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	Syria: Parties to conflict must protect civilian population by Amnesty International & agencies   Aug 2012   The Syrian Government has the prime responsibility to protect civilians from all forms of violence - High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.   Expressing “deep alarm” over the increased threat to civilians in Syria, the United Nations human rights chief has urged the country"s Government and armed opposition to protect civilians and abide by their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law – or face the consequences.   “The Government has the prime responsibility to protect civilians from all forms of violence,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.   “Civilians and civilian objects – including homes and other property, businesses, schools and places of worship – must be protected at all times. All parties, including the Government and opposition forces, must ensure that they distinguish between civilian and military targets,” she added.   Syria has been wracked by violence, with tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 16 months ago. Over recent days, there have been reports of an escalation in violence in many towns and villages, as well as the country"s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.   Ms. Pillay expressed particular concern about the likelihood of an imminent major confrontation in Aleppo, Syria"s second-largest city after the capital, Damascus.   “I have been receiving as yet unconfirmed reports of atrocities, including extra-judicial killings and shooting of civilians by snipers, that took place during the recent fighting in various suburbs of Damascus,” she said. “It goes without saying that the increasing use of heavy weapons, tanks, attack helicopters and – reportedly – even jet fighters in urban areas has already caused many civilian casualties and is putting many more at grave risk.”   She noted that the consequences for civilians have been devastating, with 1.5 million people reported to have fled their homes, in addition to those killed and injured.   The High Commissioner said “a discernible pattern has emerged” as Government forces try to clear areas it says are occupied by opposition forces.   “Typically, during the initial stages, after a village or urban district has been surrounded, water, electricity and food supplies are cut. This is followed by intense shelling and bombardment by a variety of weaponry, increasingly with air support from attack helicopters, and now reportedly even jet aircraft. Then tanks move in, followed by ground forces who proceed door-to-door and reportedly often summarily execute people they suspect of being opposition fighters, although sometimes they detain them,” she said. “The bodies of those executed or otherwise killed are then sometimes burned or taken away.”   Ms. Pillay also said she had had also been receiving reports of opposition fighters torturing or executing prisoners.   “Murder and wilful killing, whether committed by government or opposition forces, may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes. Torture, likewise, is prohibited under all circumstances,” she said. “While such conclusions can only ultimately be reached in a court of law, it is my belief, on the basis of evidence gathered from various credible sources, that crimes against humanity and war crimes have been, and continue to be, committed in Syria.”   July 2012 (Amnesty International)   As the conflict escalates in many parts of Syria between government forces and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other armed opposition groups, Amnesty International reminds all parties that it is imperative they respect the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) which aim at sparing civilians and others not directly participating in the fighting and minimising human suffering.   There is now a non-international armed conflict in Syria and that means that IHL applies, alongside human rights law.   In these conflicts, armed groups, like state forces, are legally bound by Article 3 Common to the four Geneva Conventions and applicable rules of customary IHL. Many acts that violate these rules constitute war crimes.   The leadership on both sides must make clear to the forces under their command or which act under their leadership, that violations of IHL will not be tolerated. Superiors and commanders have a duty to prevent and, where necessary, to suppress war crimes by those under their command or who they otherwise control; and they may be held criminally responsible if they fail to do so.   Accordingly, both sides in the Syria conflict must take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian objects and to refrain from attacks that would disproportionately harm civilians or fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians.   Syrian government forces’ warning to civilians to leave certain areas of Damascus and other towns and cities, seemingly so as to be able to launch large scale attacks, have prompted an unprecedented large-scale flight of residents to neighbouring countries.   The Syrian authorities should know that warning civilians is not a sufficient measure to protect civilians, and they cannot then proceed with an attack on the assumption that there are no civilians present. Their obligation to direct attacks only at military objectives and fighters remains, and they will be responsible for unlawful killing of civilians that would result from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.   Government forces have for months been killing many civilians by repeatedly using artillery and mortars to bombard densely- populated civilian neighbourhoods in different parts of the country. Firing such imprecise weapons into civilian areas amounts to carrying out indiscriminate attacks and violates IHL.   As the FSA and other groups acquire more and heavier weapons, they must refrain from using them in a manner which endangers the civilian population. The FSA and other armed opposition groups have often pointed to disproportionate or indiscriminate mortar attacks by government forces; they must know that mortars do not stop being inaccurate when they are used by the armed opposition.   FSA and other armed opposition commanders must be aware that control of territory come responsibilities, notably to ensure the protection of the civilian population.   While government forces continue to perpetrate human rights violations on a mass scale, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, a growing number of abuses by he the FSA and other armed opposition groups have been reported in recent weeks, including deliberate and unlawful killings as well as torture of captured security forces members. Such killings and the torture and ill-treatment of captives are serious violations of IHL and constitute war crimes.   Warring parties have obligations to take precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects under their control against the effects of attacks by the adversary, including to avoid - to the maximum extent feasible - locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas. International humanitarian law also expressly prohibits the use of tactics such as using “human shields” to prevent an attack on military targets. Visit the related web page
	Why do bankers get to decide who pays for the mess Europe is in? by Aditya Chakrabortty Guardian News Greece   What you"re about to read does, I admit, sound like a conspiracy theory. It involves powerful people meeting in private offices, hundreds of billions of euros, and clandestine deals determining the fates of entire countries. All that"s missing is a grassy knoll or a wandering band of illuminati. There are, however, two crucial differences: these events are still unfolding – and they"re more worrying than any who-killed-JFK fantasy I"ve ever heard.   Cast your mind back to the euro crisis talks last year, when the future of Greece was being decided. How much Athens should pay its bailiffs in the banks, on what terms, and the hardship that ordinary Greeks would have to endure as a result.   There were times when the whole of 2011 seemed to be one long European summit, when you heard more about Papandreou and Merkozy than was strictly necessary. Yet you probably didn"t catch many references to Charles Dallara and Josef Ackermann.   They"re two of the most senior bankers in the world – among the top 1% of the 1%. Dallara served in the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, before moving on to Wall Street, while Ackermann is chief executive of Deutsche Bank. But their role in the euro negotiations, and so in deciding Greece"s future, was as representatives of the International Institute for Finance.   The IIF is a lobby group for 450 of the biggest banks in the world, with members including Barclays, RBS and Lloyds. Dallara and Ackermann and their colleagues were present throughout those euro summits, and enjoyed rare and astounding access to European heads of state and other policy-makers. EU and IMF officials consulted the bankers on how much Greece should pay, Europe"s commissioner for economic affairs Olli Rehn shared conference calls with them.   You can piece all this together by poring over media reports of the euro summits, although be warned: you"ll need a very high tolerance threshold for European TV, and financial newswires. But Dallara and co are also quite happy to toot their own trumpets. After a deal was struck last July, the IIF put out a note bragging about its "catalytic" role and claiming its offer "forms an integral part of a comprehensive package".   By now you"ll have guessed the punchline: that July agreement was terrible for the Greeks, and brilliant for the bankers. It was widely panned at the time, for slicing only 21% off the value of Greece"s loans, when Angela Merkel and many others agreed that financiers ought to be taking a much bigger hit. As the German government"s economic adviser, Wolfgang Franz, later remarked in an interview: "If you look at the 21% and our demand for a 50% participation of private creditors, the financial sector has been very successful." Another way of putting it would be to say that the bankers overpowered even the strongest state in Europe.   None of this was inevitable. Iceland had made it clear that simply defaulting on one"s loans didn"t immediately lead to economic apocalypse. Across Greece, there were massive, repeated protests about the enormous spending cuts that citizens would suffer by paying off Goldman Sachs and the rest. And there was a growing movement in Greece and Portugal and France, among other countries, questioning the legitimacy of some of these loans.   None of these voters, none of these opinions got even a fraction of the consideration, let alone the face time, that was extended to Dallara and Ackermann. At Corporate Europe Observatory in Brussels, Yiorgos Vassalos has been tracking the negotiations over Greece: by his reckoning only the IIF got to have such personal, close-up access. These were summits settling how much misery would be imposed on the Greek people – and no trade unions or civil society groups got a say in them. "The only key players in those meetings were European governments and the bankers," says Vassalos.   Mindful of appearances, the EU has been less eager to admit to the influence of the bankers lobby. When European officials were first asked by Corporate Europe Observatory about the extent of IIF access, they responded that it was limited to the Greek government. Only when it was pointed out that the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg were reporting that Dallara met Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy at midnight at an October summit to finalise a bigger reduction of the value of Greek debt did the officials back down: the IIF, they agreed, had been negotiating with a range of governments, on a whole host of issues to do with Greece"s future.   So the bankers whose excesses helped land Europe in this mess then get to sit round the big EU table, like any other government, and decide who should pay for it. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is: not them. The bigger question is: why finance has been granted such power? In a forthcoming paper entitled Deep Stall, the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change gives one compelling reason: because so many countries across Europe are, through both their public and private sectors, so dependent on financiers in other countries for credit. That includes Britain, which relies on 10 eurozone countries for loans worth over 70% of its annual national income – a higher proportion even than Italy. The tale of the IIF and how it got such a powerful say on the fate of ordinary Greeks is really a chapter in a much bigger story of how governments across the western world got swallowed up by their finance industries.
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