Playing the "Communal Card"
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PLAYING THE "COMMUNAL CARD" Communal Violence and Human Rights Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch New York $$$ Washington $$$ Los Angeles $$$ London $$$ Brussels Copyright 8 April 1995 by Human Rights Watch. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-79555 ISBN 1-56432-152-5 Cover photograph: August 19, 1994, Goma, Zaire, courtesy AP/Wide World Photos, Santiago Lyon. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. It addresses the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. In internal wars it documents violations by both governments and rebel groups. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law; it documents and denounces murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, exile, censorship and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights. Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of its Helsinki division. Today, it includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, as well as the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It also includes five collaborative projects on arms transfers, children's rights, free expression, prison conditions, and women's rights. It maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Belgrade, Zagreb, Dushanbe, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly. The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Holly J. Burkhalter, advocacy director; Ann S. Johnson, development director; Gara LaMarche, associate director; Juan Méndez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications director; and Derrick Wong, finance and administration director. The regional directors of Human Rights Watch are Abdullahi An-Na'im, Africa; José Miguel Vivanco, Americas; Sidney Jones, Asia; Jeri Laber, Helsinki; and Christopher E. George, Middle East. The project directors are Joost R. Hiltermann, Arms Project; Lois Whitman, Children's Rights Project; Gara LaMarche, Free Expression Project; and Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women's Rights Project. The members of the board of directors are Robert L. Bernstein, chair; Adrian W. DeWind, vice chair; Roland Algrant, Lisa Anderson, Peter D. Bell, Alice L. Brown, William Carmichael, Dorothy Cullman, Irene Diamond, Edith Everett, Jonathan Fanton, Alan Finberg, Jack Greenberg, Alice H. Henkin, Harold Hongju Koh, Stephen L. Kass, Marina Pinto Kaufman, Alexander MacGregor, Josh Mailman, Peter Osnos, Kathleen Peratis, Bruce Rabb, Orville Schell, Gary G. Sick, Malcolm Smith, Nahid Toubia, Maureen White, and Rosalind C. Whitehead. Addresses for Human Rights Watch 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6104 Tel: (212) 972-8400, Fax: (212) 972-0905, E-mail: [email protected] 1522 K Street, N.W., #910, Washington, DC 20005-1202 Tel: (202) 371-6592, Fax: (202) 371-0124, E-mail: [email protected] 10951 West Pico Blvd., #203, Los Angeles, CA 90064-2126 Tel: (310) 475-3070, Fax: (310) 475-5613, E-mail: [email protected] 33 Islington High Street, N1 9LH London, UK Tel: (171) 713-1995, Fax: (171) 713-1800, E-mail: [email protected] 15 Rue Van Campenhout, 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: (2) 732-2009, Fax: (2) 732-0471, E-mail: [email protected] Gopher Address: gopher.humanrights.org port 5000 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Contributors to this report include: Aziz Abu-Hamad, Cynthia Brown, Holly Cartner, Rachel Denber, Alison Des Forges, Christopher George, Eric Goldstein, Jeannine Guthrie, Farhad Karim, Bronwen Manby, Ivana Nizich, Binaifer Nowrojee, Christopher Panico, Ken Roth and Karen Sorenson. Cynthia Brown and Farhad Karim edited the report. Nandi Rodrigo provided production assistance. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... vii RWANDA ......................................................................................................................... 1 INDIA.............................................................................................................................. 18 ISRAELI-OCCUPIED TERRITORIES .......................................................................... 30 SOUTH AFRICA ............................................................................................................ 45 ROMANIA ...................................................................................................................... 67 SRI LANKA.................................................................................................................... 80 KENYA........................................................................................................................... 97 YUGOSLAVIA ............................................................................................................. 113 LEBANON .................................................................................................................... 126 ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN........................................................................................... 142 INTRODUCTION The current epidemic of communal violenceCviolence involving groups that define themselves by their differences of religion, ethnicity, language or raceCis today's paramount human rights problem.1 The murder of unarmed civilians based on their ethnic, racial or religious affiliations, the forcible displacement of ethnic and religious communities, and the burden that this tragedy places on international humanitarian agencies and donor nations, are now central issues of international relations. There is broad recognition that early warning and prevention of communal violence are preferable to later, more expensive and generally less effective actions like the U.N. operations in Bosnia and Somalia. Yet because the international community often has not recognized when conflicts framed in ethnic or religious terms are the products of calculated government policies, it has failed to expose and confront those policies early, before their violent consequences explode. Among policies that fuel communal violence are those that reinforce intolerance and excuse harassment of targeted communities, as well as active governmental promotion or direction of violence against those communities. Condemning these official actions as human rights abuses, and treating them as dangers with international significance, must be central to any plan for preventing the outbreak of communal violence. Communal violence is often seen simply as the product of "deep-seated hatreds" or "ancient animosities" that have been unleashed by the collapse of authoritarian structures that had previously contained them. At times, this view is promoted by journalists who lack the time or inclination to trace more complex causes. Governments presiding over communal violence may also promote this view, since if "ancient animosities" are seen as the "cause", then communal violence takes on the appearance of a natural phenomenon which outsiders have no right to condemn and no hope to prevent. Some members of the international community have also conspired in this view, since inaction in the face of communal violence is more easily excused if the source of that violence is understood to be beyond control. But the extensive Human Rights Watch field research summarized in this report shows that communal tensions per se are not the immediate cause of many of today's violent and persistent communal conflicts. While communal tensions are 1 The term "communal conflict" originated in colonial analyses of religious conflicts in the Indian subcontinent. We use the term "communal violence" here to encompass the breadth of the phenomenon, including violent conflict and repression that target communities based not only on their ethnic identities but also their religious affiliation or their racial, linguistic or tribal characteristics. obviously a necessary ingredient of an explosive mix, they are not sufficient to unleash widespread violence. Rather, time after time, proximate cause of communal violence is governmental exploitation of communal differences. The governmental role can take several forms. In some cases, discrimination that favors a dominant group, or marginalizes a minority from full participation in the society, creates a climate of mutual suspicion and intolerance, and the illusion that one group "deserves" more rights than another. The resulting differential in status can breed violent resentment on one hand while inciting, or being seen to excuse, more violent forms of repression on the other. In this climate, when private attacks on a vulnerable community occur, the government may fail to condemn, let alone prosecute, the offenders. Such attacks may even be carried out by official forces, with similar impunity. If the targeted community protests, that is considered further evidence of its posing a threat or being alien to the interests of the state, and can lead to intensified repression. In other cases, we have seen that a government's willingness to play on existing communal tensions to entrench its own power or advance a political agenda is a key factor in the transformation of those tensions