NEWS & VIEWS

26 November 2020

Grotius - Center for International Law and Human Rights

News Update

 

Russia’s and America’s Wars

On 22 August 2016 Grotius – Center for International Law and Human Rights published a report titled “Marching in Battlefields: Russia’s Military Adventures and the Swinging Sultans” that focuses on 5 of Russia’s military engagements and their qualifications under international law: Ukraine (since February 2014), Georgia (August 2008), Syria (since September 2015) and Chechnya (1994 – 1996 and 1999 – 2009). Executive Director Marwan Dalal authored the report.

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The current news update and report published on the organization’s website bear a different title and include important amendments. The updated title is “Russia’s and America’s Wars”. Three additional significant amendments required the non-semantic change in the title: 1. United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace’s sarcastic but accurate statement “Putin in front of me and the FSB behind me” proclaimed on 30 September 2019 during an interview at the British Conservative Home; 2. Vladimir Putin’s peculiar op-ed in the New York Times about the use of force and international legality published on 11 September 2013 titled “A Plea for Caution from Russia”; 3. Douglas Little’s 2004 article in the Diplomatic History journal about the cult of CIA’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East during the preceding six decades:

“Indeed, few aspects of U.S. Foreign Policy since 1945 have been more controversial than the activities of the CIA, which at one time or another has shaped events in almost every Middle Eastern country…During the six decades after the second cold war, the CIA waged what amounted to undeclared political warfare abroad, working to prevent Soviet subversion and promote American interests while always making sure that the ensuing rigged elections or military coup d’etat was plausibly deniable and never traceable directly to the United States.”[1]

 

All parties to these conflicts have violated international law. But, there is a systematic character to the violations inflicted by Russian forces and their severe lack of respect for basic rules of international law and human rights. The Russian authorities’ national authoritarian performance also explored in the report could explain the country’s military actions nationally and internationally.

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Former KGB operative and current Russian President Vladimir Putin had been head of state during most of the conflicts covered in this report, and as such commander of the Russian armed forces and other influential security organs, most notably the KGB’s successor the Federal Security Service (FSB).

 

The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force in international relations, unless it is in a case of self-defense. The conduct of hostilities between warring parties, whether in an international armed conflict or an internal one (civil war) are governed by international humanitarian law formed from the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their two additional protocols of 1977. International human rights law (1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 1966 Convention on Civil and Political Rights, etc) does not cease to apply during armed conflicts, although its content is determined by the parameters of international humanitarian law. 

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Based on the principles of international law regarding foreign military intervention and supporting foreign paramilitary groups established by the International Court of Justice in the cases of Nicaragua v. United States (1986) and The Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda (2005), it is clear that Russia had violated international law by occupying Crimea, a Ukrainian territory, in February 2014. Its support and backing of paramilitary groups in Eastern Ukraine in the subsequent conflict there and in Georgia in August 2008 lack sound legal basis.

 

Russia’s engagement in the Syrian civil war since September 2015 is based on a flawed legal justification. Russia’s actions in the two Chechen wars and in Syria had been exceptionally devastating and necessarily a serious breach of international law. Iran’s support of Hezbollah’s fighters in the Syrian civil war since 2013 has no legitimacy under international law.

The Saudi and Qatari financial intervention in the Syrian military affairs at the outset of the Syrian civil war (at least since 2012 by instigating defections and arming new opposition force) could also be considered as a violation of the principles of non-intervention in the affairs of foreign countries. The following American backing of Syrian armed opposition suffers from the same legal deficiency.

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Ukraine

Russian forces occupied Crimea, Ukraine in February 2014 with no serious opposition in a flagrant violation of international law. The alleged reason for this conduct was to assist the struggling Ukrainian President Yanukovych who had been facing mounting internal public resentment. A Russian documentary voiced and showed Putin as saying in March 2014:

 I invited to the Kremlin, the heads of our secret services and the Ministry of Defense and gave them the task of saving the life of the Ukrainian President. Otherwise they were going to destroy him… it was between the 22nd or the 23rd (February - MD), we spoke until 7 in the morning. And when they were leaving, I told my colleagues: we must start the process of bringing Crimea back to Russia.

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After the occupation of Crimea, tension erupted in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in April 2014 when pro-Russian protesters and armed militias demanded more autonomy for Russian speaking residents of this region. The Ukrainian government retaliated with anti-terrorist campaigns and an armed conflict ensued between the parties. Despite president Putin’s firm denial of any Russian military involvement in this conflict, including during interviews with the BBC in September 2014, Charlie Rose in September 2015, and German newspaper Bild in January 2016, there is clear evidence to the contrary. Reports prepared by the Atlantic Council and Amnesty International demonstrate Russia’s direct and illegal military involvement in this conflict.

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Since the incorporation of Crimea into Russia the authorities in that region exercised severe violations of human rights against the local population, particularly the small minority of Crimean Tatar which comprises 10.5% of the local population.

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The ongoing fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian backed rebels-separatists has led to the collapse of rule of law in the South East of Ukraine and extensive number of casualties. Both sides have committed extra-judicial killings during the conflict violating the applicable laws of war. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in April 2016 that as a result of the conflict in east Ukraine 1,363,833 people became refugees. The majority of them left to Russia (1,092,212) and Belarus (130,021). At least additional 900,000 became internally displaced persons, that is refugees inside Ukraine who did not cross the border to a foreign country.

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Georgia

The conflict in Georgia commenced on 7 August 2008, the first day of the Beijing Olympic games, and ended five days later on 12 August 2008. It centered on armed tensions between Georgian armed forces and armed groups in the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who had been seeking independence from Georgia and supported by Russia.  The report of the European Union Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict of September 2009 blamed the Georgian army for instigating the armed conflict and attributed its cessation to the diplomatic efforts of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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There is evidence that undermines the European report’s narrative regarding the commencement and end of the armed conflict in Georgia. This include Charlie Rose’s interview with Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin from 12 August 2008, a special report prepared by the British House of Lords from February 2009, a BBC documentary about this conflict from November 2008, the Memoirs of U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State at the time Ms. Condoleezza Rice, and the writings of former U.S. diplomat and expert on Russia’s geopolitics Richard Holbrooke.

 

All parties to this conflict have violated international law: the Georgian army, the Russian army, and Russian backed South Ossetian and Abkhazian armed groups. The August 2008 conflict in Georgia resulted in the displacement of 134,000 people, 102,800 of whom managed to return by November the same year. The Ossetian armed groups backed by the Russian military carried out an exceptionally brutal campaign against ethnic Georgians. According to Human Rights Watch:

Beginning August 10, after Russian ground forces had begun to fully occupy South Ossetia and were moving onward into undisputed Georgian territory, Ossetian forces followed closely behind them and entered the ethnic Georgian villages. Upon entering these villages, Ossetian forces immediately began going into houses, searching for Georgian military personnel, looting property, and burning homes.

 

Syria

Although the Russian government had stated that its aim from entering the Syrian conflict in September 2015 was to combat the Islamic State terrorist organization in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions, it targeted other armed groups opposing the Syrian government. More disturbing is Russia’s attacks against Syrian civilians together with the Syrian government killing hundreds, including in hospitals. Amnesty International reported in May 2016:

[H]undreds of civilians, including children, have been killed by intensified Syrian government air strikes since 21 April…Russian and Syrian government forces systematically targeted hospitals in opposition-controlled areas around Aleppo as a strategy of war.”

 

In March 2011 protests erupted in Syria against the Baath regime which had been in place at least since 1970. It quickly deteriorated to armed confrontation between the Syrian army and defectors from that army who formed an armed force financed and equipped by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Islamic State terrorist organization joined this civil war in April 2013 fighting against the government. A month later the Lebanese armed group Hizbollah and its main backer Iran entered the Syrian civil war upgrading the Syrian government’s resolve. In August 2013 the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its population in a suburb of Damascus killing at least 1400 people. 

The U.S. led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria commenced its activities in September 2014 and included violations of international law. 

 

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011 it is estimated that more than 192,000 people lost their lives. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency as of July 2016 the Syrian civil war produced 4,835,930 refugees. The receiving countries of Syrian refugees have been Turkey (2,733,850), Lebanon (1,048,275), Jordan (657,433), Iraq (249,395), Egypt (117,702) and North Africa (29,275). In addition, 6.5 million have been internally displaced in Syria.

 

Chechnya

Chechnya is a republic within Russia. The tense relations between the two has a long history. Since the early 1990s the republic’s attempts to gain independence from Russia generated two armed conflicts: one from 1994 to 1996 and the other from 1999 to 2009. Radical Islamists, many of whom are Saudi nationals and funded from there, joined this conflict exacerbating an already volatile situation. All parties involved have violated international law: the Russian military, the FSB and their Chechen loyalists on the one hand as well as Chechen and radical Islamists rebels on the other.

 

​During the first war between the parties the Russian army used excessive force to attack Chechnya’s main city Grozny, far exceeding the Bosnian Serb shelling of Sarajevo during its historic siege (1992 – 1995). It is estimated that the Russian shelling in January 1995 caused the death of 15,000 people and the displacement of 400,000. About 3,000 of these were killed by Russian snipers and special forces, not the regular Army draftees. Chechen fighters used civilians as shields in battle and killed prisoners and civilian opponents, especially supporters of pro-Moscow Chechen political groups, frequently torturing and mutilating victims. Some captured Russian soldiers were tortured and executed.

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In September 1999 a series of terrorist bombings in Russia triggered a military operation in Chechnya and armed hostilities against Chechen rebels that lasted for ten years. The bombings also helped bring Vladimir Putin, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) until August 1999, and the Prime Minister to become Russia’s president in 2000. The Russian authorities have blamed Chechen militants for the bombings, but there could have been a domestic dimension to the atrocities, as the BBC had alleged at the end of the deadly month and by producing a special documentary about this bombing. Similar connection was made by The Telegraph in 2004.

 

​Although in September 1999 Prime Minister Putin declared that “we are planning no large-scale military operation in Chechnya”, 100,000 Russian soldiers were deployed the following month in and around Chechnya. Prime Minister Putin had reportedly said that the aim is to dictate a “final solution” to the Chechnya issue. In February 2000 UNHCR estimated that 180,000 people from Chechnya were displaced to Ingushetia as a result of Russia’s military campaign. Russian forces mass murdered civilians, conducted forced disappearances, and raped women, assisted by pro-Russian Chechens.

 

​Chechen rebels carried out terrorist operations in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, including the October 2002 hostage taking in a Moscow theater. On 26 October 2002 the Russian forces released gas into the building and special forces moved in. 50 captors were killed, some 750 hostages freed and 90 hostages were reported dead. The final death toll among the hostages was 125 people.

 

​In 2011 the European Court for Human Rights awarded compensation to survivors and victims’ relatives of the Russia rescue operation in the Moscow theatre holding that the Russian authorities had violated the right to life stipulated by article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights – 1950. The violations relate to the Russian authorities’ failure to adequately plan and conduct the rescue operation and to carry out an effective investigation into its devastating outcome.

No Genuine Investigations and Persecution of Human Rights Activists and Journalists.

 

​The Russian authorities failed to conduct any genuine investigation into the alleged violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. They have also disregarded rulings of the European Court for Human Rights who analyzed their performance and emphasized the Russian authorities’ lack of respect for the rule of law.

There had been a consistent and systematic effort, particularly under the rule of President Putin, to stifle debate and opinions that oppose the Russian government. Putin has signed laws against undesirable NGOs and empowered the Russian Constitutional Court to overturn rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. ​

 

In July 2009, three months after Putin declared an official end to Russian military activity in Chechnya, four gunmen abducted and killed Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova in the war-torn region. She was the Chechnya-based head of Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights group. Putin’s appointed president of Chechnya Kadyrov denied any involvement in her murder arguing “I don’t kill women”. Hours before she died, activists held a press conference that called for Mr Putin's prosecution before an international criminal court. Mrs Estemirova had also just published a report that accused members of the Kadyrov administration of carrying out revenge killings. ​

 

40 Russian journalists had been killed since Putin became president in 2000, including the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya. She had written about Russia’s military conduct in Chechnya and Putin’s authoritarian rule in the entire country. The Russian President described her murderers as having brought Russia “far greater injuries and damage than her publications.”[2]

 

For additional information, please contact:

Marwan Dalal, Executive Director

 

[1] Douglas Little, ““Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East”, 28(5) Diplomatic History, pp.663-701 (2004).  

[2]  On possible American involvement in destabilization efforts against the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia see John Limon Hart, The CIA’s Russians (Naval Institute Press, 2003); ; Benjamin Tromly, Cold War Exiles and the CIA: Plotting to Free Russia (Oxford University Press, 2019); Joseph Persico, “Spy Versus Spy”, New York Times, 28 September 1997; “Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov shot dead in Ankara”, BBC, 20 December 2016 (it is not clear in this report whether the shadows of the U.S. mission in Turkey have played  evident or vague problematic role in this murder). See also Edward Herman & Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection (Sheridan Square, 1986); Jeffrey St. Clair et al, Whiteout – The CIA, Drugs, and the Press (Verso, 1998); Robert Baer Interview at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, C-Span, 10 November 2014, https://www.c-span.org/video/?322743-1/the-perfect-kill (on the CIA and political assassinations in the Middle East); John Stockwell, Secret Wars of the CIA, American University, C-Span, 3 November 1989,  https://www.c-span.org/video/?10353-1/secret-wars-cia# (CIA’s destabilization in Africa).