“For us relief is only when our loved one is safe and sound standing freed before us. [...] I believe that my husband Masood is held only three kilometres from my home, yet he continues to suffer unknown ill-treatment and we, his wife, his children and his very old parents cannot even see him. They [the new government] must act now to bring them back immediately."
- Amina Masood Janjua, July 2008
The last time Amina Masood Janjua saw her husband, Masood Janjua, was on 30 July 2005 when he left home to meet his friend Faisal Faraz. Pakistani security forces apprehended both men on that day while on a bus journey to another city.
Since then, Pakistan’s government has been holding them in secret without charge or trial, repeatedly denying any knowledge of their whereabouts despite eyewitness testimony as to their detention.
Masood Janjua and Faisal Faraz are among hundreds of victims of enforced disappearance in Pakistan, including children as young as nine and ten years old. Many of them were detained after the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, their detentions justified in the name of the US-led “war on terror”.
The practice, rare before 2001, then spread to activists involved in pushing for greater ethnic or regional rights, including Baloch and Sindhis.
Despite undeniable evidence, the government of President Pervez Musharraf consistently denied subjecting anyone to enforced disappearances.
In the report Denying the undeniable, enforced disappearances in Pakistan, Amnesty International uses official court records and affidavits of victims and witnesses of enforced disappearances to confront the Pakistani authorities with evidence of how government officials obstructed attempts to trace those who have “disappeared.”
New government brings opportunity for change
The report urges the newly elected government of Pakistan – which has pledged to improve Pakistan’s human rights record - to end the policy of denial, investigate all cases of enforced disappearance and hold those responsible to account.
“By holding people in secret detention the government of Pakistan has not only violated their rights, but also failed in its duty to charge and try those suspected of involvement in attacks on civilians”, said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director.
Crucially, Pakistan’s new government must reinstate deposed judges who had previously been investigating disappearance cases and were deposed by President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency in the country in November 2007.
Complicity of other governments
The report also calls on other governments - most notably the USA - to ensure that they are not complicit in and do not contribute to or tolerate the practice of enforced disappearance in Pakistan.
Many of those unlawfully held at the US detention centre in Guantánamo Bay, and those who have been held in secret CIA custody were arrested in Pakistan. Others were unlawfully transferred from Pakistan to countries where they faced torture and other ill treatment.
Many people who have been secretly held in detention centres in Pakistan say they were interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agencies, but also by foreign intelligence agents.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/07/25/kenya19471.htm
Account for ‘Disappeared,’ Investigate Torture and Killings
(Nairobi, July 28, 2008) – The Kenyan government should account for dozens of missing people detained during the security operation in Mt. Elgon, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch also called on Kenya to support independent investigations into torture and war crimes committed by security forces, and urged donors, including London and Washington, to review military aid to Kenya.
" Washington and London are close partners of the Kenyan military, and they should suspend military assistance until there is an independent investigation of the war crimes. "
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Contribute
Related Material
Africa
Country Page
Kenya
Country Page
All the Men Have Gone: War Crimes in Kenya's Mt. Elgon Conflict
Report, July 28, 2008
Kenya: Army and Rebel Militia Commit War Crimes in Mt. Elgon
Press Release, April 4, 2008
Ballots to Bullets
Report, March 17, 2008
Free Email Newsletter
The 52-page report, “‘All the Men Have Gone’: War Crimes in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon District,” documents war crimes committed by a militia group, the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) and by Kenyan security forces responding to the crisis in Mt. Elgon, western Kenya. The investigation found that since 2006 the SLDF has terrorized thousands, killing and torturing hundreds of people. The government deployed forces in March 2008 to quell the SLDF, and Kenyan police, paramilitary and military tortured hundreds of men detained in mass round-ups. At least 37 people remain “disappeared” after being taken into custody by the security forces.
“The ‘successful’ operation to tackle the rebellion in Mt. Elgon has come at a terrible cost,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should urgently produce those who have disappeared and ensure that those responsible for torture and other crimes, including the commanders, are held accountable.”
Since 2006, the SLDF has killed more than 600 people, and kidnapped, tortured and raped men and women who opposed them or their political supporters. The SLDF originated as a militia in 2006 to resist government efforts to evict squatters, many of whom were displaced from controversial resettlement schemes in Mt. Elgon district and in the mountain’s national park. Land grievances, repeated displacement of communities, and flawed resettlement schemes are among the core problems at the heart of the conflict in Mt. Elgon.
Since its formation, the SLDF’s activities have expanded, becoming more violent and linked to local political interests. By early 2008, the insurgents controlled large swathes of the mountain and effectively ran a parallel administration, collecting “taxes” and looting property and land at will. The group’s signature abuse has been to cut off the ears and sew up the mouths of people who defy their demands.
Human Rights Watch researchers visited the region in March, April and July 2008, and found that in addition to its brutal efforts to terrorize, procure land, and loot, the SLDF have also played a political role. In the run-up to and following the 2007 general election, the SLDF supported certain political candidates and targeted political opponents and their supporters.
In March 2008, police and military units deployed as part of a joint security operation called “Okoa Maisha” (“Save Lives” in Swahili), and local residents initially welcomed them. Although successful in capturing key SLDF leaders, security forces rounded up much of the male population of villages in Mt. Elgon district and took them for screening at military camps where suspects were routinely tortured upon arrival; some died as a result. The military themselves claim they “screened” nearly 4,000 people. At a minimum, the evidence points to hundreds of people having been tortured and dozens killed.
Human Rights Watch documented dozens of cases of torture by police, paramilitary and military units. Victims described being beaten with sticks, chains and rifles, while local mortuary staff described bodies arriving with obvious signs of torture, such as welts, bruising, broken wrists, and rope burns around the wrists. The bodies of some of those who died were dumped in the forest from helicopters.
A widow who identified her husband’s body in Webuye mortuary told Human Rights Watch: “Before the security operation, male residents of Mt. Elgon fled the district for fear of forceful recruitment into the SLDF. Now they have either been rounded up or they have fled again, for fear of being tortured. Mt. Elgon is a mountain of women, all the men have gone.”
The Kenya National Commission of Human Rights and two nongovernmental organizations, the Independent Medico-Legal Unit and Médecins Sans Frontières, have also released reports documenting torture by the security forces in Mt. Elgon.
Government officials have consistently denied that any torture has taken place, although the government launched an internal police investigation in June 2008. Human Rights Watch called for an independent investigation to examine the crimes and bring those responsible to justice.
“A police investigation that reports to the commanders who should be investigated can’t hope to discover what went wrong on Mt. Elgon,” said Gagnon.
Human Rights Watch also called on foreign governments providing military aid and other assistance to Kenyan security forces to review that support in light of the mounting evidence of torture, and the Kenyan government’s reluctance to seriously investigate and address the abuses. Both the United States and United Kingdom governments provide millions of dollars of military assistance, training and other support to the Kenyan military every year.
“Washington and London are close partners of the Kenyan military, and they should suspend military assistance until there is an independent investigation of the war crimes,” said Gagnon. “They shouldn’t be supporting the military until the Kenyan authorities commit to prosecuting those responsible for torture and war crimes.”