Newsgroup: it.cultura.single
Titolo: Amnesty International e le violazioni NATO (lunghissimissimo)

E' un estratto del rapporto di Amnesty International sugli abusi
americani nel corso del conflitto in Kosovo. Tutto il testo è di 60
pagine, se a qualcuno interessa me lo richieda in mail....
Serena
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NATO/FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
"COLLATERAL DAMAGE" OR UNLAWFUL KILLINGS?
Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force
1. Introduction
From 24 March to 10 June 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) conducted an air campaign against the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (FRY), codenamed Operation Allied Force. NATO aircraft
conducted over 38,000 combat sorties, including 10,484 strike sorties,
against targets in the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia proper
and the Republic of Montenegro.   Yugoslav media have stated that
thousands of civilians were killed in NATO air raids. However, the
civilian death tolls given in detailed  FRY government accounts range
from 400 to 600.   NATO has not released official estimates of civilians
or FRY combatants killed.  No NATO forces were killed in hostile action
during the air campaign.
 NATO is an alliance of 19 nations from Europe and north America, founded
in 1949 with the aim of providing a mutual commitment to collective
defence in the event of one or more of these nations coming under attack
by another party. NATO took military action against the FRY following a
breakdown in negotiations between several of its member states and the
FRY over the situation in Kosovo, where FRY forces were engaged in an
armed conflict with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) characterized by
gross human rights abuses, and the future status of the province.  NATO
stated several aims for its military intervention, including ending the
human rights violations perpetrated by FRY forces against ethnic Albanian
civilians; ensuring the withdrawal of all FRY forces from Kosovo and
their replacement with an international force; and ensuring the return of
Kosovar refugees and internally displaced to their homes.
 NATO has claimed that its air campaign against the FRY was the "most
precise and lowest-collateral damage air campaign in history."   However,
Amnesty International has serious concerns about the extent to which NATO
forces participating in Operation Allied Force adhered to the rules of
international humanitarian law on the conduct of hostilities,
specifically those laid down to protect civilians and civilian objects.
On the basis of available evidence, including NATO's own statements and
accounts of specific incidents, Amnesty International believes that --
whatever their intentions -- NATO forces did commit serious violations of
the laws of war leading in a number of cases to the unlawful killings of
civilians.
 In one instance, the 23 April 1999 attack on the headquarters of Serbian
state Television and Radio (RTS), NATO launched a direct attack on a
civilian object, killing 16 civilians. In other attacks, including the 12
April bombing of Grdelica railroad bridge, which killed 12 civilians, and
the missile attack on Varvarin bridge on 30 May, which killed 11
civilians, NATO forces failed to suspend their attack after it was
evident that they had struck civilians. In other attacks, including those
which resulted in the highest number of civilian casualties (the attacks
on displaced ethnic Albanians near Djakovica  on 14 April, and in Korisa
on 13 May, whose combined death toll exceeded 120) NATO failed to take
necessary precautions to minimize civilian casualties. A detailed
examination of these and other attacks is included in this report.
 Concern about the rising level of civilian casualties grew over the
course of Operation Allied Force. On 23 April 1999, for example, the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said:
"During the first week or so of airstrikes, the number of civilian
casualties did in fact appear to be low. As the air campaign intensified,
however ... both a corresponding rise in the number of Serbian civilian
victims and increased damage to civilian objects have been observed....
Major incidents involving civilians have been the destruction of a
passenger train on a bridge and the attack on civilian vehicles in
Kosovo. Both resulted in deaths and injuries."
 On 4 May, Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, was quoted as saying:
"If civilian casualties can be avoided, they obviously must be and it is
down to judgments that must be made...If it is not possible to ascertain
whether civilian buses are on bridges, should those bridges be blown?
These are very important questions because people are not collateral
damage, they are people who are killed, injured, whose lives are
destroyed, and we are very concerned that [sic] the way that civilians
are so much in the forefront of modern warfare, of modern conflicts."
 Over the course of Operation Allied Force, Amnesty International wrote
repeatedly to NATO's Secretary General Javier Solana in connection with
specific attacks, raising concerns as to whether NATO was taking
sufficient precautions in selecting targets, in choosing the timing of
attacks, in the manner in which these attacks were being executed, and
whether civilians were being given advance warning when possible.
Amnesty International expressed concern that several of the attacks that
had resulted in civilian deaths may have indicated that NATO was not
taking all  precautions necessary to protect civilians because priority
was being given to ensuring pilots' safety.
 In its replies to Amnesty International's inquiries, NATO gave general
assurances that every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties was
made but did not provide AI with substantive answers to questions on
specific incidents, or any indication of whether investigations were
being conducted. Amnesty International did not receive relevant details
of the Rules of Engagement from NATO, despite having repeatedly requested
them in order to allow an independent assessment of whether they complied
with international humanitarian law.
 This report relies to a large extent on NATO's own public statements and
reports (and those of  member governments) of how it conducted the air
campaign, including its accounts of particular incidents and general
explanations of operational practices. The organization met with a
delegation of NATO officials at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels
on 14 February 2000 to discuss its concerns about the bombing campaign.
The NATO delegation was headed by  Dr Edgar Buckley, Assistant Secretary
General for Defence Planning and Operations, and included NATO
spokesperson Dr Jamie Shea; Mr Pieter Feith, Director, Crisis Management
and Operations Directorate; Mr Baldwin De Vidts, NATO's Legal Adviser;
and Lieutenant General O.L. Kandborg, Director, International Military
Staff. Amnesty International's delegation included two members of the
staff of the International Secretariat, accompanied by Professor Dr Horst
Fischer, Academic Director of the Institute for International Law of
Peace and Armed Conflict, Ruhr-Universität Bochum Germany and Professor
of International Humanitarian Law at Leiden University, Netherlands; and
Dr Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Pekka Visuri, visiting researcher at the
Finnish Institute of International Affairs and Adjunct Professor at the
National Defence College in Helsinki.
Background: Human Rights Violations in Kosovo
Over the past 10 years, Amnesty International has extensively documented
and campaigned to put an end to human rights violations perpetrated by
the FRY authorities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. (See: Kosovo: a
decade of unheeded warnings, volume one, AI Index: EUR 70/39/99, April
1999). During this time, ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo were the
victims of unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment. Many political
prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, were convicted by courts in
proceedings which failed to meet international standards of fairness.
 In 1998 there was an increase in human rights violations perpetrated by
FRY security forces and paramilitaries in Kosovo (See: Kosovo: a decade
of unheeded warnings, volume two, AI Index: EUR 70/40/99, April 1999).
Armed conflict erupted between members of the KLA, which had formed to
fight for an independent Kosovo, and FRY forces, Serb police and
paramilitary groups operating in the region. The vast majority of victims
in Kosovo during the period of the armed conflict were ethnic Albanian
civilians. However, Serbs also suffered human rights abuses, such as
abductions, beatings and executions, at the hands of armed ethnic
Albanian groups some of whom represented themselves as the KLA.
 In February and March 1999, the international community exerted  intense
diplomatic pressure on the FRY authorities, accompanied by threats of
military action.  The failure of efforts to broker an agreement between
the FRY and representatives of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians in a series of
meetings at Rambouillet, in France, led to the eruption of an
international armed conflict. In March, NATO commenced a bombing campaign
against FRY forces, Serb police and paramilitaries with the declared aim
of preventing a human rights catastrophe in Kosovo. However, human rights
abuses by FRY forces, Serb police and paramilitary groups increased and
hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians and members of minority
communities fled Kosovo into the neighbouring states of Albania and
Macedonia or were displaced inside Kosovo. (See: Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia: The protection of Kosovo Albanian refugees, AI Index: EUR
65/03/99, May 1999; Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Kosovo): Smrekovnica
Prison--a regime of torture and ill-treatment leaves hundreds unaccounted
for, AI Index: EUR 70/107/99, October 1999).
 In June 1999, NATO ceased its bombing campaign after concluding a
Military Technical Agreement with the FRY authorities. Under this
agreement all FRY forces, Serb police and paramilitary groups left Kosovo
and a NATO-led military force named Kosovo Force (KFOR) took control of
Kosovo.  The United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) was
also established to administer the territory.  Amnesty International has
continued monitoring and campaigning against human rights abuses in
Kosovo under the administration of UNMIK (See: Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (Kosovo): Amnesty International's recommendations to UNMIK on
the judicial system, AI Index: EUR 70/06/00, February 2000, and Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (Kosovo): Setting the standard? UNMIK and KFOR's
response to the violence in Mitrovica, AI Index: EUR 70/13/00.)
 Amnesty International takes no position on the political issues
surrounding the status of Kosovo.  The organization does not judge
whether recourse to force by anyone is justified or not and therefore
takes no position on the legal or moral basis for NATO's military
intervention against the FRY.  Amnesty International focuses strictly on
the conduct of such intervention in light of the rules of international
humanitarian law.


A me interessa davvero.
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Ciao
Lana

 Me lo mandi?
Certamente : )
Ciao bella
Serena