, and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, inspecting the IDF’s use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with IDF officials. The research was extensive, but given the ongoing war and the scope of the bombings, Human Rights Watch does not claim that the findings are comprehensive; further investigation is required to document the war’s complete impact on civilians and to assess the full scope of the IDF’s compliance with and disregard for international humanitarian law. While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes. Between July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing 18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters from the blast and compound the harm to civilians. This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict’s first two weeks. Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten. Israeli air strikes also killed many dual nationals who were vacationing in Lebanon when the fighting began, including Brazilian, Canadian, German, Kuwaiti, and U.S. citizens. The full death toll is certainly higher because medical and recovery teams have been unable to retrieve many bodies due to ongoing fighting and the dire security situation in south Lebanon.
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their ten children, and the family’s Sri Lankan maid. On July 16, an Israeli airplane fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing eleven members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five, and seven. Others civilians came under attack in their cars as they attempted to flee the fighting in the South. This report alone documents twenty-seven civilian deaths that resulted from such attacks. The number is surely higher, but at the time the report went to press, ongoing Israeli attacks on the roads made it impossible to retrieve all the bodies. Starting around July 15, the IDF issued warnings to residents of southern villages to leave, followed by a general warning for all civilians south of the Litani River, which mostly runs about 25 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, to evacuate immediately. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled their homes to the city of Tyre (itself south of the Litani and thus within the zone Israel ordered evacuated) or further north to Beirut, many waving white flags. As they left, Israeli forces fired on dozens of vehicles with warplanes and artillery. Two Israeli air strikes are known to have hit humanitarian aid vehicles. On July 18 the IDF hit a convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle with medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver. On July 23, Israeli forces hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana. As of August 1, tens of thousands of civilians remained in villages south of the Litani River, despite the warnings to leave. Some chose to stay, but the vast majority, Human Rights Watch found, was unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline, high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks. Many of the civilians who remained were elderly, sick, or poor. Israel has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to clear the transport routes of Hezbollah fighters moving arms. Again, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, independent media sources, or Israeli official statements indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in this report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons. Rather, the attacks killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes, as the IDF had advised them to do. In addition to strikes from airplanes, helicopters, and traditional artillery, Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions against populated areas, causing civilian casualties. One such attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed a sixty-year-old woman and wounded at least twelve civilians, including seven children. The wide dispersal pattern of cluster munitions and the high dud rate (ranging from 2 to 14 percent, depending on the type of cluster munition) make the weapons exceedingly dangerous for civilians and, when used in populated areas, a violation of international humanitarian law. Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilian and combatant, and is willing to strike at targets it considers even vaguely connected to the latter. At worst, it considers all people in the area of hostilities open to attack. On July 17, for example, after IDF strikes on Beirut, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, Eliezer Shkedi, said, “in the center of Beirut there is an area which only terrorists enter into.” The next day, the IDF deputy chief of staff, Moshe Kaplinski, when talking about the IDF’s destruction of Beirut’s Dahia neighborhood, said, “The hits were devastating, and this area, which was a Hezbollah symbol, became deserted rubble.” On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that the Israeli air force should flatten villages before ground troops move in to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers fighting Hezbollah. Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, he claimed, and therefore anyone remaining should be considered a supporter of Hezbollah. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said. International humanitarian law requires effective advance warnings to the civilian population prior to an attack, when conditions permit. But those warnings do not way relieve Israel from its obligation at all times to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm. In other words, issuing warnings in no way entitles the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remain in southern Lebanon as combatants who are fair game for attack. In addition to recommendations to the Israeli government and Hezbollah that they respect international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government immediately to suspend transfer of all arms that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support for such materiel, pending an end to the violations. Human Rights Watch calls upon the Iranian and Syrian governments to do the same with regards to military assistance to Hezbollah. This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure or Beirut’s southern suburbs, which is the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch research. It also does not address Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, which have been reported on and denounced separately and continues to be the subject of ongoing Human Rights Watch investigations. In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to investigate allegations that Hezbollah is shielding its military personnel and materiel by locating them in civilian homes or areas, and it is deeply concerned by Hezbollah’s placement of certain troops and materiel near civilians, which endangers them and violates the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch uses the occasion of this report to reiterate Hezbollah’s legal duty never to deliberately use civilians to shield military objects and never to needlessly endanger civilians by conducting military operations, maintaining troops, or storing weapons in their vicinity. The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is governed by international treaties, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law. Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a non-state party such as Hezbollah. Israel has also asserted that it considers itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not just to those of Hezbollah. Any hostilities between Israeli forces and the forces of Lebanon would fall within the full Geneva Conventions to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties. In either case, the rules governing bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks are effectively the same. But Israel in west Asia is aided and abetted by the US and its allies for the past several decades and would not stop till it is forced. |
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Moderates
shake hands with Fundamentalists
This period saw bloody fights in the temples and the moderates becoming a target of hate attacks by the fundamentalists. Initially, the fundamentalists were opposed to the Sikh devotees who came with their heads uncovered to the temples. Until the fundamentalists started migrating to Canada, the Sikh temples were more like cultural centers with a very liberal environment. The fundamentalists had turned the temple environment to a rigid and strictly religious environment. Gradually, they gained control over the temples and much later they challenged the practice of serving the langar to the devotees on tables as they sat on chairs. A controversial Akal Takht edict had asked the Sikhs to stop this practice and they were asked to serve the langar to the devotees who sat crossed legs on the floor. The moderate leaders who deified the edict were ostracized and declared infidels. There was a bloody brawl at the Surrey Sikh temple, when the fundamentalists had tried to remove the tables and chairs from the langar hall. With the end of Khalistan movement, the fundamentalists started losing control over the temples. They later established their own gurdwaras that became popular among the orthodox Sikh families. These gurdwaras started getting lots of donation. Subsequently, the fundamentalists lost interest in the other Sikh temples and virtually gave up their fight against the "infidels’’. It is believed that the two sides have now reached a hidden compromise. The moderates and the fundamentalists are now fighting among themselves. Knives are out at the Surrey Sikh temple, where the moderate management is divided in two prominent groups. One group is led by the present president, Balwant Singh Gill, who had remained on the hit-list of the fundamentalists and was ostracized by the Sikh clergy. The other one is projecting the Vice President, Sadhu Singh Samra as the future president of the temple. The two men have crossed swords over personal reasons. Samra is being supported by the communists, while Gill is being supported by Congress men. Earlier, these two groups had buried their differences to challenge the fundamentalists. Similarly, there is a division within the fundamentalist groups in other Sikh temples. Recently, the fight between the two fundamentalist groups reached a flashpoint at the New Westminster Sikh temple. Interestingly, one group was being supported by the moderate faction led by Balwant Singh Gill. Khushpal Singh Gill, a staunch supporter of Balwant Singh Gill was badly beaten at the New Westminster temple by a supporter of the rival group of the fundamentalists. This incident tells a tale about this new emerging alliance between the moderates and the fundamentalists. However, Khushpal Singh Gill claims that the group they are supporting is moderate whereas one of this group’s prominent members, Jaswinder Singh Garcha has founded the International Sikh Youth Federation (1998). Although it’s a different version of the federation, which has been banned as a terrorist group by the Canadian government, Garcha admits that he supports Khalistan. He says that he also supports the Akal Takht edict. He claims that our new temple group is a coalition of the moderates and the fundamentalists with a common minimum programme. The question a common Sikh asks in Canada, particularly in British Columbia is are Gurdwaras or Sikh temples better managed and serving the purpose for which they have been raised. Why should these be hotbeds of politics like the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee [SGPC] in Punjab? |
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As
a ceasefire went into effect on August 14 between Israel and Hezbollah and a
tense calm descended on the region, ordinary people both Lebanon and Israeli
were wondering whether the truce would hold, and were beginning to ask
questions about what Israel and Hezbollah have gained -- or lost -- during
the 33 days of fighting.
On
August 12 after witnessing for nearly a month the unprecedented carnage and
criminal attack by the Israeli armed forces on Lebanon, The U.N. Security
Council finally adopted a resolution that calls for an end to the war
between Israel and Hezbollah, and authorizes 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to
help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws. It
took next three days for Israel to finally accept the resolution.
CIVIL
liberties organisations, Amnesty International and Human Rights
Organisation[HRO] are not the only ones along with Un Secretary General Kofi
Anan who have condemned the Israeli invasion of Lennon and its ruthless
indiscriminate attacks on children, women and innocent civilians and what
the US and its allies called collateral damage. In detailed reports, these
valued organisations have blamed the international community in failing to
save the innocent people, their homes, bridges, hospitals, schools and water
supply systems.
The report
breaks civilian deaths into two categories: attacks on civilian homes and
attacks on civilian vehicles. In both categories, victims and witnesses
interviewed independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah
fighters nor Hezbollah weapons were present in the area during or just
before the Israeli attack took place. While some individuals, out of fear
or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah’s military
activity, others were quite open about it. In totality, the consistency,
detail, and credibility of testimony from a broad array of witnesses who did
not speak to each other leave no doubt about the validity of the patterns
described in this report. In many cases, witness testimony was corroborated
by reports from international journalists and aid workers. During site
visits conducted in Qana, Srifa, and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no
evidence that there had been Hezbollah military activity around the areas
targeted by the IDF during or just prior to the attack: no spent ammunition,
abandoned weapons or military equipment, trenches, or dead or wounded
fighters. Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the
time of an attack, Israel would still be legally obliged to take all
feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties resulting from
its targeting of military objects or personnel. In the cases documented in
this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of
civilian casualties for questionable military gain.
THE
temple politics is no different from the other politics when it comes to
opportunism and power struggle. After fighting with the fundamentalists for
years, the moderate Sikhs have now become their friends. During the
terrorism days in Punjab, the moderate Sikhs had fought against the
fundamentalists in Canada who maintained a control over the Sikh Gurdwaras
almost for one decade.