From: hrcoord@igc.org (Human Rights Coordinator)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: Re: AI's Annual Report
Date: 26 Jul 92 22:58:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1476700182:cdp:1476700275:000:4079
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jul 26 15:58:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: AI's Annual Report

/* Written  3:56 pm  Jul 26, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:ai.general */

APn  07/09 1459  Amnesty Report
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By MICHAEL WEST
 Associated Press Writer
   LONDON (AP) -- Amnesty International said Thursday that nobody
is  being spared the horrors of war in Yugoslavia because civili-
ans are being tortured and massacred by all the warring factions.
   The human rights group  in  its  annual  report  covering  142
nations  deplored  the  use  of  the  death penalty in the United
States, and said at least 32 U.S.  soldiers jailed  for  refusing
to take part in the Gulf War were prisoners of conscience.
   It said millions of Chinese were believed held without  charge
in  1991,  hundreds  of  prisoners  of  conscience  were held and
thousands of people were executed.
   Iraq, Burma and China were scenes of some of the worst brutal-
ity  last year, and government troops were responsible for disap-
pearances and deaths in Sri  Lanka  and  Peru,  the  London-based
organization said.
   The report covered 1991 and  supplements  updated  it  through
May.
   In Yugoslavia, the fighting led to  large-scale  human  rights
violations  "including  torture and massacres of civilians by all
sides in the conflict," the rights group said.
   In Croatia last year,  Yugoslav  federal  army  forces,  Croat
government  forces,  and  Croatian and Serbian paramilitaries all
massacred civilians, it said.
   "On Nov. 20, refugees from the villages of Skabrnja and  Nadin
..  alleged  that  during  the  two  previous days INA (Yugoslav
National Army) troops and Serbian paramilitaries had  ...  massa-
cred unarmed civilians," it said.
   It said all but 14 of the 45 people listed killed in the  vil-
lages  by  the  medical  center  at nearby Zadar had been shot at
close range. They included a woman of 70.
   It said it was seeking details on reports  of  arbitrary  kil-
lings  in  the  former  Yugoslav  republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
where the conflict between ethnic  Serbs  and  Muslim  and  Croat
forces continues.
   Elsewhere, it said that since the end of the Gulf War in March
1991,  Iraqi government troops have killed thousands of Kurds and
Shiites.
   Military rulers have turned Burma into a "secret state of ter-
ror" in their crackdown on opponents and in China widespread vio-
lations have continued after  the  suppression  of  pro-democracy
protests in 1989, it said.
   In Sri Lanka, it said government troops have caused the disap-
pearances  or  deaths of several thousand civilians since the war
against Tamil separatists resumed in 1990. But it said  virtually
none of those responsible have been brought to justice.
   It said evidence in South Africa links hit squads  responsible
for  political  killings  with  covert police and military opera-
tions.
   It said investigations of abuses by Israeli forces  since  the
Palestinian  uprising  started  in  1986 are often inadequate and
rarely result in prosecution.
   The Israeli  Embassy  in  London  countered  in  a  statement:
"Amnesty  bases  most  of its claims of torture and ill-treatment
solely on information gathered from persons who have an  interest
in condemning and undermining the Israeli authorities. Obviously,
the credibility of such sources is questionable."
   "As long as the agents of repression believe they can  kidnap,
torture  and  murder without fear of discovery or punishment, the
cycle of violence will never be broken," the report said.
   But it said that in El Salvador the pattern of security  force
immunity  was  broken  last year when a colonel was convicted for
the 1989 murder of six priests and two university staff.
   Amnesty, which opposes the death penalty, said that in 1991 at
least  2,086  prisoners  in  32  countries -- including 14 in the
United States -- were executed.
   The report said more than 2,500 people were under sentence  of
death in the United States.


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