Sent December 22, 2012 to Human Rights Watch
hrwpress@hrw.org, blatche@hrw.org, berlin@hrw.org
Greetings. My name is
Adam Larson, and I’m the cofounder of Citizen’s Investigation into War Crimes
in Libya (CIWCL - ciwclibya.org). We’re not famous, but since June, we've been
focusing (without a name-change) on events in Syria. At the moment, we’re
studying the subject of this message - the mysterious recent events in Aqrab,
Syria.
The following is an open letter that will be
published at the CIWCL site and hopefully more prominent places as well. In lieu of one clear address for such things,
I'm sending this message to three addresses. Please, someone among you, see
that this message gets to all relevant people, especially
Middle East director Nadim Houry,
Compelling Evidence ?
As Human Rights Watch (HRW hereafter) will
be aware, eleven days ago it was alleged that some 125-150 or more Alawi
civilians were killed in Aqrab, just two miles north of the rebel stronghold of
Al-Houla. The first reports were from Sunni activists who said they had besieged and surrounded a house containing
criminal Shabiha, until they learned of a huge number of civilian human shields
there too. Talks were tried, but the Shabiha killed the negotiators and then
killed their captives with grenades, blew up the building somehow, and slipped
away through the rebel cordon never to be seen again. The building explosion
wasn't enough to kill their now-unneeded human shields, so the government
itself finished the job with both artillery and air strikes. They did this to frame the rebels, they said. [i]
The rebels were there the whole time, but apparently never fired a shot and
remained stunned on the sidelines as these events cascaded around them,
completely un-recorded.
There was an unusual level of skepticism
evident in the first Reuters dispatches. he said, without
explaining why they would attack their own side.Duly
citing the rebel-held boy witness who vaguely blamed Shabiha, they noted “it was not clear whether the boy was
speaking freely.” [ii]
Veteran war reporter
Alex Thomson for Channel 4 news has stated the boy and others were “apparently
speaking under duress.” Of course his actual reporting,
from the scene, challenged the story the rebels had them tell us. Thomson was
the first journalist, and still the only Western one, to bother getting up to
the edge of Aqrab (no one dares go in - it’s been ‘liberated’). He brought back
what could be called compelling evidence: three alleged witnesses separately
interviewed on-video with no minder from either side, ‘dozens’ of off-camera
interviews, and a visual survey of them and the city they fled. All of these
painted a consistent picture that seems to have all but convinced Thomson that
the rebel narrative he aggressively attacked was a lie. [iii]
Channel 4’s report was widely respected and
accepted, and was soon corroborated by similar video reports by Al-Khabar
Tele-Site (Syria) [iv] and
Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) [v].
Speaking to refugees and escapees in neighboring Al-Taonah (2 km west of Aqrab
and vulnerable), all these reporters heard the same story. It wasn’t Alawite
militias but heavily-armed foreign-backed Sunni rebels from nearby Al-Houla
that took them hostage. That’s why they were around the building.
Collectively, they say about 500 Alawites, all
those who didn’t flee in time, were rounded up soon after the decisive rebel
conquest of the city on December 2 (an event acknowledged by both sides). Their
homes were burnt, and they were all herded into a house owned by a local
businessman. Theose who allegedly escaped report being badly mistreated, denied
food and water, and by one account and some evidence, subjected to the smoke of
burning tires in the confined space. [vi]
All this is consistent with an intent to force
some decision on the part of the Alawites. The "Shabiha" keeping the
women and chldren imprisoned there were perhaps their male family members, and
any bond holding them was of love - they didn’t want to be separated. They say
the rebels wanted to spare the women and children, to be cared for as human
shields in rebel-held Al-Houla. The men were to be killed.
It seems about 300 prisoners total were
released, perhaps in exchange for some of the four rebel commanders the captors
wanted in trade. Some others may have escaped. Most of those released went to
Al-Taonah, but some were re-routed to Al-Houla after all. That’s likely who we
saw blaming the Shabiha in the clear presence of rebel minders.
It’s true, as Houry notes, that we cannot with
certainty consider a massacre to have happened. However, the urgent fact is
that the same approximately 200 people the rebels last described as mostly
dead are in fact unaccounted for. As Thomson noted, the prison building the escapees point to was still
standing, not demolished and bombed like the rebels first said. One early
report specifies 233 prisoners, nearly all of them Alawite, were finally killed
by the rebels; 88 of those were women and children. [vii]
This might suggest they got their way – the remaining men plus a few dozen
die-hard family members were liquidated. Among those seen wounded and cared for
in Al-Houla, there seem to be only women and children. As with at Deir
Al-Asafir, there are shrapnel/shelling/bombing injuries among them hat look a
lot like bullet holes. [viii]
It will be hard for some to fathom. How could
Human Beings, and anti-dictator freedom-fighters at that, be so cruel and
deceptive? Aren’t they Muslims? Don’t they understand Human Rights norms? In
fact they’ve never had to. Anything really horrible they do will go down as yet
another cartoonishly evil crime of the "Shabiha" and/or the Alawite
puppet-master Bashar Al-Assad. HRW and many others have always been there
to help. It’s hard to learn in an overly-permissive climate like that.
Judging by the various responses, the world
public recognizes the logic of the clarified narrative, and embraces Thomson’s
report as a rare case of excellent journalism in the climate that both enables
rebel crimes and clearly discourages clear reporting like this.
Rebel Response
The Syrian opposition leader of the NCSROF,
Mouaz Alkhatib, issued an interesting statements on Dec. 12, speaking with the
“Friends of Syria” in Marrakech just as news of the Aqrab massacre broke.
Alkhatib used the then-prevailing storyline of Alawite-on-Alawite violence to
urge the whole Alawi community to rise up against the government with the
rebellion; the alleged massacre was pronounced a “turning point” for the whole
war that was sure to finally trigger the Alawite awakening. That hasn’t been
retracted, but after the 14th, such calls were not heard again as rebels and
their supporters perhaps started trying to forget the whole issue.
With another week since the questions were
lowered, the rebel brigades and the
opposition activists have yet to provide any video proof the captives
are dead or, conversely, that they’re still alive. Anyone of influence who is
concerned with the rights of Humans, even Alawite ones, might make themselves
useful by pressing the NCSROF, the "legitimate representatives" of
the Syrian people, to press their armed forces to help clarify this matter.
If such things are possible. If not, God help
Syria now.
HRW’s Response Thus Far
Whatever exactly happened, this is clearly a
Human tragedy of some type and degree, and one HRW should take at least as
seriously as most. I’m not implying the organization is reticent to find out
and speak up. The evidence implies it.
When the Houla
Massacre happened on May 25, the same day as the biggest rebel offensive there
to date, it took three days for HRW to weigh in. They had seen enough rebel
videos of alleged witnesses to announce “All of the witnesses stated the armed
men [who massacred families] were pro-government,” and demanded a UN
investigation. [ix]There has been no follow-up when other witnesses and other evidence
emerged from UN Monitors, rebel vidoes, and other sources, proving the
rebels gained military control of Taldou at the same time the mass-killings
occurred. [x]
HRW were last seen blaming the Syrian government and the Alawite
"Shabiha" for the massacre, and thus contributing to the mania
that drives (or covers the real reason for) persecution of Alawites like we
witnessed in Aqrab (or chose not to witness, as the
case may be).
When 11 children
were massacred in Deir Al-Asafir exactly six months later, and rebels who
controlled their bodies blamed cluster bombs, HRW decided within two days that
was “compelling evidence” of another grave crime of the government.[xi]
It’s entirely possible they’re correct, but I alerted HRW to some interesting
questions about that in a recent e-mail. In case the message never got through
to the right people, it’s still publicly available on the Internet. [xii]
This time, the death
toll is at least as big as both of those combined. It has been eleven days since the alleged massacre, ten since the news
broke on December 12, and eight days since Channel 4 gave us our first detailed glimpse behind that curtain.
Still, there is no report or public statement on the HRW website, even to
announce that it’s being looked at.
At the very least we
can say things are a bit behind schedule.
In the interim, we
have had small words from Middle East director Nadim Houry, ensuring us (with
some prodding) that there is an investigation. The Los Angeles Times quoted him
on December 15 as saying:
“…the situation
in Aqrab was "very murky," but it seemed clear that a number of
people had been killed. "There are various narratives there, and we
don’t have enough to have a conclusion yet," Houry said. "I’m not
using the word massacre. It’s not clear to me how they died." [xiii]
Previously, when it has seemed clear enough
the government is responsible, HRW has been quick to blame them. But now it’s
plain for the world to see this is a rebel crime, and an extremely grave one
that threatens the whole humanitarian intervention narrative. Perhaps
coincidentally, it’s also far too
"murky" for HRW to call just yet.
Given this climate of suspicious silence, Mr.
Houry made a serious mis-step with this Twitter message of December 17 :
How to get to
bottom of Aqrab massacre claims? send UN investigation team to the scene. Who
can allow them in? #Syria
government
Nevermind who would allow them in, UN monitors who can only be sent
in with a mandate, which the Western powers willingly allowed to expire in
August. By citing as the best (only mentioned) solution an investigation
that can’t happen, then blaming the Syrian governmnet
for that, I read this as a tacit admission that HRW cannot or will not be
getting to the truth, and probably nobody will or
should. That permanent mystery would be Syria’s fault, and so we should presume
they’re trying to hide the truth as usual, and so might be to blame after all,
somehow.
Mr. Houry’s Twitter responses to some
criticism are slightly reassuring, if a bit defensive.
“… we don't know what happened in Aqrab & still
investigating. … Aqrab may be a massacre. We just don't know yet given lack of
available info & ongoing investigation … Where did I say we concluded our
investigation.”
The CIWCL, and many
others, look forward to the announced results of this investigation, if it’s
ever concluded.
Recommendations
One of Houry’s tweets
said “when i was asked the question, narrative was Alawites killed Alawites. I
said, details were murky. Which by they still are.” … FYI Journo asked me about Alawite v. Alawite.” If he means
his LA Times interview on the 15th, that was not the narrative. The
point of that was supposed to be asking for his comment post-Channel 4. He
implies that he wasn’t asked about that, and perhaps he wasn’t.
So apparently Mr.
Houry has not yet commented on that in the days since it appeared - aside from
seemingly passing the buck to nobody. It would be most useful if he now did.
“Murky” is indeed the
right word for the pre-existing rebel narrative(s), but it’s now been
contrasted with something much clearer and less confusing. It squarely blames
the rebels with the murky stories, and Mr. Houry says “details were murky.
Which by they still are.” He has
no comment on the details of the new type of murkiness, but it’s implicitly
about the same as before. Five rebel versions plus Thomson’s report might
equal, on average, rebels mostly right somehow.
All one really needs
to do to investigate a crime is review the evidence, as we few ordinary
citizens have done just with what’s been made publicly available. [xiv]
With their resources, HRW could do something much better; in fact, much of
their work has been done for them. And of course, HRW has the influence to be
even clearer in its identification of the Human Rights violators responsible,
and more powerful in demanding accountability.
Please be aware this
is no time for making a game of finding some excuse to discount the evidence
behind these escalating events in Syria. In the emptied streets of Aqrab of all
places, there is ample room for the unforgivable rebel atrocity being the sad
truth of the matter, and everybody knows it. And if that were the case, as it
seems to be, I need not elaborate on the grave threat that would be posed - to
HRW’s credibility, to Human Rights in Syria into 2013, to World Peace and the
Human Soul - by the world community proceeding as it has despite that fact.
We don’t need a clever
way to blame the Syrian government again. We need a voice for truth, now more
than ever, or next time it may be worse yet, and harder yet to admit the
horrible truth.
Sincerely,
Adam J. Larson
Cofounder, Citizen’s Investigation into War
Crimes in Libya
