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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
As the U.S. marches toward an invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch is trying to do what critics say is impossible: Wield public opinion to create a more humanitarian war.
Mar 6, 2003 | Human Rights Watch is nothing if not pragmatic.
The New York-based organization, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide by traveling to trouble spots to interview victims and witnesses, vehemently opposes human rights abuses -- yet also seeks dialogue with governments guilty of gross violations, and dictators that other human rights groups won't deal with. When total compliance with international law is unattainable, HRW battles for degrees of improvement.
So while antiwar activists are pouring into the streets to protest America's threatened invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has taken a proactive role in its own unusual gray area of warfare. Rather than trying to block an Iraqi invasion, or even arguing against it, HRW has, in effect, been trying to build a better war in Iraq. It's not so much supporting the unthinkable, the group insists, as attempting to mitigate the damage of what may be inevitable.
To protect its image as a neutral observer and advocate for human rights, HRW rarely opposes -- or supports -- war, and hasn't taken a stand for or against an American invasion in Iraq. Rather, it's already bringing pressure to bear on the U.S. government to wage as good a war as possible -- by limiting civilian casualties and suffering. That means careful choice of weaponry and targets, and acceptance by the U.S. of its responsibility to quickly respond to the humanitarian disaster that could be triggered by an invasion -- and to prepare for the horrors Saddam Hussein may unleash on his own people in the face of his defeat.
Kenneth Roth, the quietly intense executive director of HRW, spoke to Salon recently from his office in Manhattan about building a better war. He talked about America's troubling history in Iraq, the risk of dangerous alliances with brutal Saddam opponents and the potentially catastrophic fallout from an Iraqi war. Roth also discussed HRW's productive tension with the antiwar movement. While Human Rights Watch has been criticized by some peace groups for its pragmatic approach to war, Roth admits his group needs the movement to maintain world focus on the plight of Iraqi civilians. He worries, though, that once war breaks out, demoralized protesters will abandon their concern for the Iraqi people "at the moment of greatest need."
How do you build a better war?
That question probably strikes most people as odd because many people are opposed to any war. Even if you accept that war is sometimes necessary, there's no avoiding the fact that war can be devastating, not only for the soldiers being shot at, but also for civilians. War does have an inherently evil component to it, even if it is sometimes necessary.
What Human Rights Watch and other groups like us try to do is to say: If it comes to the point when there is a war, for better or worse, how do you make sure that the consequences to civilians are minimized as much as possible? We use as our legal framework the Geneva Conventions, which do not prohibit war; they regulate war. They accept the fact that in the course of a war it's acceptable for one soldier to be shooting at another soldier. What they aim to do is to protect as much as possible people who are not combatants, either because they are civilians or because they are injured combatants or they are captured combatants.
All of these people are protected under the Geneva Conventions, and a soldier no longer is privileged by laws of war to shoot these people. Instead, a soldier has a duty to protect these people. Human Rights Watch sees as our responsibility enforcing these rules. We've tried to push warring parties, whether it's the Pentagon or Saddam or anyone, to do everything possible to spare civilians the consequences of war.
Elliott Abrams, who's in charge of planning for a post-invasion Iraq, has said that the U.S. government has spent months preparing to provide aid to Iraqis after a U.S. military assault, and that military targets have been "carefully tailored" to spare civilian lives. Are you reassured by that?
He's certainly saying the right things. The proof will come in the pudding. It's essential first that Pentagon bombers do everything they can to avoid the further destruction of Iraq's infrastructure. We already saw the devastating consequences from the Gulf War in 1991 when U.S. attacks on electricity had a cascading effect compromising sanitation facilities, water purification, hospitalization, refrigeration -- many elements of modern society that depend on electricity. That cascading effect had profound health implications for the civilian population and led to a very substantially increased death rate.
It seems that the Pentagon has learned a lesson from that. Certainly, in Yugoslavia, the attacks on electricity were done in a way that did not destroy the generators, which are the most difficult to replace, and as a result the humanitarian consequences were less severe.
We hope that the Pentagon has learned not to go after any aspect of the infrastructure on which the civilian population depends. The Iraqi civilian population is already 60 percent dependent on rations from the government. Those rations will naturally end as soon as the war starts. The U.S. government, if it proceeds with an invasion, had better be prepared to pick up that slack very, very quickly even in the midst of what could be very difficult fighting. If not, there may be a quite severe humanitarian cost to this war.
