(New York, June 23, 2001) -- A criminal investigation into Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharons role in the massacre of civilians in the
Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla should be launched,
Human Rights Watch urged today. The Israeli leader will meet on Tuesday
at the White House with President Bush.
“There is abundant evidence
that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed on a wide
scale in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, but to date, not a single
individual has been brought to justice. President Bush should urge
Prime Minister Sharon to cooperate with any investigation.”
Hanny Megally
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch
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The call by Human
Rights Watch came as Prime Minister Sharon begins a visit to the United
States. The Israeli leaders visit here comes as controversy mounts in
Europe over his responsibility for the 1982 killings.
“There is abundant evidence
that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed on a wide
scale in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, but to date, not a single
individual has been brought to justice,” said Hanny Megally, executive
director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights
Watch. “President Bush should urge Prime Minister Sharon to cooperate
with any investigation.”
As Defense Minister, Ariel
Sharon had overall responsibility over the Israeli Defense Forces and
allowed Phalangist militias to enter the camps where they terrorized
the residents for three days.
Human Rights Watch said that
the United States had a substantial interest in the case because the
Israeli occupation of West Beirut followed written U.S. assurances that
Palestinians remaining there would be safe, as part of an arrangement
that saw the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization forces.
The debate in Europe erupted
following a BBC documentary on the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, which
was aired in the United Kingdom on June 17. The day after, survivors of
the massacre lodged a complaint against Sharon in a Belgian court.
During the BBC program, Morris
Draper, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East at the time, said
that U.S. officials were horrified when told Sharon had allowed
Phalange militias into West Beirut and the camps “because it would be a
massacre.” He told the BBC that after the killings began he cabled
Defense Minister Sharon, telling him, “You must stop the slaughter….
The situation is absolutely appalling. They are killing children. You
have the field completely under your control and are therefore
responsible for that area.”
The Kahan Commission
(named after the President of the Israeli Supreme Court) that
investigated the massacre in 1983 concluded that “Minister of Defense
[Sharon] bears personal responsibility” and should “draw the
appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed
with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his
office.” The commission recommended that Prime Minister Menachem Begin
remove Sharon from office if he did not resign. Sharon did resign as
minister of defense, though he subsequently assumed other cabinet
positions. Annexes of the commission report have not yet been made
public, and it is not known if they contain additional information
specific to Sharons involvement.
Human Rights Watch said that
the findings and conclusions of the Kahan Commission, however
authoritative in terms of investigation and documentation of the facts
surrounding the massacre, could not substitute for proceedings in a
criminal court in Israel or elsewhere that would bring to justice those
responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians. Human
Rights Watch recognizes that Sharon, in his capacity as Prime Minister,
may invoke temporary immunity; however, that should not preclude an
active criminal investigation into his conduct whether in Israel, or
elsewhere.
“Criminal investigations and
prosecutions must include militia leaders like Elie Hobeika in Lebanon
who carried out these atrocities,” Megally said. “But the Israeli
government also has a responsibility to conduct an investigation into
the actions of its own high officials who knew – and, in any case,
certainly should have known -- that atrocities were likely to occur and
did not act promptly to stop them once they knew the killing had
started.”
Background
Details of the massacre:
The massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps occurred between
September 16 and 18, 1982, after Israel Defense Forces (“IDF”) then
occupying Beirut and under Ariel Sharons overall command as Israeli
Defense Minister permitted members of the Phalange militia into the
camps. The precise civilian death toll most likely will never be known.
Israeli military intelligence estimated that between 700 and 800 people
were killed in Sabra and Shatilla during the sixty-two-hour rampage,
while Palestinian and other sources have claimed that the dead numbered
up to several thousand. The victims included infants, children, women
(including pregnant women), and the elderly, some of whom were
mutilated or disemboweled before or after they were killed. Journalists
who arrived on the scene immediately after the massacre also saw
evidence of the summary execution of young men. To cite only one
contemporaneous account, that of Thomas Friedman of the New York Times:
“[M]ostly I saw groups of young men in their twenties and thirties who
had been lined up against walls, tied by their hands and feet, and then
mowed down gangland-style with fusillades of machine-gun fire.”
By all accounts, the
perpetrators of this indiscriminate slaughter were members of the
Phalange (or Kataeb, in Arabic) militia, a Lebanese force that was
armed by and closely allied to Israel since the outbreak of Lebanons
civil war in 1975. It must be noted, however, that the killings were
carried out in an area under IDF control. An IDF forward command post
was situated on the roof of a multi-story building located some 200
meters southwest of the Shatilla camp.
Findings of the Kahan Commission:
In February 1983, the
three-member Israeli official independent commission of inquiry charged
with investigating the events known as the Kahan Commission named
former Defense Minister Sharon as one of the individuals who "bears
personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre.
Former Defense Minister
Sharons decision to allow the Phalange into the camps: The Kahan
Commission report detailed the direct role of former Defense Minister
Sharon in allowing the Phalangists into the Sabra and Shatilla camps.
For instance, then-Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Rafael Eitan testified that
the entry of the Phalangists into the refugee camps was agreed upon
between former Defense Minister Sharon and himself. Thereafter, former
Defense Minister Sharon went to Phalangist headquarters and met with,
among others, a number of Phalangist commanders. A document issued by
former Defense Minister Sharons office containing “The Defense
Ministers Summary of 15 September 1982” states: “For the operation in
the camps the Phalangists should be sent in.” That document also stated
that “the I.D.F. shall command the forces in the area.”
Former Defense Minister
Sharons disregard of the consequences of that decision: As to former
Defense Minister Sharons testimony that “no one had imagined the
Phalangists would carry out a massacre in the camps,” the Kahan
Commission concluded that “it is impossible to justify [Sharons]
disregard of the danger of a massacre” because “no prophetic powers
were required to know that a concrete danger of acts of slaughter
existed when the Phalangists were moved into the camps without the
I.D.F.s being with them.” In fact, the Commission found: “In our view,
everyone who had anything to do with events in Lebanon should have felt
apprehension about a massacre in the camps, if armed Phalangist forces
were to be moved into them without the I.D.F. exercising concrete and
effective supervision and scrutiny of them…. To this backdrop of the
Phalangists [enmity] toward the Palestinians [in the camps] were added
the profound shock [of Bashir Jemayels recent death]….”
The Kahan Commission further found that:
If in fact the Defense
Minister, when he decided that the Phalangists would enter the camps
without the I.D.F. taking part in the operation, did not think that
that decision could bring about the very disaster that in fact
occurred, the only possible explanation for this is that he disregarded
any apprehensions about what was to be expected because the advantages
. . . to be gained from the Phalangists entry into the camps
distracted him from the proper consideration in this instance.
The Commission explained that
“if the decision were taken with the awareness that the risk of harm to
the inhabitants existed, the obligation existed to adopt measures which
would ensure effective and ongoing supervision by the I.D.F. over the
actions of the Phalangists at the site, in such a manner as to prevent
the danger or at least reduce it considerably. The Defense Minister
issued no order regarding the adoption of such measures.”
The Commission concluded:
“In our view, the Minister of Defense made a grave mistake when he
ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists
against the population in the refugee camps.”
As its ultimate
recommendation, the Kahan Commission recommended that Sharon be
discharged from serving as Minister of Defense, and that, if necessary,
the then-Prime Minister should consider removing him from office.
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Human
Rights Watch takes the position that what happened at the Sabra and
Shatilla refugee camps constitute war crimes and crimes against
humanity, and that all those responsible need to be brought to justice.
Enough questions are raised by the Kahan Commission report to warrant a
criminal investigation by Israel into whether former Defense Minister
Sharon and other Israeli military officials—including some who knew the
massacre was occurring but took no actions to stop it—bear criminal
responsibility. The findings and conclusions of the Kahan Commission,
however authoritative in terms of investigation and documentation of
the facts surrounding the massacre, cannot substitute for proceedings
in a criminal court in Israel or elsewhere that will bring to justice
those responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians.
The Lebanese government should institute a similar investigation into
the Sabra and Shatilla massacre.
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