POLITICAL KILLINGS BY GOVERNMENTS Political killings by governments were documented in a special report published in 1983 which detailed evidence in over 20 countries and spearheaded a campaign launched to expose these killings and mobilize public opinion. These extracts are taken from the report and the April 1983 Newsletter.
Close-up of remains from a mass grave at Cheung Ek, Kampuchea, where over 8,000 bodies were discovered. This is one of 50 photographs documenting mass political killings by the Government of Democratic Kampuchea between 1975 and 1979. It comes from "Cambodia Witness," an exhibition sponsored by the United States section of Amnesty International circulating in the United States and Europe as part of Amnesty International's campaign against political killings by governments. MASS KILLINGS IN INDONESIA (1965 TO 1966) AND KAMPUCHEA (1975 TO 1979) 'In 1975 ... we were made to change policy: the victory of the revolution had been too quick. If the population was not wiped out immediately, the revolution would be in danger because the republican forces, the forces of Sihanouk, the capitalist forces would unite against it. It was therefore necessary to eliminate all these forces and to spare only those of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. It was necessary to eliminate not only the officers but also the common soldiers as well as their wives and children. This was also based on revolutionary experience. In the past, Sihanouk had killed revolutionaries, but their wives, children and relatives had united against him and had joined us. That must not be repeated against us now. In the beginning, however, only officers' families were killed. At the beginning of 1976, however, the families of common soldiers were also killed. One day at Choeung Prey, I cried for a whole day on seeing women and children killed. I could no longer raise my arms. Comrade S -- said to me: 'Get on with it.' I said: 'How can I? Who can kill women and children?' Three days later I was arrested, in June 1976.' Testimony of a .former Khmer Rouge cadre to the International Commission of Jurists.
The government-instigated killings in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 and in Kampuchea in 1975 to 1979 rank among the most massive violations of human rights since the Second World War. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed in Indonesia is 500,000. In Kampuchea the number of victims was at least 300,000.
Both in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 and in Kampuchea in 1975 to 1979 the governments decided to transform the political map within their countries through the physical liquidation of the political opposition. Elements of such a policy may exist elsewhere, for example in the killing of political leaders or selected members of political groups. The scale of the Indonesian and Kampuchean tragedies resulted from the governments concerned being intent on the permanent physical eradication of all opposition in the case of Kampuchea, and of left-wing opposition in the case of Indonesia.
In Indonesia the principal targets were members of the Indonesian Communist Party and its affiliated organizations -- the trade unions, the women's organization (GERWANl) and the peasants' association (Barisan Tani Indonesia). Their families were killed too. In Kampuchea, the victims came from several categories including personnel of the former government, members of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia and from currents within the revolutionary movement that were out of line with the leadership. In addition, many members of ethnic minorities were killed in both countries.
In both Indonesia and Kampuchea the killings were not committed in a period of armed conflict. Resistance was minimal in both cases.
The government-instigated killings of Communist party members and supporters in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 rank among the most massive violations of human rights since the Second World War: a conservative estimate put the number of killings at 500,000. This photo shows people about to be massacred. Indonesia (1965 to 1966) At the beginning of 1965 the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was the largest political party in the country. It operated legally and had declared its commitment to peaceful social change.
On 30 September 1965 a group of nationalist army officers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Untung attempted to stage a coup against the government of President Sukarno. Six army generals were killed. The coup attempt was crushed by General Suharto in 24 hours.
During the next few weeks the army leadership under Generals Suharto and Nasution consolidated their control over the government. At the same time they linked the leadership of the PKI with the coup attempt and blamed the PKI for the killing of the six generals. As a result of these accusations PKI members were attacked by mobs and several thousand members were arrested in Jakarta. But it was in Central Java, a long-time PKI stronghold, that the killings of PKI members began.
The arrival in Central Java of two battalions of the Indonesian 'Red Berets', or Army Paracommandos (RPKAD), signalled an army decision to crush the PKI in Central Java before annihilating the party throughout the country. The RPKAD began killing PKI members in Central Java in mid-October 1965, when the PKI was already in disarray and was not offering armed resistance. An Indonesian Government White Paper later argued that the RPKAD had arrived in Central Java to prevent a large-scale insurgence, but there is little evidence that there was in fact a threat of insurrection.
There was no set pattern to the killings that then began and that claimed the lives of an estimated 500,000 Indonesians in the following nine months. However, certain features recurred. Everywhere local officials of the PKI and its affiliated organizations were rounded up and shot. In many cases whole families were killed; it was often said by the perpetrators that the liquidation of entire families would serve to eliminate the communist menace for all time.
The first killings in nearly every province were initiated by the army. In some areas the army was assisted by gangs of youths belonging to Ansor, an affiliate of the Nahdatul Ulama, a fundamentalist Muslim party. In Java, Bali and Sumatra, night after night for months, local army commanders loaded lorries with captured PKI members -- their names checked off against hastily prepared lists -- and drove them to isolated spots nearby for execution, usually by bullet or knife. In some cases the bodies were grotesquely mutilated before being buried in hurriedly dug mass graves.
In the town of Kediri in Central Java, a PKI stronghold, some 7,000 PKI supporters are estimated to have been killed. In Banjuwangi in East Java, 4,000 people were killed in a few days. In East Java most people were executed with long sugar-cane knives and sickles; the slaughter often assumed a ritualistic and ceremonial character. In several places the killers held feasts with their bound victims present. After the meal each guest was invited to decapitate a prisoner - apparently to involve as many as possible in the killings.
As the purge accelerated in November 1965 headless bodies covered with red flags were floated down rivers aboard rafts and heads placed upon bridges. Every day for several months riverside residents in Surabaya in East Java had to disentangle bodies that were caught on jetties. At one point so many bodies from Kediri filled the Brantas river that the downstream town of Jombang lodged a formal protest complaining that plague might break out. In the small mill town of Batu so many were executed within the narrow confines of a small police courtyard that it was decided that it would be simpler to cover the piles of bodies with layers of cement rather than bury the victims.
The killings in Bali began sporadically in the west of the island during November 1965. The arrival of RPKAD troops on the island soon ensured that the killings assumed a systematic character. Armed with machine-guns, commandos scoured villages in groups of 25, in some cases executing the entire male population. Hundreds of houses belonging to known communists, their relatives and friends were burned down within a week of the purge being launched. The occupants were slaughtered as they ran out of their dwellings.
A commonly accepted estimate of deaths resulting from the operation in Bali is 50,000, with women and children among the victims. All Chinese retail shops in Denpasar and Singaradja were destroyed and their owners executed after summary judgments were issued convicting them of financing the PKI. The killings of Chinese on Bali were soon followed by persecution elsewhere in Indonesia, claiming thousands of Chinese lives and leading to the exodus of many other Chinese from the country.
By early 1966 the killings had reached virtually all of Indonesia. From Java to Bali they had spread to Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, Lombok, Flores and Timor. In one incident alone in the city of Medan, North Sumatra, some 10,500 prisoners were reportedly killed in the space of a few days. On the island of Belitung, birthplace of D.N. Aidit, the PKI chairman, hundreds of victims were thrown down disused mineshafts and others towed out to open sea where their boats were sunk.
The responsibility for the killings in Indonesia rested unquestionably with the Indonesian Army which by then effectively controlled the government. Before the killings General Nasution had called for the extirpation of the PKI, and he was reported to have told an army staff conference as the RPKAD arrived in Central Java that 'all of their [PKI] followers and sympathizers should be eliminated'. During a visit to Surabaya he called for the PKI's extinction 'down to its very roots'. In mid-November, as the killings gathered momentum, General Suharto signed an order authorizing an 'absolutely essential clearing out' of the PKI and its sympathizers from the government. This directive, No. 22/KOTI/I965, set up 'special teams' to carry out the order and authorized the teams to request military assistance 'if necessary'.
During the first few months of the killings, President Sukarno and some of his ministers tried to bring them to a halt, but without success. On 11 March 1966 President Sukarno's government was formally replaced by the military government of General Suharto, still in power in 1982.
The precise number of people killed will probably never be known. An inquiry team set up by President Sukarno at the end of 1965 estimated that there had been 87,000 deaths. However, this figure referred only to the island of Java, and the inquiry took place at a time when the killings were just starting in many other places. In late 1966 an investigation commissioned by the army and conducted by the University of Indonesia estimated that one million people had perished since the start of the killings. There are some indications that this estimate may be too high. Admiral Sudomo, the head of the chief government security agency (KOPKAMTIB), later scaled the figure down to 500,000. In addition, some 750,000 people were arrested and detained without charge or trial. Several hundred were still in detention in 1982. In a period of less than a year all the leading figures of the PKI, Indonesia's largest political party, together with countless thousands of its members and supporters, had been killed.
Kampuchea (1975 to 1979) On 17 April 1975 forces of the revolutionary communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge entered the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, overthrowing the government of Lon 01. This was the outcome of several years' civil war between the Khmer Rouge and the Lon 01 government, which was supported by the United States of America. Upon taking power the new government immediately set out to evacuate all cities and towns and to execute the leadership of the former government.
By 1975 the population of Phnom Penh had swollen to more than two million, roughly one third of the total population, as a result of the civil war and the US bombing and destruction of agriculture. On the morning of 17 April 1975 Khmer Rouge troops toured the city ordering the population to evacuate the city within three days on pain of death. In practice many residents were given less than an hour in which to leave. Those who refused, procrastinated or showed some opposition were beaten or shot dead. Old people, disabled, children, pregnant women and hospital patients were all forced to leave the city without distinction.
During the evacuation many people are known to have died. Some were killed by Khmer Rouge troops in order to keep the marchers moving or to maintain discipline. Refugees from Phnom Penh have spoken of people, particularly the young, dying on the roadside. One of the city's leading physicians, Dr Vann Hay, said that on his march from Phnom Penh he saw the body of a child about every 200 metres.
In the following days other cities and towns were evacuated including Battambang (200,000 inhabitants), Svay Rieng (130,000), Kompong Chhnang (60,000), Kompong Speu (60,000) and Siem Reap (50,000). The loss of life from this gigantic shift of population is incalculable.
The population of the evacuated cities and towns, known as the 'new people' as distinct from the 'base people' (the peasantry), were moved to agricultural sites where they were forced to work long hours on irrigation works and the cultivation of rice under strict discipline. Slight infringements of discipline were frequently punished by execution.
The evacuation of Cambodia's cities was accompanied by the first of several purges -- that of the officer corps and senior officials of the former Lon Nol government. Nearly all high-ranking officers, senior officials, police officers, customs officials and members of the military police appear to have been executed during the days immediately after 17 April 1975. Detailed and independent accounts have been obtained from the towns of Phnom Penh, Battambang, Siem Reap, PaiIin and Kompong Speu. In some places all officers from lieutenant upwards were executed. Even this distinction of rank was often lost, and in the first few months after the revolution some local authorities were apparently given a free hand in deciding whom to execute. On the forced marches from Phnom Penh Khmer Rouge forces were permitted to pull out of the marching columns anyone they suspected of being associated with the former administration and kill them on the spot.
Many accounts of these killings are now available. For example: 'The chairman of Tuk Phok district, named Miec Vay, summoned 50 guerrillas from various villages of his district and gave them this oral order: "The former Lon Nol soldiers are our enemies. We must kill all enemies to celebrate the day of victory. This is the order of our leader Pol Pot. Anyone who refuses to kill is disobeying orders and must inflict on himself due punishment." We obeyed the district chairman's order and the 50 of us killed 2,Q05 Lon Nol soldiers.' (From evidence before a revolutionary tribunal in Phnom Penh in August 1979.)
It appears from such testimonies that the killings were not simply an act of revenge conducted in the heat of victory but were carried out in fulfilment of a central government policy.
Non-commissioned officers, army privates, minor officials and village headmen were treated differently from region to region. Some were executed in the days following the Khmer Rouge victory, others were sent to hard labour camps while others were allowed to return home. In late 1975, however, the policy towards lesser officials changed; systematic executions of this group then began and continued into 1976.
The killings of former Lon Nol officers and officials extended to their families. Wives and children were executed to prevent them becoming opponents of the new government.
The killings of former government personnel were soon followed by executions of members of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. The rationale behind this practice was reflected in a document issued by the Executive Bureau of the Eastern Region Party Committee:
'We must heighten our revolutionary vigilance as regards those elements who have served in the administrative machinery of the former regime, such as technicians, professors, doctors, engineers and other technical personnel. The policy of our Party is not to employ them in any capacity. If we run after this technology, we will feel that they submit to us and we will use them, but this will create the opportunity for enemies to infiltrate our ranks more deeply with every passing year and this will be a dangerous process.'
In line with this policy intellectuals -- often crudely identified as those who wore spectacles -- were singled out for particularly harsh treatment and in many regions of the country were summarily executed. Many refugees report that from early 1976 intellectuals, teachers and students, often described by the Khmer Rouge as 'the worthless ones', disappeared from their places of work and were presumed to have been killed. A former Khmer Rouge cadre recalled that in Kompong Cham province it was decided 'to arrest the worthless ones', in other words, intellectuals, teachers, pupils beyond the seventh grade. The country had to be rid of them. That was the decision of the Central Committee, just as it had been its decision to wipe out the soldiers in 1975-1976.'
Besides the killing of political and social groups designated enemies of the revolution, many thousands of individuals were executed on such grounds as minor infringements of work discipline. Offences such as illicit sexual relationships, criticizing or challenging official instructions, resistance to the introduction of communal eating (after 1977), and even laziness were often punished by death.
From 1975 to 1977 there were regional variations in the pattern of repression. In the Eastern Zone, although former Lon Nol officers had been killed in 1975, conditions do not seem to have been as harsh as elsewhere. This resulted from political differences between regional authorities and the central government in Phnom Penh.
Interior of S-21 (Toul Sleng) detention and interrogation centre in Phnom Penh, Kampuchea, where between 1975 and 1979 nearly 20,000 people were executed, often after torture. Photographs of the prisoners were taken by Democratic Kampuchean officials. After 1979, the prisoners' photographs were displayed on the walls of the ground floor. In the foreground are the leg-irons used to shackle the prisoners. These differences came to a head in 1978 when the central government leadership under Pol Pot launched what was, in effect, an invasion of the Eastern Zone (which bordered on Viet Nam). The long-simmering conflict between the centre and the more moderate eastern communists exploded into open warfare in May 1978, and the following months saw one of the most massive purges of the entire Khmer Rouge period. Tens of thousands of people including officers and soldiers, together with their fathers, mothers, wives and children were executed. The victims included all Eastern Zone cadres who could be traced, people evacuated from the cities in 1975, and anyone with Vietnamese relatives and connections. It has been estimated that 100,000 people were killed in this purge because the party centre in Phnom Penh had decided that the Eastern Zone was led by 'Khmer bodies with Vietnamese minds'. A former rubber plantation worker, one of many refugees interviewed, said:
'They killed all the Eastern Zone cadres, and ordinary people who committed the most minor offences, such as talking about one's family problems at night. Every day they would take away three to five families for execution. We would hear them screaming for help ...'. (Kiernan, Khmer Bodies with Vietnamese Minds: Kampuchea's Eastern Zone, 1975-1978, Monash University, 1980.)
The local party leader So Phim and almost the entire Zone Committee, the local military hierarchy and all but two members of the regional committees were executed. Executions of cadres are reported to have occurred in almost all districts, sub-districts and villages. A number of villages, including So Phim's home village, are reported to have been entirely wiped out.
Members of ethnic minorities also were the victims of repeated massacres with thousands of Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao and Thai being killed. The Cham, a Muslim people, were singled out for especially harsh treatment. From the early days of the Democratic Kampuchean Government (Khmer Rouge) all religious activity was rigorously repressed and religious leaders executed. In the case of the Cham this was followed in early 1976 by a ban on the use of their native language, the suppression of their religious beliefs and forcing them to raise pigs and eat pork. Cham villages were dispersed and the Cham people told that they were a weak link in the nation. Cadres are reported to have told Cham leaders in 1977 in the south-west region: ' ... the Chams are hopeless. They abandoned their country to others. They just shouldered their fishing nets and walked off, letting the Vietnamese take over this country.'
Executions of Cham leaders and dignitaries and the populations of entire villages soon followed. In Stung Trang, lorries loaded with Chams were reportedly pushed down steep ravines. The district of Kompong Xiem, in the province of Kompong Cham, with five hamlets and a total population of 20,000, was reported to have been razed to the ground and all its inhabitants killed. In the district of Koong Neas, in the same province, out of an estimated 20,000 inhabitants there were reportedly only four survivors. It is now conservatively estimated that more than half of the total 1975 Cham population of 400,000 was killed between 1975 and 1978.
Of all the mass killings carried out during the Khmer Rouge rule of Kampuchea, the most clearly documented are those that took place at Tuol Sleng, also known as S21. Tuol Sleng was a former school in Phnom Penh used by the Khmer Rouge as a centre for torture and execution. Careful records were kept of prisoners and the prison archives, which have survived virtually intact, show that nearly 15,000 people were liquidated there. Some of the victims of Tuol Sleng were Khmer Rouge soldiers from the Eastern Zone; others were members of the government or other Kampuchean communists suspected of opposing the government.
At any one time the prison held an average of 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners. Most were held for a short time, tortured and forced into writing confessions before being killed. The names of alleged co-conspirators elicited through confessions were recorded and elaborate charts drawn up showing lines of ,contacts' in coloured inks.
The rate of executions increased after October 1977. On 15 October 1977 the prison record books show 418 killed; on 18 October, 179 were killed; on 20 October, 88 and on 23 October, 148. The highest single figure was 582 recorded executions on 27 May 1978. In many cases, as with the veteran communist Hu Nim, the cause of death was recorded as 'crushed to bits'.
In January 1979 the Government of Democratic Kampuchea was overthrown by the forces of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, after an invasion by Vietnamese troops in December 1978. The country was renamed the People's Republic of Kampuchea. The new government established a special tribunal which in August 1979 tried in absentia Pol Pot and leng Sary, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in the Democratic Kampuchea Government. They were charged with genocide and both were sentenced to death. During the trial, witnesses testified to having participated in torture and killings committed on the orders of the authorities. Victims of imprisonment and torture also testified against the accused Khmer Rouge leaders. Documents on prisons and mass graves were presented to the court.
In August 1981 Democratic Kampuchea's Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, attending a United Nations conference on Kampuchea in New York, was confronted with some of the evidence of killings during a press interview. Ieng Sary admitted that the documents were genuine and confirmed the killing of Hu Nim and the existence of Tuol Sleng. He also acknowledged what no other Khmer Rouge leader had admitted before -- that it was official policy to liquidate people accused of opposing the regime. He justified the policy by saying that 'the circumstance was proletarian dictatorship. We were in the middle of class struggle.'
Despite the magnitude of the killings in Indonesia and Kampuchea, the international community did little to try to stop them. The United Nations first took official note of the human rights situation in Kampuchea in March 1978 when there was considerable discussion at the UN Human Rights Commission. It asked the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to consider the matter in 1979. Several governments and non-governmental organizations submitted information and the sub-commission decided to investigate further. The Government of Kampuchea responded by calling it 'impudent interferences in internal affairs'. In January 1979 the commission received a report about human rights violations in Kampuchea, but by that time the Khmer Rouge government had been overthrown.
To some extent this inaction may have been caused by lack of information at an early date. The killings in Indonesia and Kampuchea took place in conditions of considerable secrecy and in some cases it was weeks and even months before any details became available outside the country. When information did emerge, there were accusations that it was exaggerated for political reasons. Prompt research by impartial external investigative bodies, using such techniques as interviews with refugees, might have led to earlier and more effective measures to counteract the killings.
In Indonesia the killings subsided only when the principal target, the communist party, had been destroyed. In Kampuchea they ended only when the government was overthrown.
Published March 1983
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SUPPLEMENT Political killings by governments take place in different parts of the world and in countries of widely differing ideologies. They range from individual assassinations to the wholesale slaughter of mass opposition movements or entire ethnic groups. The scale of the crime is sometimes not known to the international community before it has reached proportions that will damage a whole society for generations to come.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the past 10 years have been killed by the political authorities in their countries. The killings continue. Day after day AI receives reports of deliberate political killings by the army and the police, by other regular security forces, by special units created to function outside normal supervision, by 'death squads' sanctioned by the authorities, by government assassins.
The killings take place outside any legal or judicial process; the victims are denied any protection from the law. Many are abducted, illegally detained, or tortured before they are killed.
Sometimes the killings are ordered at the highest level of government: in other cases the government deliberately does not investigate killings or take measures to prevent further deaths.
Governments often try to cover up the fact that they have committed political killings. They deny that the killings have taken place, they attribute them to opposition forces, or they try to pass them off as the result of armed encounters with government forces or of attempts by the victims to escape from custody.
The pattern of killings is often accompanied by the suspension of constitutional rights, intimidation of witnesses and relatives of victims, suppression of evidence and a weakening of the independence of the judiciary.
These political killings are crimes for which governments and their agents are responsible under national and international law. Their accountability is not diminished because opposition groups commit similar abhorrent acts. Nor does the difficulty of proving who is ultimately answerable for them lessen the government's responsibility to investigate unlawful killings and take steps to prevent them.
Official cover-up The facts about political killings by governments are often hidden or distorted by those responsible. The official cover-up may take many forms: concealing the fact of the killing, for example by making prisoners 'disappear'; blaming killings on opposition forces or independent armed groups; or passing off unlawful killings of defenceless individuals as the result of armed encounters or escape attempts.
The graves of Teodoro Aligado and Epifanio Simbajon, arrested without warrant by members of the Philippines Constabulary on 25 June 1981 in Barrio Lourdes, Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur province. They were detained on suspicion of being members of the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The two were removed from Pagadian City Jail on 29 June for further interrogation -- later that day they were shot dead. Police officers alleged that they had been killed while trying to escape, but friends and relatives of the dead men have disputed the official version of events. Student leader Peddi Shankar, aged 23, was shot dead in an alleged "encounter" with the police on 2 November 1980 in Moibinpetta village, Sironcha Taluka, Chandrapur district, Maharashtra state, India. Villagers testified that Peddi Shankar was shot in the back in broad daylight from a distance of some 50 feet by a squad from the State Reserve Police of Maharashtra, and that neither he nor his four companions (who escaped) had fired a shot. One means of covering up political killings by governments is to conceal the identity of the perpetrators, claiming that the killings were the work of clandestine groups over whom the government has no control.
In the Philippines, the authorities have commonly responded to allegations of human rights violations by claiming that they are the result of armed conflict, particularly with the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. People reported to have 'disappeared' are described as having 'gone underground'. Those killed by military personnel are said to have been killed in combat.
In India, in December 1980 the Minister of State for Home Affairs informed the lower house of the Indian parliament that 216 'Naxalites' -- members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) -- had been shot dead by police in Andhra Pradesh state since 1968. He added that the shootings were 'a sequel to armed attacks launched by Naxalites on police'.
Eye-witness accounts obtained by AI and other investigating bodies indicate that a number of the victims had been arrested and, in some cases, tortured before being shot.
Creating a cover-up can involve fabrication of evidence. For example, in Colombia, there have been a number of unexplained killings by official forces in rural 'militarized' zones, where the army has for some years had violent clashes with guerrillas.
On the morning of 26 April 1981 an army patrol entered the ranch of Ramon Cardona in Albania, Caqueta, dragged him and two others from the house and took them into the nearby hills. Screams were heard. The next day the three men were found dead, their bodies bearing signs of severe torture. According to reports of the incident, neighbours were ordered to transfer the bodies to a clearing, where soldiers placed a small quantity of food, an empty army knapsack and a camouflage shirt by the bodies. The soldiers then told local people and army officers who arrived to view the bodies that the supplies were evidence that the men had been guerrillas. An army press bulletin subsequently declared that the men had ambushed an army patrol and been killed in an exchange of fire.
'Disappeared' victims Many political killings by governments have been concealed because the victims have 'disappeared' after being taken into custody: the authorities have tried to hide both the fact of the killing and their own responsibility. Sometimes the victims of 'disappearance' are later discovered in prison, or released; sometimes it is learned that they have been killed.
Since the March 1976 military coup the Argentine armed forces have killed many real or imagined opponents of the military government as part of a 'war' against subversion. It is impossible to know the precise number of victims. This is partly because of the secrecy surrounding the 'war' against subversion and partly because most of these killings have been linked to the practice of 'disappearances' carried out by the armed forces after the coup. Most of these 'disappearances' occurred between 1976 and 1978.
Libyan assassinated in London ... police activity around the body of Mahmoud Abdul Salam Nafi', shot dead in the doorway of the Arab Legal Centre on 25 April 1980. The two Libyan gunmen who shot him were captured, tried for murder, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At their trial they said that their victim had been sentenced to death by a revolutionary committee and they had taken it upon themselves to execute the sentences. At least 14 Libyans have been killed or wounded in assassination attempts outside their country since February' 1980 when the Third Congress of the Libyan Revolutionary Committees issued a declaration calling for the 'physical liquidation' of enemies of the 1969 revolution living abroad.
The Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, has explicitly sanctioned the international assassination campaign against his opponents in a number of official statements and press interviews. On 17 February 1983 the General People's Congress (the body assigned to ratify official policy in Libya, adopted a resolution calling for the renewal of the assassination campaign against Libyans abroad, who were classified as 'hostile: The resolution stated that 'every citizen is responsible for the liquidation of the enemies of the people and revolution'.
Typically, the victims were taken from their houses at night by men who identified themselves as agents of the police or armed forces. A few were subsequently released or acknowledged as official detainees. Usually the victims were taken to secret camps run by the armed forces or police, where almost all are believed to have been tortured. The majority of these 'disappeared' people have never been seen again.
Hundreds of people -- including a number of 'disappeared' individuals -- are believed to have been buried in unmarked graves discovered recently in at least nine cemeteries in the Buenos Aires area. Investigations carried out since October 1982 have revealed that up to four hundred bodies may have been buried in unmarked graves in the Gran Bourg cemetery alone.
In Guatemala, many victims of ,disappearances' have been killed -- only extremely rarely has a 'disappeared' person later been found in custody or reappeared alive.
It has, however, often been difficult to verify the fact that an individual who has 'disappeared' has died. Bodies have been recovered from secret graveyards in such a state of decomposition that identification was impossible. Corpses have been found at roadsides far from where abductions took place, mutilated beyond recognition.
In Guinea, President Sekou Toures government has failed to account for approximately 2,900 prisoners who 'disappeared' after being arrested for political reasons between 1969 and 1976. Many are believed to have died as a result of torture, execution, deliberate starvation or inhuman prison conditions.
In Afghanistan, thousands of people 'disappeared' after the People's Democratic Party (PDP) government came to power following a military coup in April 1978. The precise number of 'disappearances' and killings is not known.
In December 1979 the new government of President Babrak Karmal took power and declared a general amnesty. During an AI mission to Kabul in February 1980 delegates met relatives of some of the thousands of prisoners who were known to have been arrested but who had not been released under the general amnesty. The Karmal government has said that all those not released in December 1979 had been killed before it came to power. Government officials told A! that they had a list of 4,584 people who had been killed, but that they believed the number of killings and 'disappearances' was actually higher.
Since December 1979 A! has received reports of killings of civilians in areas of armed conflict in Afghanistan. The reports have alleged killings by both government forces and insurgents. Detailed and precise accounts have been difficult to obtain.
The killings Political killings by governments have been committed in most, if not all, of the regions of the world. The cases in this report show that they are not confined to anyone political system or ideology. Further examples are given here of political killings since 1980 believed to have been carried out by official forces or others linked to the government. The circumstances of the killings and the nature of government involvement vary from country to country. Some governments have been shown to be responsible by their wilful failure to investigate adequately or to prevent further killings.
The victims -- individuals and entire families -- have come from all walks of life and from many political persuasions and religious faiths. Politicians, government officials, judges, lawyers, military officers, trade unionists, journalists, teachers, students and schoolchildren, religious workers and peasants: all have lost their lives. In some cases well-known political figures have been publicly assassinated; in others whole villages have been wiped out, and the news has not reached the outside world for weeks or months. Often, the victims belonged to the political opposition -- often they were simply members of a particular ethnic group or lived in an area targeted for security operations.
In El Salvador, thousands of people have been killed by the security forces since the military coup of October 1979. The victims have included not only people suspected of opposition to the authorities, but thousands of unarmed peasant farmers living in areas targeted for military operations in the government's counter-guerrilla campaign. People monitoring government abuses, such as journalists and human rights workers, as well as church activists, community workers, political militants and trade unionists, have been arrested and killed. Patients have been abducted from hospital beds by security forces and killed.
Testimonies received daily by AI implicate all branches of the Salvadorian security services in the killings. In addition to the regular armed forces El Salvador also relies on special security forces such as the National Guard, which combines police and military functions, the National Police and the Treasury Police. All these units have repeatedly been named in reports of political killings. So has a nominally civilian paramilitary unit called ORDEN (now renamed Frente Democratico Nacionalista, Democratic Nationalist Front), established in 1967 to carry out a clandestine 'counter-terror' campaign against government opponents. New 'civil defence brigades' set up under military control are also reported to have carried out killings in rural areas. Recently the Atlactl Brigade, one of the special new units trained by US military advisers, has been blamed repeatedly for killings of unarmed peasants.
The Salvadorian authorities continue to maintain that any abuses were perpetrated by security or armed forces personnel exceeding their authority. They have also on several occasions stated that officers or troops implicated in these abuses have been removed from duty, or assigned to non-combatant positions.
The authorities have also claimed that atrocities in rural areas were perpetrated by independent extremist groups or 'death squads' out of government control. Other reports, however, have indicated that the so-called 'death squads' are made up of members of ORDEN or other off-duty or plain-clothes security personnel acting in cooperation with the regular armed forces.
In Libya, the Third Congress of the Libyan Revolutionary Committees issued a declaration in February 1980 calling for the 'physical liquidation' of enemies of the 1969 revolution living abroad. Since then at least 14 Libyan citizens have been killed or wounded in assassination attempts outside Libya.
In Uganda, the widespread unlawful killings of the eight-year military government of President Idi Amin ended only with the overthrow of the regime in 1979.
In the aftermath of the armed conflict, a high level of criminal violence continued, with many unexplained but possibly politically motivated murders.
Opponents and supporters of the government and members of the security forces were killed under the successive governments of Yusuf Lule, Godfrey Binaisa, and the Military Commission.
Former President Milton Obote returned to power after elections in 1980. Instability continued, and early 1981 saw a series of guerrilla attacks. Many civilians -- particularly alleged political opponents -- were arrested by the army and there were reports of torture and killings in military custody. Unarmed civilians are also reported to have been killed by security forces operating against guerrillas in the countryside.
In Iran, in addition to the large number of officially announced executions which have taken place since the revolution of February 1979 (more than 4,500 by the end of March 1983), AI has received many reports of executions which have not been announced and may not have been preceded by a trial. In other cases it is clear from the circumstances of the killings that no legal proceedings took place.
Some months after the 1979 revolution, fighting broke out between government forces and members of the Turkoman ethnic group. Four Turkoman leaders were arrested and imprisoned in Evin Prison, Tehran, from where they were kidnapped and killed. The then President of Iran, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, sent two missions to discover how the Turkoman leaders had died and the findings of both missions were that they had been kidnapped and killed by the Revolutionary Guards.
Members of the Baha'i religion have been killed in circumstances suggesting official involvement. AI knows of no case in which anyone has been prosecuted in connection with such a killing.
Kurds have also been killed in circumstances which suggest strongly that extrajudicial executions have taken place. One report described the killing of 18 workers on 14 September 1981 at a bricklaying factory near the village of Saroughamish. According to the report Revolutionary Guards arrested the workers, put them against a wall and machine-gunned them.
Fifty-one villagers are reported to have been killed by Revolutionary Guards in the village of Dehgaz in the Caspian region between June and September 1981. Those killed were allegedly sympathizers of the opposition People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran.
In Chad, there have been reports of killings of civilians and soldiers no longer in combat by forces loyal to Hissein Habre (who was sworn in as President on 21 October 1982) after they occupied the capital, N'Djamena, in June 1982 and moved on to consolidate Habre's control of the country. Eye-witness accounts have described defeated soldiers of the opposing Forces armees tchadiennes, Chadian Armed Forces, and some of their civilian collaborators, being killed by the pro-Habre forces, the Forces armees du nord, Armed Forces of the North.
In Namibia, South African military forces are in conflict with nationalist guerrillas belonging to the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). Church leaders and others have reported that civilians have been killed by South African soldiers because they were thought to support or sympathize with SWAPO.
In Bolivia, following the July 1980 military coup, AI received reports that security forces were involved in numerous 'disappearances' and political killings.
In the mining areas of Huanuni, Catavi and Siglo Veinte, where strikes against the coup had been organized, troops used tanks and heavy weapons to put down resistance to the military take-over.
In Chile, during the first few months after the 1973 military coup thousands of people were reported to have been summarily executed; between 1973 and 1977 hundreds -- mainly political activists, trade unionists and peasants -- 'disappeared' after being arrested by the security forces. The 'disappearances' and killings which took place between 1973 and 1977 remain officially unexplained.
Since 1977, a number of alleged members of banned political parties and organizations, such as the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), Movement of the Revolutionary Left, have died in the custody of the Chilean secret police, the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), in circumstances which indicate that they may have died after torture, or may have been deliberately killed by other methods. A number of other killings have been described officially as the result of 'confrontations' with members of the security forces, such as the CNI.
In some instances of alleged 'confrontations' and deaths in custody, official investigations have been started, but reports indicate that once the CNI or other security forces have been implicated the investigation has been passed from the civilian courts to the military courts. Military courts have consistently failed to bring those responsible to justice.
In Mexico, there have been reports of a number of killings in which regular army units have been involved or some other official link is known or suspected. On 25 July 1982, for example, a military detachment entered Coacoyult in the municipality of Ajuchitlan, Guerrero, and took 13 peasants away with them. Of the 13, five were later found dead.
In East Timor, which has been occupied by Indonesia since December 1975, there have been numerous reports of people being executed after surrendering to, or being captured by, Indonesian armed forces.
In the Republic of Korea (South Korea), at least 40 people were killed when army paratroopers dispersed a peaceful student demonstration in Kwangju on 18 May 1980. AI has received reports and eye-witness accounts alleging that paratroopers clubbed people on the head indiscriminately and bayoneted them; that many of the dead were shot in the face, and that others were stabbed to death.
At least 1,200 civilians are reported to have died in disturbances in the following nine days; the South Korean authorities said that 144 civilians, 22 soldiers and four police officers died.
Tens of thousands of Guatemalans have been killed for political reasons under successive governments since 1966. They have been killed by regular military and police units, both on and off duty, in uniform and in plain clothes; by official security guards assigned to government functionaries; by private security guards often led by former police or military personnel; and by 'death squads' -- armed groups, often made up of off-duty military and security personnel, which AI believes are linked to the government.
The victims have come from all sectors of Guatemalan society: peasants and Indians, trade unionists, church activists, political leaders, journalists and members of the legal profession.
Peasants have been massacred in areas where guerrillas were believed to be active, apparently to prevent the guerrillas gaining supplies and support, and to intimidate the population.
In Syria, since 1980 there have been several reported incidents of killings by the security forces. On 27 July 1980 hundreds of prisoners -- most of them believed to have been members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood -- were reported to have been killed in Palmyra (Tadmur) desert prison by the Saray al Difa'. Special Defence Units, a special military force under the command of President Assad's brother, Rifa'at Assad. On the night of 23 April 1981 Syrian security forces reportedly sealed off parts of the town of Hama, carried out house-to-house searches, dragged people from their homes, lined them up in the streets and shot them. AI received the names of over 100 of those reported killed.
On 2 February 1982 violent clashes between security forces and Muslim Brotherhood fighters, following the discovery of a hidden cache of arms, developed into a near-insurrection in the town of Hama.
Syrian troops and security forces encircled the town and bombarded it from the air and the ground. A news blackout was imposed by the authorities but in early March, after the fighting had ended, reports of massacres and atrocities began to reach the outside world. Most reports indicated that at the start of the fighting government officials and their families in Hama were systematically sought out and killed by the rebels. Later, however, massacres were reported to have been committed by government forces, partly through aerial bombardment but also by troops on the ground as they regained control of the town.
In the aftermath of the Israeli invasion into the Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the refugee camps of Chatilla and Sabra in West Beirut were massacred between 16 and 18 September 1982, by armed Lebanese militia members. The Israeli armed forces were in military control of the area at the time.
An Israeli judicial commission was later established to determine whether the Israeli authorities had any responsibility for the killings. Headed by the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, the commission met in open and closed sessions and took evidence from front-line commanders and high-ranking military officers and cabinet officials, including the Army Chief of Staff, the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister.
The commission reported in February 1983. It concluded that Israeli forces had 'absolutely no direct responsibility' for the massacres but that Israeli officials, 'because of things that were well known to all', should have foreseen that the danger of a massacre existed if the militia members entered the camps without preventive measures being taken. The commission concluded also that Israeli officials did not take 'energetic and immediate' actions to restrain the Lebanese militiamen or to put a stop to their actions. The commission recommended that measures be taken against certain named officials, including the Israeli Minister of Defence.
In Iraq, several political suspects in custody were allegedly poisoned in 1980 shortly before they were released. Two of the cases involved Iraqis who were examined by doctors in the United Kingdom after they had left Iraq. Both were found to be suffering from thallium poisoning. (Thallium is a heavy metal used commercially in. rat poison.) One of the two died; the other was said to have recovered.
Well over 20 Yugoslav political emigres have been assassinated since the early 1970s, including two in 198b, and emigre circles have frequently alleged that Yugoslav state security service (SDS) agents were responsible. The findings of courts outside Yugoslavia have in several cases supported such allegations.
In Ethiopia, thousands of people were unlawfully and deliberately killed by the security forces after the Provisional Military Government assumed power in 1974 -- particularly during the government's 'Red Terror' campaign in 1977 and 1978. Between November 1977 and about February 1978, an estimated 5,000 political opponents of the government were killed in Addis Ababa alone.
In Burundi, at least 80,000 people are believed to have been killed in May and June 1972 after a rebellion inspired by the numerically larger Hutu ethnic group against the dominant Tutsi group.
AI Newsletter April 1983
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The Chilean artist Hugo Eduardo Riveros Gomez, 29, found dead on the outskirts of Santiago on 8 July 1981 -- his hands had been tied behind his back and he had been stabbed three times. Apiece of cardboard had been left on his chest; written in blood on it was the letter 'R' -- a symbol intended to represent the 'Resistance', a name used by left-wing opponents of the government. The day before, three men had blindfolded him and dragged him out of his home. He had been under surveillance by men in plain clothes for several days beforehand. He had recognized one of the men as a secret police agent who had reportedly tortured him in October 1980, when he had been detained incommunicado for more than a fortnight. After that spell of detention he was charged, on 5 November 1980, with belonging to a banned organization. In March 1981 he was released on bail. At the end of June the prosecution recommended that he be sentenced to 541 days' relegacion, internal exile. He was murdered about a week later. His wife's request for an investigating judge to be appointed to inquire into the killing was refused by the Santiago Appeals Court in July 1981. Proceedings were in fact initiated by the 18th Criminal Court -- but it closed the case without having found anyone responsible for Hugo Riveros' death. Amnesty International believes that the 'Resistance' symbol left on his body was put there to mislead investigations and that there are grounds to believe that the security forces were involved in Hugo Riveros' death: for example, the fact that he had been under surveillance and the way he was abducted are consistent with methods used by the secret police.