Israel has committed war crimes since its inception in 1948, but only now has the United Nations issued an independent and unequivocal report asserting that Israel has indeed committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, during last winter's attack on Gaza, stated the Emirati daily Akhbar al Arab in its main leader. The UN report said Israel violated international humanitarian law during the attack by "not taking the necessary precautions stipulated in the international law in order to curb the death toll, the number of civilian casualties and material damage", the newspaper noted, quoting the report.
The report confirms Israel's use of phosphorous bombs targeting facilities linked to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and deliberately conducting air strikes against Al Quds and Al Wafa'a hospitals. Israel has always taken refuge in scepticism when facing similar charges, but a crucial aspect of this new report is its incontestability, because it was presented by none other than Richard Goldstone, the head of the fact-finding mission of the UN-affiliated Human Rights Council. Now, if the report is sound and the mission has recognised crimes documented by hard evidence, the UN has no options left but to see that the case ends in trial.
Two senior African officials, who were assigned to supervise the joint peacekeeping forces of the African Union and United Nations in Darfur have recently testified that the turbulent situation in the western Sudanese province has changed radically, commented Ahmed Amorabi in the Qatari daily Al Watan.
The Congolese diplomat Rodolphe Adada, who was in charge of the political mission of the joint forces, asserted: "The war in Darfur is over." For his part, the Nigerian general Martin Agwai, who directed the military operations of the African Union mission, stated more accurately that "the nature of the war" has changed. Since 2003, the fighting in Darfur has pitted two armed rebel groups from the al Zaghawa and al Fawr tribes against the Sudanese army, which is supported by Arab militias based in the province.
"This is the media scenario that western powers providing financial and military backing for the 'African' rebels wanted the region to come to: black 'marginalised' tribes fighting against despotic Arab tribes supported by the central government." Now rebel groups, besides turning to fight each other, have turned into criminal gangs looting relief agencies and members of the peacekeeping forces. True, the main war in Darfur may be over, but only after it spawned sheer chaos.
Fighting is unrelenting between government forces and the al Houthi rebels, who wish to reinstate religious rule in Yemen, opined Abdelbari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily Al Quds al Arabi. The battles actually started years ago, but they have reached their most virulent and bloody stage over the last few weeks, with the government using heavy artillery and airplanes to obliterate the rebellion in the northern province of Sa'ada, which lies on the border with Saudi Arabia.
It is no exaggeration to say that there is a regional and international "conspiracy of silence" surrounding this war. One would think that those who are dying in the conflict are not human or that the fighting is taking place on another planet altogether and yet some 150,000 citizens are reportedly trapped in the battle zone. "We are not debating the political aspects of this war, and we are not taking sides between what officials say is an Iran-sponsored attempt to 'Shiitise' Yemen or the efforts, reported by the rebels, of neighbouring countries in favour of the central government ... We simply feel that our humanitarian and Arab duty is to side with those who are losing their limbs or lives in the fighting."
Proponents of democracy in countries that are not governed by democratic systems, Iraq being a case in point, are not well-organised, or at least less so than the advocates of other ideologies such Islamism and radical nationalism, wrote Jawdat Houshiyar in the comment pages of the UK-based Iraqi daily Azzaman. Democrats thus fall victim to their own liberal thinking and moderation, and such sacred values as "private and public liberties" make them naturally less efficient than their opponents when it comes to staunch political activism.
It is also regrettable that no network whatsoever has been established between Iraqi democrats and their counterparts in the Middle East, in contrast to Islamist movements that reach out and seal partnerships with Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries around the region. "Democracy cannot be achieved in Iraq, or in any other country for that matter, without the existence of strong and completely independent non-governmental organisations, and this includes parties, syndicates and trade unions," the writer said.
Without a body that unites them, Iraqi democrats and liberals will never able to rise to the complex internal and external challenges that have made their task impossible to accomplish. * Digest compiled by Achraf A El Bahi aelbahi@thenational.ae
