Amnesty International Report 1997 - Somalia

Unarmed civilians, including women and children, were among the victims of human rights abuses carried out by warring militias of clan-based factions. Hundreds of deliberate and arbitrary killings, scores of politically motivated detentions, hostage-taking, torture, including rape, and ill-treatment were reported. Prisoners of conscience were detained. Islamic courts imposed several sentences of amputation and flogging. Several people were executed after being condemned to death by Islamic and other courts. A year after the UN withdrawal (see Amnesty International Report 1996), there was still no central or recognized government in the former Somali Republic. The UN Security Council appealed for peace between the rival factions, and urged them to work to establish a broad-based national government. It condemned abuses against humanitarian organizations, whose staff had been kidnapped and property looted. The UN Commission on Human Rights expressed deep concern at reports of arbitrary and summary executions, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, violence against women and children and attacks on humanitarian personnel. Noting the difficulties of the UN Independent Expert on Somalia in fulfilling his mandate, the Commission appealed for resources for an advisory service for the promotion and protection of human rights. Despite the threat of famine and disease, aid operations were obstructed by the continued closure due to faction fighting of Mogadishu's port and airport. At the end of the year more than one and a half million Somalis who had fled the conflict remained outside the country, and half a million were internally displaced. Hundreds of people, including unarmed civilians, were casualties of the faction fighting which continued to break out in certain areas – particularly Mogadishu and the surrounding regions, and Kismayu in the southwest – between forces linked to General Mohamed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi's Somali Salvation Alliance (SSA). Both leaders claimed overall governmental authority, but failed to obtain international recognition. In August, General Aideed died of battle wounds and his son, Hussein Mohamed Aideed, was chosen to succeed him. Despite peace talks in October brokered by the Kenyan Government, fighting in Mogadishu escalated towards the end of the year between Hussein Aideed's forces in the south of the city and the militias of Ali Mahdi, in the north, and his SSA allies, including Osman Ali Atto. Peace talks continued in Ethiopia in December, although Hussein Aideed refused to participate. There was intermittent fighting throughout the year in the Bay and Bakol regions in the southwest, and especially around the towns of Baidoa and Hoddur, between General Aideed's (and later Hussein Aideed's) forces and the Rahenweyn Resistance Army (RRA). The towns of Merca and Kismayu further south also experienced outbreaks of faction fighting in the first half of the year. The northeastern regions were relatively peaceful. In the southwestern Gedo region, in August, September and December, Ethiopian government troops crossed the border and attacked Islamist Al-Itihad militias allegedly responsible for hotel bombings in Ethiopia and an assassination attempt against an Ethiopian government minister. There were reports that unarmed Somali civilians were deliberately killed, as well as Islamist fighters. There was clan-based faction fighting, but on a much smaller scale, in parts of the self-declared Somaliland Republic in the northwest, where relative stability and economic recovery were beginning to be seen. After fighting in the middle of the year around the central town of Burao, peace was agreed between forces supporting the interim administration of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal and militias of the Garhajis sub-clans. A national conference of Somaliland clans began at the end of the year as a step towards elections. There was no consistent, effective or fair criminal justice system. Most governmental institutions had been destroyed in the civil war since 1991. Attempts to maintain public order were based on various local combinations of traditional clan dispute-settlement mechanisms, new and weak regional administration structures, faction militias (some of which abused human rights with impunity), and Islamic courts. In north Mogadishu, the controlling Islamic court system had its own militias and prison and applied an unwritten version of Islamic law. In addition to prison sentences, it handed down penalties of death, and the cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments of amputation and flogging. International standards for fair trial were not respected. There were similar Islamic courts in some other regions, particularly Gedo region. Hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children, were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by members of the warring factions. Individual incidents were difficult to verify, and responsibility was often hard to ascertain. In March, a prominent peace activist, Mohamud Ali Ahmed (known as "Elman"), was murdered by gunmen in south Mogadishu in an execution-style killing. There were reports of many deliberate killings of unarmed civilians from opposing clans by faction militias operating with impunity. Fifteen unarmed people, for example, were shot dead by unidentified faction gunmen in south Mogadishu in October. More than 300 civilian casualties were reported during one week's faction fighting in mid-December in Mogadishu, many of them killed in the deliberate bombardment of opposing clan areas. In places where courts and prisons existed, some people were imprisoned for peacefully expressing their opinions. Around 30 folk musicians were arrested by Islamic court militias after a concert in north Mogadishu in January, swiftly tried and convicted on a charge of violating Islam in their concert performance, which they denied, and flogged. In Baidoa, scores of people were detained for expressing opposition to General Aideed's rule there; some were captured RRA fighters, but others appeared to be prisoners of conscience. There were reports that political opponents of the controlling clan-based factions had been detained in the towns of Merca and Kismayu. In November, 20 people were arrested after a peaceful demonstration in Hargeisa against the Egal administration. They were sentenced to one year's imprisonment after an unfair trial. One of them, Mohamed Haji Mohamud (known as "Omar Hashi"), was released in December. They were prisoners of conscience. Over 20 political prisoners held in Baidoa since it was captured by General Aideed in late 1995 remained in detention without charge or trial during the year. They included members of the former regional administration who were prisoners of conscience. There were unconfirmed reports that they were among 30 prisoners in Baidoa released by Hussein Aideed in December. Justin Fraser, an Australian commercial pilot who made an emergency landing in Bay region, was detained in May by General Aideed's militia, summarily sentenced by a court in Baidoa to 25 years' imprisonment and a US$500,000 fine for illegal entry. These excessive penalties seemed to be related to General Aideed's demand for recognition as the government authority throughout Somalia. However, Justin Fraser was released in October. Kidnap gangs detained hostages to make ransom demands – often containing political elements – on international humanitarian agencies, clans and business companies. Hilal Mohamed Aden, a Kenya-based Somali employee of the Swedish Life and Peace Institute, was kidnapped in August in north Mogadishu and held for three months for a ransom payment. Three members of the Marehan clan detained in the central Galgudud region in March by Abgal sub-clan gunmen were still held at the end of the year under threat of death if the Marehan clan did not pay compensation for Abgal members killed in October 1995 by Marehan clan members. In Somaliland, in February, the High Court in Hargeisa convicted five political opponents of the administration of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal on charges of treason and armed rebellion. Their trial in absentia began in mid-1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1996). Three were sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment; the latter included Jama Mohamed Ghalib, a former member of the Somaliland parliament who had joined General Aideed's faction in south Mogadishu. Scores of rebel Garhajis fighters detained in Somaliland since 1995 without charge or trial were released in the mid-1996 and more than 600 others captured during the year were released in November, as a result of clan reconciliation talks, but some were still reportedly held in Hargeisa prison at the end of the year. Conditions of detention were generally harsh. In October, dozens of remanded and convicted criminal prisoners held by the Islamic court in north Mogadishu were released after refusing all food, in protest at virtual starvation. Cases of torture, including rape, were reported in armed conflict situations, but were difficult to document and verify. Islamic courts reportedly imposed cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments, including at least a dozen amputations and many floggings, which were carried out immediately. In March, the north Mogadishu Islamic court sentenced Mohamed Ali Arran to death for raping a girl. He was executed by stoning in the nearby town of Jowhar. Several other executions were also reportedly ordered by Islamic and clan courts in other areas. In August, three Ethiopian government opponents, Abdullahi Haliye, Abdullah Qaji and Ahmed Mohamed, members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, were arrested in Hargeisa. After three months in detention, they were handed over to the Ethiopian security forces, detained and allegedly tortured in Ethiopia (see Ethiopia entry). Amnesty International renewed its appeals to all Somali political groups to end human rights abuses, and in particular to protect women and children from abuses during armed conflict. The organization urged them to take steps to re-establish the rule of law in conformity with international standards of justice. Amnesty International appealed to the Somaliland authorities not to return to Ethiopia the three Ethiopians detained in August, and to release the prisoners of conscience imprisoned in November.