The International Red Cross has made an unprecedented appeal for an end to human-rights abuses in Iraq, saying it is ”deeply concerned” at the impact of the fighting in the country and at apparent failures by all sides in the conflict to respect humanitarian laws.
”As hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the International Committee of the Red Cross operations director.
”We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact that the fighting in Iraq is having,” he said. Kraehenbuehl stressed that international humanitarian law prohibits killing anyone who is not actively taking part in combat — or has ceased to do so.
Saturday saw another day of violence. In Fallujah, where United States marines and soldiers are still battling pockets of resistance, insurgents waved a white flag of surrender before opening fire on US troops and causing a number of casualties, Marine spokesperson Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said.
US troops in the northern city of Mosul found the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers, all shot in the back of the head. Seven of them were also decapitated.
Violence continued in Baghdad — where four government employees were assassinated, a car bomb went off and there were fierce clashes between American and Iraqi troops and insurgents — and in the western city of Ramadi. At least one American soldier was killed.
In a positive development, a Polish woman abducted last month in Baghdad reappeared on Saturday in Poland after being released. Teresa Borcz Khalifa (54) refused to say how she was freed but said her captors treated her ”properly” — treatment that they told her was ”motivated by their religious beliefs”. She has lived in Iraq since the 1970s.
The world was shocked this week by the killing of Margaret Hassan, Care International’s head of Iraq operations, and the fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a Fallujah mosque by a US marine.
However, there was some good news for the new Iraqi government and its international backers. The US, Germany and other European nations signalled a new international spirit of cooperation on Iraq on Saturday by taking a major step towards writing off a large chunk of the $120-billion Saddam Hussein’s regime owed to foreign donors.
This cancellation of up to 80% of the pre-war debt, a measure that will boost the new Iraq’s fragile economy, has been a major point of contention between the US and European powers.
Washington wanted a fast write-off of almost all of it. The Europeans wanted a slower process dealing with less than half of it. British diplomatic sources remained cautious.
”There’s no deal yet,” said one. — Guardian Unlimited Â