No Surge in Justice for Iraq’s Children

Along with the Air Surge we have been reporting for months – a Surge that caused more civilian casualties this week when “at least eight civilians, including a child, were killed by U.S. chopper fire near Baiji city” we learned of a Child Detainee surge this week.

The United States said on Monday that it told the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights that it has detained 500 youngsters under 18 since April 2008 until now. “The U.S. held 500 Iraqi minors in custody since April 2008 and it held 2100 minors since 2003, whom it said they took part in operations against the Coalition forces in Iraq,” the UNHR said in a statement in its website.

Human Rights Watch fills in the details:

US military authorities, operating as the Multinational Forces in Iraq, were as of May 12, 2008 holding 513 Iraqi children as “imperative threats to security,” and have transferred an unknown number of other children to Iraqi custody. According to a recent report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), children in Iraqi custody are at risk of physical abuse.

(snip)

Since 2003, the US has detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including children as young as 10. Detention rates rose drastically in 2007 to an average of 100 new children a month from 25 a month in 2006. The US holds most children at US Camp Cropper in Baghdad, but has also held children at the main US military detention facility, Camp Bucca near Basra. US officials earlier this year told Human Rights Watch that they separate children from adults at these facilities but do not separate very young or particularly vulnerable children from other child detainees.

Child detainees, no differently from adults, may be interrogated over the course of days or weeks by military units in the field before being sent to the main detention centers. They have no real opportunity to challenge their detention: earlier this year US officials told Human Rights Watch that children are not provided with lawyers and do not attend the one-week or one-month detention reviews after their transfer to Camp Cropper. In addition, children have very limited contact with their families. While the US does assign each child a military “advocate” at the mandatory six-month detention review, that advocate has no training in juvenile justice or child development.

As of February 2008, the reported average length of detention for children was more than 130 days, and some children have been detained for more than a year without charge or trial:

“The vast majority of children detained in Iraq languish for months in US military custody,” Clarisa Bencomo, Middle East children’s researcher at Human Rights Watch said. “The US should provide these children with immediate access to lawyers and an independent judicial review of their detention.”

While these youngsters languish in detention for a year or more without charge, we also learned this week that the two US Marines who commanded a 120 person unit that shot up civilians in Aghanistan, killing an estimated 19 and wounding 50, have had their day in court and will not be charged:

[JURIST] A Marine Corps General Friday declined to press charges against two US Marines involved in a March 2007 incident [CENTCOM press release] in which 30 US Marines opened fire on civilians alongside a road in Nangahar province, Afghanistan, after a suicide bomber drove a vehicle carrying explosives into their convoy.

(snip)

A preliminary US military investigation found that the Marines began firing at bystanders, including women and elderly men, along a several mile stretch of road as they left the scene. As many as 19 civilians were killed and another 50 injured. The soldiers are members of a Marine Corps Special Forces unit under the command of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and were sent to Afghanistan to carry out special reconnaissance, intelligence and commando missions. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commissionsee (AIHRC) released a report (see below for link] )ast year claiming the soldiers violated international humanitarian law [JURIST report] by using indiscriminate and excessive force in its response to the suicide bombing.

The full report by the AIHRC is chilling – you can read it here (pdf). Along with descriptions of the cleanup coverup of the site and refusal to allow media access, it includes accounts from eyewitnesses:

“I was following a road leading to the main road about 500 meters away from the site of
the explosion in the Spin Pul area. My car was stopped 40 meters away from the ISAF convoy,
which was on the main road. Suddenly they opened fire on my car and shot more than 240
bullets. I myself jumped out of the car and got injured, but my father, friend and my nephew were killed in the car” (AIHRC interview, 12 March 2007).

And:

According to the reports of numerous witnesses and the Nangahar police several vehicles,
including taxis, minibuses and a Coaster bus as well as a number of pedestrians and bystanders came under attack by the American convoy in at least six different locations (see Annex 2 for a
list of the vehicles damaged by the shooting). The shootings are spread over a distance of 16
kilometers from the site of the initial firing at the location of the VBIED detonation to the last
confirmed civilian victims in Barikau, Batikot district. Several of the vehicles fired upon were
stationary when they came under attack and the reports uniformly indicate that the targets were exclusively civilian in nature and that no kind of provocative or threatening behavior on their part preceded the attacks.

One eyewitness states: “I heard a big blast … after that I heard guns firing. A Coalition Forces
vehicle arrived at my fuel station and opened fire on me and on laborers working beneath the
[nearby] bridge. One woman in front of her house was hit by bullets and another woman from
Kabul was killed in a Coaster vehicle on the road” (AIHRC interview, 8 March 2007).

The findings of the US Marine Court of Inquiry for these killings are not going to be made public (and may in fact recommend some level of prosecution). The Marine Central Command has ruled the actions appropriate under the Rules of Engagement and the matter is dropped.

But the children in Iraq don’t even get a hearing …

Speaking of legal matters, reports are circulating that Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani has issued several fatwas which encourage or do not condemn resistance to “foreign occupiers.” Fatwas are a term that we see often and I wanted to point folks to a new essay in the GorillasGuides for the Perplexed which provides a very informative introduction to Fatwas. As the reports like those this week emerge, it’s very handy to have this background guide.

The latest report – from Fars News via Huffington Post and Juan Cole – is that the Grand Ayatollah has said that "Selling foodstuffs to the Occupying Powers is not permitted." (h/t Trex!) The question and answer do not appear to be on the Grand Ayatollah’s website but the continuing reports of this kind suggest that he is taking a more active stand against the occupation and the planned status of forces agreement Bush and Maliki are negotiating. Note that Amb Crocker has been making a lot of noise recently about encouraging corporate investment in Karbala and using a visit to Najaf as the platform for claiming that it is proof of Iraq’s sovereignty that the Iraqi government is the party asking for the status of forces agreement. The choice of these two holy cities for Crocker’s statements seems to me like a definite provocation to the Shia faithful.

Update: Mohammed Ibn Laith is reporting that there has also been a "surge" in honor killings in Kurdistan.

Related posts:

1. The Real Price in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza
2. The End of the Delusion in Iraq
3. Remember Iraq or Ray Odierno is Still Wrong
4. In Iraq, As in So Many Contexts, Withdrawal is Victory
5. Costs of Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Proving Unsustainable