Activists say 53 killed yesterday- (11 June 2012)

Daily News Brief

11 June 2012

Local Coordination Committees (LCC) in Syria said 53 people died across Syria yesterday, including 5 children and 3 women. 26 were killed in Homs, 7 in Idlib, and 6 in Lattakia. 96 deaths were reported Saturday.

In Dara’a’s Daeel, Inkel, Hirak and Kafar Shams districts, heavy gunfire and shelling was reported by government forces, the LCC said. In Aleppo’s Hayyan, Kafar Karmein, Atareb, Kafar Aleppo, Kabeesa, Ibyen and Jeena districts, many were killed and homes destroyed by government shelling yesterday.

The Homs districts of Ghanto and Khaldieh were heavily shelled yesterday, LCC claimed. Lebanese paper Al-Hayat confirmed this, adding that the city of Rastan was under heavy shelling. More than 500 rockets and mortar were launched on the town since Saturday, Al-Hayat said.

Beirut’s Daily Star reported that activists said the Syrian army used artillery, mortars and rockets in Homs, in one of the biggest bombardments since a failed UN-mandated cease-fire in April.

Syrian forces also hit opposition strongholds in the towns of Quseir, Talbiseh and Rastan in central Syria in a renewed push to regain rebel-held areas, the paper reported.

In Talbiseh yesterday, rebel forces attacked and captured a military base, with a colonel and several officers defecting to the opposition, Free Syrian Army representatives and activists told the Daily Star.

And in Deir ez-Zor’s Baserah district the village of Rez was shelled “by tanks and anti-aircraft” weapons, the LCC said.

Security forces, stormed a “terrorist group” hideout in Yelda town in Damascus countryside and seized explosive devices and toxic materials, SANA reported.

An “armed terrorist group” sabotaged a power transmission station in the city of Homs, SANA said. And an “armed terrorist group” today attacked a military unit at al-Ghanto town in Homs countryside.

Al-Wattan, a Damascus daily, said that “armed terrorist groups” tried last Friday to enter Damascus from several directions, but the result was a “disastrous failure” by the Syrian Free Army, many of whom were killed, wounded or detained.

SANA said the bodies of 22 security personnel were laid to rest yesterday.

Armed groups yesterday fired a mortar shell at the Syrian Cabinet building in Damascus, Al-Adounia TV reported yesterday. Details are not clear but media sources said the shell came from al-Razi orchards, the scene of recent clashes between rebels and government forces. Witnesses apparently said that UN observers visited the site.

Opposition Syrian National Council elects new leader

Abdulbaset Sayda was elected yesterday in Istanbul as the chairman of the Syrian National Council, replacing Burhan Ghalioun, the BBC reported. Sieda, born in 1956, said at a press conference that he will do his best to unify various opposition groups.

Speaking yesterday, Sayda told reporters he wanted to reform and restructure the Syrian National Council, the BBC said. “We are entering a sensitive phase. The regime is on its last legs. The multiplying massacres and shellings show that it is struggling," he said.

Russia clarifies arms sales to Syria

Russia was completing its air defense contracts with Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on June 9, Russian media agency RIA Novosti reported. Lavrov said that “Russia is not supplying any arms that can be used against protesters.”

Lavrov said that in contrast to Moscow “our US colleagues are supplying countries of the Persian Gulf region with the very type of arms that could be used against peaceful demonstrators."

Activists say 14,100 killed since March 2011

The London-based Syrian Observatory for human rights said yesterday that 14,100 people have died in the Syria uprising: 9862 civilians, 783 army defectors, and 3470 army and security force personnel. “Shabiha” militias are not included. 3000 people have died since the April 12 ceasefire.

Source:http://www.syria-today.com/index.php/component/content/article/748-daily-news-brief/20649-11-june-2012 For more informatin refer to http://www.syria-today.com

WHAT IS GENOCIDE?

THE TERM "GENOCIDE"

The term "genocide" did not exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the US Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.

In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of the European Jews. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, theInternational Military Tribunal held at Nuremberg, Germany,charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.

THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as:

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944-1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (1991-1998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.

"This article is taken from the website of 'United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" for detail information on Genocide Studies you can refer to http://www.ushmm.org

Human Rights Watch: Liberia Militias Attacking Ivorian Villages

Groups who supported former president have killed at least 40 civilians, says human rights group

Laura Burke Associated Press

June 07, 2012

ACCRA, Ghana(AP) -- Armed groups in Liberia who supported Ivory Coast's former president have killed at least 40 civilians in cross-border raids into Ivory Coast since July and are recruiting children as young as 14 into their ranks, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch says the armed men, most of whom fought for Ivory Coast's former president and flooded over the border to Liberia following his arrest, carried out at least four attacks targeting ethnic groups who support Ivory Coast's current president, Alassane Ouattara.

Ivory Coast was brought to the brink of civil war when former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to Ouattara in a 2010 election. The U.N. estimates at least 3,000 people were killed in the six months of violence that followed. Gbagbo was arrested with the help of U.N. and French forces in April 2011, and is now facing charges of war crimes at The Hague.

Both sides handed out weapons and recruited young men to fight during the conflict. Several thousand Liberian mercenaries joined the fight, the vast majority for Gbagbo's side, Human Rights Watch says. Following Gbagbo's arrest, many of the mercenaries and militiamen who fought for him fled across the porous border into Liberia's forests, or clandestinely, into its refugee camps.

The New York-based rights group says the Liberian government has failed to respond to the presence of armed groups on the border or to the recruitment of child soldiers.

``Rather than uphold its responsibility to prosecute or extradite those involved in international crimes, Liberian authorities have stood by as many of these same people recruit child soldiers and carry out deadly cross-border attacks,'' said Matt Wells, West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

There was no immediate reaction to the report by the Liberian government, though Ivory Coast deputy defense minister Paul Koffi Koffi said the Ivorian and Liberian authorities are collaborating to prevent further attacks.

``We're working with the Liberians and we have reinforced patrols along the border,'' Koffi Koffi said. He said there was a joint military program in place, but that it was secretive and he could not provide details.

Human Rights Watch said it had documented armed groups recruiting Liberian children and residents of several Liberian border towns also described seeing children at a training camp for fighters. A 17-year-old boy told the group he led a unit that included other children and that they had participated in cross-border attacks.

The rights group says the government is also responsible for releasing ``war criminals'' from prison. In April, Liberian authorities released Isaac Chegbo on bail, a mercenary better known as ``Bob Marley'' for his long dreadlocks. Chegbo is accused of leading massacres in Ivory Coast last year that left more than 120 people dead.

News Courtesy:http://theskanner.com/article/Human-Rights-Watch-Liberia-Militias-Attacking-Ivorian-Villages-2012-06-07