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发帖数: 438 | 1 Pakistan to investigate execution video
Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, has ordered an inquiry into a
video that purports to show a group of soldiers gunning down six blindfolded
men in the country's troubled north-west.
The video, which has been circulating on the internet for weeks (warning:
video contains graphic and disturbing images), has renewed long-standing
concerns about military human rights violations during operations against
the Taliban.
If authenticated it could jeopardise $2bn (£1.2bn) in US military
subsidies to Pakistan, under a law that prohibits funding of foreign armies
with a record of gross human rights abuses.
Announcing the board of inquiry this morning, Kayani said it would determine
the veracity of the video, including the identity of the executioners
wearing Pakistani army soldiers' uniforms.
Appearing to take a tough stance, he said: "It is not expected of a
professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying
to guard against the scourge of terrorism," he said.
But he added that in the past Pakistani militants have posed as soldiers.
In the graphic five-and-a-half minute video, a group of soldiers wearing
flak jackets line up six blindfolded men wearing salwar kameez, some
apparently teenagers, before a wall in a wooded area.
A bearded helmet-less soldier, his hands in his pockets, strolls up to the
men and addresses them individually. Moments later a shooting squad of at
least six soldiers, standing in a rough line, unleashes a volley of
automatic gunfire.
The detainees fall to the ground, some moaning in pain. Two soldiers
approach and open fire at close range, apparently finishing them off.
A state department spokesman last week described the images as "horrifying".
One Pakistani website claimed the video, which appears to have been shot on
a mobile phone, had been recorded in the Swat valley, where Pakistan
conducted a sweeping military operation in 2009.
However, the video contains no proof of this, and others have suggested it
was recorded in the Orakzai Agency tribal area. There is also no information
about when the video was recorded, or the identity of those killed.
The film quality is grainy but some soldiers' faces are identifiable. They
appear to be carrying G3 rifles, the standard issue Pakistani military
weapon.
The video first surfaced on jihadist websites, where they were being touted
as a militant recruiting tool, and was later picked up by the US-based
Search for international terrorist entities (Site) Intelligence Group that
monitors extremist websites.
News of the inquiry received a cautious welcome from human rights activists
who have long accused the army of illegal detention, torture and execution
during operations in the Swat valley and the tribal belt.
"While we welcome the announcement from Gen Kayani it remains to be seen
whether this inquiry will be meaningful or is just a sop to the
international community," said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.
Hasan said he could not confirm the Swat video but that in general terms "
credible grounds exist for the Leahy amendment to be invoked", referring to
the 1997 US law that prohibiting funding of armed forces with a record of
human rights abuse.
"The fact is that HRW and others have documented scores of executions,
collective punishment and other abuses by the Pakistani military in Swat. To
date nobody in the Pakistani military has been held accountable."
The US has previously used the Leahy amendment to sanction Colombia and
Indonesia. But the Bush administration refused to apply its provisions to
Iraqi military units implicated in human rights abuses after 2003.
Pakistan's army, a difficult but essential partner in the fight against
Islamist extremism, may also find a way of avoiding sanctions.
A senior Pakistani official said that if the tape is verified the inquiry
will probably shift blame on to the individual unit involved, shirking any
institutional responsibility. | x*****u
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