La maggior parte di noi che vive fuori dalla Siria sa molto poco del paese e della sua storia recente. Quello che pensiamo di sapere arriva tramite i media. Possiamo tendere a ritenere che siano attendibili le informazioni che arrivano con l'appoggio di un'organizzazione come Amnesty International.. Certamente, implicitamente mi sono sempre fidato di Amnesty International, credendo di avere compreso e condiviso i suoi impegni morali.

Come sostenitore da decenni, non ho mai pensato di controllare l'attendibilità della sua cronaca. Soltanto l'anno scorso nel vedere l'organizzazione ritrasmettere messaggi dai malfamati Elmetti Bianchi mi ha fatto sorgere dei dubbi.[1] Avendo da allora scoperto un problema sulle prove testimoniali fornite da Medici Senza Frontiere (MSF), ho sentito il bisogno di guardare più strettamente alla cronaca di Amnesty International.[2] Amnesty era influente nel formare i giudizi morali del pubblico sulle cose giuste e sbagliate della guerra in Siria.

Che dire se la cronaca di Amnesty sulla situazione in Siria fosse basata su qualcosa d'altro che prove verificate?[3] Che dire se i rapporti fuorvianti fossero strumentali ad alimentare conflitti militari che potrebbero essere stati altrimenti contenuti o persino evitati?

Amnesty International ha accusato per la prima volta, nel giugno 2012 di crimini di guerra in Siria il governo del presidente Bashar Al-Assad.[4] Se un crimine di guerra riguarda una violazione delle leggi di guerra e l'applicazione di quelle leggi presuppone una guerra, è pertinente sapere quanto tempo il governo siriano era stato in guerra, assumendo che lo fosse. Nel dicembre 2011 l'ONU si riferiva ad una 'situazione vicina alla guerra civile'.[5] AI crimini di guerra di Amnesty International in Siria erano quindi riportati sulla base di prove che sarebbero state raccolte, analizzate, recensite, controllate, approvate e pubblicate entro sei mesi.[6] Ciò è straordinariamente – ed in modo inquietante – rapido.

Il rapporto non espone dettagliatamente i suoi metodi di ricerca, ma un comunicato stampa cita per esteso, ed esclusivamente, le parole di Donatella Rovera che "ha passato diverse settimane ad investigare le violazioni dei diritti umani in Siria". Per quanto posso dire, le nuove prove pubblicizzate nel rapporto sono state raccolte attraverso conversazioni e visite che la Rovera ha avuto in quelle settimane.[7] Il suo rapporto menziona che Amnesty International "non era stata in grado di condurre ricerche sul terreno in Siria".[8]

Non sono affatto un avvocato, ma trovo inconcepibile che delle accuse di crimini di guerra compiute su queste basi siano state prese sul serio. La stessa Rovera ha più tardi parlato di problemi dell'indagine in Siria: in un articolo riflessivo pubblicato due anni dopo,[9] dà esempi di entrambe prove materiali e dichiarazioni testimoniali che avevano fuorviato l'indagine.[10]  Tali riserve non compaiono sul sito web di Amnesty; non sono a conoscenza che Amnesty abbia riferito degli avvertimenti sul rapporto, né che abbia riesaminato le accuse di crimini di guerra. Comunque, ciò che trovo di grande preoccupazione, dato che le accuse di crimini già commessi possono a tempo debito essere processati, sia inoltre che Amnesty non modera le sue richieste di azione futura. Al contrario.

A sostegno della propria posizione sorprendentemente rapida e decisa su un intervento, Amnesty International ha inoltre accusato il governo siriano di crimini contro l'umanità. Già prima di Deadly Reprisals, il rapporto Deadly Detention aveva asserito questi. Tali accuse possono avere gravi implicazioni perché possono essere prese come giustificazione per un intervento armato.[11] Mentre i crimini di guerra non avvengono a meno che non vi sia una guerra, i crimini contro l'umanità possono considerarsi una giustificazione per andare in guerra. Ed in guerra, possono accadere delle atrocità che altrimenti non sarebbero accadute.

Trovo questa riflessione profondamente problematica, particolarmente come sostenitore di Amnesty International al tempo in cui richiedeva l'azione, le prevedibili conseguenze della quale includevano combattimenti e possibili crimini di guerra, da chiunque commessi, che altrimenti potevano non esserci mai stati. Personalmente, non posso davvero sottrarmi al pensiero che nel volere i mezzi per un fine si condividono anche alcune responsabilità per le loro non volute conseguenze.[12]

Se Amnesty International ha considerato il rischio morale di complicità indiretta nel creare crimini di guerra minore che tacere su ciò che credeva avere scoperto in Siria, allora deve avere avuto davvero grande fiducia nelle scoperte. Era giustificata questa fiducia?

Se ritorniamo ai rapporti sui diritti umani in Siria per l'anno 2010, prima che iniziasse il conflitto, troviamo che Amnesty International ha registrato numerosi casi di ingiusta detenzione e brutalità.[13]  Nei dieci anni in cui Bashar Al-Assad era stato presidente, agli osservatori occidentali sembrava che la situazione dei diritti umani non fosse migliorata considerevolmente come avevano sperato. Human Rights Watch parlava del 2000-2010 come di un 'decennio perduto'.[14] Il tono costante dei rapporti era la delusione: gli avanzamenti realizzati in alcune aree dovevano essere messi contro continui problemi in altre. Sappiamo anche che in alcune regioni rurali della Siria, vi era una reale frustrazione per le priorità e le politiche del governo.[15] Un'economia agricola inceppata dagli effetti scarsamente gestiti di una severa siccità avevano lasciato sentire marginalizzati peggio di prima. La vita poteva essere stata piacevole per molti nelle vibranti città, ma era lungi dall'idilliaca per tutti e restava campo per migliorare il dato sui diritti umani. Il vigoroso approccio del governo ai gruppi che cercavano la fine dello stato secolare della Siria era ampiamente compreso da avere bisogno di monitorare i riferiti eccessi. Nondimeno, le conclusioni pre-guerra dei controllori, sono lontani da ogni indizio di crimini contro l'umanità. Questo comprende le conclusioni del Rapporto Amnesty International 2011: la condizione dei diritti umani nel mondo.

Un rapporto pubblicato appena tre mesi più tardi ritrae una situazione drammaticamente diversa.[16] Nel periodo da aprile ad agosto del 2011, gli eventi sul terreno erano certamente progrediti rapidamente come conseguenza di proteste antigovernative in parti del paese, ma così aveva detto Amnesty.

Nel promuovere il nuovo rapporto, Deadly Detention, Amnesty International USA osserva con orgoglio come l'organizzazione stia ora fornendo 'documentazione in tempo reale sugli abusi dei diritti umani commessi dalle forze governative'. Non soltanto fornisce una rapida cronaca, sta anche facendo delle forti pretese. Invece di dichiarazioni misurate che suggeriscano le necessarie riforme, ora condanna il governo di Assad per 'un generale, come pure sistematico, attacco contro la popolazione civile, attuato in maniera organizzata ed in conformità ad uno stato di polizia per commettere un simile attacco'. Il governo siriano viene accusato di 'crimini contro l'umanità'.[17]

La velocità e la confidenza – come pure l'implicita profondità di discernimento – del rapporto sono straordinarie. Il rapporto è preoccupante dato pure quanto premonitrice sia la sua incriminante conclusione contro il governo: Amnesty International 'ha invitato il Consiglio di Sicurezza dell'ONU non soltanto a condannare, in maniera ferma e vincolante, le violazioni di massa dei diritti umani commesse in Siria ma anche a prendere altre misure per chiedere conto ai responsabili, incluso rinviare la situazione in Siria al Procuratore della Corte Penale Internazionale. Amnesty International continua pure ad esortare il Consiglio di Sicurezza ad imporre l'embargo delle armi alla Siria e di congelare immediatamente i beni del presidente Al-Assad e di altri funzionari sospettati di responsabilità in crimini contro l'umanità'. Con simili dichiarazioni fortemente formulate come questa, specialmente in un contesto nel quale potenti stati stranieri stanno già richiedendo un "cambio di regime" in Siria, il contributo di Amnesty potrebbe essere visto come gettare carburante in un incendio.

Poiché non è soltanto la forza della condanna ad essere degna di nota, ma la rapidità della consegna – in ‘tempo reale’ – un problema che i sostenitori di Amnesty International potrebbero considerare è come l'organizzazione possa fornire cronaca istantanea di eventi mentre sta pure investigando e verificando pienamente le prove.

La reputazione di Amnesty International poggia sulla qualità della sua ricerca. Il segretario generale dell'organizzazione, Salil Shetty, ha dichiarato chiaramente i principi ed i metodi ai quali si attiene quando raccoglie delle prove:

'lo facciamo in maniera molto sistematica, originaria, dove raccogliamo prove con il nostro personale sul terreno. Ed ogni aspetto della nostra raccolta di dati si basa su convalida e controllo incrociato da tutte le parti, anche se sono, sapete, molte parti in ogni situazione, perché in tutte le questioni che trattiamo veniamo alquanto contestati. Perciò è molto importante ottenere diversi punti di vista e compiere continuamente controlli incrociati e verificare i fatti'.[18]

Così Amnesty stabilisce da se standard di ricerca rigorosi ed assicura il pubblico di essere scrupolosa nell'attenervisi. Penso ci si debba aspettare soltanto questo, specialmente quando devono scagliarsi gravi accuse contro un governo.

Amnesty ha seguito il proprio protocollo di ricerca nel preparare il rapporto Deadly Detention? E' stato: sistematico, originario, raccolto dal personale di Amnesty, sul terreno, con ogni aspetto della raccolta di dati verificati dalla convalida e dal controllo incrociato con tutte le parti coinvolte?

Nell'analisi qui apposta come nota [ – [19] –] dimostro, punto per punto, che il rapporto ammette di trascurare di soddisfare alcuni di questi criteri e tralascia di dimostrare di averne soddisfatto alcuno.

Dato che le conclusioni potrebbero essere utilizzate per sostenere richieste di intervento umanitario in Siria, il meno che ci si aspetta dall'organizzazione sarebbe l'applicazione dei propri stabiliti standard di prova.

Per non pensare che concentrarsi sui tecnicismi della metodologia di ricerca rischi di lasciare fuori dai guai per enormi crimini, ha bisogno di essere realmente sottolineato – come era originariamente assiomatico per Amnesty International – che non dovremmo mai fare una presunzione di colpa senza prove o processo.[20] Del tutto a parte dalle questioni tecniche, capire male su chi sia l'esecutore di crimini di guerra potrebbe portare alle conseguenze troppo reali di intervenire erroneamente dalla parte del reale esecutore.

Supponete tuttavia si debba insistere perché le prove dimostrino chiaramente a sufficienza che Assad stia presiedendo alla distruzione di massa del proprio paese ed al massacro del suo popolo: certamente la 'comunità internazionale' dovrebbe intervenire nell'interesse del popolo contro questo presunto 'assassino di massa'?[21] INel clima di opinione e con lo stato della conoscenza all'estero al tempo, questa poteva sembrare un'affermazione plausibile. Tuttavia, non era l'unica affermazione plausibile e certamente non nella Siria stessa. Un'altra era che il miglior genere di sostegno da offrire al popolo della Siria si trovasse nel pressare più fermamente il governo verso delle riforme mentre lo si assisteva, poiché stava diventando sempre più necessario, nel liberare il territorio di insorti terroristi che avevano fomentato e poi sfruttato le tensioni nelle originarie proteste della primavera 2011.[22] Anche per supporre che gli agenti della sicurezza interna del governo necessitino di maggiore limitazione, il modo migliore per realizzarlo non è necessariamente indebolire proprio il governo che solamente sarebbe ben piazzato, con appoggio ed incentivi costruttivi, per applicarlo.

Non trovo ovvio che Amnesty fosse obbligata o competente per decidere tra queste ipotesi alternative. Tuttavia, poiché ha scelto di farlo, dobbiamo chiedere perché abbia preventivamente respinto il metodo di decidere proposto dal presidente Al-Assad stesso. Questo era il suo impegno a tenere delle elezioni per chiedere al popolo se voleva che rimanesse oppure andasse.

Sebbene non ampiamente riportato in occidente e praticamente ignorato da Amnesty[23] – nel 2014 si sono tenute le elezioni presidenziali, con il risultato che sono state una vittoria schiacciante per Bashar Al-Assad. Ha ottenuto 10.319.723 voti – l'88,7% dei voti – con un'affluenza alle urne fissata al 73,42%.[24]

Gli osservatori occidentali non hanno messo in discussione quei numeri o asserito delle irregolarità nel voto,[25] con i media che invece hanno cercato di minimizzare il loro significato. 'Queste non sono elezioni che possono essere analizzate nella stessa maniera di elezioni multi-partiti, multi-candidati in una delle radicate democrazie europee o negli USA, sostiene Jeremy Bowen della BBC a Damasco. Sono state un atto di omaggio al presidente Assad da parte dei suoi sostenitori, che è stato boicottato e respinto dagli oppositori piuttosto che un atto di politica, aggiunge'.[26] Tuttavia, questo omaggio è stato porto da una maggioranza assoluta di siriani. Riferirsi a queste come 'insignificanti', come ha fatto il segretario di stato USA John Kerry,[27] rivela qualcosa di quanto il suo regime rispetti il popolo della Siria. E' vero che il voto non si è potuto svolgere nelle zone tenute dall'opposizione, ma la partecipazione complessiva è stata così grande che anche assumendo che l'intera popolazione di quelle zone avesse votato contro di lui, avrebbero ancora dovuto accettare Assad come vincitore legittimo – piuttosto che noi in Scozia che dobbiamo accettare Theresa May come primo ministro del Regno Unito. Infatti, la recente liberazione di Aleppo Est ha rivelato che il governo di Assad lì ha realmente sostegno.

Non possiamo sapere se Assad sarebbe stato la prima scelta di molta gente sotto altre circostanze, ma possiamo ragionevolmente dedurre che il popolo della Siria ha visto nella sua leadership la migliore speranza per unificare il paese intorno all'obiettivo di porre fine allo spargimento di sangue. Qualunque cosa altri possano avere idealmente cercato – includendo, come espresso nelle proteste autentiche del 2011 – la volontà del popolo siriano è stata piuttosto chiaramente che, sotto le attuali circostanze, al suo governo sia permesso di occuparsi dei suoi problemi, piuttosto che essere soppiantato da agenzie sponsorizzate da stranieri.[28]

(Sono tentato di aggiungere la considerazione, come filosofo politico, che Jeremy Bowen della BBC potrebbe avere ragione nel sostenere che le elezioni non erano affatto un normale 'atto di politica': Bashar Al-Assad è sempre stato chiaro in dichiarazioni ed interviste che la sua posizione è inestricabilmente legata alla costituzione siriana. Non ha scelto di abbandonare la carriera in medicina per diventare un dittatore, come intendo io; piuttosto, l'evento accidentale della morte del fratello maggiore ha modificato i suoi piani. Fino a che prove vere suggeriscano altrimenti, sono personalmente disposto a credere che l'altrimenti incomprensibile fermezza di scopo di Assad derivi veramente dall'impegno a difendere la costituzione del suo paese. Se il popolo volesse realmente oppure no questa persona come presidente è secondario alla questione principale se fosse disposto a lasciare oppure no la sua costituzione nazionale per i dettati di ogni altra entità che non sia il popolo siriano. La risposta a questo ha un significato che, come osserva inavvertitamente Bowen, va oltre la semplice politica).

Poiché il popolo siriano aveva rifiutato la proposizione che Amnesty stava promuovendo, devono porsi delle serie domande. Tra queste, una – che parlerebbe a difesa di Amnesty – è se avesse qualche giustificazione indipendente – derivante da fonti di informazione diverse dalle proprie indagini – per credere genuinamente le sue accuse contro il governo siriano ben fondate. Tuttavia, poiché una risposta affermativa a questa domanda non confuterebbe il punto che ho cercato qui di chiarire, la metterò da parte per una separata discussione nel prossimo episodio di questa investigazione.

Per ora la mia idea è che la stessa Amnesty International stessa non aveva giustificato indipendentemente la propria posizione di difesa. Questo è di interesse per chiunque pensi debba assumersi la piena responsabilità per i controlli che riporta. Una ulteriore discussione ha inoltre affrontato le preoccupazioni di quali tipi di patrocinio si debba affatto occupare.[29]

NOTE

[1] For background on concern about the White Helmets, a concise overview is provided in the video White Helmets: first responders or Al Qaeda support group? For a more thorough discussion, see the accessible but richly referenced summary provided by Jan Oberg. On the basis of all the information now widely available, and in view of the consistency between numerous critical accounts, which contrasts with the incoherence of the official narrative as made famous by Netflix, I have come to mistrust testimony sourced from the White Helmets when it conflicts with testimony of independent journalists on the ground – especially since reports of the latter are also consistent with those of the people of eastern Aleppo who have been able to share the truth of their own experiences since the liberation (for numerous interviews with people from Aleppo, see the Youtube channel of Vanessa Beeley; see also the moving photographic journals of Jan Oberg.)

There have certainly been efforts to debunk the various exposés of the White Helmets, and the latest I know of (at the time of writing) concerns the confession featured in the video (linked above) of Abdulhadi Kamel. According to Middle East eye, his colleagues in the White Helmets believe the confession was beaten out of him (report as at 15 Jan 2017) in a notorious government detention centre (http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syrian-white-helmet-fake-confession-filmed-assad-regime-intelligence-prison-344419324); according to Amnesty International, which does not mention that report in its appeal of 20 Jan 2017, states that there is no evidence he was a White Helmet and it is not known what happened to him (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/01/man-missing-during-east-aleppo-evacuation/). What I take from this is that some people want to defend the White Helmets, but that they cannot even agree a consistent story to base it on under the pressure of unexpected events in Aleppo showing behind the scenes – literally – of the Netflix version of events. It is also hardly reassuring about the quality of AI’s monitoring in Syria.

[2] My critical inquiry about Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was sparked by learning that their testimony was being used to criticise claims being made about Syria by the independent journalist Eva Bartlett. Having found her reporting credible, I felt compelled to discover which account to believe. I found that MSF had been misleading about what they could really claim to know in Syria.

In response to that article, several people pointed to related concerns about Amnesty International. So I had the temerity to start questioning Amnesty International on the basis of pointers and tips given by several of my new friends, and I would like to thank particularly Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Patrick J.Boyle, Adrian D., and Rick Sterling for specific suggestions. I have also benefited from work by Tim Anderson, Jean Bricmont, Tony Cartalucci, Stephen Gowans, Daniel Kovalic, Barbara McKenzie, and Coleen Rowley. I would like to thank Gunnar Øyro, too, for producing a rapid Norwegian translation of the MSF article which has helped it reach more people. In fact, there are a great any others too, that have I learned so much from in these few weeks, among what I have come to discover is a rapidly expanding movement of citizen investigators and journalists all around the globe. It’s one good thing to come out of these terrible times. Thanks to you all!

[3] For instance, it is argued by Tim Anderson, in The Dirty War on Syria (2016), that Amnesty has been ‘embedded’, along with the Western media, and has been following almost unswervingly the line from Washington rather than providing independent evidence and analysis.

[4] The report Deadly Reprisals concluded that ‘Syrian government forces and militias are responsible for grave human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes.’

[5] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40595 – .WIGzeZIpGHk

[6] ‘In the areas of the governorates of Idlib and Aleppo, where Amnesty International carried out its field research for this report, the fighting had reached the level and intensity of a non-international armed conflict. This means that the laws of war (international humanitarian law) also apply, in addition to human rights law, and that many of the abuses documented here would also amount to war crimes.’ Deadly Reprisals, p.10.

[7] Rovera’s account was contradicted at the time by other witness testimonies, as reported, for instance, in the Badische Zeitung, which claimed responsibility for deaths was attributed to the wrong side. One-sidedness in the account is also heavily criticized by Louis Denghien http://www.infosyrie.fr/decryptage/lenorme-mensonge-fondateur-de-donatella-rovera/ Most revealing, however, is the article I go on to mention in the text, in which Rovera herself two years later effectively retracts her own evidence (‘Challenges of monitoring, reporting, and fact-finding during and after armed conflict’). This article is not published on Amnesty’s own site, and is not mentioned by Amnesty anywhere, as far as I know. I commend it to anyone who thinks my conclusion about Deadly Reprisals might itself be too hasty. I think it could make salutary reading for some of her colleagues, like the one who published the extraordinarily defensive dismissal of critical questions about the report in Amnesty’s blog on 15 June 2012, which, I would say, begs every question it claims to answer. (The author just keeps retorting that the critics hadn’t been as critical about opposition claims. I neither know nor care whether they were. I only wanted to learn if he had anything to say in reply to the actual criticisms made.) While appreciating that people who work for Amnesty feel passionately about the cause of the vulnerable, and I would not wish it otherwise, I do maintain that professional discipline is appropriate in discussions relating to evidence.

[8] ‘For more than a year from the onset of the unrest in 2011, Amnesty International – like other international human rights organizations – had not been able to conduct research on the ground in Syria as it was effectively barred from entering the country by the government.’ (Deadly Reprisals, p.13)

[9] Donatella Rovera, Challenges of monitoring, reporting, and fact-finding during and after armed conflict, Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection (PHAP) 2014.

[10] The article is worth reading in full for its reflective insight into a number of difficulties and obstacles in the way of reliable reporting from the field, but here is an excerpt particularly relevant to the Syria case: ‘Access to relevant areas during the conduct of hostilities may be restricted or outright impossible, and often extremely dangerous when possible. Evidence may be rapidly removed, destroyed, or contaminated – whether intentionally or not. “Bad” evidence can be worse than no evidence, as it can lead to wrong assumptions or conclusions. In Syria I found unexploded cluster sub-munitions in places where no cluster bomb strikes were known to have been carried out. Though moving unexploded cluster sub-munitions is very dangerous, as even a light touch can cause them to explode, Syrian fighters frequently gather them from the sites of government strikes and transport them to other locations, sometimes a considerable distance away, in order to harvest explosive and other material for re-use. The practice has since become more widely known, but at the time of the first cluster bomb strikes, two years ago, it led to wrong assumptions about the locations of such strikes. … Especially in the initial stages of armed conflicts, civilians are confronted with wholly unfamiliar realities – armed clashes, artillery strikes, aerial bombardments, and other military activities and situations they have never experienced before – which can make it very difficult for them to accurately describe specific incidents.’ (Challenges of monitoring, reporting, and fact-finding during and after armed conflict) In light of Rovera’s candour, one is drawn to an inescapable contrast with the stance of Amnesty International, the organization. Not only did it endorse the report uncritically, in the first place, it continued to issue reports of a similar kind, and to make calls for action on the basis of them.

[11] ‘This disturbing new evidence of an organized pattern of grave abuses highlights the pressing need for decisive international action … For more than a year the UN Security Council has dithered, while a human rights crisis unfolded in Syria.  It must now break the impasse and take concrete action to end to these violations and to hold to account those responsible.’ Deadly Reprisals press release. The executive director of Amnesty International USA at that time was on record as favouring a Libya-like response to the Syria ‘problem’. Speaking shortly after her appointment she expressed her frustration that the Libya approach had not already been adopted for Syria: ‘Last spring the Security Council managed to forge a majority for forceful action in Libya and it was initially very controversial, [causing] many misgivings among key Security Council members. But Gaddafi fell, there’s been a transition there and I think one would have thought those misgivings would have died down. And yet we’ve seen just a continued impasse over Syria… .’ Quoted in Coleen Rowley, ‘Selling War as “Smart Power”’ (28 Aug 2012)

[12] The question of what Amnesty International as an organization can be said to have ‘willed’ is complex. One reason is that it is an association of so many people and does not have a simple ‘will’. Another is that public statements are often couched in language that can convey a message but with word choice that allows deniability of any particular intent should that become subject to criticism or censure. This practice in itself I find unwholesome, personally, and I think it ought to be entirely unnecessary for an organization with Amnesty’s moral mission. For a related critical discussion of Amnesty International’s ‘interventionism’ in Libya see e.g. Daniel Kovalik ‘Amnesty International and the Human Rights Industry’ (2012). Coleen Rowley received from Amnesty International, in response to criticisms by her, the assurance ‘we do not take positions on armed intervention.’ (The Problem with Human Rights/Humanitarian Law Taking Precedence over the Nuremberg Principle: Torture is Wrong but So Is the Supreme War Crime’, 2013). Rowley shows how this response, unlike a clear stance against intervention, shows some creativity. I also note in passing, that in the same response Amnesty assure us ‘AI’s advocacy is based on our own independent research into human rights abuses in a given country.’ This, going by the extent to which AI reports cite reports from other organisations, I would regard as economical with the truth.

In my next blog on Amnesty International, the role of Suzanne Nossel, sometime executive director of Ammesty International USA, will be discussed, and in that context further relevant information will be forthcoming about the purposes Amnesty’s testimony was serving in the period 2011-12.

[13] Submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review, October 2011,‘End human rights violations in Syria’. Without wanting to diminish the significance of every single human rights abuse, I draw attention here to the scale of the problem that is recorded prior to 2011 for the purpose of comparison with later reports. Thus I note that the US State Department does not itemise egregious failings: ‘There was at least one instance during the year when the authorities failed to protect those in its custody. … There were reports in prior years of prisoners beating other prisoners while guards stood by and watched.’ In 2010 (May 28) Amnesty had reported ‘several suspicious deaths in custody’: http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-syria-2010. Its briefing to Committee on Torture speaks in terms of scores of cases in the period 2004-2010: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/008/2010/en/

For additional reference, these reports also indicate that the most brutal treatment tends to be meted out against Islamists and particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. There are also complaints from Kurds. A small number of lawyers and journalists are mentioned too.

[14] Human Rights Watch (2010), ‘A Wasted Decade: Human Rights in Syria during Bashar al-Assad’s First Ten Years in Power’.

[15] According to one account: ‘As a result of four years of severe drought, farmers and herders have seen their livelihoods destroyed and their lifestyles transformed, becoming disillusioned with government promises of plentitude in rural areas. In the disjuncture between paternalistic promises of resource redistribution favoring Syria’s peasantry and corporatist pacts binding regime interests to corrupt private endeavors, one may begin to detect the seeds of Syrian political unrest. … the regime’s failure to put in place economic measures to alleviate the effects of drought was a critical driver in propelling such massive mobilizations of dissent. In these recent months, Syrian cities have served as junctures where the grievances of displaced rural migrants and disenfranchised urban residents meet and come to question the very nature and distribution of power. … I would argue that a critical impetus in driving Syrian dissent today has been the government’s role in further marginalizing its key rural populace in the face of recent drought. Numerous international organizations have acknowledged the extent to which drought has crippled the Syrian economy and transformed the lives of Syrian families in myriad irreversible ways.’ Suzanne Saleeby (2012) ‘Sowing the Seeds of Dissent: Economic Grievances and the Syrian Social Contract’s Unraveling’.

[16] The names, dates, and reporting periods of reports relevant here are easily confused, so here are further details. The Amnesty International Report 2011: the state of the world’s human rights mentioned in the text just here reports on the calendar year 2010, and it was published on May 13 2011. The separate report published in August 2011 is entitled Deadly Detention: deaths in custody amid popular protest in Syria’ and covers events during 2011 up to 15 August 2011.

[17] Crimes against humanity are a special and egregious category of wrongdoing: they involve acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. Whereas ordinary crimes are a matter for a state to deal with internally, crimes against humanity, especially if committed by a state, can make that state subject to redress from the international community.

[18] Salil Shetty interviewed in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unl-csIUmp8

[19] Was the research systematic? The organising of data collection takes time, involving procedures of design, preparation, execution and delivery; the systematic analysis and interpretation of data involves a good deal of work; the writing up needs to be properly checked for accuracy. Furthermore, to report reliably involves various kinds of subsidiary investigation in order to establish context and relevant variable factors that could influence the meaning and significance of data. Even then, once a draft report is written, it really needs to be checked by some expert reviewers for any unnoticed errors or omissions. Any presentation of evidence that shortcuts those processes could not, in my judgment, be regarded as systematic. I cannot imagine how such processes could be completed in short order, let alone ‘in real-time’, and so I can only leave it to readers to decide how systematic the research could have been.

Was the evidence gathered from primary sources? ‘International researchers have interviewed witnesses and others who had fled Syria in recent visits to Lebanon and Turkey, and communicated by phone and email with individuals who remain in Syria … they include relatives of victims, human rights defenders, medical professionals and newly released detainees. Amnesty International has also received information from Syrian and other human rights activists who live outside Syria.’ Of all those sources, we could regard the testimony of newly released detainees as a primary source of information about conditions in prison. However, we are looking for evidence that would support the charge of committing crimes against humanity through ‘a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population, carried out in an organized manner and pursuant to a state policy to commit such an attack’. On what basis Amnesty can claim definite knowledge of the extent of any attack and exactly who perpetrated it, or of how the government organizes the implementation of state policy, I do not see explained in the report.

Was the evidence collected by Amnesty’s staff on the ground? This question is answered in the report: “Amnesty International has not been able to conduct first-hand research on the ground in Syria during 2011” (p.5).

Was every aspect of data collection verified by corroboration? The fact that a number of identified individuals had died in violent circumstances is corroborated, but the report notes that ‘in very few cases has Amnesty International been able to obtain information indicating where a person was being detained at the time of their death. Consequently, this report uses qualified terms such as “reported arrests” and “reported deaths in custody”, where appropriate, in order to reflect this lack of clarity regarding some of the details of the cases reported.’

[This would corroborate descriptions of the pre-2011 situation regarding police brutality and deaths in custody. These are as unacceptable in Syria as they should be in all the other countries in which they occur, but to speak of ‘crimes against humanity’ implies an egregious systematic policy. I do not find anything in the report that claims to offer corroboration of the evidence that leads the report to state: ‘Despite these limitations, Amnesty International considers that the crimes behind the high number of reported deaths in custody of suspected opponents of the regime identified in this report, taken in the context of other crimes and human rights violations committed against civilians elsewhere in Syria, amount to crimes against humanity. They appear to be part of a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population, carried out in an organized manner and pursuant to a state policy to commit such an attack.’]

As for corroboration of more widespread abuses and the claim that the government had a policy to commit what amount to crimes against humanity, I find none referred to.

Was the evidence relied on cross-checked with all parties concerned? Given that the government is charged, it would be a centrally concerned party, and the report makes clear the government has not been prepared to deal with Amnesty International. The non-cooperation of the government with Amnesty’s inquiries – whatever may be its reasons – cannot be offered as proof of its innocence. [That very phrase may jar with traditional Amnesty International supporters, given that a founding principle is the due process of assuming innocent before proven guilty. But I have allowed that some people might regard governments as relevantly different from individuals.] But since the government was not obliged to have dealings with Amnesty, and might have had other reasons not to, we must simply note that this aspect of the research methods protocol was not satisfied.

[20] I would note that a range of people have disputed whether there was any credible evidence, including former CIA intelligence officer Philip Giraldi http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nato-vs-syria/ while also affirming that the American plan of destabilizing Syria and pursuing regime change had been hatched years earlier. That, unlike the allegations against Assad, has been corroborated from a variety of sources. These include a former French foreign minister http://www.globalresearch.ca/former-french-foreign-minister-the-war-against-syria-was-planned-two-years-before-the-arab-spring/5339112 and General Wesley Clark http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166.

[21] Although quotation marks and the word alleged are invariably absent in mainstream references to accusations involving Assad, I retain them on principle since the simple fact of repeating an allegation does not suffice to alter its epistemic status. To credit the truth of a statement one needs evidence.

Lest it be said that there was plenty of other evidence, then I would suggest we briefly consider what Amnesty International, writing in 2016, would refer to as ‘the strongest evidence yet’. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/from-hope-to-horror-five-years-of-crisis-in-syria/ (15 March 2016; accessed 11 January 2017) The evidence in question was the so-called Caesar photographs showing some 11,000 corpses alleged to have been tortured and executed by Assad’s people. A full discussion of this matter is not for a passing footnote like this, but I would just point out that this evidence was known to Amnesty and the world as of January 2014 and was discussed by Amnesty’s Philip Luther at the time of its publication. Referring to them as ‘11,000 Reasons for Real Action in Syria’, Luther admitted the causes or agents of the deaths had not been verified but spoke of them in terms that suggest verification was close to being a foregone conclusion (remember, this was five months before Assad’s election victory, so the scale of this alleged mass murder was knowledge in the public domain at election time). These ‘11,000 reasons’ clearly weighed with Amnesty, even if they could not quite verify them. To this day, though, the evidence has not been credibly certified, and I for one do not expect it will be. Some reasons why are those indicated by Rick Sterling in his critical discussion ‘The Caesar Photo Fraud that Undermined Syrian Negotiations’. Meanwhile, if Amnesty International’s people had thought up hypotheses to explain why the Syrian electors seemed so nonchalant about the supposed mass murdering of their president, they have not shared them.

[22] Although this was very much a minority perspective in the Western media, it was not entirely absent. The Los Angeles Times of 7 March 2012 carries a small item called ‘Syria Christians fear life after Assad’ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/07/world/la-fg-syria-christians-20120307  It articulates concerns about ‘whether Syria’s increasingly bloody, nearly yearlong uprising could shatter the veneer of security provided by President Bashar Assad’s autocratic but secular government. Warnings of a bloodbath if Assad leaves office resonate with Christians, who have seen their brethren driven away by sectarian violence since the overthrow of longtime strongmen in Iraq and in Egypt, and before that by a 15-year civil war in neighboring Lebanon.’ It notes ‘their fear helps explain the significant support he still draws’.

This well-founded fear of something worse should arguably have been taken into account in thinking about the proportionality of any military escalation. The LA Times article carries an interview: ‘”Of course the ‘Arab Spring’ is an Islamist movement,” George said angrily. “It’s full of extremists. They want to destroy our country, and they call it a ‘revolution.’ “… Church leaders have largely aligned themselves behind the government, urging their followers to give Assad a chance to enact long-promised political reforms while also calling for an end to the violence, which has killed more than 7,500 people on both sides, according to United Nations estimates.’ The LA Times carried several articles in a similar vein, including these: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/03/church-fears-ethnic-cleansing-of-christians-in-homs-syria.html; http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-05-09/syria-christians-crisis/54888144/1.

We also find that support for Assad’s presidency held up throughout the period following the initial protests: Since then, support for Assad has continued to hold up. Analysis of 2013 ORB Poll: http://russia-insider.com/en/nato-survey-2013-reveals-70-percent-syrians-support-assad/ri12011.

[23] No mention is made to it on Amnesty’s webpages, and the annual report of 2014/15 offers a cursory mention conveying that the election was of no real significance: ‘In June, President al-Assad won presidential elections held only in government-controlled areas, and returned to of ce for a third seven-year term. The following week, he announced an amnesty, which resulted in few prisoner releases; the vast majority of prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners held by the government continued to be detained.’ (p.355, available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/0001/2015/en/)

[24] Reported in the Guardian 4 June 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/bashar-al-assad-winds-reelection-in-landslide-victory. The total population of Syria, including children, was 17,951,639 in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Syria

Although most of the Western press ignored or downplayed the result, there were some exceptions. The LA Times noted that ‘Assad’s regional and international supporters hailed his win as the elusive political solution to the crisis and a clear indication of Syrians’ will.’ http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-prisoner-release-20140607-story.html In a report on Fox News via Associated Press, too, there is a very clear description of the depth of support: Syrian election shows depth of popular support for Assad, even among Sunni majority. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/06/04/syrian-election-shows-depth-popular-support-for-assad-even-among-sunni-majority.html The report explains numerous reasons for the support, in a way that appears to give the lie to the usual mainstream narrative in the West.

The Guardian reports: ‘Securing a third presidential term is Assad’s answer to the uprising, which started in March 2011 with peaceful demonstrators calling for reforms but has since morphed into a fully fledged war that has shaken the Middle East and the world. And now, with an estimated 160,000 dead, millions displaced at home and abroad, outside powers backing both sides, and al-Qaida-linked jihadist groups gaining more control in the north and east, many Syrians believe that Assad alone is capable of ending the conflict.’

Steven MacMillan offers a pro-Assad account of the election in New Eastern Outlook http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/20/bashar-al-assad-the-democratically-elected-president-of-syria/

[25] Despite assertions from the states committed to ‘regime change’ that the election result should simply be disregarded, international observers found no fault to report with the process http://tass.com/world/734657

[26] It is deemed of so little consequence by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office that its webpage on Syria, as last updated 21 January 2015 (and accessed 16 January 2017) still has this as its paragraph discussing a possible election in Syria in the future tense and with scepticism: ‘there is no prospect of any free and fair election being held in 2014 while Assad remains in power.’

[27] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27706471

[28] A survey conducted in 2015 by ORB International, a company which specializes in public opinion research in fragile and conflict environments, still showed Assad to have more popular support than the opposition. The report is analysed by Stephen Gowans: http://www.globalresearch.ca/bashar-al-assad-has-more-popular-support-than-the-western-backed-opposition-poll/5495643

[29] For earlier and preliminary thoughts on the general question here see my short piece ‘Amnesty International: is it true to its mission?’ (12 Jan 2017)