Welcome to the United Nations 
OHCHR 
Press releases CHR subsidiary body
Default title
15 August 2000
Share
Subcommission on the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights
52nd session
15 August 2000
Afternoon
Concludes Discussion on Administration of Justice and Human Rights
The Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights began its discussion this afternoon on the freedom of movement, hearing from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that real or perceived political, security, economic and social costs of hosting refugees had affected the willingness and capacity of States to receive asylum seekers.
The UNHCR spokesperson went on to say that some States routinely detained asylum seekers in violation of human-rights standards and UNHCR guidelines, and that xenophobia and intolerance directed at asylum seekers in some host countries was becoming a cause of concern.
Earlier, the Subcommission concluded its debate on human-rights issues related to the administration of justice, an agenda item focusing on such topics as states of emergency, gross and massive violations of human rights as an international crime, juvenile justice, and the privatization of prisons. Interventions made under the topic elicited a series of rights of reply from countries in attendance, and several Subcommission Experts spoke on the challenges of combatting impunity for human-rights violations committed in times of conflict.
Representatives spoke from the following non-governmental organizations: the International Commission of Jurists, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, Interfaith International, the Muslim World League, the Latin American Human Rights Association, the Bunyad Literacy Community Council, the African Commission of Health and Human Rights Promoters, North-South XXI, the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, the American Association of Jurists, International Educational Development, Medecins du Monde, Interfaith International, the Muslim World League, and the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples.
Subcommission Experts or Alternate Members Louis Joinet, Rajendra Kalidas Wimala Goonesekere, and Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros addressed the session.
The national delegations of Pakistan, Iraq, and Belarus delivered statements.
And Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and the United Kingdom spoke in exercise of the right of reply.
The Subcommission will reconvene at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 16 August, and is expected over the course of the morning to begin discussion of the rights of children and youth.
Statements on the administration of justice and human rights
NADJA HOUBEN, of the International Commission of Jurists, said that an independent judiciary was critical in order to uphold human rights. A report had highlighted the systematic violations in the judiciary system of 49 countries. In Colombia, there had been increasing levels of harassment of people attached to the judiciary by the military forces. The Commission had called upon the Government to investigate the situation of the administration of justice. There was extensive concern as to the high levels of impunity in Peru, Brazil and Algeria. The same situation had been seen in political manoeuvring in Chad and Senegal. These actions were in clear contradiction to international law.
The International Commission of Jurists welcomed the decision to strip General Pinochet of his parliamentary immunity. The Government of Chile had been called upon to restrict the jurisdiction of the military court and only use this means of trying people when the accused were linked to the military. The European Court of Human Rights had repeatedly condemned the situation of the judiciary in Turkey and the State's failures in domestic prosecutions and investigations. There had, however, been recent developments such as the removal of military judges from the civil courts. In Palestine, there was a similar problem between the military and civil court. In Egypt, military courts continued to try civilians, as in the conflict of jurisdiction in Ecuador. This precluded the identification and punishment of the offenders of crimes against human rights.
MOHAMMAD ANWAR, of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, said it was distressing that the principal representative of International Educational Development was assaulted by those demonstrating in front of the UN on the Sri Lankan issue last Friday. That any non-governmental organization (NGO) should be attacked for defending human rights, and for the attackers to argue that all NGOs financed themselves on the misery of others, was outrageous, and should be condemned by the Subcommission and all other NGOs.
Over the past eight years, there had been serious human-rights violations in urban centres of Sindh, particularly Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, and other cities of the province in southern Pakistan, perpetuated by a form of State terrorism on the basis of racism and ethnicity under the domination of the Punjabi ruling oligarchy. The Punjabi army played the tune, directly or indirectly, and as a result the Mohajir minority suffered extra-judicial executions, unlawful arrests, and brutal torture in the custody of the State. The new military Government had shown no change in this long-standing and brutal campaign. The Subcommission should take urgent steps to check these human rights violations, and should recommend a mechanism for the provision of rights to the minorities of Pakistan.
CHARLES GRAVES, of Interfaith International, said that since 1975, Morocco had occupied the territories of the Western Sahara, thus violating the international declarations on the right of colonized peoples to be self-governing and independent. Morocco had committed serious violations of human rights and thousands of Western Sahara people had been victims of kidnapping, torture and other arbitrary actions on the part of the Moroccan authorities. Despite the presence of the United Nations in the Western Sahara territory, the Moroccan authorities continued their persecution of civilians in the Western Sahara.
Interfaith International also brought up the question of disappearances in the Republic of Sri Lanka, where emergency regulations had been in place for the last twenty years. The wide power given to the Sri Lankan security forces had resulted in torture, disappearances and deaths in custody. The Subcommission was urged to act on this matter and to watch over the situation of the human rights of the citizens of Bahrain to determine whether the Government was upholding its promises to check the many anomalies in the administration of justice in that country. The international community was still awaiting the return of a constitutional parliamentary democracy in Bahrain.
SAEEDA SHAH, of the Muslim World League, said that in Kashmir, when a young men left home for university or work, his family did not know if they would ever see him again. In some cases, when families were influential or rich enough to bribe prison officials, they might come to know of his imprisonment, but in most cases they would be unable to have him released. Filing a habaes corpus appeal did not help, since under various acts the Indian security forces were allowed to detain a person without reason. At times the mutilated bodies of detainees were found in nearby woods or rivers; the usual explanation of Indian authorities was "killed in a police encounter" or "killed while trying to escape". Death in general was the only escape from torture and degradation for hundreds of young Kashmiris held in Kashmiri jails.
The Subcommission and working group on arbitrary detention should call on India to bring before local courts the cases of all prisoners arbitrarily arrested; to allow visits by the Special Rapporteurs on torture and extra-judicial executions; to ratify the Convention against Torture without any reservations, and to implement its provisions in their entirety.
MARCELO ORELLANA, of the Latin American Human Rights Associations, said a recent example which had been brought up in the Human Rights Commission was the representative of the Amazon Colombian Indigenous Peoples and the threat to the indigenous and colonialised peoples. There was a serious threat of extinction. This was nothing new, but it was by this time irreversible. There was a conflict between the armed forces and the drug traffickers in Colombia which affected the Colombian indigenous people. They were living in a situation of threat due to the political and armed conflict in Colombia, consisting in using women and children in intelligence operations, threats to their traditional subsidence and their traditional holy sites. These were serious human rights violations and the indigenous peoples' very existence was in danger as problems such as malnutrition and death were generated. It was important to hear from indigenous groups' young people who could witness to how they had been caught up in the armed conflict. Children were the future and the armed activities forced the displacement of indigenous peoples to the urban centres. These people did not only have a spiritual value but also a social value to the society, yet they had been discriminated against for several decades. The Subcommission was urged to pay attention to the manner in which indigenous peoples in Colombia were threatened by the armed conflict.
NAHIDA MAHHOOD ELLAHI, of the Bunyad Literacy Community Council, said some improvements had been made in Pakistani administration of justice related to the death penalty and to abolition of the use of bar fetters, but lacunae in the law remained, resulting in delay and injustice. Pakistan was called upon to bring its juvenile justice system into compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to amend laws that were discriminatory against women so that the country was in conformity with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
In Jammu and Kashmir, there were immense human rights and justice problems; the situation there violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and there was utter impunity for offenses committed by security forces because the Armed Forces Special Powers Act did not allow prosecutions. Amnesty International had noted in reports to the Human Rights Committee that legal protections in India proliferated but were nullified by other legislation or were not consistently implemented, and that victims or their relatives seeking legal redress had been subjected to harassment and intimidation. India and Pakistan should review all their laws and amend those that did not meet international standards.
IMTIAZ HUSSAIN (Pakistan) said Pakistan's Convention on Human Rights and Human Dignity had been held in April. It was a collective endeavour of the Government and the civil society. The Convention had led to the ban of the use of bar fetters; a reform of the police system and improvements in conditions of detention; the setting up of the Women in Distress Fund which had been dormant for a number of years and would be used for improving the conditions of jails and protection houses for women; the creating of an independent National Human Rights Institution; and the creation of a fund for the rehabilitation of released bonded labourers. In addition to this, Pakistan had promulgated the long debated and delayed Juvenile System Ordinance, the main features of which states that every child accused of commission of an offence should have the right to legal assistance; the creation of separate juvenile courts and the prohibition of joint adult and juvenile trials; and strict guidelines for juvenile courts. The Ordinance also states that: '...no child shall be awarded punishment of death, or ordered to labour during the time spent in any borstal or such other institution and handcuffed, put in fetters or given any corporal punishment at any time while in custody.'
The judiciary in Pakistan was an independent, powerful and vigorous institution and the Government and the people of Pakistan realized the importance thereof. Courts were required to submit monthly reports to inform the office of the Chief Justice of the progress in the disposal of cases. It was hoped that this measure would significantly speed up the process of delivery of justice.
SAAD HUSSAIN (Iraq) said massive and gross violations of human rights were an international crime; foremost among human rights was the right to life. Food was necessary for life, and so international instruments had prohibited policies of starvation, which in fact amounted to genocide. Genocide was an effort to destroy a people, to physically liquidate them. The Commission on Human Rights had said in a resolution in 1996 that food and medicine should not be used as instruments of coercion, and the Rome Declaration had prohibited the use of food for political pressure.
However, the United States and Britain insisted on the continuation of the embargo against Iraq, despite the horrifying evidence of its impact on the Iraqi population. The embargo had led to the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqi citizens, and had caused suffering among the rest of Iraqis. In addition, the country was still exposed to American and British air raids, and recently they had bombed food storehouses in the south of the country. The use of degraded uranium in weapons against Iraq had caused further suffering, including heightened cancer rates. These crimes were worse than those inflicted by the Nazis. The international community must demand an end to these atrocities.
DMITRY MIRONCHIK (Belarus) said that the Constitution of Belarus stipulated that no one be subjected to inhuman, cruel punishment or treatment. The freedom from torture was respected in a state of emergency and crimes were punishable by the penal law. The country had for long been prepared to lift its reservation to article 21 of the Convention against Torture. It had completed the internal procedures for lifting this reservation to this international treaty. The adoption of the law by parliament was a lengthy process which had allowed a broad nation-wide discussion on these issues. Rights which affected the rights of man was usually covered by the media in order to inform the greatest number of people of their rights. Not a single deputy in Belarus voted against it. Each stage had been covered by the media, thus two goals had been achieved, the adoption of the convention and the rise of awareness of the population. The Belarus delegation was looking forward to the report of the Special Rapporteur and hoped to receive positive input on the many developments.
Rights of Reply
A representative of Egypt, speaking in right of reply, said a number of NGOs had raised the issue of Dr. Saad El-Din Ibrahim and had linked his arrest to the elections in Egypt and the Copts in Egypt. The accused in Egypt, like in other countries around the world, were innocent until proven guilty. Dr. Ibrahim was still under investigation. He was arrested and then released after all requirements had been fulfilled. Once the investigation was over, charges and responsibilities would be defined. The judiciary in Egypt was independent, and emergency laws were applied only with parliamentary approval and under strict conditions. Egypt had amended its Constitution to reflect Supreme Court decisions; Copts had been treated only with tolerance and equality and in fact Copts refused even to be called a minority.
A representative of Yemen said in right of reply that an NGO had attacked Yemen without any rational reason, with information from unreliable sources in an attempt to distort the actual situation. The judiciary in Yemen was fully independent and transparent. Yemen had a trade union which had been elected in a free manner. The number of opposition parties abroad only attempted to gain material advantages. The Government had not failed to put an end to violations of human rights. If there were allegations, there were always full and serious investigations. The allegations made by the non-governmental organization were unfounded and based on unreliable sources.
A representative of Turkey, speaking right of reply, said Turkey had already replied to allegations of impunity in the country, but the intervention of Mrs. Hampson deserved repetition of Turkey's remarks. The Government had made sincere efforts to promote and protect human rights. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment were subject to investigation. Hundreds of allegations had been investigated, resulting in a number of prosecutions. Changes in the law had aimed to reduce impunity and to hold civil servants responsible for their acts. Legislation of all States had to meet existing situations. Perhaps some were not satisfied with the steps taken, but the new law had brought about a significant improvement.
A representative of Indonesia, speaking in right of reply, responded to the statement made by Mr. Pinheiro when referring to the judicial situation in Aceh and East Timor. The situation in East Timor was being considered by the Commission, hence the Subcommission should not consider issues which were already under consideration. In East Timor, the Government was making efforts to punish those responsible for human rights abuses. In Aceh, there was a consensus that the legal proceedings should be temporarily suspended pending the national human rights committee expected to be set up in September. Indonesia was adamant to carry out reforms and eliminate impunity, and welcomed the opportunity to discuss these issues further with Mr. Pinheiro.
A representative of Viet Nam, speaking in right of reply, said the statement of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues needed a response to avoid misinformation in the Subcommission. The cases referred to in that NGO's statement did not reflect the reality. It was the Government's sincere aim to protect and promote human rights, including religious freedom and freedom of the press, in reality as well as in policy. Arbitrary detentions and arrests were prohibited in law and in practice. No one was arrested without a decision of the People's Court or the People's Procurate.
A representative of the United Kingdom, in a right of reply, responded to the statement made by the delegation of Iraq. He would make available an aide-memoire and documentation about this issue on behalf of the United Kingdom's Government and that of the United States.
A representative of Iraq, in a second right of reply, said the United Kingdom had spoken about the situation in Iraq; yet Iraq had not spoken about violations of human rights in the U.S. and the U.K. Iraq had spoken only about the suffering of Iraqis under the brutal economic embargo and as a result of the air raids against the country. The British air raids still went on. Now Britain was objecting to Iraq's statement. Still the Yankee bombardment went on. Iraq could have asked compensation for all the damage caused; it had accepted the cease fire in 1991, yet the aggression against Iraq continued. What did the United States and the United Kingdom expect him to say? This was a genocide.
LOUIS JOINET, Subcommission Expert, said the Subcommission had played a pioneering role in the fight against impunity, whether it was the truth and reconciliation commission, the administration of justice or national or international justice systems. Developments within these areas fitted into the overall recommendations of the Subcommission. One could say, that history had proved the Subcommission right. For example, in Brazil, the president of the Human Rights Commission of the Congress had gone to Paraguay to study the seized archives so that charges could be brought against General Shoessner. In Chile, there would be proceedings against a former dictator. In Argentina, there were no longer any statutes of limitations with regards to crimes against humanity. In Argentinean law, the military was judged by ordinary courts and for the first time there was no conflict in jurisdiction which proved a real return to democracy.
In international justice, an important initiative had been taken, suggested by the Security Council, in the creation of an Ad Hoc Court dealing with crimes of war and crimes against humanity. The resolution specified that the amnesty measures would not apply to international crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also on the international level, one needed to come back to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in Rome. So far 98 countries had signed, however only 14
countries had ratified it. The court could only commence its work when there were 60 ratifications, which was predicted to take four to five years. It was important to not place too much hopes on this court, and it was important to have the national justice systems working properly.
Concerning human rights defenders, Mr. Joinet urged the Subcommission to look into the cases of the murdered Sri Lankan Lawyer and the slanderous treatment of the Director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists. This was suggested not in terms of a resolution but as a specific request. Only a proper administration of justice could avoid the impunity of these crimes.
RAJENDRA KALIDAS WIMALA GOONESEKERE, Subcommission Expert, said there were problems of administration of justice during a time of conflict within a country, and he had experience of the situation in his own country. Sri Lanka had adopted the British system of criminal justice which included the presumption that a man was innocent until proved guilty. When cases involved persons in security forces accused of torture and illegal activities, and there was, quite rightly, a great deal of attention focused on these people by human-rights organizations who wanted them punished; the question arose, were these people also entitled to the same presumption of innocence? Sometimes procedural law was changed, leading to difficulties. Under an old law, statements recorded by the police were not acceptable in court; it sometimes happened that confessions were thus recorded but not usable in court; now the problem sometimes arose that there should be no relaxation of this law even in times of crisis, even in cases of persons accused of human-rights violations. The age-old situation therefore sometimes arose where persons who in fact were guilty could not be proved to be guilty, and so were released. And often it was decided not to prosecute someone, since the evidence was not strong enough. These were among the problems encountered in practice. The result was that there were charges that impunity was sanctioned by the State.
There was a senior army officer accused, for example, along with a number of other soldiers, of being in charge of a camp allegedly responsible for disappearances, including about 30 children. This high officer was accused, and after a long trial of about two years, he was acquitted because the evidence was not strong enough. The military had considered him a good officer and took him back. He was subsequently recommended for promotion, but the President refused to promote him, saying he might have been acquitted but there were nonetheless doubts about his involvement. Then there were charges he had unfairly been denied promotion, but ultimately the Supreme Court backed the President. This was an illustration of the problems encountered with criminal law in a time of national crisis. The point was, were you going to change the law in a situation like this, and relax the standard burden of proof? The matter was not easy; it was complicated, and the burden of proof could be hard to meet.
MANUEL RODRIGUEZ CUADROS, Subcommission Expert, said that the administration of justice had to respect the rule of law and had to exclude impunity to ensure that constitutional resources were effective. The independence of the judiciary was a question which the Subcommission had dealt with in the past. It was felt that at the current point in time, the independence of the judiciary was particularly important. The Subcommission had witnessed significant progress when it came to the protection of the independence of the judiciary. At the last Commission, principles had been extended to include the independence of juries and not only lawyers and judges. These changes did not always have the wanted effects in practice. In many countries the impartiality of judges and lawyers was made more and more difficult. Corruption played a significant part here, not a structural corruption of a political system as a whole, but a more specific corruption which altered the behaviour of lawyers and judges.
Systematic human rights violations occurred where there was impunity, particularly when the judiciary had lost its independence. Impartiality was the key in keeping with the rule of law and decisions had to be founded on the law which responded to the evidence. The existence of any reward to a judge or lawyer directly affected this vital principle. A judge who did not act in adherence to the law was not an impartial judge and was not providing effective protection of human rights. Political actors had the power to alter this partiality and the administration of justice had often had to bow to the political powers that be. Effective autonomous justice had to be ensured. This was an essential part of reform, not only within human rights but also within any social, economic and cultural reform. In this context, the World Bank and regional financial institutions had developed programmes for judiciary reforms. In some cases such reorganization led to political interference and a loss of judicial independence. It was perhaps more effective, but less autonomous and this could eventually lead to corruption and a loss of autonomy in the activity of judges. One had to find a way of giving priority to autonomy in administration of justice in any fight against corruption. Legislation had to lay down guidelines for action and sanctions should there be corruption.
Statements on freedom of movement
NGOZI MADUAKOH, of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said there was a rapidly changing and complex environment today in which the real or perceived political, security, economic and social costs of hosting refugees had affected the willingness and capacity of States to receive refugees. Problems of illegal migration, smuggling and trafficking of persons in some parts of the world had led to the politicization of the institution of asylum, and in some States to a tendency to criminalize refugees and asylum-seekers. There were a number of instances where refugees and asylum seekers had been turned back or repatriated against their will, although there was a clear risk to their safety on return. In some countries of Europe and the Americas concerns about trafficking and smuggling in persons had led to tighter control measures, and without care, policies of Governments could blur the distinctions between refugees and economic migrants and lead to stigmatizing refugees as criminals.
The right to asylum had a qualitative content. Tough restrictions on refugees' freedom of movement and severe constraints on their ability to feed, shelter, and support themselves and their families, and systematic detention in some States, significantly eroded the quality of asylum. Arbitrary detention of asylum seekers was a violation of human-rights principles and contrary to UNHCR guidelines. UNHCR was also worried about increasing xenophobia and intolerance in host countries.
KASHINATH PANDITA, of the African Commission on Health and Human Rights Promoters, appreciated the efforts made by the international community on the topic on displacement and the protection of internally displaced people. The number of internally displaced people had escalated from 30 million to 50 million since the beginning of the year 2000. Ethnic cleansing had become a weapon against internally displaced people, a practice which could be seen in Sudan, Angola and Cambodia. These three countries had the largest number of internally displaced people. Catching up these days were the people of Korea and Kashmir. Internally displaced people were in no way less victimized than refugees, in many cases States were reluctant to act or respond to their needs. The questions of safeguarding the property left behind had not been touched upon by the Subcommission to this date and required more attention. The ground realities needed to be taken into consideration. These people needed to find a place of security and safety. Realities were harsh for internally displaced people and they required more international attention.
GULNAR WAKIM, of North-South XXI, said freedom of movement was of vital significance for countries of the South in relation to those of the North. Earlier, the countries of the West had lectured the rest of the world on freedom of movement. Now the West often limited the movement of people in ways not at all based on international criteria. Foreigners were repatriated even when returning to their home countries posed a serious risk to their welfare. The United States gleefully flouted international standards on freedom of movement; in American embassies, it was clear that if you were North Korean, or Iraqi, or Iranian, it was pointless to seek a visa. The U.S. even returned some people seeking entry at its own borders. Other States also violated the freedom of movement. Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria were deprived of their passports and their freedom of movement without regard to their right to work.
The right to freedom of movement was essential for human existence, which was why certain powers and Governments were using it for their own strategic interests. The powerful in the world could travel where they wished, but not those from "bad" countries, not exiled people and not the poor. The Subcommission must act to correct this injustice.
K. WARIKOO, of the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, said that the problem of population displacements was one of the serious humanitarian, human rights, political and security concerns in this millennium. The number of internally displaced people had gone well above 25 million people. Atrocities by mercenaries, terrorists and Islamist fundamentalists and other forms of violence against indigenous ethnic and religious minorities had caused forced exoduses and internal displacement of several hundred thousand people in parts of South and Central Asia. The forced displacement of almost the entire Kashmir Pandit indigenous minority, which affected about 400,000 people who had been terrorized, killed and hounded out by the Islamist terrorists, was a case in point. This minority community had been suffering from displacement for 11 years. There was an urgent need to work out a policy of integrated and compassionate humanitarian assistance and sustainable development with an emphasis on health recovery, education and employment. The Subcommission was urged to exert pressure on the sponsors of violence and religious terrorism so that the major cause of forced human displacement in the region was eliminated.
JAIRO SANCHEZ, of the American Association of Jurists, said the organization was paying particular attention to the serious human-rights situation in Colombia, where the Government had repeatedly shown that it was ineffective and was party to the conflict and the crisis. The worrying and desperate situation of a majority of Colombians, peasant farmers in particular, could be summed up in the relentless displacement of persons. Some 1.9 million people of a population of 40 million had been internally displaced in recent years, losing their homes, lands and livelihoods. In 1999, for each person murdered or killed in the conflict in Colombia, 48 had to move on.
Now the United States would fund a vast programme over a vast area to combat the cultivation of drugs in Colombia, through the use of fumigation which would cause great ecological and human damage, and cause still more population displacement in the Amazon region of between 150,000 and 300,000 people. The budget of the project was huge, and the genuine purpose of the plan was a counter-insurgency strategy, making U.S. troops part of the domestic conflict in Colombia and undermining the peace process under way in Colombia over the past two years.
KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said that according to United Nations conventions, an occupying power was prohibited from moving its own citizens into occupied territory. Unfortunately, this practice was rampant. The first example was the Western Sahara, where the practice of transferring non-Sahraouis to the area over many years had led to difficulties in carrying out referendums. The Subcommission and the international community should assist UN authorities in the efforts to verify voters for the referendum and then to carry out the vote. In the Moluccas, there had been concerted efforts by the Indonesian authorities to dilute the presence of native Moluccas in their own territory by a massive influx of settlers and heavily armed Javanese under the pretext of a Jihad. The recent wave of armed commandos from Java numbered as high as 40,000. The international community had to act appropriately and had to help the internally displaced people who faced danger. International humanitarian law also prohibited forced removal of civilians in most circumstances and more attention was required on this facet of the issue.
GRACIELA ROBERT, of Medecins du Monde, said concern was felt over the situation of Serbs and Gypsies in Kosovo; even during the bombings, Medecins du Monde had been present in Kosovo. Several medical teams now carried out about 2,000 primary health consultations per week. Currently efforts were aimed, based on need, on the Serbian and Gypsy minorities. The level of violence confronting these communities essentially meant they were not free to move about, greatly affecting their level of health care. Some 100,000 Serbs were still present in Kosovo, although the great majority had fled the province. Each day, the remaining Serbs were attacked, and there were often deaths and damage to property; they were reduced to cowering in enclaves protected by international troops.
More than 15,000 Roma lived in Kosovo and generally were separated from the rest of the population and suffered especially desperate conditions. Fear and intimidation kept them from moving about, with negative effects on their health care. The right to return of displaced Serbs clearly was not able to be exercised under the current situation. The Subcommission should study possible measures of improving freedom of movement for the Serb and Gypsy minorities, in consultation with UNHCR and the UN administration in Kosovo.
CHARLES GRAVES, of Interfaith International, said that the official figures of the Sri Lankan Government stated that there were 697,000 internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka. These were mostly Tamils who had usually been displaced not only once but as many as ten to fifteen times. They were living in dire and appalling conditions and only severely restricted trickles of food had been allowed by the Government into the Tamil homeland area for over ten years. Due to the malnourishment, the vulnerability of the internally displaced people to epidemics was growing. The effect of these severe restrictions was virtually an embargo imposed on the civilian population. It had been asserted by several international legal experts that food and medicine was being used as a weapon of war by the Sri Lankan Government against the Tamil people. As if this was not bad enough the internally displaced population was further subjected to daily threats to life by bombings by the Sri Lankan forces. Concern was also raised concerning the situation of internal displacement of Shiite Muslims in Iraq and the grave challenge facing Eritreans.
SHAH GHULAM QADIR, of the World Muslim Congress, said that in Kashmir, India frequently denied freedom of movement, among other things in the case of Kashmiri leaders who sought to attend international conferences related to Islam or human rights. Kashmiri leaders Mohammad Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Gilane, Professor Abdul Ghani Butt and Bashir Ahmad Tota had never been allowed to leave India to participate in any Conference or meeting, including that of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. There were many other specific individuals and specific incidents reinforcing that pattern. It was a serious human-rights violation when officials and representatives of civil society could not attend or participate in international conferences, and Kashmiris had been stopped, among other things, from coming to the Subcommission and to the Commission on Human Rights.
The international human-rights community should join hands to adopt an international convention on the right to freedom of movement, and the Commission on Human Rights should be reminded of the draft declaration on the right of a person to leave any country, including his own, which had been presented to it by the Subcommission in 1991.
VERENA GRAF, of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said that Turkey alleged that the number of evacuated villages was around 800 plus about 1,600 other smaller hamlets, whilst the Turkish Parliamentary Committee reported the number of 3,428. The governmental 'return to village project' to which the delegation of Turkey had referred to was not taken seriously as it was based on voluntary action rather than a State initiative. Furthermore, it was not possible to provide security only with military measures, as long as villagers were obliged to become village guards as a condition to return to their villages. The project should be implemented in a transparent and participatory way. If Turkey implemented the Copenhagen criteria and fulfilled the requirements of the international treaties to which Turkey was a signatory, both the Kurds and Turks could live together peacefully. The right to return had not been granted to the 10,000 Kurds who fled in 1998 and were now living in Makhmour, a North Iraqi camp. Though they wanted to return to their own country, they felt that some conditions had to be changed first, such as the lifting of the state of emergency in the Kurdish provinces and a change in general in the attitude of the Turkish Government towards Kurdish culture and Kurdish language.
MUNIR AKRAM (Pakistan) said migrations were propelled in large measure by economic incentives and prospects for better jobs and quality of life, yet the current practice in industrialized countries of accepting only political refugees or, more readily, trained and skilled migrant workers, was discriminatory in essence and contributed to the "brain drain" from developing countries. Pakistan proposed that the Subcommission undertake a study on the issues of migration and freedom of movement in the current global and North-South Environment.
Resolution of armed conflict and promotion of peace required freedom of the political leadership of various opinions to move freely within and outside countries and territories. In the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri leaders had to have the right to free movement; leaders belonging to the 35 party APHC had been incarcerated for a long time without due process; their recent release should be accompanied by freedom to move within and outside Kashmir and to engage in consultations freely with other parties to the dispute. Meanwhile several criminal elements had left Pakistan and were residing in certain Western countries; a mechanism to ensure their speedy return must be found to stem international crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.
* *** *
and Protection of Human Rights
52nd session
15 August 2000
Afternoon
Concludes Discussion on Administration of Justice and Human Rights
The Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights began its discussion this afternoon on the freedom of movement, hearing from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that real or perceived political, security, economic and social costs of hosting refugees had affected the willingness and capacity of States to receive asylum seekers.
The UNHCR spokesperson went on to say that some States routinely detained asylum seekers in violation of human-rights standards and UNHCR guidelines, and that xenophobia and intolerance directed at asylum seekers in some host countries was becoming a cause of concern.
Earlier, the Subcommission concluded its debate on human-rights issues related to the administration of justice, an agenda item focusing on such topics as states of emergency, gross and massive violations of human rights as an international crime, juvenile justice, and the privatization of prisons. Interventions made under the topic elicited a series of rights of reply from countries in attendance, and several Subcommission Experts spoke on the challenges of combatting impunity for human-rights violations committed in times of conflict.
Representatives spoke from the following non-governmental organizations: the International Commission of Jurists, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, Interfaith International, the Muslim World League, the Latin American Human Rights Association, the Bunyad Literacy Community Council, the African Commission of Health and Human Rights Promoters, North-South XXI, the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, the American Association of Jurists, International Educational Development, Medecins du Monde, Interfaith International, the Muslim World League, and the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples.
Subcommission Experts or Alternate Members Louis Joinet, Rajendra Kalidas Wimala Goonesekere, and Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros addressed the session.
The national delegations of Pakistan, Iraq, and Belarus delivered statements.
And Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and the United Kingdom spoke in exercise of the right of reply.
The Subcommission will reconvene at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 16 August, and is expected over the course of the morning to begin discussion of the rights of children and youth.
Statements on the administration of justice and human rights
NADJA HOUBEN, of the International Commission of Jurists, said that an independent judiciary was critical in order to uphold human rights. A report had highlighted the systematic violations in the judiciary system of 49 countries. In Colombia, there had been increasing levels of harassment of people attached to the judiciary by the military forces. The Commission had called upon the Government to investigate the situation of the administration of justice. There was extensive concern as to the high levels of impunity in Peru, Brazil and Algeria. The same situation had been seen in political manoeuvring in Chad and Senegal. These actions were in clear contradiction to international law.
The International Commission of Jurists welcomed the decision to strip General Pinochet of his parliamentary immunity. The Government of Chile had been called upon to restrict the jurisdiction of the military court and only use this means of trying people when the accused were linked to the military. The European Court of Human Rights had repeatedly condemned the situation of the judiciary in Turkey and the State's failures in domestic prosecutions and investigations. There had, however, been recent developments such as the removal of military judges from the civil courts. In Palestine, there was a similar problem between the military and civil court. In Egypt, military courts continued to try civilians, as in the conflict of jurisdiction in Ecuador. This precluded the identification and punishment of the offenders of crimes against human rights.
MOHAMMAD ANWAR, of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, said it was distressing that the principal representative of International Educational Development was assaulted by those demonstrating in front of the UN on the Sri Lankan issue last Friday. That any non-governmental organization (NGO) should be attacked for defending human rights, and for the attackers to argue that all NGOs financed themselves on the misery of others, was outrageous, and should be condemned by the Subcommission and all other NGOs.
Over the past eight years, there had been serious human-rights violations in urban centres of Sindh, particularly Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, and other cities of the province in southern Pakistan, perpetuated by a form of State terrorism on the basis of racism and ethnicity under the domination of the Punjabi ruling oligarchy. The Punjabi army played the tune, directly or indirectly, and as a result the Mohajir minority suffered extra-judicial executions, unlawful arrests, and brutal torture in the custody of the State. The new military Government had shown no change in this long-standing and brutal campaign. The Subcommission should take urgent steps to check these human rights violations, and should recommend a mechanism for the provision of rights to the minorities of Pakistan.
CHARLES GRAVES, of Interfaith International, said that since 1975, Morocco had occupied the territories of the Western Sahara, thus violating the international declarations on the right of colonized peoples to be self-governing and independent. Morocco had committed serious violations of human rights and thousands of Western Sahara people had been victims of kidnapping, torture and other arbitrary actions on the part of the Moroccan authorities. Despite the presence of the United Nations in the Western Sahara territory, the Moroccan authorities continued their persecution of civilians in the Western Sahara.
Interfaith International also brought up the question of disappearances in the Republic of Sri Lanka, where emergency regulations had been in place for the last twenty years. The wide power given to the Sri Lankan security forces had resulted in torture, disappearances and deaths in custody. The Subcommission was urged to act on this matter and to watch over the situation of the human rights of the citizens of Bahrain to determine whether the Government was upholding its promises to check the many anomalies in the administration of justice in that country. The international community was still awaiting the return of a constitutional parliamentary democracy in Bahrain.
SAEEDA SHAH, of the Muslim World League, said that in Kashmir, when a young men left home for university or work, his family did not know if they would ever see him again. In some cases, when families were influential or rich enough to bribe prison officials, they might come to know of his imprisonment, but in most cases they would be unable to have him released. Filing a habaes corpus appeal did not help, since under various acts the Indian security forces were allowed to detain a person without reason. At times the mutilated bodies of detainees were found in nearby woods or rivers; the usual explanation of Indian authorities was "killed in a police encounter" or "killed while trying to escape". Death in general was the only escape from torture and degradation for hundreds of young Kashmiris held in Kashmiri jails.
The Subcommission and working group on arbitrary detention should call on India to bring before local courts the cases of all prisoners arbitrarily arrested; to allow visits by the Special Rapporteurs on torture and extra-judicial executions; to ratify the Convention against Torture without any reservations, and to implement its provisions in their entirety.
MARCELO ORELLANA, of the Latin American Human Rights Associations, said a recent example which had been brought up in the Human Rights Commission was the representative of the Amazon Colombian Indigenous Peoples and the threat to the indigenous and colonialised peoples. There was a serious threat of extinction. This was nothing new, but it was by this time irreversible. There was a conflict between the armed forces and the drug traffickers in Colombia which affected the Colombian indigenous people. They were living in a situation of threat due to the political and armed conflict in Colombia, consisting in using women and children in intelligence operations, threats to their traditional subsidence and their traditional holy sites. These were serious human rights violations and the indigenous peoples' very existence was in danger as problems such as malnutrition and death were generated. It was important to hear from indigenous groups' young people who could witness to how they had been caught up in the armed conflict. Children were the future and the armed activities forced the displacement of indigenous peoples to the urban centres. These people did not only have a spiritual value but also a social value to the society, yet they had been discriminated against for several decades. The Subcommission was urged to pay attention to the manner in which indigenous peoples in Colombia were threatened by the armed conflict.
NAHIDA MAHHOOD ELLAHI, of the Bunyad Literacy Community Council, said some improvements had been made in Pakistani administration of justice related to the death penalty and to abolition of the use of bar fetters, but lacunae in the law remained, resulting in delay and injustice. Pakistan was called upon to bring its juvenile justice system into compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to amend laws that were discriminatory against women so that the country was in conformity with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
In Jammu and Kashmir, there were immense human rights and justice problems; the situation there violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and there was utter impunity for offenses committed by security forces because the Armed Forces Special Powers Act did not allow prosecutions. Amnesty International had noted in reports to the Human Rights Committee that legal protections in India proliferated but were nullified by other legislation or were not consistently implemented, and that victims or their relatives seeking legal redress had been subjected to harassment and intimidation. India and Pakistan should review all their laws and amend those that did not meet international standards.
IMTIAZ HUSSAIN (Pakistan) said Pakistan's Convention on Human Rights and Human Dignity had been held in April. It was a collective endeavour of the Government and the civil society. The Convention had led to the ban of the use of bar fetters; a reform of the police system and improvements in conditions of detention; the setting up of the Women in Distress Fund which had been dormant for a number of years and would be used for improving the conditions of jails and protection houses for women; the creating of an independent National Human Rights Institution; and the creation of a fund for the rehabilitation of released bonded labourers. In addition to this, Pakistan had promulgated the long debated and delayed Juvenile System Ordinance, the main features of which states that every child accused of commission of an offence should have the right to legal assistance; the creation of separate juvenile courts and the prohibition of joint adult and juvenile trials; and strict guidelines for juvenile courts. The Ordinance also states that: '...no child shall be awarded punishment of death, or ordered to labour during the time spent in any borstal or such other institution and handcuffed, put in fetters or given any corporal punishment at any time while in custody.'
The judiciary in Pakistan was an independent, powerful and vigorous institution and the Government and the people of Pakistan realized the importance thereof. Courts were required to submit monthly reports to inform the office of the Chief Justice of the progress in the disposal of cases. It was hoped that this measure would significantly speed up the process of delivery of justice.
SAAD HUSSAIN (Iraq) said massive and gross violations of human rights were an international crime; foremost among human rights was the right to life. Food was necessary for life, and so international instruments had prohibited policies of starvation, which in fact amounted to genocide. Genocide was an effort to destroy a people, to physically liquidate them. The Commission on Human Rights had said in a resolution in 1996 that food and medicine should not be used as instruments of coercion, and the Rome Declaration had prohibited the use of food for political pressure.
However, the United States and Britain insisted on the continuation of the embargo against Iraq, despite the horrifying evidence of its impact on the Iraqi population. The embargo had led to the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqi citizens, and had caused suffering among the rest of Iraqis. In addition, the country was still exposed to American and British air raids, and recently they had bombed food storehouses in the south of the country. The use of degraded uranium in weapons against Iraq had caused further suffering, including heightened cancer rates. These crimes were worse than those inflicted by the Nazis. The international community must demand an end to these atrocities.
DMITRY MIRONCHIK (Belarus) said that the Constitution of Belarus stipulated that no one be subjected to inhuman, cruel punishment or treatment. The freedom from torture was respected in a state of emergency and crimes were punishable by the penal law. The country had for long been prepared to lift its reservation to article 21 of the Convention against Torture. It had completed the internal procedures for lifting this reservation to this international treaty. The adoption of the law by parliament was a lengthy process which had allowed a broad nation-wide discussion on these issues. Rights which affected the rights of man was usually covered by the media in order to inform the greatest number of people of their rights. Not a single deputy in Belarus voted against it. Each stage had been covered by the media, thus two goals had been achieved, the adoption of the convention and the rise of awareness of the population. The Belarus delegation was looking forward to the report of the Special Rapporteur and hoped to receive positive input on the many developments.
Rights of Reply
A representative of Egypt, speaking in right of reply, said a number of NGOs had raised the issue of Dr. Saad El-Din Ibrahim and had linked his arrest to the elections in Egypt and the Copts in Egypt. The accused in Egypt, like in other countries around the world, were innocent until proven guilty. Dr. Ibrahim was still under investigation. He was arrested and then released after all requirements had been fulfilled. Once the investigation was over, charges and responsibilities would be defined. The judiciary in Egypt was independent, and emergency laws were applied only with parliamentary approval and under strict conditions. Egypt had amended its Constitution to reflect Supreme Court decisions; Copts had been treated only with tolerance and equality and in fact Copts refused even to be called a minority.
A representative of Yemen said in right of reply that an NGO had attacked Yemen without any rational reason, with information from unreliable sources in an attempt to distort the actual situation. The judiciary in Yemen was fully independent and transparent. Yemen had a trade union which had been elected in a free manner. The number of opposition parties abroad only attempted to gain material advantages. The Government had not failed to put an end to violations of human rights. If there were allegations, there were always full and serious investigations. The allegations made by the non-governmental organization were unfounded and based on unreliable sources.
A representative of Turkey, speaking right of reply, said Turkey had already replied to allegations of impunity in the country, but the intervention of Mrs. Hampson deserved repetition of Turkey's remarks. The Government had made sincere efforts to promote and protect human rights. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment were subject to investigation. Hundreds of allegations had been investigated, resulting in a number of prosecutions. Changes in the law had aimed to reduce impunity and to hold civil servants responsible for their acts. Legislation of all States had to meet existing situations. Perhaps some were not satisfied with the steps taken, but the new law had brought about a significant improvement.
A representative of Indonesia, speaking in right of reply, responded to the statement made by Mr. Pinheiro when referring to the judicial situation in Aceh and East Timor. The situation in East Timor was being considered by the Commission, hence the Subcommission should not consider issues which were already under consideration. In East Timor, the Government was making efforts to punish those responsible for human rights abuses. In Aceh, there was a consensus that the legal proceedings should be temporarily suspended pending the national human rights committee expected to be set up in September. Indonesia was adamant to carry out reforms and eliminate impunity, and welcomed the opportunity to discuss these issues further with Mr. Pinheiro.
A representative of Viet Nam, speaking in right of reply, said the statement of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues needed a response to avoid misinformation in the Subcommission. The cases referred to in that NGO's statement did not reflect the reality. It was the Government's sincere aim to protect and promote human rights, including religious freedom and freedom of the press, in reality as well as in policy. Arbitrary detentions and arrests were prohibited in law and in practice. No one was arrested without a decision of the People's Court or the People's Procurate.
A representative of the United Kingdom, in a right of reply, responded to the statement made by the delegation of Iraq. He would make available an aide-memoire and documentation about this issue on behalf of the United Kingdom's Government and that of the United States.
A representative of Iraq, in a second right of reply, said the United Kingdom had spoken about the situation in Iraq; yet Iraq had not spoken about violations of human rights in the U.S. and the U.K. Iraq had spoken only about the suffering of Iraqis under the brutal economic embargo and as a result of the air raids against the country. The British air raids still went on. Now Britain was objecting to Iraq's statement. Still the Yankee bombardment went on. Iraq could have asked compensation for all the damage caused; it had accepted the cease fire in 1991, yet the aggression against Iraq continued. What did the United States and the United Kingdom expect him to say? This was a genocide.
LOUIS JOINET, Subcommission Expert, said the Subcommission had played a pioneering role in the fight against impunity, whether it was the truth and reconciliation commission, the administration of justice or national or international justice systems. Developments within these areas fitted into the overall recommendations of the Subcommission. One could say, that history had proved the Subcommission right. For example, in Brazil, the president of the Human Rights Commission of the Congress had gone to Paraguay to study the seized archives so that charges could be brought against General Shoessner. In Chile, there would be proceedings against a former dictator. In Argentina, there were no longer any statutes of limitations with regards to crimes against humanity. In Argentinean law, the military was judged by ordinary courts and for the first time there was no conflict in jurisdiction which proved a real return to democracy.
In international justice, an important initiative had been taken, suggested by the Security Council, in the creation of an Ad Hoc Court dealing with crimes of war and crimes against humanity. The resolution specified that the amnesty measures would not apply to international crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also on the international level, one needed to come back to the establishment of the International Criminal Court in Rome. So far 98 countries had signed, however only 14
countries had ratified it. The court could only commence its work when there were 60 ratifications, which was predicted to take four to five years. It was important to not place too much hopes on this court, and it was important to have the national justice systems working properly.
Concerning human rights defenders, Mr. Joinet urged the Subcommission to look into the cases of the murdered Sri Lankan Lawyer and the slanderous treatment of the Director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists. This was suggested not in terms of a resolution but as a specific request. Only a proper administration of justice could avoid the impunity of these crimes.
RAJENDRA KALIDAS WIMALA GOONESEKERE, Subcommission Expert, said there were problems of administration of justice during a time of conflict within a country, and he had experience of the situation in his own country. Sri Lanka had adopted the British system of criminal justice which included the presumption that a man was innocent until proved guilty. When cases involved persons in security forces accused of torture and illegal activities, and there was, quite rightly, a great deal of attention focused on these people by human-rights organizations who wanted them punished; the question arose, were these people also entitled to the same presumption of innocence? Sometimes procedural law was changed, leading to difficulties. Under an old law, statements recorded by the police were not acceptable in court; it sometimes happened that confessions were thus recorded but not usable in court; now the problem sometimes arose that there should be no relaxation of this law even in times of crisis, even in cases of persons accused of human-rights violations. The age-old situation therefore sometimes arose where persons who in fact were guilty could not be proved to be guilty, and so were released. And often it was decided not to prosecute someone, since the evidence was not strong enough. These were among the problems encountered in practice. The result was that there were charges that impunity was sanctioned by the State.
There was a senior army officer accused, for example, along with a number of other soldiers, of being in charge of a camp allegedly responsible for disappearances, including about 30 children. This high officer was accused, and after a long trial of about two years, he was acquitted because the evidence was not strong enough. The military had considered him a good officer and took him back. He was subsequently recommended for promotion, but the President refused to promote him, saying he might have been acquitted but there were nonetheless doubts about his involvement. Then there were charges he had unfairly been denied promotion, but ultimately the Supreme Court backed the President. This was an illustration of the problems encountered with criminal law in a time of national crisis. The point was, were you going to change the law in a situation like this, and relax the standard burden of proof? The matter was not easy; it was complicated, and the burden of proof could be hard to meet.
MANUEL RODRIGUEZ CUADROS, Subcommission Expert, said that the administration of justice had to respect the rule of law and had to exclude impunity to ensure that constitutional resources were effective. The independence of the judiciary was a question which the Subcommission had dealt with in the past. It was felt that at the current point in time, the independence of the judiciary was particularly important. The Subcommission had witnessed significant progress when it came to the protection of the independence of the judiciary. At the last Commission, principles had been extended to include the independence of juries and not only lawyers and judges. These changes did not always have the wanted effects in practice. In many countries the impartiality of judges and lawyers was made more and more difficult. Corruption played a significant part here, not a structural corruption of a political system as a whole, but a more specific corruption which altered the behaviour of lawyers and judges.
Systematic human rights violations occurred where there was impunity, particularly when the judiciary had lost its independence. Impartiality was the key in keeping with the rule of law and decisions had to be founded on the law which responded to the evidence. The existence of any reward to a judge or lawyer directly affected this vital principle. A judge who did not act in adherence to the law was not an impartial judge and was not providing effective protection of human rights. Political actors had the power to alter this partiality and the administration of justice had often had to bow to the political powers that be. Effective autonomous justice had to be ensured. This was an essential part of reform, not only within human rights but also within any social, economic and cultural reform. In this context, the World Bank and regional financial institutions had developed programmes for judiciary reforms. In some cases such reorganization led to political interference and a loss of judicial independence. It was perhaps more effective, but less autonomous and this could eventually lead to corruption and a loss of autonomy in the activity of judges. One had to find a way of giving priority to autonomy in administration of justice in any fight against corruption. Legislation had to lay down guidelines for action and sanctions should there be corruption.
Statements on freedom of movement
NGOZI MADUAKOH, of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said there was a rapidly changing and complex environment today in which the real or perceived political, security, economic and social costs of hosting refugees had affected the willingness and capacity of States to receive refugees. Problems of illegal migration, smuggling and trafficking of persons in some parts of the world had led to the politicization of the institution of asylum, and in some States to a tendency to criminalize refugees and asylum-seekers. There were a number of instances where refugees and asylum seekers had been turned back or repatriated against their will, although there was a clear risk to their safety on return. In some countries of Europe and the Americas concerns about trafficking and smuggling in persons had led to tighter control measures, and without care, policies of Governments could blur the distinctions between refugees and economic migrants and lead to stigmatizing refugees as criminals.
The right to asylum had a qualitative content. Tough restrictions on refugees' freedom of movement and severe constraints on their ability to feed, shelter, and support themselves and their families, and systematic detention in some States, significantly eroded the quality of asylum. Arbitrary detention of asylum seekers was a violation of human-rights principles and contrary to UNHCR guidelines. UNHCR was also worried about increasing xenophobia and intolerance in host countries.
KASHINATH PANDITA, of the African Commission on Health and Human Rights Promoters, appreciated the efforts made by the international community on the topic on displacement and the protection of internally displaced people. The number of internally displaced people had escalated from 30 million to 50 million since the beginning of the year 2000. Ethnic cleansing had become a weapon against internally displaced people, a practice which could be seen in Sudan, Angola and Cambodia. These three countries had the largest number of internally displaced people. Catching up these days were the people of Korea and Kashmir. Internally displaced people were in no way less victimized than refugees, in many cases States were reluctant to act or respond to their needs. The questions of safeguarding the property left behind had not been touched upon by the Subcommission to this date and required more attention. The ground realities needed to be taken into consideration. These people needed to find a place of security and safety. Realities were harsh for internally displaced people and they required more international attention.
GULNAR WAKIM, of North-South XXI, said freedom of movement was of vital significance for countries of the South in relation to those of the North. Earlier, the countries of the West had lectured the rest of the world on freedom of movement. Now the West often limited the movement of people in ways not at all based on international criteria. Foreigners were repatriated even when returning to their home countries posed a serious risk to their welfare. The United States gleefully flouted international standards on freedom of movement; in American embassies, it was clear that if you were North Korean, or Iraqi, or Iranian, it was pointless to seek a visa. The U.S. even returned some people seeking entry at its own borders. Other States also violated the freedom of movement. Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria were deprived of their passports and their freedom of movement without regard to their right to work.
The right to freedom of movement was essential for human existence, which was why certain powers and Governments were using it for their own strategic interests. The powerful in the world could travel where they wished, but not those from "bad" countries, not exiled people and not the poor. The Subcommission must act to correct this injustice.
K. WARIKOO, of the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, said that the problem of population displacements was one of the serious humanitarian, human rights, political and security concerns in this millennium. The number of internally displaced people had gone well above 25 million people. Atrocities by mercenaries, terrorists and Islamist fundamentalists and other forms of violence against indigenous ethnic and religious minorities had caused forced exoduses and internal displacement of several hundred thousand people in parts of South and Central Asia. The forced displacement of almost the entire Kashmir Pandit indigenous minority, which affected about 400,000 people who had been terrorized, killed and hounded out by the Islamist terrorists, was a case in point. This minority community had been suffering from displacement for 11 years. There was an urgent need to work out a policy of integrated and compassionate humanitarian assistance and sustainable development with an emphasis on health recovery, education and employment. The Subcommission was urged to exert pressure on the sponsors of violence and religious terrorism so that the major cause of forced human displacement in the region was eliminated.
JAIRO SANCHEZ, of the American Association of Jurists, said the organization was paying particular attention to the serious human-rights situation in Colombia, where the Government had repeatedly shown that it was ineffective and was party to the conflict and the crisis. The worrying and desperate situation of a majority of Colombians, peasant farmers in particular, could be summed up in the relentless displacement of persons. Some 1.9 million people of a population of 40 million had been internally displaced in recent years, losing their homes, lands and livelihoods. In 1999, for each person murdered or killed in the conflict in Colombia, 48 had to move on.
Now the United States would fund a vast programme over a vast area to combat the cultivation of drugs in Colombia, through the use of fumigation which would cause great ecological and human damage, and cause still more population displacement in the Amazon region of between 150,000 and 300,000 people. The budget of the project was huge, and the genuine purpose of the plan was a counter-insurgency strategy, making U.S. troops part of the domestic conflict in Colombia and undermining the peace process under way in Colombia over the past two years.
KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said that according to United Nations conventions, an occupying power was prohibited from moving its own citizens into occupied territory. Unfortunately, this practice was rampant. The first example was the Western Sahara, where the practice of transferring non-Sahraouis to the area over many years had led to difficulties in carrying out referendums. The Subcommission and the international community should assist UN authorities in the efforts to verify voters for the referendum and then to carry out the vote. In the Moluccas, there had been concerted efforts by the Indonesian authorities to dilute the presence of native Moluccas in their own territory by a massive influx of settlers and heavily armed Javanese under the pretext of a Jihad. The recent wave of armed commandos from Java numbered as high as 40,000. The international community had to act appropriately and had to help the internally displaced people who faced danger. International humanitarian law also prohibited forced removal of civilians in most circumstances and more attention was required on this facet of the issue.
GRACIELA ROBERT, of Medecins du Monde, said concern was felt over the situation of Serbs and Gypsies in Kosovo; even during the bombings, Medecins du Monde had been present in Kosovo. Several medical teams now carried out about 2,000 primary health consultations per week. Currently efforts were aimed, based on need, on the Serbian and Gypsy minorities. The level of violence confronting these communities essentially meant they were not free to move about, greatly affecting their level of health care. Some 100,000 Serbs were still present in Kosovo, although the great majority had fled the province. Each day, the remaining Serbs were attacked, and there were often deaths and damage to property; they were reduced to cowering in enclaves protected by international troops.
More than 15,000 Roma lived in Kosovo and generally were separated from the rest of the population and suffered especially desperate conditions. Fear and intimidation kept them from moving about, with negative effects on their health care. The right to return of displaced Serbs clearly was not able to be exercised under the current situation. The Subcommission should study possible measures of improving freedom of movement for the Serb and Gypsy minorities, in consultation with UNHCR and the UN administration in Kosovo.
CHARLES GRAVES, of Interfaith International, said that the official figures of the Sri Lankan Government stated that there were 697,000 internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka. These were mostly Tamils who had usually been displaced not only once but as many as ten to fifteen times. They were living in dire and appalling conditions and only severely restricted trickles of food had been allowed by the Government into the Tamil homeland area for over ten years. Due to the malnourishment, the vulnerability of the internally displaced people to epidemics was growing. The effect of these severe restrictions was virtually an embargo imposed on the civilian population. It had been asserted by several international legal experts that food and medicine was being used as a weapon of war by the Sri Lankan Government against the Tamil people. As if this was not bad enough the internally displaced population was further subjected to daily threats to life by bombings by the Sri Lankan forces. Concern was also raised concerning the situation of internal displacement of Shiite Muslims in Iraq and the grave challenge facing Eritreans.
SHAH GHULAM QADIR, of the World Muslim Congress, said that in Kashmir, India frequently denied freedom of movement, among other things in the case of Kashmiri leaders who sought to attend international conferences related to Islam or human rights. Kashmiri leaders Mohammad Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Gilane, Professor Abdul Ghani Butt and Bashir Ahmad Tota had never been allowed to leave India to participate in any Conference or meeting, including that of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. There were many other specific individuals and specific incidents reinforcing that pattern. It was a serious human-rights violation when officials and representatives of civil society could not attend or participate in international conferences, and Kashmiris had been stopped, among other things, from coming to the Subcommission and to the Commission on Human Rights.
The international human-rights community should join hands to adopt an international convention on the right to freedom of movement, and the Commission on Human Rights should be reminded of the draft declaration on the right of a person to leave any country, including his own, which had been presented to it by the Subcommission in 1991.
VERENA GRAF, of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said that Turkey alleged that the number of evacuated villages was around 800 plus about 1,600 other smaller hamlets, whilst the Turkish Parliamentary Committee reported the number of 3,428. The governmental 'return to village project' to which the delegation of Turkey had referred to was not taken seriously as it was based on voluntary action rather than a State initiative. Furthermore, it was not possible to provide security only with military measures, as long as villagers were obliged to become village guards as a condition to return to their villages. The project should be implemented in a transparent and participatory way. If Turkey implemented the Copenhagen criteria and fulfilled the requirements of the international treaties to which Turkey was a signatory, both the Kurds and Turks could live together peacefully. The right to return had not been granted to the 10,000 Kurds who fled in 1998 and were now living in Makhmour, a North Iraqi camp. Though they wanted to return to their own country, they felt that some conditions had to be changed first, such as the lifting of the state of emergency in the Kurdish provinces and a change in general in the attitude of the Turkish Government towards Kurdish culture and Kurdish language.
MUNIR AKRAM (Pakistan) said migrations were propelled in large measure by economic incentives and prospects for better jobs and quality of life, yet the current practice in industrialized countries of accepting only political refugees or, more readily, trained and skilled migrant workers, was discriminatory in essence and contributed to the "brain drain" from developing countries. Pakistan proposed that the Subcommission undertake a study on the issues of migration and freedom of movement in the current global and North-South Environment.
Resolution of armed conflict and promotion of peace required freedom of the political leadership of various opinions to move freely within and outside countries and territories. In the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri leaders had to have the right to free movement; leaders belonging to the 35 party APHC had been incarcerated for a long time without due process; their recent release should be accompanied by freedom to move within and outside Kashmir and to engage in consultations freely with other parties to the dispute. Meanwhile several criminal elements had left Pakistan and were residing in certain Western countries; a mechanism to ensure their speedy return must be found to stem international crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.
* *** *