The Daily Star - Investigate Civil War missing: Amnesty - April 15, 2011

By Marie Dhumières

The Daily Star BEIRUT: Amnesty International is urging Lebanese authorities to establish an independent body to investigate the fate of thousands of people who disappeared during the Civil War, a report released Thursday said. “In ‘Never Forgotten, Lebanon’s missing people,’ we return to the woefully neglected issue of the thousands of people still unaccounted for more than 20 years since the end of Lebanon’s Civil War,” said Neil Sammonds, who conducted the research, during a news conference attended by several relatives of the disappeared. Released one day after the 36th anniversary of the beginning of the 1975-90 Civil War, the report calls on the authorities to “take effective steps,” promote “the rights for all people to truth and justice to finally help heal the open wound of the Civil War,” and “consider the issue of justice and reconciliation,” Sammonds said.The organization is urging the creation of an independent national commission made up of independent experts and representatives of security organizations, various political groups and the legal community, and civil society, including relatives of the missing. Amnesty wants this body to secure “full cooperation and transparency from all state institutions and all individuals without exception.” It also demands the commission locate mass graves and exhume bodies in compliance with international standards. Amnesty urged Parliament to fund the establishment a DNA database project, to aid the identification process. “The mothers, wives, sons and the daughters of the missing have the right to know [their] fate,” said Ahmad Karaoud, the regional director of Amnesty International. Wadad Halawani, the founder of the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon, condemned “the official failure in addressing the issue of the victims of enforced disappearance.” “Every day is April 13 … for us, we’re permanent victims of this war,” Halawani said, adding that she was suspicious of official efforts and noting that “this has been going on for 36 years.” Sammonds referred to a “stubborn failure of the Lebanese political elite to take any effective steps to establish the fate and whereabouts of these thousands of missing people [which] has caused relentless pain and anguish to many … for far too long.” The report mentions cases of disappearances involving the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli authorities, but also mentions national political parties such as the Kataeb (Phalange), the National Liberal Party, the Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party, Amal and Hezbollah. To Sammonds, “in many ways … the Lebanese state is almost a failed state. It doesn’t carry out its obligations properly and it hasn’t for years.” “By and large, the judicial authorities are unable or unwilling to do their job. Only when they do [so will we] be able to find the truth,” he said. He stressed that while his organization was not calling for an international panel, the Lebanese authorities “pay a huge amount of their budget” to support the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and yet “almost nothing is going into the issue of the missing.” “We want to encourage the new government, when it’s formed, to … actually make sure they carry out,” a vow to tackle the issue, Sammonds said, adding that both the president and the current caretaker Cabinet promised to follow-up the issue, but “nothing happened.” Another group, Act for the Disappeared, will organize a debate on the issue of Lebanon’s mass graves and official neglect at Metropolis Sofil Cinema in Achrafieh at 6 p.m. Saturday. Official Efforts Track Record *In 1991, a police report recorded 17,000 civil war “disappearances” but the figure is disputed. *In 2000, the Cabinet of Salim al-Hoss established a committee on the missing and disappeared, but human rights organizations said the body lacked independence. The committee’s report said there were some 2,000 cases of disappeared persons, none of whom remained alive. Although no evidence for the deaths was provided, the families were advised to declare their relatives dead to facilitate legal and administrative issues. Most of them didn’t. A few months later, Syria released 54 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. *In 2001, a second committee believed to be more independent was established, but only focused on the cases of those who still might be alive. It failed to release a report. *In 2005, a joined Syrian-Lebanese committee was established to look into the cases of those reported to be missing in Syria, but has also failed to release a report