A protest in Peshawar against the killing of civilians by the army. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 2 2013 (IPS)

–“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”

Afridi from the Khyber Agency unit of the party led by former cricketer Imran Khan spoke with IPS near the Governor’s House in Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city adjacent to the Khyber Agency region in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Party members had brought bodies of 18 local people reported killed by Pakistani security forces in nearby Alamgudar village.

Thousands of local tribal people, including students, civil society members and leaders of political parties joined the bereaved families in the protest against the army.

“The military operations have brought lives of the eight million population in FATA to a standstill,” Afridi said. “The seven tribal agencies have remained under curfew and the population has become completely idle.”

Juma Khan Afridi from the family of some of those killed told IPS what happened. “We were asleep when security forces scaled the walls of our home. They asked the women to get aside,” Khan Afridi, a student of the same family told IPS. He said he survived because he put on a veil and stood with women.

This is not the first time the army has killed innocent people in Khyber Agency, he said. “It is because of the growing anger that bereaved families brought the coffins of their dead relatives to protest.”

Wazir Muhammad, political analyst at the University of Peshawar, said people of FATA had been bearing the brunt of the U.S.-led war on terror for the past four years, but had remained silent due to fear of reprisals by the army.

The protest by Hazara communities in Quetta in Balochistan over their dead had given strength to local tribal people in FATA, he said. More than 100 people, including 83 Shias were killed in two bomb explosions in Quetta Jan. 11. The relatives there had refuse to bury their dead immediately in protest.

Only after braving three nights in Quetta’s freezing temperatures next to their slain loved ones did the families of the bombing victims end their protest and bury the bodies amid strict security measures in a Hazara graveyard. They did so after the government imposed governor’s rule in Balochistan.

“Anger is growing over the acts of terrorism everywhere in the country. The people are rightly protesting over the army’s killing of the innocent,” Muhammad said.

The Khyber Agency incident has opened a new chapter of protests against the army. “It is for the first time that people have chanted slogans against law enforcement agencies for their failure to provide protection. It will continue in the future if the army doesn’t mend its ways,” Umar Farooq, whose younger brother was among the dead, told IPS.

“It was not just the brutal killing – the army took away the slain bodies from the site of the protests and buried them on their own. Being Muslims, we wanted to give bath and have funerals before lowering them to the graves.”

The killings come after a dubious army record. In 2009 the Pakistan army, he said, was shown in a video to be shooting from close range at seven boys in Swat. The army had argued that they were Taliban but they looked innocent and juvenile, he said.

“The incident caused international outrage and the U.S. – the main sponsor of the Swat Operation – briefly withheld aid,” Farooq said.

In October 2010 the U.S. sanctioned six units of the Pakistani military operating in the Swat valley under the Leahy Law – which requires the U.S. State Department to certify that no military unit receiving U.S. aid is involved in gross human rights abuses. The law requires that when such abuses are found, they must be thoroughly investigated.

Despite pledges, Pakistan did not take any action to hold the perpetrators accountable as required under the law.

In several instances in Swat, Balochistan and the tribal areas, U.S. aid to Pakistan has continued in apparent contravention of the Leahy Law.

Human Right Watch said in its 2012 report that conditions had deteriorated markedly in the mineral-rich Balochistan, with disappearances of civilians, and an upsurge in killings of suspected Baloch militants and opposition activists by the military, intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

“The government appeared powerless to rein in the military’s abuses,” it said. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists in 2012.

In April 2010, the Pakistan army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, apologised for the deaths of dozens of civilians during air raids near the Afghan border. The civilians were members of a pro-government tribe which had resisted Taliban influence.

On Jan. 17, shortly after the last killings, the army was severely criticised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Lawmaker Saqibullah Khan said such incidents were bound to create anger against the army among the people, and should immediately be stopped.

“The federal government should immediately stop military operations against militants as these have failed to establish peace. They have become the main source of creating problems for the civilians.”

Member of the National Assembly from the Awami National Party Bushra Gohar told IPS that the military campaigns have displaced 1.2 million people in FATA and had adversely affected the lives of tribal people. “Since 2005, we have started military operations in most of the seven tribal agencies of FATA, but militants are gaining strength while the poor people are suffering.

“We demand an end to the military operation in FATA,” she said. (End)

The Israeli army is systematically using crowd control weapons and live ammunition unlawfully against Palestinians in the West Bank, signaling a widespread breach of military regulations and an alarming culture of impunity, a leading Israeli human rights group has warned.

At least ten Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army’s use of crowd control weapons in so-called “disturbance of the peace” situations in the West Bank since 2005, Israeli group Btselem stated in a new report, titled ‘Israel’s Use of Crowd Control Weapons in the West Bank’.

Additionally, Israeli soldiers killed 46 Palestinians with live ammunition in the same time period.

“Members of the security forces make almost routine use of these weapons in unlawful, dangerous ways, and the relevant Israeli authorities do too little to prevent the recurrence of this conduct,” the report found.

When used properly, Israel’s crowd-control weapons – which include tear gas, stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets, water cannons, foul-smelling liquid called ‘The Skunk’, and more – are meant to disperse crowds. The way the Israeli army uses these weapons today, however, can make them deadly, Btselem said.

“The authorities must ensure that the troops on the ground obey the open-fire regulations and use crowd control weapons within the parameters that keep them non-lethal. It follows that every soldier, officer, or police officer violating these rules must be prosecuted,” the report stated.

In an e-mail to IPS, the Israeli army spokesperson’s office disputed Btselem’s findings as “biased”, and stated that the incidents outlined in the report “are exceptions to IDF policy, rather than the rule.”

“The IDF does everything in its power to ensure that the use of riot dispersal means is done in accordance with the Rules of Engagement, minimising collateral damage and maintaining stability and security in the region,” the spokesperson’s unit stated.

Still, since the beginning of 2013 alone, at least five Palestinian youths were killed by live ammunition fired by the Israeli military in the West Bank.

Seventeen-year-old Samir Awad was killed after sustaining four bullet shots near the separation fence in Budrus village on Jan. 15. The Israeli army said Awad was trying to enter Israel illegally when he was shot.

On Jan. 23, 22-year-old Palestinian student Lubna al-Hanash was shot and killed on a main road near Al Aroub refugee camp, in the southern West Bank. The Israeli army said soldiers only fired after Molotov cocktails and rocks were thrown at them.

United Nations humanitarian coordinator James Rawley released a statement on Jan. 30 highlighting his concern at the Israeli army’s use of live fire in the West Bank, which has killed eight Palestinians since mid-November, and urged “maximum restraint in order to avoid further civilian casualties.

“Using live ammunition against civilians may constitute excessive use of force and any such occurrences should be investigated in a timely, thorough, independent and impartial manner. Individuals found responsible must be held accountable,” Rawley stated.

Palestinians have engaged in non-violent civil disobedience against Israel’s policies of occupation and colonisation for decades. Weekly, non-violent demonstrations have taken place in several West Bank villages since 2005.

A handful of Palestinians have been killed, and dozens more have been seriously injured by Israeli soldiers attempting to quell these protests and through the army’s inappropriate use of crowd control weapons.

In April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed in the Palestinian village of Bil’in after being hit in the chest by an Israeli army-fired extended range tear gas grenade. Abu Rahmah’s sister, Jawaher, was killed in January 2011 after inhaling massive amounts of tear gas during another protest in the village.

Twenty-eight-year-old Mustafa Tamimi, from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, was also killed in December 2011, when a tear gas canister struck his head. The Btselem report stated that despite photographic evidence proving a soldier fired the tear gas canister directly at Tamimi, the Israeli army continues to deny this direct-firing practice.

“The IDF carefully investigates complaints that are tendered, instigating military police investigations when necessary, as per the policy determined by the Supreme Court and in line with the IDF’s ethical code,” the army spokesperson’s unit told IPS.

According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, however, only 3.5 percent of complaints received by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Unit of crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank lead to indictments.

“The State of Israel is not meeting its obligation to protect the civilian population living in the area it occupied through the proper and effective investigation of suspicions of criminal offences committed by soldiers,” Yesh Din found. (END)