Home > Amnesty: Rules of war violated in Fallujah
Edito Wars and conflicts International
Rules of war that protect innocent civilians and combatants have been violated
in the U.S-led offensive in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the human rights group
Amnesty International said on Monday.
The London-based group, which has provided evidence of what it described as breaching
war rules, demanded on Monday an investigation to be launched to study all violation
cases and that those responsible be brought to justice.
"All violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law must be
investigated and those responsible for unlawful attacks, including deliberate
targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, and the
killing of injured persons must be brought to justice," Amnesty said.
Amnesty international said that the U.S. and Iraqi troops ignored needed steps to ensure that non-combatants weren’t hurt in its attacks.
"Amnesty International fears that civilians have been killed, in contravention of international humanitarian law, as a result of failure by parties to the fighting to take necessary precautions to protect non-combatants," Amnesty said.
Amnesty said that about 20 Iraqi medical staff and scores of other civilians lost their lives when a missile struck a Fallujah hospital on Nov. 9, according hospital doctor who survived the attack.
Same day of the strike, an 9-year-old Iraqi boy bled till death after he was hit in the stomach by shrapnel. And because fierce battles were going outside his house, his parents couldn’t take him out and buried him in their garden.
Moreover, an Iraqi family including a woman and her three daughters were reported killed when U.S. warplanes bombed their house, Amnesty added.
On Nov. 11, a British television program, Channel Four News, aired a footage showing a U.S. soldier firing a shot at a wounded Iraqi man behind a wall and then commenting "he’s gone."
"Under international humanitarian law the U.S. forces have an obligation to protect fighters hors de combat. Amnesty International calls on the U.S. authorities to investigate this incident immediately," the human rights watchdog said.
Although thousands of Fallujah residents have fled the city, fearing getting hurt in the deadly offensive, other residents remaining in the city were in dire straits, it said.
"There are concerns that a humanitarian crisis is looming with acute shortages of food, water, medicine and with no electricity. There are also many wounded people who could not receive medical care because of the fighting," it added.
Last Monday, about 10,000 U.S. marines and 2,000 Iraqi security forces launched a major offensive on Fallujah to curb resistance there ahead of Iraq’s elections, scheduled for January.
The violence in Fallujah raises fears that a humanitarian crisis as looming in the city, with shortages in food, water, medicine reported by the city residents.
Several wounded people could not get the needed medical treatment due to the continuous deadly fighting in the streets.
Earlier, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society said it tried to get the Iraqi interim government and U.S. forces’ approval to deliver food, water and medicine to civilians in Fallujah but the request was turned down.
On Nov. 4 , Amnesty International issued a statement reminding the United States and the Iraqi interim government that they are legally bound to observe in their planned offensive rules of all applicable human rights and humanitarian law treaties to which they are states parties, as well as rules of customary international law binding on all states.
Forum posts
16 November 2004, 17:27
Dear Amnesty, there are no ’rules’ with this ’war’. It was deemed illegal by the UN remember ? They can do what they like.
17 November 2004, 05:49
Yes thats right. They Americans can commit now any war crime, because of a week and
divided international community.
That reminds us of the time when Hitler came into power.
18 November 2004, 00:13
Rules of war are like any laws - they exist as a statement of what we hope the ideal behavior should be, but they cannot stop the individuals who chose to break them. This war is perhaps worse becuase it is driven by the nation that has spent so many years talking down to all others about how evil other nation’s war crimes were. If nothing else, this just proves what has been known all along: the United States is no better than anyone else.
18 November 2004, 00:42
the amnesty rules don’t apply to insurgents
23 November 2004, 21:23
Just in case you got all caught up in the "America is violating the rules of war" stuff, I’d like to remind you that the insurgents have been killing unarmed Iraqi policemen assassination-style by the dozens. If the American solders were doing this, it would bring howls of outrage. But, it doesn’t even warrant mention if the insurgents do it. The insurgents have also booby-trapped bodies (also a violation of the rules of war). Abducting and killing unarmed civilians - as was the case with the senior CARE worker - is also a violation of the rules of war. The people who argue for the rules of war should apply them equally to both sides. (Of course, I doubt that they will because they’ve already decided who the ’bad guys’ are, and they keep their mouths shut when the ’good guys’ violate those rules.) Tell me this: if American police threw a black man in jail for the same offense that they’d let a white guy go free, would this be evidence of racism? Of course it would. When the extreme left complains about violations of the rules of war and apply these principles unequally, they are playing the same game.
24 November 2004, 10:41
I would hardly call Amnesty the’extreme left’. Anyway all these deaths are because of Amercan Imperialism ansd greed.