Killing of innocent civilians in Pakistan in drone attacks should not remain unpunished

Nov. 7, 2013 - PRLog -- Global human rights organization Amnesty International called the US authorities to investigate unlawful drone killings in Pakistan. The report, “’Will I be next?’ US drone strikes in Pakistan (http://penzanews.ru/?go=www.amnestyusa.org%2Fresearch%2Freports%2Fwill-i-be-next-us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan),” which was published on the website of the organization on October 22 and describes 45 drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan between January 2012 and August 2013, provides new evidence that through drone strikes, the US has killed people who posed no apparent threat to life.

It documents recent killings in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas and the almost complete absence of transparency around the US drone program.

The organization conducted detailed field research into nine of these strikes, with the report documenting killings, which raise serious questions about violations of international law that could amount to war crimes or extrajudicial executions.

According to Amnesty International, in October 2012, 68-year-old grandmother Mamana Bibi was killed in a double strike, apparently by a Hellfire missile, as she picked vegetables in the family’s fields while surrounded by a handful of her grandchildren. In July 2012, 18 laborers, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in multiple strikes on a impoverished village close to the border with Afghanistan.

Contrary to official claims that those killed were “terrorists,” Amnesty International’s research indicates that the victims of these attacks were not involved in fighting and posed no threat to life.

“We cannot find any justification for these killings. There are genuine threats to the USA and its allies in the region, and drone strikes may be lawful in some circumstances. But it is hard to believe that a group of laborers, or an elderly woman surrounded by her grandchildren, were endangering anyone at all, let alone posing an imminent threat to the United States,” said Mustafa Qadri, Amnesty International’s Pakistan Researcher.

International law prohibits arbitrary killing and limits the lawful use of intentional lethal force to exceptional situations. In armed conflict, only combatants and people directly participating in hostilities may be directly targeted. Outside armed conflict, intentional lethal force is lawful only when strictly unavoidable to protect against an imminent threat to life . In some circumstances arbitrary killing can amount to a war crime or extrajudicial execution, which are crimes under international law.

“The tragedy is that drone aircraft deployed by the USA over Pakistan now instill the same kind of fear in the people of the tribal areas that was once associated only with al-Qa’ida and the Taliban,” said Mustafa Qadri.

However, some Western experts and media figures criticized Amnesty International’s report on the human rights impact of the US drone program in Pakistan, saying “the study is marred by discrepancies, unverified claims, and dubious witness statements.”

For instance, military reporter and commentator David Axe in an interview to one of the media outlets said that Amnesty’s photos of missile debris did not prove what kind of missile it was, unless there were clearly identifiable markings that could be traced back to the operator or manufacturer.

“Amnesty’s report rests on a chain of assumptions. It’s not that drones don’t kill lots of innocent people—they do. But the particulars matter if we’re going to base policy on them,” he said.

At the same time, many experts had already tried to draw attention to the problem of nontransparency of the American drone program. For example Anthony Dworkin, ECFR Senior Policy Fellow working on human rights, international justice and international humanitarian law, expressed the opinion that it is not data protection and surveillance that produces the most complications for the transatlantic intelligence relationship, but rather America’s use of armed drones (http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/54198-2013) to kill terrorist suspects away from the battlefield.

According to him, for a start, US should cut back the number of drone strikes and be much more open about the reasons for the attacks it conducts and the process for reviewing them after the fact.

“It should also elaborate its criteria for determining who poses an imminent threat in a way that keeps attacks within tight limits. And, as US forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014, it should keep in mind the possibility of declaring the war against al Qaeda to be over,” the expert noted.

In turn, Ben Emmerson, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, urged “States to declassify, to the maximum extent possible, information relevant to their lethal extra-territorial counter-terrorism operations and to release its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of drones.” His colleague, Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, urged concerted effort to maintain protections of the full range of international law in the face of drone use, including human rights and humanitarian standards, the applications of which have become problematic as countries functionally widened the definition of battle zones and appropriate targets in the fight against terrorism and insurgencies.

Meanwhile, Dixon Osburn, Director of Human Rights First’s Law and Security Program in an interview to news agency “PenzaNews” reminded that the United States has not answered clearly where and against whom the US is at war.

In his opinion, the answer to those questions could help determine the lawfulness of US actions.

“Even when at war, nations who use lethal force must abide the principles of distinction, proportionality and military objective. That is, nations may use lethal force against enemy forces rather than the civilian population (the principle of distinction). Any lethal strike must be proportionate to minimize civilian casualties. And any strikes must target military objectives like a bomb making facility not civilian targets like a market. Nations not at war may also use lethal force but only when the threat to the nation is imminent and there is no feasibility of capture or disrupting the attack by other means,” the expert said.

From his point of view, in a war against enemies that blend in with the civilian population like al Qaeda and the Taliban, extra care must be taken to ensure that lethal force is used against only those directly participating in hostilities.

“The United States has an obligation under international law to investigate strikes and provide remedy to the victims and their families where appropriate,” the analyst stressed.

Full text news agency "PenzaNews": http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/54557-2013