Judge considers time served in sentencing al-Qaeda aide - washingtonpost.com

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Qatari spent 6 years on Navy brig, gets half of maximum penalty

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

In a decision that could carry implications for the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks, a judge on Thursday sentenced an al-Qaeda sleeper agent with ties to the group's senior leaders to eight years and four months in prison.

The sentence sliced away nearly half of the 15-year maximum available penalty against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who entered the country as a graduate student on Sept. 10, 2001, under instructions from al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm essentially gave Marri credit for spending more than six years on a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Marri was held in isolation without criminal charges as one of only three enemy combatants on American soil.

Over the course of the two-day sentencing hearing in Peoria, Ill., attorneys for Marri presented evidence of his often-bleak detention conditions, arguing that he was held in a dark and chilly cell without a blanket, a mattress and his prescription eyeglasses for long stretches, and that his mouth sometimes was covered with duct tape. The judge said he pared nine months from the prison term because of the harsh conditions.

Justice Department lawyers had exhorted the judge to ignore Marri's indefinite detention, ordered in 2003 by President George W. Bush, and to focus instead on the alleged danger he posed. They pointed to evidence uncovered in an FBI search that Marri had performed research on hazardous chemicals and had bookmarked possible U.S. targets such as dams and reservoirs.

The Obama administration moved Marri out of the military brig and into a federal court in February. He eventually pleaded guilty there to a single charge of conspiring to provide support to terrorists. That felony charge, used often by prosecutors in national security cases because of its relatively low burden of proof, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Experts on terrorism and advocacy groups for victims had been closely watching Marri's case for clues about what it could mean for the architects of the Sept. 11 attacks, who may soon be moved onto U.S. soil for trial in federal courts in New York and Virginia.

Given the years Marri has already served, he will spend about five more years behind bars, with the possibility of returning to his native Qatar, his attorneys said.

Kirk S. Lippold, commander of the USS Cole when it was targeted by Islamist terrorists while the vessel docked in Yemen in 2000, called the sentence "appalling" and "grossly inadequate." Lippold said that if prosecutors move other defendants from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for trials in regular U.S. federal courts, it could "create an era of unacceptable compromise to our national security."

Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies sentencing in terrorism cases, said the Marri sentence "probably comes with the territory in switching somebody out of military detention and into the criminal justice system."

The case is one of the few concrete examples, Chesney said, of an ongoing debate over whether the U.S. criminal justice system is "up to the task" of trying and convicting terrorism suspects.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because a government task force is still reviewing the cases of Guantanamo detainees, said possible criminal charges against them could be far more serious and could carry much longer prison terms than Marri received.

For instance, the Justice Department this year moved detainee Ahmed Ghailani from Guantanamo to a federal courthouse in New York, where he will stand trial on murder charges relating to the deaths of 224 people in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided not to seek the death penalty against Ghailani, but he faces multiple life sentences.

The government's record on sentencing among terrorism suspects has been mixed, even in cases decided by military commissions, which are sometimes touted as tougher venues.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was convicted in a military trial of providing material support for terrorism and sentenced to 66 months, but he was given credit by the presiding judge for the 61 months he had spent at Guantanamo.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, "This administration is committed to bringing terrorists to justice for their crimes."

Marri cried in the courtroom when he told the judge about the years he spent without any word from his wife and five children. His attorneys said they were "very pleased" with the resolution of the case.

Lawrence Lustberg, Marri's attorney, said in a telephone interview that his client's case "shows our system can handle [terrorism cases] in an evenhanded way, consistent with our ideals of justice."

Clinton rebukes Pakistan on hunt for al-Qaeda leaders - washingtonpost.com

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By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed doubt Thursday over Pakistan's failure to locate top al-Qaeda leaders in the eight years since they escaped over the border from Afghanistan, telling a group of Pakistani journalists that she found "it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."

"So far as we know," she said, "they're in Pakistan."

Clinton's comments, the most direct public statement of a U.S. argument long made in private, came as she tried to balance assurances of strong economic and military support for Pakistan with reminders that the relationship is a "two-way street."

"If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together," she said, "then there are issues that not just the United States, but others have with your government and your military establishment."

Clinton, who made her comments during a day-long trip to the eastern city of Lahore, later met with the country's top military and intelligence officials.

After her three-day visit to Pakistan ends Friday, Clinton plans to travel to the Middle East over the weekend for hastily arranged meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, her second trip to the region as secretary of state.

Special U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell will meet Clinton in Jerusalem on Saturday, officials said, but there is little expectation of a major breakthrough in moving the Israelis and Palestinians toward direct talks by the end of the year. At the very least, the stop may provide some progress to report to Arab leaders at a conference the secretary plans to attend Monday in Morocco.

Speaking to the Pakistani journalists, Clinton was matter-of-fact, offering an example of some of the questions the United States would like more forcefully addressed even as it strives to respond to some of Pakistan's grievances. In a separate meeting with business executives in Lahore, Clinton contrasted the opulent conference room where they had gathered with Pakistan's low ranking on the Human Development Index -- 141 out of more than 180 countries -- and suggested that the widespread failure to pay taxes here may be related to the country's economic problems.

According to U.S. officials, who spoke before Clinton's late evening meeting with the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, and intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Pakistani military's ongoing offensive in the tribal region of South Waziristan remains focused on air attacks. Meanwhile, 28,000 ground troops are working from the edges to shrink insurgent-dominated territory and encourage divisions among militant groups.

With Clinton's visit focused on "people-to-people" ties, the secretary was said to have resisted meeting with the military. But the military's importance in Pakistan's politics -- and the opportunity for a real-time progress report on the offensive as the administration reaches the final stages of its Afghanistan war strategy review -- was said to have persuaded her.

Officials traveling with Clinton expressed overall satisfaction with the trip, which has been an exercise in message calibration. A powerful explosion in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which killed at least 100 people, coincided with her arrival here Wednesday. In meetings with government officials and in public appearances, she praised the army's ongoing offensive, bemoaned what she called misunderstandings over congressional conditions imposed on U.S. military and economic aid to Pakistan, and pledged American respect for Pakistani culture and traditions.

She began her Lahore trip Thursday morning with a wreath-laying and a tour of the 17th-century Badshahi Mosque, a behemoth of red sandstone and marble.

Clinton held a working lunch with political opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, and his brother Shahbaz, the chief minister of Punjab province, and met with civil society leaders.

At a town hall meeting with university students, she parried critical questions about the aid conditions and U.S. drone missile attacks on insurgent sanctuaries in the western border areas, and said the U.S.-Pakistan relationship was strong -- and growing.

"That is one of the reasons I'm here today," Clinton said. "I do not want anyone, anywhere in the world -- particularly in my own country -- to have any misunderstanding about the people of Pakistan and the abilities, talents and positive contributions of the people of Pakistan."

Seven members of House defense subcommittee scrutinized by ethics investigators - washingtonpost.com

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Separate probes focus on ties to lobbying firm founded by Hill aide

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.

The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

The document also indicates that the House ethics committee's staff recently interviewed the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) about his allegation that a PMA lobbyist threatened him in 2007 when he resisted steering federal funds to a PMA client. The lobbyist told a Nunes staffer that if the lawmaker didn't help, the defense contractor would move out of Nunes's district and take dozens of jobs with him.

The document obtained by The Post offers the most detailed picture yet of a widening inquiry into the relationships between lawmakers and PMA, a lobbying firm founded by Paul Magliocchetti that has been under criminal investigation by the Justice Department. A year ago, the FBI raided PMA's offices and carted away boxes of records dealing with its political donations and the firm's efforts to win congressionally directed funds, known as "earmarks," for clients.

The document shows that both the ethics committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics are looking into the matter. The OCE investigates and makes recommendations to the House ethics committee, which has the power to subpoena and sanction lawmakers. Internal ethics investigations of members of Congress are normally confidential, but The Post learned details of their work through the document, which became available on a file-sharing network.

Under the description of the OCE inquiry, the document says investigators are looking at House members who may have been "accepting contributions or other items of value from PMA's PAC in exchange for an official act." A Hill source cautioned that the ethics committee has not gathered a significant amount of material and has not zeroed in on specific lawmakers.

$200 million in earmarks

Together, the seven legislators have personally steered more than $200 million in earmarks to clients of the PMA Group in the past two years, and received more than $6.2 million in campaign contributions from PMA and its clients in the past decade, according to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The Post reviewed earmark and campaign records and found that the seven had each supported funding for PMA clients and also received donations. Young has recently received very little from PMA.

Under some political pressure, the House ethics committee disclosed in June that it had an ongoing investigation into this matter. The move came days after the FBI subpoenaed Visclosky's office for records relating to PMA and as other House members called for the ethics committee to act. The committee did not disclose the members it was scrutinizing then, and the specific details of the OCE's work have not been publicly known.

While lawmakers received generous contributions, PMA used its growing influence with the panel over the past decade to become one of the top 10 lobby shops in Washington and took in $114 million in lobbying fees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

The chairman of the House ethics committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), initially declined to verify that the document The Post obtained was generated by the ethics committee. Late Thursday, she issued a statement explaining how it had been accidentally released by a low-level staffer through a file-sharing network. She declined to discuss the PMA probe and said many lawmakers may be under review by the committee at any point in time.

"No inference to any misconduct can be made from the fact that a matter is simply before the Committee," she said in her statement.

The OCE has interviewed some of the lawmakers, including Kaptur last week and Moran a few weeks ago. It has invited others in for interviews, such as Visclosky, and posed numerous questions to the members' staff.

Moran, a senior member of the defense panel whose former top aide went to work for the PMA Group, said he recently sat for a lengthy interview with two aides from the OCE. He said he asked the new ethics office to interview all of his current and former staff members, including his former chief of staff who became a PMA lobbyist, Melissa Koloszar.

"I said they should be interviewed separately, privately and completely," he said. "We wanted them to investigate."

Two investigations

Several Hill staffers said they are confused by what appears to be a dual track, with the OCE and the ethics committee simultaneously pursuing similar questions.

Kaptur's spokesman said her office does not understand the duplication but is happy to answer all questions. "The congresswoman has always emphasized openness and transparency, and it almost goes without saying she will continue to cooperate with the OCE and, if it goes to the [ethics committee], with that committee as well," said Kaptur spokesman Steve Fought. "She has nothing to hide."

Murtha's office declined to comment. The offices and representatives of Dicks, Visclosky, Young and Tiahart did not respond to questions about the scrutiny.

As the ethics committee began gathering evidence this summer about PMA's operating methods on Capitol Hill, it contacted the office of Nunes, who had earlier complained to the committee about a lobbyist's aggressiveness in seeking an earmark. Nunes agreed to comment on the incident when The Post asked him about detailed information it had obtained about his complaint.

"I didn't appreciate being threatened," Nunes said. "To me, it was a symptom of the disease we have in Congress, where a lot of members have simply gotten addicted to contributions from companies that are getting their earmarks."

Don Fleming, the PMA lobbyist who allegedly threatened Nunes, is now at Flagship Government Relations, a firm started by several departed PMA lobbyists. Fleming did not confirm the encounter, but he said in a statement Thursday that "an important responsibility of any government relations professional is to communicate to policymakers the impact that their decisions have on our clients." He added that he has "always adhered to the strictest code of professional ethics."

Moran said he continued to believe that Magliocchetti was a good lobbyist who knew that he had to get Defense Department backing for the earmarks he was seeking from Capitol Hill. Describing him as "the only Democratic defense [lobbyist] for the most part," Moran said Magliocchetti also was someone Democrats naturally turned to for fundraising help from the military contractor community.

"When you needed to raise money for the Democratic campaign committee, he was always the first one you went to," Moran said, adding, "I don't know how he raised his money."

Moran hosted an event for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in his Alexandria home last year, the lawmaker said, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as the guest of honor. Magliocchetti and some of his clients were in attendance, writing checks for $28,500 each, Moran said.

Staff writers Paul Kane and Ellen Nakashima and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry - washingtonpost.com

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Document was found on file-sharing network

By Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach. She cautioned that some of the panel's activities are preliminary and not a conclusive sign of inappropriate behavior.

"No inference should be made as to any member," she said.

Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, said the breach was an isolated incident.

The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.

A broader inquiry

Ethics committee investigations are not uncommon. Most result in private letters that either exonerate or reprimand a member. In some rare instances, the censure is more severe.

Many of the broad outlines of the cases cited in the July document are known -- the committee announced over the summer that it was reviewing lawmakers with connections to the now-closed PMA Group, a lobbying firm. But the document indicates that the inquiry was broader than initially believed. It included a review of seven lawmakers on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who have steered federal money to the firm's clients and have also received large campaign contributions.

The document also disclosed that:

-- Ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, as well as the lawmaker's top aide and his son. Rangel said he spoke with ethics committee staff members regarding a conference that he and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended last November in St. Martin. The trip initially was said to be sponsored by a nonprofit foundation run by a newspaper. But the three-day event, at a luxury resort, was underwritten by major corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer and AT&T. Rules passed in 2007, shortly after Democrats reclaimed the majority following a wave of corruption cases against Republicans, bar private companies from paying for congressional travel.

Rangel said he has not discussed other parts of the investigation of his finances with the committee. "I'm waiting for that, anxiously," he said.

-- The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department's request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.

Mollohan said that he was not aware of any ongoing interest by the Justice Department in his case and that he and his attorneys have not heard from federal investigators. "The answer is no," he said.

-- The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for "certain intercepted communications" regarding Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative's request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent's help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena.

Harman said that the ethics committee has not contacted her and that she has no knowledge that the subpoena was ever issued. "I don't believe that's true," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, this smear has been over for three years."

In June 2009, a Justice Department official wrote in a letter to an attorney for Harman that she was "neither a subject nor a target" of a criminal investigation.

Because of the secretive nature of the ethics committee, it was difficult to assess the current status of the investigations cited in the July document. The panel said Thursday, however, that it is ending a probe of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) after finding no ethical violations, and that it is investigating the financial connections of two California Democrats.

The committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock.

Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.

The other, Rep. Laura Richardson, may have failed to mention property, income and liabilities on financial disclosure forms.

File-sharing

The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home, Lofgren and Bonner said in a statement issued Thursday night. The staffer was fired, a congressional aide said.

The committee "is taking all appropriate steps to deal with this issue," they said, noting that neither the committee nor the House's information systems were breached in any way.

"Peer-to-peer" technology has previously caused inadvertent breaches of sensitive financial, defense-related and personal data from government and commercial networks, and it is prohibited on House networks.

House administration rules require that if a lawmaker or staff member takes work home, "all users of House sensitive information must protect the confidentiality of sensitive information" from unauthorized disclosure.

Leo Wise, chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, declined to comment, citing office policy against confirming or denying the existence of investigations. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment, citing a similar policy.

Staff writers Carol D. Leonnig and Joby Warrick and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Eastern Burma: another Darfur? - Mizzima

by Mungpi

Friday, 30 October 2009 20:43

New Delhi (Mizzima) –At least 75,000 people became refugees and more than half a million were internally displaced in eastern Burma in the past year, following increased militarisation, which strongly indicates crime against humanity comparable to the situation in Darfur, said a consortium of humanitarian assistance groups. Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an alliance of 12 aid organizations, in a new report titled "Protracted Displacement and Militarisation in Eastern Burma" released on Thursday said, threat to human security has been mounting as Burma’s ruling junta continues militarisation in areas of ethnic minorities. “The process of militarisation has been on in Burma for decades, and this is the continuation of the tactics of controlling the population by moving the Burmese Army into these [ethnic] areas and taking control by moving people to relocation sites,” Sally Thompson, deputy director of the TBBC told Mizzima on Friday. Thompson said, militarisation in ethnic areas have been continuing and is likely to further increase in the run up to the junta’s elections in 2010, as the regime pressurises ethnic armed rebels to transform into the Border Guard Force (BGF). Since 1996, the TBBC said, over 3,500 villages, including 120 communities between August 2008 and July 2009, in eastern Burma have been destroyed and forcibly relocated. The highest rates of recent displacement were reported in northern Karen areas and southern Shan State with almost 60,000 Karen villagers hiding in the mountains of Kyaukgyi, Thandaung and Papun Townships, and a third of these civilians fleeing from artillery attacks or the threat of Burmese Army patrols during the past year, the TBBC said in a statement. In Shan state, a similar situation prevails with nearly 20,000 civilians from 30 Shan villages forcibly relocated by the Burmese Army in retaliation against Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), an ethnic Shan armed rebel group, in operations in Laikha, Mong Kung and Keh Si Townships. In late August, conflict between Burmese Army troops and Kokang rebels in Northern Shan State forced over 30,000 Burmese refugees to flee to China. Thompson said in July, a joint military campaign launched by the Burmese Army and its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), against the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic Karen armed group, forced up to 4,000 people to flee to Thailand. “We expect to see this pattern continuing in the ethnic and border areas as we approach the [2010] elections,” Thompson said. The TBBC, which has been helping Burmese refugees since 1984, is currently providing food and shelter to more than 150,000 Burmese refugees living in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border. With increasing conflicts in Burma and the arrival of more refugees, Thompson said these refugees will have no place to return until Burma has national reconciliation through dialogue. Thompson added that the junta’s planned elections is unlikely to bring stability as it will have no credibility without the release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi and allow their participation. But until there is any significant political change that can ensure the return of refugees and internally displaced people, the international community, particularly neighbouring Thailand should continue providing assistance including shelter and food. The TBBC, which currently is supported by 15 donor countries, also urged the international community to increase their support as with the number of refugees arriving on the Thai-Burma border, and increasing prices, it is facing difficulties in consistently supporting the refugees.

Kenya: Stop Recruitment of Somalis in Refugee Camps - Human Rights Watch

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Deception Used to Enlist Refugees to Fight in Somalia
October 22, 2009

(Nairobi) - The Kenyan government should immediately stop the recruitment of Somalis in refugee camps to fight for an armed force in Somalia, Human Rights Watch said today. Kenyan authorities have directly supported the drive, which has recruited hundreds of Somali men and boys in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps as well as Kenyan citizens from nearby towns.

Since early October, Somali recruiters claiming to act on behalf of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) have operated openly in the Dadaab camps in northeast Kenya, near the Somali border, to enlist young refugees in a new force intended to fight in Somalia. But military recruitment in these camps contravenes the principle recognized in international law that refugee camps should be entirely civilian and humanitarian in character.

"Permitting recruitment of fighters in refugee camps undermines the very purpose of the camps - to be a place of refuge from the conflict," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Kenyan authorities need to immediately put a stop to this recruitment drive targeting Somali refugees."

The recruitment drive is also targeting Kenyans around the towns of Dadaab and Garissa. The Somali armed group al-Shabaab has also sought to recruit fighters among Somali refugee communities and Kenyans.

Human Rights Watch investigations have found that recruiters for the new force have used deceptive practices, promising exorbitant pay and claiming that the force has United Nations and other international backing. They have urged teenage refugees to lie about their ages and to join without informing their families. Former recruits say that their cell phones were taken from them before they were transported to the training center.

Top Kenyan officials including the foreign minister have categorically denied this recruitment drive is taking place at all, but in fact it is operating with direct Kenyan support, including government transport vehicles and guards.

The Dadaab camps, built to house 90,000 people in the early 1990s, are now home to over 280,000 refugees, mostly from Somalia. It is the largest concentration of refugees in the world. More than 50,000 people have arrived in the camps since January 2009. Many are fleeing the bloody conflict between Somalia's weak TFG and various armed opposition groups, including al-Shabaab, some of whose leaders have publicly linked themselves to al-Qaeda.

Human Rights Watch has documented war crimes and serious human rights abuses by all sides to the conflict, which has caused thousands of civilian deaths, tremendous destruction of civilian property, and massive displacement. The Kenyan government strongly supports the TFG and has become increasingly apprehensive about the possibility of attacks on its soil by al-Shabaab.

This month, Human Rights Watch researchers visited the Kenyan town of Dadaab and the three refugee camps that surround it-Ifo, Dagahaley, and Hagadera. They interviewed more than two dozen people, including young men and boys who had been approached by recruiters, parents of young men who joined the force, individuals involved in the recruitment effort, and community leaders in the camps.

Recruiters began circulating in the refugee camps in early October. According to local community leaders and a recruiter working in two of the camps, they have recruited at least several hundred refugees. Many recruits are promised an initial payment of between US$400 and $600 for the military training itself, to be followed with a generous monthly salary upon deployment to Somalia. Most of the recruiters are telling prospects that they will be deployed to fight alongside the transitional government's forces, either in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, or in southern Somalia.

The recruiters operating in the camps are themselves refugees who have been promised generous payments by the coordinators of the drive. Recruiters have also been operating in the town of Dadaab, seeking to enlist ethnic Somali Kenyan citizens into the same force. Residents and local officials in Garissa, the provincial capital of Kenya's North Eastern Province, and surrounding communities said that recruitment is also taking place among their own young men and boys.

The recruitment program is being coordinated by a small group of Somali nationals who are living and operating openly from a hotel in Dadaab. The team is allegedly headed by two prominent individuals from southern Somalia who had ties to the administration of the former president of the transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf.

Recruiters hire private cars to transport young men and boys to one of at least two isolated staging locations near the town of Dadaab. From there they are loaded into Kenyan military and National Youth Service trucks and told that they are being taken to a Kenyan government facility at Manyani, near Mombasa, for military training. Two sources - a young man who went searching for a recruited relative at the Manyani training center, and a government official with knowledge of the recruitment program - told Human Rights Watch that this facility is a Kenya Wildlife Service field training school. The school provides paramilitary training to anti-poaching rangers as well as other branches of the Kenyan security forces. Police personnel for Somalia's transitional government have also undergone training at the facility in the past.

International Law Prohibitions on Refugee Recruitment

The principle that refugee camps should be "exclusively civilian and humanitarian in character" is derived from international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law and is embodied in the guidelines of the UN refugee agency and UN Security Council resolutions.

Guidelines of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) aim to prevent the military recruitment of refugees in camps and settlements. The refugee agency's executive committee has called upon all countries to "ensure that measures are taken to prevent the recruitment of refugees by government armed forces or organized armed groups." Ensuring the civilian character of refugee camps is essential for efforts to protect refugees, since the military use of camps-and the refugee population-by armed forces and non-state armed groups can make the sites vulnerable as military objectives and place the civilian population at increased risk.

The refugee agency recently distributed a bulletin in the camps warning that refugees who join an armed group risk losing their refugee status. It also warned that family members may be permanently disqualified for resettlement if they support the efforts of a relative to join an armed group. The young men interviewed by Human Rights Watch appeared to be unaware of this.
False Promises and Claims of UN Backing

Many recruiters for the force have been telling young men in the camps and nearby towns that their effort is backed by the United Nations, the United States government, and the European Union. Some are even saying that recruits will be deployed as part of a new UN force in Somalia. One elderly Kenyan Somali man in Dadaab whose 20-year-old son joined told Human Rights Watch that, "My son is educated and he told me that the United Nations is recruiting an army. So I gave him my blessing and he has my total support." Officials from the UN Political Office for Somalia, the US government, and the European Commission, in interviews with or statements to Human Rights Watch, all denied involvement.

In addition to the $600 promised for undergoing the military training, most recruiters are promising a similar amount in monthly salary after the recruits are deployed to Somalia. While most recruiters tell the young men that they will be sent to fight in Somalia, some promise that they will only be incorporated into a civilian police force that will never see combat or that they will be employed as guards at UN or African Union installations.

Recruits are poorly treated. After the first leg of their journey from their homes, many find themselves stranded in an open expanse of desert without food, water, or shelter, sometimes overnight, as they await onward transport. Human Rights Watch researchers traveled to a staging area near Ege one late afternoon and found a group of nine young men who had been sitting in the scorching sand since morning waiting to be picked up. They had neither water nor food throughout the entire day.

Recruits also soon hear that salaries are to be as low as $200 a month, much less than originally promised. Human Rights Watch interviewed several young men who managed to return home after learning this. Many Somali refugee parents who sought to find their sons who had enlisted were not able to do so because they lack Kenyan government permission to leave the camps.

"Kenyan government-backed recruiters are luring young men with false claims of UN and other international support," Gagnon said. "Getting the recruiters out of the camps and publicly dissociating the UN from any involvement are first steps to shutting the program down."

Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned that children are being recruited. Some recruiters are encouraging teenagers under 18 to lie about their age so they can enlist. Human Rights Watch interviewed boys as young as 15 who had been approached by recruiters but did not enlist. However, several recruits told Human Rights Watch that they had seen recruiters persuade boys of 14 or 15 to lie about their ages. International law to which Kenya is a party and Somalia a signatory prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting persons under age 18.
Kenyan Government Involvement

Kenyan government officials are directly involved in the unlawful recruitment drive of refugees from the camps. Publicly, Kenyan national and provincial authorities deny any government involvement. "We are not involved in any such operation - it is propaganda," the Kenyan military spokesman, Bogita Ongeri, told Human Rights Watch, saying that only Somali militia groups working independently and illegally have been recruiting in the camps. James ole Seriani, provincial commissioner for the North Eastern province, told Human Rights Watch that the reports could not be true because, "There is no way the government can recruit people at night. We only recruit during the day." The transitional government's president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, has also publicly denied his government is involved in recruitment in Kenya.

However, one Kenyan government official, who asked not to be identified because he feared repercussions, told Human Rights Watch that the team has been telling Kenyan Somalis whom they recruit "not to mention they are Kenyan." The source added: "They are given the names of specific parts of Somalia and told to say those are the places they come from."

The Kenyan military actively participates in the recruitment process. After being transported in small groups to staging points between Ege and Saredo, near Dadaab, recruits are driven onward on Kenyan military or National Youth Service trucks, usually after dark. Kenyan military personnel have turned away parents of enlistees within sight of the assembled recruits. The young men who board the trucks are required to turn over their cell phones and National ID cards (in the case of Kenyan citizens) or ration cards (in the case of refugees) if they have them. However, the father of one recruit said that his son had retained his cell phone and had called from the road to Mombasa.

Human Rights Watch interviewed a few young men who had escaped from the military trucks when they stopped late at night for food in Garissa. All said that they did not feel they could leave freely by that point. One group cut through the canvas covering the back of the truck and ran into town. One young man said that he traveled to the Kenyan Wildlife Service training school at Manyani to look for a relative but was turned away and briefly detained after persisting.

Kenyan authorities have made no attempt to stop the recruitment drive in the camps or in nearby towns. Parents, deserters, and community leaders said recruitment was brazenly taking place in tea shops and other public places. UNHCR has received several such complaints in recent weeks. And while police in Hagadera camp briefly detained a group of alleged recruiters who were brought there by angry community members, they were released within 24 hours.

One recruiter interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that he had operated openly and without fear of the authorities. "I was told that the Kenyan government was aware of this and I did not have any problem with the police," he said. "Our biggest problem was the parents of the recruits, not the police."

"Rumors of recruitment in refugee camps by Somalia's warring factions have been rife for years, but a Kenyan government-sanctioned program of this magnitude is unprecedented," said Gagnon. "The government's denials of its involvement are completely implausible."

Accounts from Recruits, Recruiters, and Relatives

Recruits

"I had never seen those men around before. They told me they would employ me and give me $600 to be a military man. They told me I would be taken for training inside of Kenya and then taken to Somalia. They said I will be fighting Al Shabaab, who are slaughtering people. I said, ‘No, I do not want to do that, I am a student.' I told them if I get an education I can help myself and my family instead of being sent to war and dying. But now I am regretting it my father cannot afford the uniform for school and the teacher always chases me from class."

- Hagadera camp refugee, age 15.

"When I first told them I was 18 he [the recruiter] said, ‘We are not interested in 18-year-old boys but we will just write that you are 20.'"

- R., young Somali refugee recruited from Ifo camp

"I was seated waiting for passengers in the car. The recruiter approached me and said, ‘This is not a job. You should join us and you will be paid well. You will not be fighting but part of a new Somali police.' I never expected such an opportunity, so I accepted.... An hour later he called me and told me to wait for pickup.

"[At Ege] we were called together and given a lecture by a Somali man with a big belly. He was with four other men and there were three military trucks waiting there. That is when we actually heard the truth of the matter-that we would be trained for 21 days, taken to Somalia and fight. They said the fighting is meant for you to kill the dirt and the mess that is in the country right now, the Al Shabaab. They said the least paid soldier will earn $200 [a month]. At that moment my wish to go to Mombasa [the training center] disappeared. The message was totally different from what I first heard.

"We had to surrender all of our cell phones, identity cards or other personal effects.

"After 10 p.m. we reached Garissa. The truck stopped in the middle of town. Me and three others cut through the canvas with a razor blade, jumped out of the truck and disappeared into town. We had no money, no phones, nowhere to sleep. So we started walking back to Dadaab. We were afraid they would follow us."

- Ifo camp refugee and commercial van driver who deserted, age 18

"A man came to me at home and said this is recruitment by the United Nations. You will be taken to Mombasa for two years of training and after that you will be assigned to the UN. But later after we had left Ege, a man who said he was a Somali general told us we will be trained for only 21 days and only get $50 until we started fighting. . . . He said this was funded by the US, the European Union, and the African Union."

- Ifo camp refugee who deserted, age 24

Recruiters

"I used to frequent and visit public gathering centers-the car parks, hotels, water pumps, to sensitize and talk to the youth. Mostly I sat at the hotel [tea kiosk] and waited for the youth to approach me. I was telling them, ‘We are recruiting an army for the Somali government. You will be paid $600 [a month]-are you interested?' I was told that the Kenyan government was aware of this and I did not have any problem with the police. Our biggest problem was the parents of the recruits, not the police. I was approached by several young boys but I turned them down. I was looking for boys 18 and above. I can look at them and tell if they are 18."

- Recruiter, Ifo refugee camp

"[Ege] was in a brush area with trees next to a dam with dirty water. The recruits were thirsty and had no water. The dam had dried up so they were digging through the soil to find water to drink. They drank the water. It was time to pray so I wanted to use the water for ablution but it was so dirty I could not."

- Refugee hired to drive recruits from Ifo refugee camp to Ege

Relatives

"He did not come home at lunch or at night. I got worried and started searching for him. Some of his friends told me that he had gone with the recruiters. Four of his closest friends have also disappeared. I left Somalia with him because of conflict, where he would either kill or be killed. But it seems the same problem has followed me here. If I had known about this I would not have let him go, even if it meant asking the police to arrest him. I want to know where he is so I can make him come back. This is the same as kidnapping our sons."

- Mother of unemployed, 19-year-old recruit, Hagadera

"My son is educated and he told me that the UN is recruiting an army. I saw in the media that the UN had decided to support the Somali army so this did not come as a surprise to me. So I gave him my blessings and he has my total support. I am happy as a father that my son has taken a decisive action. If it is a genuine effort let me pray to God that it goes well and for peace to prevail on the people he is going to serve. He is a son of the soil. He was born here and nowhere else. Please inform the world of what he is doing."

- Father of unemployed, 20-year-old Kenyan Somali recruit, Dadaab

"I have not complained to the police. It is not bandits or kidnappers who are hiding him from me but the government. So how can I complain to them?"

- Father of 19-year-old, unemployed Kenyan Somali recruit, Dadaab

"His phone was shut off immediately after he disappeared. Finally after some days he escaped and called me on a borrowed phone. He was still many kilometers away. I found him lying under a tree. He was tired and starving and traumatized. Who are these people who would take my underage boy? These boys [in the camps] are vulnerable and it is easy for anyone to overcome them psychologically."

- Father of 17-year-old deserter from Ifo refugee camp, who fetched his son after he deserted

"Initially the senior officers denied it. But finally they told me, ‘You are an educated man, you do understand he has been here a week, we have spent a lot of money on him for medical checkups and training and there is no way we can release him now.' They said, ‘Kenya has no involvement. This is being done by outsiders.' They said it was the Americans and the UN and other members of the international community."

- Elder brother of a 17-year-old Kenyan recruit, who tried to fetch his brother from the Kenyan Wildlife Service training center

Libya: Drop Charges against Journalist - Human Rights Watch

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Reporter Prosecuted for Reporting Sexual Harassment Claims by Abuse Victims

October 27, 2009

(New York) - The Libyan government should investigate allegations of sexual harassment in a state-run residence for women who had been orphaned instead of charging the journalist who reported the story with criminal defamation, Human Rights Watch said today.
On October 21, 2009, Mohamed al-Sareet, a Libyan journalist, wrote on Jeel Libya, an independent news website based in London, about a rare demonstration in Benghazi by women who live in a state-run care residence for women and girls who were orphaned as children, calling for an end to sexual harassment they said they had experienced in the center. The demonstrators were also demanding the return of the center's former director. After the article appeared, the police and then the General Prosecutor's office summoned al-Sareet for interrogation and charged him with criminal defamation.
"Libya should investigate the alleged abuse and ensure the protection of these women instead of intimidating the man who wrote about it," said Sarah Leah Whitson. "A journalist should not have criminal sanctions hanging over his head for doing his job."
In the October 21 demonstration, at least 10 women and girls between the ages of 18 and 27 who live in the care center walked through the streets of Benghazi to the Center's governing body, the Social Solidarity Center, holding up placards calling for the reinstatement of the Care Center's former director, who marchers said had treated them well and protected them.
Several of the women told Libyan journalists that officials who run the center had sexually harassed them and allowed security officers into their rooms at night. One woman said that an official had propositioned her and threatened to beat her if she did not comply. Besides Jeel Libya another Libyan website, Libya al Youm, published photos of the demonstration and interviews with some of the residents.
On October 22, local police summoned al-Sareet to the Hadaek police station for questioning. On October 26, the General Prosecutor's Office summoned him for further questioning and charged him with criminal defamation, which carries a prison sentence. Jeel Libya's director told Human Rights Watch that al-Sareet had received threats to burn down his house to intimidate him into retracting his article.
On October 23, some of the women who had been quoted called another Libyan news website, Al Manara, and denied that administrators had sexually harassed them. Libya al Youm reported that officials had threatened to expel those who demonstrated from the center, and pressured them to retract their statements and to sue al-Sareet for slander. On October 26, Quryna, one of two private newspapers affiliated with Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Gaddafi, published an article in which several of the women denied that any sexual harassment had taken place. "We are now without honor in the eyes of society after what this journalist did," the paper quoted them as saying.
During a visit to Libya in 2005, Human Rights Watch found widespread official denial that violence against women exists in Libya, and a lack of adequate laws and services, leaving victims of violence without effective remedies and deterring reporting. A group of students conducting a study on sexual harassment in Tripoli in April 2009 had great difficulty in persuading women to talk about their experiences, since some felt it would bring shame on them to discuss it.
Human Rights Watch said that countries have a duty to investigate and prevent sexual harassment, a form of violence against women. Libya was among the first countries to ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, Article 8 of which requires state parties to adopt all necessary measures to prevent, punish, and eradicate all forms of violence against women. Gender-based violence is a form of discrimination prohibited by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Libya is party. Furthermore, both the African Charter and the ICCPR require Libya to protect freedom of expression. Journalists should be able to report freely without fear of imprisonment for their writings.
"Official denial and reprisals against journalists is not the way to protect women in Libyan society," said Whitson, "Women should be encouraged to bring forward complaints of sexual harassment and other forms of violence so the government can act to prevent abuses."

Guinea: September 28 Massacre Was Premeditated - Human Rights Watch

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In-Depth Investigation Also Documents Widespread Rape

October 27, 2009

(New York) – An in-depth investigation into the September 28, 2009 killings and rapes at a peaceful rally in Conakry, Guinea, has uncovered new evidence that the massacre and widespread sexual violence were organized and were committed largely by the elite Presidential Guard, commonly known as the “red berets,” Human Rights Watch said today. Following a 10-day research mission in Guinea, Human Rights Watch also found that the armed forces attempted to hide evidence of the crimes by seizing bodies from the stadium and the city’s morgues and burying them in mass graves.

Human Rights Watch found that members of the Presidential Guard carried out a premeditated massacre of at least 150 people on September 28 and brutally raped dozens of women. Red berets shot at opposition supporters until they ran out of bullets, then continued to kill with bayonets and knives.

“There is no way the government can continue to imply the deaths were somehow accidental,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This was clearly a premeditated attempt to silence opposition voices.”

“Security forces surrounded and blockaded the stadium, then stormed in and fired at protesters in cold blood until they ran out of bullets,” added Gagnon. “They carried out grisly gang rapes and murders of women in full sight of the commanders. That’s no accident.”

A group of Guinean military officers calling themselves the National Council for Democracy and Development (Conseil national pour la démocratie et le développement, CNDD) seized power hours after the death on December 22, 2008, of Lansana Conté, Guinea’s president for 24 years. The CNDD is headed by a self-proclaimed president, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara.

Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for full support for, and speedy implementation of, the international commission of inquiry into the violence as proposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to be led by the United Nations and with involvement from the African Union. Criminal investigation leading to fair and effective prosecutions of the crimes – through domestic efforts, but failing that, international efforts – is essential, Human Rights Watch said.

A four-member team of Human Rights Watch investigators interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses in Guinea from October 12 to 22. Among those interviewed were victims wounded during the attack, witnesses present in the stadium, relatives of missing people, military officers who participated in the crackdown and the cover-up, medical staff, humanitarian officials, diplomats, and opposition leaders.

Killings at the Stadium on September 28

According to the accounts of numerous witnesses, a combined force of a few hundred Presidential Guard troops known as “red berets,” gendarmes working with the Anti-Drug and Anti-Organized Crime unit, some members of the Anti-Riot Police, and dozens of civilian-clothed irregular militias entered the stadium around 11:30 a.m. on September 28, sealing off most exits, following the firing of tear gas into the stadium by Anti-Riot Police. The stadium was packed with tens of thousands of peaceful pro-democracy supporters protesting the military regime and Camara’s presumed candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections.

There had been limited violence between opposition supporters and security forces during the course of the morning. In several deadly incidents, security forces fired at opposition members in an attempt to stop them from reaching the stadium. In response to one such lethal shooting, enraged opposition supporters set fire to the Bellevue police station.

However, witness accounts and video evidence obtained by Human Rights Watch showing the stadium crowd just before the shooting shows a peaceful and celebratory atmosphere with opposition supporters singing, dancing, marching around the stadium with posters and the Guinean flag, and even praying. Human Rights Watch has not seen any evidence that any opposition supporters were armed, and no security officials were wounded by opposition supporters at the stadium, suggesting that there was no legitimate threat posed by the opposition supporters that required the violence that followed.

Witnesses said that as soon as the Presidential Guard entered the stadium, its members began firing point-blank directly into the massive crowd of protesters, killing dozens and sowing panic. The attackers, particularly members of the Presidential Guard but also gendarmes attached to the Anti-Drug and Anti-Organized Crime unit, continued to fire into the crowd until they had emptied the two clips of AK-47 ammunition many of them carried. Since most of the exits had been blocked and the stadium was surrounded by the attackers, escape for the trapped protesters was extremely difficult, and many were crushed to death by the panicked crowd.

One opposition supporter, a 32-year-old man, described to Human Rights Watch how the red berets entered the stadium and began firing directly at the protesters, and how the killings continued as he tried to escape:

“They first began to fire tear gas from outside the stadium – many canisters of tear gas were fired into the stadium. Just then, the red berets entered from the big gate to the stadium. As soon as they entered, they began to fire directly at the crowd. I heard a soldier yell, ‘We’ve come to clean!’ I decided to run to the gate at the far end. As I looked back, I could see many bodies on the grass. I decided to try and run out of the stadium. At the far gate, one of the doors was open but there were so many people trying to flee, I decided to climb over the closed door…

“I ran toward the perimeter wall. Near the basketball court, a group of red berets and gendarmes from Tiégboro [Captain Moussa Tiégboro Camara, secretary of state in charge of the fight against drug trafficking and serious crime – no relation to the CNDD president, Dadis Camara] were chasing us. They fired on a group of eight of us, and only three of us were able to get away alive. Five of us were killed, shot down near the wall facing the [Gamal Abdel Nasser] University.

“We couldn’t get out there, so we ran back to the broken wall near Donka road. A group of red berets was there waiting for us, two trucks of them. They were armed with bayonets. I saw one red beret kill three people right in front of us [with a bayonet], so I wanted to run back. But my friend said, ‘There are lots of us, let’s try and push through,’ and that is how we escaped.”

One of the opposition leaders described to Human Rights Watch how he watched in disbelief from the podium as the killing unfolded below them:

“We went up to the podium and when the people knew the leaders had arrived, many more people came into the stadium, filling it up. We were just preparing to leave the stadium and tell people to go home when we heard gunshots outside, and then tear gas was fired. The soldiers put electric current on the metal doors by cutting down the electric wires overhead and encircled the stadium.

“Then they entered the stadium firing. They began firing from the big entry gate to the stadium. We were up on the podium and could see people falling down; it was just unbelievable. When everyone ran away, there were bodies everywhere and we remained on the podium.”

Witnesses also described the killing of many more opposition supporters by the Presidential Guard and other security forces on the grounds surrounding the stadium, which is enclosed by a two-meter-high wall. As protesters tried to scale the walls to escape, many were shot down by the attackers. The opposition supporters said they were also attacked by men in civilian dress and armed with knives, pangas (machetes), and sharpened sticks.

The evidence collected by Human Rights Watch strongly suggests that the massacre and widespread rape (documented below) were organized and premeditated. This conclusion is supported by the evidence, both from witnesses and video, that the security forces began firing immediately at the protesters on entering the stadium, and that the opposition protest was peaceful and did not represent a threat requiring a violent response. The manner in which the massacre appears to have been carried out – the simultaneous arrival of the combined security force, the sealing off of exits and escape routes, and the simultaneous and sustained deadly firing by large numbers of the Presidential Guard – suggests organization, planning, and premeditation.

Ethnic Dimension

During interviews, many Guineans expressed shock at the apparent ethnic nature of the violence, which threatens to destabilize the situation in Guinea further. The vast majority of the victims were from the Peuhl ethnic group, which is almost exclusively Muslim, while most of the commanders at the stadium – and indeed key members of the ruling CNDD, including Camara, the coup leader – belong to ethnic groups from the southeastern forest region, which are largely Christian or animist.

Witnesses said that many of the killers and rapists made ethnically biased comments during the attacks, insulting and appearing to target the Peuhl, the majority ethnicity of the opposition supporters, and claiming that the Peuhl wanted to seize power and needed to be “taught a lesson.” Human Rights Watch also spoke with witnesses to the military training of several thousand men from the southeast forest region at a base near the southwestern town of Forécariah, apparently to form a commando unit dominated by people from ethnic groups from the forest region.

Many of the Peuhl victims reported being threatened or abused on account of their ethnicity. For example, one woman who was gang raped by men in uniform wearing red berets described how her attackers referred repeatedly to her ethnicity: “Today, we’re going to teach you a lesson. Yes, we’re tired of your tricks… we’re going to finish all the Peuhl.” A young man detained for several days in the Koundara military camp described how a red beret put a pistol to his head and said, “You say you don’t want us, that you prefer Cellou [the leading Peuhl opposition candidate, Cellou Dalein Diallo]… we’re going to kill all of you. We will stay in power.”

Death Toll and the Government Cover-Up

Human Rights Watch’s research confirms that the death toll of the September 28 massacre was much higher than the government’s official toll of 57 dead, and is more likely to be about 150 to 200 dead. According to hospital records, interviews with witnesses and medical personnel, and the records collected by opposition political parties and local human rights organizations, at least 1,000 people were wounded during the attack on the stadium. Human Rights Watch found strong evidence that the government engaged in a systematic attempt to hide the evidence of the crimes. During the afternoon of September 28, members of the Presidential Guard seized control of the two main morgues in Conakry and prevented families from recovering the bodies of their relatives.

In the hours that followed, witnesses and family members said, soldiers, most wearing red berets, removed bodies from the city morgues and collected bodies from the stadium, then took them to military bases and concealed them. Human Rights Watch investigated more than 50 cases of confirmed deaths from the massacre and found that half of those bodies had been taken away by the military, including at least six that had initially been taken to the main Donka Hospital morgue.

For example, the body of Mamadou “Mama” Bah, a 20-year-old student killed on September 28, was transported to Donka morgue by the local Red Cross. The body disappeared and has not been recovered. Bah’s father described what he experienced to Human Rights Watch:

“The Red Cross took the body to Donka Hospital morgue, and I followed them myself. At the hospital, I spoke to the doctors and they told me I should come back the next day to collect the body. But the next day, the morgue was encircled by red berets who refused anyone access. We tried to negotiate with them, but they refused. On Friday, I went to the Grand Fayçal Mosque when they displayed the bodies from Donka morgue, but his body wasn’t there. It had disappeared.”

Hamidou Diallo, a 26-year-old shoe salesman, was shot in the head and killed at the stadium. A close friend, who was wounded, watched the red berets remove Diallo’s body from the stadium and take it away to an unknown location. Despite an extensive search of the morgue and the military bases, the family was unable to find Diallo’s body.

One witness inside the Almamy Samory Touré military camp described to Human Rights Watch how in the hours after the massacre, the military brought 47 bodies from the stadium to the camp, and then later that evening went to the morgue that he was told was at the Ignace Deen Hospital and collected an additional 18 bodies. The witness further stated that the 65 bodies were taken from the military base in the middle of the night, allegedly to be buried in mass graves.

Widespread Rape and Sexual Violence

The Presidential Guard, and to a lesser extent gendarmes, carried out widespread rape and sexual violence against dozens of girls and women at the stadium, often with such extreme brutality that their victims died from the wounds inflicted.

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 27 victims of sexual violence, the majority of whom were raped by more than one person. Witnesses described seeing at least four women murdered by members of the Presidential Guard after being raped, including women who were shot or bayoneted in the vagina. Some victims were penetrated with gun barrels, shoes, and wooden sticks.

Victims and witnesses have described how rapes took place publicly inside the stadium, as well as in several areas around the stadium grounds, including the nearby bathroom area, the basketball courts, and the annex stadium. In addition to the rapes committed at the stadium, many women described how they were taken by the Presidential Guard from the stadium and from a medical clinic where they had sought treatment to private residences, where they endured days and nights of brutal gang rape. The level, frequency, and brutality of sexual violence that took place at and after the protests strongly suggests that it was part of a systematic attempt to terrorize and humiliate the opposition, not just random acts by rogue soldiers.

A 35-year-old teacher described to Human Rights Watch how she was gang raped at the stadium:

“After the shooting began I tried to run, but the red berets caught me and dragged me to the ground. One of them struck me twice on the head with the butt of his rifle. After I fell down, three set upon me. One whipped out his knife and tore my clothes off, cutting me on the back in the process. I tried to fight but they were too strong. Two held me down while the other raped me. They said they would kill me if I didn’t leave them to do what they wanted. Then the second one raped me, then the third. They beat me all the while, and said again and again they were going to kill all of us. And I believed them – about three meters away another woman was being raped, and after they had finished, one of them took his bayonet and stuck her in her vagina, and then licked the blood from his knife. I saw this, just next to me… I was so terrified they would also do this to me.”

A 42-year-old professional woman who was held in a house and gang raped for three days described her ordeal to Human Rights Watch:

“As I tried to run from the firing, I saw a few red berets raping a young woman. One of them put his gun in her sex and fired – she didn’t move again. Oh God, every time I think of that girl dying in that way… I can’t bear it. As this happened, another red beret grabbed me hard from behind and said, ‘Come with me, or I will do the same thing to you.’ He led me to a military truck with no windows. In it were about 25 young men and about six women, including me. After some distance they stopped and the soldiers told three or four women to get out. Later they stopped at a second house where they told the women who remained to get out. I was immediately led into a room and the door was locked behind me.

“Some hours later three of them came into the room – all dressed in military and with red berets. One of them had a little container of white powder. He dipped his finger in it and forced it into my nose. Then all three of them used me. They used me again the next day, but after a while others came in, two by two. I didn’t know how many or who. I felt my vagina was burning and bruised. I was so tired and out of my head. The first three of them were watching each other as they raped me.

“I was there for three days. They said, ‘You don’t really think you’ll leave here alive, do you?’ and at times argued among themselves, ‘Should we kill her now?’ ‘No… let’s get what we need and then kill her.’ At times I heard another woman crying out from a nearby room, ‘Please, please… oh my God, this is the end of my life.’ On the last day at 6 a.m., the soldiers put a cover over my head, drove for some time, and then let me go on a street corner, completely naked.”

Commanders at the scene clearly were aware of the widespread rapes, but there is no evidence that they made any attempt to stop them. One opposition leader told Human Rights Watch how he was led out of the stadium by Lieutenant Abubakar “Toumba” Diakité, the commander of the Presidential Guard, past at least a dozen women as they were being sexually assaulted by red berets. He noted how Toumba did nothing to stop the rapes:

“I saw lots of cases of rape. The opposition leaders were taken slowly out of the stadium, so we saw a lot. As we came down from the podium, I saw a woman naked on the ground surrounded by five red berets who were raping her on the grass. I saw other naked women there being taken away by the red berets [to be raped]. There were even more rapes outside the stadium. Just outside the stadium, where the showers are, there was a woman naked on the ground. There were three or four red berets on top of her, and one had pushed his rifle into her [vagina]. She was screaming so loudly in pain that we had to look and see it. All along that passage, there were about a dozen women being raped. Lieutenant Toumba was right next to us and saw it all, but he didn’t do anything to stop the rapes.”

Responsibility for the Massacre, Sexual Violence, and Other Abuses

Based on the evidence gathered, Human Rights Watch found that the massacre and sexual violence committed on September 28 at the stadium appeared to be both organized and pre-planned. All those responsible, including those who gave the orders, should be held criminally accountable for their actions, as should anyone who tried to cover up the crimes and dispose of any evidence. That the killings, sexual violence, and persecution on the grounds of ethnicity appear to have been systematic suggests that this may have been a crime against humanity. As such, the principle of “command responsibility” applies. Those in positions of responsibility, who should have known about the crime (or its planning) and who failed to prevent it or prosecute those responsible, should be held criminally responsible.

Human Rights Watch believes that independent criminal investigations leading to the identification and prosecution of those responsible, including those liable under command responsibility, are urgently needed. Among those whose possible criminal responsibility for the massacre and sexual violence should be investigated are:

• Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, president of the CNDD: While Camara was not believed to have been present at the stadium on September 28, he was involved in trying to prevent the protest. All witness accounts said killings were carried out by members of the Presidential Guard, which Camara ultimately commands, and that the person in command of the red berets at the stadium was Camara’s personal aide de camp and head of his personal bodyguard, Lieutenant Abubakar “Toumba” Diakité. Evidence suggests that the Presidential Guard at the stadium came there from the Alpha Yaya Diallo military camp where Camara is based. Further, there is no evidence that Camara has initiated any proceedings to discipline or hold accountable any of his subordinates directly implicated in the massacre and rapes.

• Lieutenant Abubakar “Toumba” Diakité: Many witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch have stated that Toumba was physically present at the stadium and in direct command of the Presidential Guard that carried out the massacre and widespread sexual violence there. There is no evidence that he made any attempt to stop troops from carrying out the killings or the sexual violence.

• Lieutenant Marcel Kuvugi: Kuvugi is a deputy to Diakité and sometimes serves as Camara’s personal driver. Witnesses, including several opposition leaders, have said he violently attacked and repeatedly threatened to kill the political opposition leaders present at the stadium. The political leaders said that when they were taken from the stadium to a clinic for first-aid treatment, Kuvugi threatened to shoot them if they got out of the car and to throw a grenade at them, keeping them from getting medical treatment.

• Captain Claude “Coplan” Pivi, minister for presidential security: There are conflicting reports about whether Pivi was present at the stadium during the massacre. Witnesses have alleged that he participated in attacks on the homes of opposition leaders on the evening of September 28 and in the violent attacks on opposition-dominated neighborhoods in the following days.

• Captain Moussa Tiégboro Camara: As secretary of state in charge of the fight against drug trafficking and serious crime, Tiégboro commands the elite gendarme unit that took part in the massacre at the stadium. Witnesses have stated that Tiégboro was present. Witnesses have also said the gendarmes made several attempts to stop the protesters before they reached the stadium, in a few instances firing into the crowds and killing at least three protesters. Witnesses have stated that the gendarme unit then participated in the massacre at the stadium, though its members were less frequently implicated in murder and rape than were the Presidential Guard. At least 72 protesters were detained in the custody of the gendarme unit following the massacre, and those held by the unit said they were severely mistreated.

Need for an International Commission of Inquiry and Criminal Accountability

Due to the serious nature of the crimes committed by Guinea’s security forces, particularly the Presidential Guard, on September 28 and on the days that followed, there should be a strong response from the international community. Human Rights Watch therefore calls upon the African Union, ECOWAS, the European Union, and the United Nations to:

• Support fully the international commission of inquiry into the events of September 28 proposed by ECOWAS and already established by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to ensure that it immediately has the resources to carry out its investigation and promptly publish its results, and urge Guinea’s authorities to cooperate fully with this inquiry.

• Strongly urge Guinean authorities to ensure that prompt, independent, fair, and open criminal investigations take place into the crimes and their cover-up, leading to the fair and effective prosecution of those allegedly responsible in accordance with international standards, including those who gave orders or who are liable under command responsibility. Should the Guinean authorities fail to ensure such investigations and prosecutions, the Guinean government, the AU, ECOWAS, EU, and UN should fully support international investigations and prosecutions, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the requirements of its statute are met. Guinea is a state party to the ICC, which gives the court jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed on its territory. Following the violence on September 28, the ICC prosecutor indicated that Guinea is under preliminary examination by his office. Preliminary examination is a phase that may precede the opening of an investigation.

Human Rights Watch plans to release a full-length report on its findings. Human Rights Watch is now releasing a summary of its core findings because of the gravity of the abuses committed and the need for immediate international action to bring the perpetrators of the abuses to justice.