Fw: [Media-watch] and treatment of war dead

[Henry McCubbin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry McCubbin" <hmccubbin at tinyworld.co.uk>
To: <media-watch at lists.stir.ac.uk>; <mikeberry at hushmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Media-watch] and treatment of war dead


> In response to Mike Berry's e-mail on war crimes below please find a
letter
> published in LRB by my colleague Ken Coates.
>
> On War and Intervention
> 1. From Ken Coates
> Michael Byers's article on the laws of war (LRB, 20 February) brought to
> mind my experience during the first Gulf War. In March 1991, I was
Chairman
> of the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights. With two of my
> colleagues, I wrote to the press about the issue of enforcement of the
> Geneva Conventions in respect of the burial of the war dead. The actual
> number of Iraqi military casualties of that war has long been disputed. In
> particular, there was no figure for those killed in the famous 'turkey
> shoot' during the retreat from Kuwait, and those buried alive with them in
> the aftermath. In May 1991, the US Defense Agency estimated that 100,000
> Iraqi troops had been killed. Other estimates have been much higher. In
our
> letter we quoted Article 16 of the first 1949 Convention:
> "Parties to the conflict shall record as soon as possible, in respect of
> each wounded, sick or dead person of the adverse Party falling into their
> hands, any particulars which may assist in his identification . . .
> 'Parties to the conflict,' the same Article continues,
> shall prepare and forward to each other through the same bureau
certificates
> of death or duly authenticated lists of the dead. They shall likewise
> collect and forward through the same bureau one half of a double identity
> disk, last wills or other documents of importance to the next of kin,
money,
> and in general all articles of an intrinsic or sentimental value, which
are
> found on the dead. These articles, together with unidentified articles,
> shall be sent in sealed packets, accompanied by statements giving all
> particulars necessary for the identification of the deceased owners, as
well
> as by a complete list of the contents of the parcel.
> Article 17 insists that the dead be 'honourably interred' - if possible
> 'according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged'. If these
> provisions are acceptable at the end of wars between Europeans, we asked,
by
> what right are they modified when the victims live in West Asia? Were we
to
> assume that the Geneva Conventions had been suspended by General
> Schwarzkopf? General Schwarzkopf has now moved on, but his successors are
> still repeating the old mantras. Spokesmen from both the British and
> American forces in Iraq have recently told us that they are 'not in the
> business of body counts'.
> Back in 1991 we were promptly informed by the office of the International
> Red Cross in Geneva that they had already sought to act on those
provisions
> of the Geneva Conventions which we mentioned in our letter. Ten to fifteen
> days earlier they had asked the allied forces to supply all necessary
> information about casualties in Iraq and Kuwait. But by mid-March the ICRC
> had received no information from the allies about the numbers of dead
> soldiers who had been buried, and had not been told whether any efforts
had
> been made to identify the corpses, or whether such efforts had been
> sufficient, within the terms of the Convention. The Iraqi Government, on
the
> other hand, had already responded to the Commission's enquiries concerning
> the numbers of allied deaths. For the US and Britain the upholding of the
> Geneva Conventions appears to be a one-way street.
> Ken Coates
> Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Matlock, Derbyshire
>
> I was one of the MEPs party to these communications.  Our overall
impression
> was that the Red Cross was not willing to take on board the overwhelming
> evidence that the US had bulldozed live humans in to trenches and shot
> retreating soldiers between the shoulder blades as they fled.
>
> Perhaps Stephen Sackur should spend some time at the side of the road to
> Basra.  Or were those deaths good deaths?
>
> Henry McCubbin
>