Skeletons uncovered in mass graves in Somalia

An American volunteer gently brushes away dirt to reveal the bones of a Somali victim buried in a mass grave some 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of skeletons may lie in mass graves here, on the northern edge of Somalia, where many want to see justice prevail, even if delayed.

Last year 38 bodies were uncovered in two graves by the Somaliland War Crimes Investigation Commission, which is overseeing the work on a third site where another dozen bodies are buried.

More than 200 mass graves with the bodies of 50,000 to 60,000 people may be in the region, according to the commission.

Why dig up the past now?

Many African countries try to forget about atrocities carried out in their recent pasts, said Kadar Ahmed, chairman of the commission, speaking at the gravesite. He wants this northern tip of Somalia — a self-governing region called Somaliland — to confront those ghosts head-on. He said he hopes an outside tribunal will take up the case of the unknown numbers of deaths.

The commission was created in 1997 with the dual aim of offering a proper burial to the victims and taking judicial action against those responsible for the killings. Ahmed, who was not in Somaliland during the 1980s violence, has headed the commission the last four years.

If government's aren't held responsible for mass killings, then killings will continue, said Ahmed. Another aim is to "find the individuals and take them to court," he said. Ahmed believes that one general who gave the order to commence a slaughter is dead. The other, he says, is outside the country.

Those killed were civilians and militia members from the Isaq clan who were hunted and slain in the late 1980s by the regime of Siad Barre, Ahmed said. Barre's overthrow in 1991 unleashed 20 years of chaos, making Somalia a failed state.

The victims' families "are all grieving and all sad because of non-recognition of the government. We can't get any recognition from any court or any individual," Ahmed said about the killings.

About a dozen people from the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team are helping Somaliland unbury the past, and also helping to train Ahmed's staff so they can one day take over. Franco Mora leads the team and says the work is about helping friends and family close the mourning process.

"Families are waiting for answers," said Mora, who has worked on similar projects in Congo, Guatemala and Mexico. But the Somali team needs more training: "We are explaining to them you can't go into the field and use heavy machinery. We are teaching them to recover the remains in a way you can use them for prosecution."

Mora noted that the skeletons being uncovered in the latest mass grave were all buried facing toward Mecca, a holy site for Muslims. He suspects that means the victims were buried with care by local residents.

"This country is a big mass grave. There are graves everywhere. People are living with death. It's everywhere," Mora said.

Amber Barton is a 26-year-old volunteer on Mora's team from the San Francisco region in California. On a recent sunny morning she gently brushed dirt away from a skeleton lying in a row of several bodies. She hopes to apply the skills she has studied in archaeology to a forensics context. She says the Somalis here are interested in the group's work.

"The locals are curious about what's happened, with the individuals, how they died," Barton said.

The War Crimes Commission says that Cold War politics helped protect Barre's regime from punishment from the U.S. and others despite the gross human rights violations. Most of those who carried out the killings now live outside Somalia, the commission says.

"They collected whoever they saw. Child, woman, man, taking them and killing them. They were executing them, sometimes torture, then shooting them," said Ahmed, of the commission.

A great deal of work is needed and Ahmed appears determined. After speaking, the 63-year-old Ahmed walked down into the grave, picked up a bucket of dirt from beside a newly uncovered skeleton and carried it away.

Friday 07 March 2014

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/06/skeletons-uncovered-in-mass-graves-in-somalia/

Graveyard skull thefts worry Muslims

The Muslim community in the district has expressed serious concern over the increasing incidence of unidentified tomb raiders digging up graves in the cemetery used by the community.

According to community members, some unidentified smugglers of human skulls are desecrating the only Muslim burial ground located at Bidur Municipality- 10.

Mahomad Jafar, a Muslim community member, informed that around a dozen graves in the cemetery were dug up, apparently by human skull traffickers. He also said that in a fresh incident the smugglers have made off with two skulls they dug up from the burial ground on Wednesday.

“Human skulls have been disappearing from our community graveyard since the last seven years. We complained to the police but despite their word that investigations would be initiated, the smugglers continue to dig up the graves,” Jafar said.

According to Jafar, the skull snatchers had dug up bodies buried just eight months ago. And it is not only the Muslim graveyard. A Christian cemetery in the district also faces incidents of human skull theft.

Last year alone, the tomb raiders made off with 10 skulls that they dug up at the Christian community´s burial ground at Chihandanda in Tupche VDC. The grave diggers are said to be active during nighttime.

The Muslim community´s burial ground extending over two ropanis of land has only a simple wire fence. Mahomad Alam, another community member, alleged that the police are procrastinating over investigations despite repeated requests from the community.

“We have been pressing the police and administration to start investigations into the incidents of tomb raid. But the police promise only to step up security, rather than start investigations,” said Alam, adding that community members want the smugglers to be brought to book.

He also opined that the graveyard will not be safe until and unless the skull snatchers are nabbed.

However, police said that an investigation into the skulls missing from the Muslim burial ground has already started.

“Investigations into the missing human skulls from the burial ground has already started. We have been maintaining special surveillance around the graveyard and stepping up security patrolling,” said Inspector Kushan Kumar Basnet.

“Digging up of graves and excavation of human skulls constitute a grave crime,” he added.

With the increasing incidents of graveyard theft, community members have started to install barbed wire around the graveyard, along with electricity, to make it more secure.

Friday 07 March 2014

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=70585

Sri Lanka: Bring up the bodies

Evidence of past atrocities keeps turning up in Sri Lanka. Last year 154 bodies were unearthed from a mass grave behind a hospital in Matale, in the centre of the island—victims, in all likelihood, of an uprising by Marxist rebels in the 1980s. In February an excavation in Mannar, in the north-west, produced 81 bodies, casualties of a bigger and more recent conflict, the long civil war between Tamil secessionists and the state. The police blame the rebels, a cruel and bloodthirsty movement defeated in 2009, for the deaths. But the army is not above suspicion either.

Now comes a small but gruesome find near Mullaitivu in the north-east, the site of awful fighting and massacres in the final months of the civil war. Then, perhaps 40,000 people, many of them civilians, were killed as the army trapped the rebels and fleeing Tamils. Late last month nine skeletons were lifted from a shallow grave in the garden of a family home. The government pins the blame on the Tamil rebels. Tamil activists say that the grave lends credence to claims that the Sri Lankan army has systematically hidden evidence of wartime massacres which it committed in the north and east.

The fate of many Sri Lankans remains unknown. The Red Cross counts 16,000 missing people since 1990, with a surge as the civil war came to an end. Yet the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is unwilling to look deeply into the disappearances. The army launched an inquiry which cleared it of wrongdoing. Recommendations from a government-appointed body, the “lessons learnt” commission, achieved little. Last August the president ordered a new inquiry into the missing, which is due to report in August. Critics call it a sham, set up to discourage foreigners from launching more serious investigations. Similarly, official suggestions that Sri Lanka could adopt a South African-style truth-and-reconciliation process appear to be attempts to stall.

Mr Rajapaksa’s administration is only occasionally ruffled. This month, as in each of the past two years, the UN’s human-rights council in Geneva is assessing Sri Lanka’s post-war progress. It will probably conclude that Sri Lanka must do more to account for disappearances, but allow it more time to do so. Last year Navi Pillay, the UN’s commissioner on human rights, toured Sri Lanka and heard of wartime atrocities carried out by both sides, and of government intimidation since. On February 24th she released her draft report to the council, calling for an independent international inquiry, following an effort by experts sent in 2011 by the UN secretary-general. She says she is concerned at the government’s refusal to allow “a credible national process with tangible results”.

This week a British-based group, the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, issued a report with details of rape, torture and murder carried out, it says, by government forces in the north over the past five years. It suggests that such crimes “are still taking place” and warrant foreign scrutiny. Sri Lanka’s rulers see all this as meddling. In recent speeches Mr Rajapaksa has accused his Western critics of duplicity, talking of law and rights when they really want to do down his country, proud conquerors of terrorists. He expects such talk to go down well with nationalist-minded voters. Sri Lankan diplomats flit to Geneva to deflect criticism. They even suggest that Indian peacekeepers, present in the late 1980s, may have carried out massacres. Ms Pillay is unlikely to get agreement on an international inquiry just yet, but one is inching closer. And it is putting pressure on Mr Rajapaksa to make his own investigative efforts more convincing.

Meanwhile, northern Sri Lanka continues to feel like a land under occupation, with an all-pervasive military intelligence snooping on Tamils deemed to be suspicious. The government says it is cutting by nearly a third the large numbers of soldiers stationed in the north since the war. A successful provincial election in September produced a local government led by a Tamil opposition party. Though it enjoys only grudging co-operation from Mr Rajapaksa, progress towards reconciliation is still possible. But the country’s bloody past has still to be accounted for.

Friday 07 March 2014

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21598715-creeping-towards-international-inquiry-war-crimes-bring-up-bodies