Corporate investment in human rights criticized as empty public relations

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Mexico City, Mexico, Dec. 29 (IPS)— In his quest to make transnational companies responsible corporate citizens, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan threw them a challenge in July, inviting them to be partners in a Global Compact.

A UN official says that a number of companies have already responded to that invitation. They have expressed interest in upholding the universal principles identified in the Compact, including the promotion of human rights and labor rights in all their investments.

Shortly before Christmas, seven leading oil and mining companies from the United States and Britain pledged to back a set of voluntary principles shaped by the governments of those two countries.

Consequently, this endorsement by the seven companies -- including Chevron, Texaco, BP Amoco, Shell and Freeport MacMoran -- came in for high praise by Madeline Albright, the US secretary of state. Albright called the endorsement “a landmark for corporate responsibility.’’

For the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), this development was also perceived as an important milestone, given that the principles call on the companies to act decisively to stop “abuses by public or private security forces’’ protecting company investments.

“In an area where no standards exist, we see the development of some guiding principles as a positive first step,’’ says Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW.

Yet such progressive steps during the course of this year have still to convince monitors of the global corporate culture that significant change is underway. Scepticism stems from the evidence some of these monitors have unearthed about the manner in which transnational companies have continued to function in the developing world.

According to Kenny Bruno, a spokesman for Corporate Watch, a San Francisco-based non-governmental research organization, the proliferation of voluntary codes of conduct have only resulted in “piecemeal progress.’’

“We do not see a serious commitment towards human rights principles by trans-national corporations by and large,” Bruno added.

That lack of committment, in fact, was confirmed this month in a study released by the National Labor Committee for Worker and Human Rights, a New York-based non-governmental organization (NGO). It singled out five global firms for selling goods produced at factories in Asia and Central America where workers were exploited.

This NGO charged, furthermore, that child labor was also used by four companies to manufacture clothes. Among them were Nike Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

What is more, HRW drew attention to a case heard in a US district court in August that exposed the poor human rights record of an oil transnational. The company in question, California-based Unocal, was accused of a number of rights violations in its gas pipeline venture in Burma, according to HRW in its annual report on the state of human rights worldwide, which was released this month.

According to the plaintiffs in this case, Unocal was liable for human rights violations, including forced relocations, forced labor, rape, and torture “perpetrated by the Burmese military in furtherance and for the benefit of the pipeline,’’ the report adds.

The judge dismissed the case, saying that under US law Unocal was not liable for these abuses; however, he pointed out in his ruling that “evidence does suggest that Unocal knew that forced labor was being utilized and that the joint ventures benefited from the practice.’’

Other factors have lent weight to the doubts over the face-lift transnational companies gave themselves this year by committing to invest in human rights.

Foremost among them is the absence of a monitoring system to assess the behavior of the firms who have pledged to be responsible corporate citizens. For Sarah Anderson, of the Washington DC-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the UN’s Global Compact illustrates this lapse.

“The Global Compact has many flaws and may not do much to strengthen enforcement of human rights,” argues Anderson.

“Corporate participation is voluntary and there is no monitoring or enforcement mechanism.’’

This lapse, she adds, cannot be ignored in light of the immense backing transnational companies have received.

“It is clear that the trend in the World Trade Organization and in other trade and investment polices has been to give (these global firms) more and more powers and privileges to operate freely around the world,’’ said Anderson.

On the other hand, she points out, workers and communities where transnationals set up investments have “not received any new powers to ensure that corporations behave responsibly.’’

Such imbalances, however, were not lost on human rights organizations determined to challenge the oft-repeated line, “Human rights is not the business of business.’’ London-based Amnesty International (AI), for instance, made such a push this year by launching a campaign in April on the theme “Human rights is the business of business.’’

What AI sought through such a drive with the support of two other British organizations, the Ashridge Center for Business and Society and The Prince of Wales’ Business Leaders Forum, was to compel the world’s business leaders that “social and ethical issues’’ need to be factored into global investment strategies.

But has such a message been heeded by the corporate elite?

No, says Bruno. “We see resistance to national and international measures that would hold corporations up to certain standards.’’

What is more, reveals IPS in a recently released report, ‘Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power’, leading corporations have fiercely opposed attempts that require them to “achieve a higher level of transparency.’’

Zapatistas hail Chiapas military base closing

By Alejandro Ruiz

San Cristobal De Las Casas, Mexico, Dec. 30— The leader of the Zapatista rebels hailed last week’s closing of an army base in troubled Chiapas state as a major victory for the guerrillas and a major step toward peace.

The letter, signed by rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos and released to the media late Saturday, was the first response from the rebels since Friday’s handover of the base in remote Amador Hernandez - part of new President Vicente Fox’s aggressive strategy to woo the Zapatista rebels back to the negotiating table.

“This is a good sign and the first and important step on the road toward reinitiating talks,” the rebel leader said in the letter.

But he said the continued withdrawal of troops from the region was not somuch a victory for Fox as it was for the Zapatistas and their supporters, who never gave up their fight.

Marcos led an armed uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, dividing much of Chiapas state into pro- and anti-rebel forces that have clashed ever since. The rebel demands mixed socialist economics with more passionate calls for democracy, development and respect for Mexico’s long-oppressed Indians.

“The triumph that represents the withdrawal of the army from this place belongs to the indigenous Zapatistas and the national and international society that never left us,” the rebel leader said.

But Marcos said if Fox fulfills all his promises, including releasing scores of Zapatista prisoners, “the Zapatistas will respond in kind.”

Fox, who was sworn in as president Dec. 1, ending 71 years of single-party rule, has made peace in southern Chiapas a top priority.

One of his first actions was to order the closing of 53 military roadblocks across the state and the withdrawal of 2,200 troops scattered in some of the state’s tensest areas. He also gave Congress an Indian Rights Bill the Zapatistas support -- and that the previous government had rejected.

The rebels said they were encouraged by Fox’s moves and would return to the negotiating table under certain conditions, including a more complete withdrawal of troops.

On Friday, Fox ordered the final 75 troops at Amador Hernandez, a remote jungle town 100 miles east of the highlands city of San Cristobal de las Casas, to turn their base over to Chiapas Gov. Pablo Salazar, and to retreat.

Salazar immediately gave the land, taken by government decree when the army moved in last year, back to the community.

On Sunday, Fox’s government also lifted restrictions imposed on hundreds of foreigners who were expelled from the country in recent years, many of whom conducted humanitarian work in Chiapas.

The decision eliminates the need for a special visa that was required for foreigners to participate in fact-finding missions, the president’s office said.

Source: Associated Press

Praise, criticism greet US signing of war crimes court treaty

By Evelyn Leopold

United Nations, Jan. 1— Hailed by human rights experts and denounced by conservatives, the United States endorsed a treaty that would create the world’s first permanent criminal court to try people for genocide and war crimes.

President Clinton made the decision to sign the treaty Sunday, just weeks before leaving office. It would need ratification by the US Senate, a step the president has acknowledged will be impossible for some time to come.

Nevertheless Clinton’s act signaled powerful American backing for the court, based on the principles of Nazi war crimes trials at the end of World War II. Clinton once supported the court but backed off after the Pentagon warned that it might lead to “frivolous” prosecutions against US soldiers abroad.

Human rights organizations were quick to applaud the move as a historic act.

“By signing this treaty, President Clinton offers the hope of justice to millions and millions of people worldwide,” said Richard Dicker, associate counsel of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Williams Pace, head of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, comprising more than 1,000 groups, said he expected some short-term repercussions.

“But history will show this decision was correct,” he said after the signing ceremony at UN headquarters. “Even important members of the Pentagon have understood that this treaty does not represent the kind of risk or threat (as some) extremists portray it.”

The International Criminal Court would prosecute individuals accused of the world’s most heinous acts: genocide, war crimes and other gross human rights violations. It is to be set up in the Netherlands in about two years.

Israel, which early Sunday, had decided against signing the treaty, reversed itself after Clinton announced the US decision, only hours before a New Year’s eve midnight deadline. Now nations will go through the laborious process of ratifying it through their legislatures.

Signing the treaty gives countries a greater voice in negotiating the tribunal’s procedures. The court, strongly supported by the European Union and Canada, can be set up after 60 countries have ratified it. Some 27 nations have done so.

Clinton announced the surprise decision to sign the treaty after Washington had battled one of the court’s statutes that would allow US soldiers abroad to be tried — but only in the unlikely case that the United States did not take action in its own courts against mass criminal acts.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms vowed to reverse the decision as soon as possible. Calling the action “outrageous,” he said: “This decision will not stand.”

Helms and leading Republicans have drafted legislation forbidding the United States to have anything to do with the court and seeking to punish those countries that have ratified the treaty.

Among those endorsing the legislation was Donald Rumsfeld, nominated as President-elect George W. Bush’s defense secretary.

Pace and others, however, doubt the measure will be passed. Bush, once in office, could renounce the treaty and even submit it to the Senate, recommending its rejection.

Helms’ spokesman, Marc Thiessen, said recently that the entire concept of the court was illegitimate and flawed, even if exceptions were made for US servicemen. And he said Israel would be the first target of frivolous prosecutions.

But Israeli ambassador Yehuda Lancry maintained that despite concerns, Israel had been active in conceiving the court since the 1950s because of “the Holocaust, the greatest and most heinous crime against mankind.”

Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said the US endorsement was “an important move for the president. It shows we do believe in morality and justice.”

Clinton said he was authorizing the US signature to “reaffirm our strong support for international accountability and for bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

But he said the treaty should not be submitted to the Senate for ratification until the United States received more assurances that US personnel would not be subject to politically motivated prosecutions.

“With signature, however, we will be in a position to influence the evolution of the court,” said Clinton. “Without signature, we will not.”

At the United Nations, David Scheffer, the ambassador at large for war crimes, signed documents before Sylvie Jacques, the deputy chief of the UN treaty section. Scheffer has spent several years arguing the Pentagon’s case as well as helping to formulate key definitions of crimes in the treaty.

“I do so today in honor of the victims of these crimes and also in honor of the United States armed services, who uphold these laws of war and have been so responsible for the foundations of the principles underlying this treaty,” Scheffer said as he affixed his signature.

“I think the treaty has a large number of safeguards, and by signing the treaty today, we remain in the game,” he said.

Scheffer, in an earlier interview, said that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide had never before been defined with such precision. He said the definitions would serve as a guide for prosecutors and defense lawyers in national and military courts “for decades to come.”

Source: Reuters

Palestinians and Israelis protest Israeli military base

Statement of Gush Shalom

Thursday, December 28th, hundreds of Palestinians, Israeli, and Internationals marched together demanding an immediate evacuation and dismantling of the Shdema military base. The march was organized by the Municipality of Beit Sahour, Beit Sahour Emergency Committee and the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement. Israelis from Gush Shalom and Stop the Occupation, as well as internationals from the Italian Women in Black, the CGL Trade Union (also Italian) and the France - Palestine Association along with Palestinians from Beit Sahour marched together.

The Israelis had a few adventures on the way to Beit Sahour. The chartered bus which brought them from Tel-Aviv stopped in Jerusalem. The Israeli driver didn’t at all like the idea of driving over roads that had been the scene of shooting in the past months -- all the more since he was evidently a right-winger who didn’t like the whole enterprise. But a Palestinian bus company was fortunately ready to provide a replacement transportation at very short notice, and took the impatient activists to the checkpoint in Beit Jalla. (Though officially Israelis are forbidden by their own government to go over to the Palestinian-controlled areas, there were no soldiers to enforce this prohibition.)

The march demanding the removal of this camp started from the Shepherds’ Field in the town and reached the military base. To everybody’s surprise the main gate was open and unguarded, as were the watchtowers. A sign in Hebrew proclaimed: Welcome to Shdema Camp.

The crowd went in chanting in Hebrew and English: “Soldiers Go Back Home.” A written demand of evacuation was delivered to an astonished Israeli major who showed up.

The march ended by putting up a Palestinian flag over the watchtower as the crowds cheered and clapped. Afterwards, the demonstrators went to visit the most severely damaged houses -- some of them no more than burnt-out shells.

Gush Shalom used its press contacts and succeeded in convincing the Israeli First Channel TV to broadcast the video footage which Rachel Zetland made of the march. The flying of the flag was shown again and again.

The next morning, the embarrassed army spokesman was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying that no flag was raised in a camp, this site wasn’t a camp; the camp which was there had just been evacuated and moved 250 meters.

Source:Gush Shalom: info@gush-shalom.org

Haiti’s presidential elections: the other election controversy

By Amber Lynn Munger

Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city, is back to business as usual. Vendors crowd the streets during the day, and the climate of fear known among Haitians as the “insecurity” has essentially disappeared. Much has changed since the week prior to the Nov 26th elections when Port-au-Prince’s streets were a virtual ghost town at night and daylight hours were bloated with fear and tension. The days before the elections were filled with bombings and open-machine gunfire on the streets of Port-au-Prince resulting in the death of two children and the injury of at least 17 others. The violence was intended to intimidate the people by reminding them of the 1987 elections, where voters were massacred while standing in line, waiting to cast their votes. Opposition parties knew that a low voter turnout at the polls combined with an international boycott could be used to discredit the election that would undoubtedly result in the victory of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the favorite of the Haitian masses. But despite the violence surrounding the elections and the international boycott, despite the false reports of low voter turnout issued by opposition parties and the United States press, the people made their choice.

As a member of the International Coalition of Independent Observers (ICIO), I participated in these elections, along with 24 other people from countries including the United States, Denmark and Canada. Our delegation witnessed few lines on Election Day; people were aware of the risks involved in voting and were cautious not to gather at the polls. The Voting Bureau employees at the 152 voting stations that we monitored made an impressive effort to ensure fair elections, in some cases going without food or water for the entire day. In the four departments where our delegation was present, we estimated a 64% voter turnout, a participation level much higher than that of many mature democracies facing fewer difficulties.

Unfortunately neither the Organization of American States (OAS) nor the United Nations (UN) were there to witness this incredible triumph for Haiti’s nascent democracy. The international community made the decision to boycott the presidential elections as a result of the controversy surrounding elections that had taken place in May. These elections were declared “free and fair” by the UN and US observers that were present on election day. The conflict came after the elections took place when the OAS condemned the methods used by Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) for calculating winning percentages. The OAS argued that 10 senate seats (awarded to Aristide’s Lavalas party) should have gone to a runoff election. However, the same method had been used by the CEP in several prior elections with the approval of the OAS. The actions taken by the OAS to discredit the results of the Haitian elections suggest that the OAS’s objections may be more directly related to the candidates the people voted for, rather than how those votes were calculated.

Nevertheless, the international community threatened to withhold aid and observers for Haiti’s presidential elections unless the controversy was resolved. The OAS entered into unsuccessful negotiations with the Haitian government, demanding that run-off elections be held for the contested parliamentary seats. This action would have postponed Haiti’s presidential elections, and possibly the inauguration of a new president on February 7th, posing a large threat to the political integrity of the Haitian State. The Haitian government refused to compromise the results of a constitutionally fair election. As a result, international aid for the presidential election was withheld as were UN and OAS observers, threatening the legitimacy of the election. Opposition parties in Haiti, who have little or no popular support, no organization and no platform aside from being anti-Lavalas, used the international boycott as an excuse to refrain from participating in the elections.

The Haitian presidential elections, which took place on November 26th, were met with much scrutiny and bad press on the international circuit. The US government made a statement prior to November 26th, refusing to recognize the elections or the presidency of Aristide if he was declared the winner. Running virtually unopposed, Aristide officially won with 92% of the vote. The CEP estimated an overall voter turnout of 62% for the entire country, correlating closely with our ICIO statistics of 64% in the four departments that we observed. Yet the United States press has favored the statistics suspiciously donated by opposition parties claiming that less than 5% of eligible voters participated in the election.

On the night of the November 26th elections and for the following three days, the streets of Port-au-Prince were filled with people celebrating the victory of Aristide. After the elections, as our team of observers headed back to Port-au-Prince from our observation territory in the Artibonite, we had to maneuver through a mass of exulted Haitians playing handmade instruments, singing, dancing, and sporting Lavalas posters and pictures of Aristide. Our car sluggishly proceeded through the masses of people participating in the spontaneous street party. The enthusiasm for the new president was electrifying. The people had made their choice.

Yet, in spite of the efforts of the Haitian people to participate in their own democracy by electing the president of their choice in free and fair elections, the legitimacy of Aristide’s presidency continues to be contested. Within Haiti, opposition parties have refused to cooperate with the Lavalas government, ignoring the calls for dialogue set forth by Aristide in an attempt to resolve the country’s political deadlock. Instead of trying to resolve the conflict through dialogue, the opposition has taken to forming a provisional, parallel government to counter the present government. This parallel government plans to inaugurate itself on February 7th, the date of Aristide’s inauguration, claiming that “the elections of May 21 and November 26, 2000 form part of an electoral coup d’etat organized by Lavalas.” In the United States, three US Congressional committee chairmen, including, of course, Jesse Helms, recently released a statement referring to Haiti’s presidential election as a “sham election with the sole purpose of delivering absolute control over Haiti’s government to Mr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.” The statement called for the new president-elect to be banned from the upcoming America’s summit in Canada and proceeded to label Lavalas affiliates as “narco-traffickers, criminals and other anti-democratic elements.”

The aggressive attitude of the US government towards Haiti is unlikely to change in the near future. Haiti has openly defied the US and has refused to yield to its threats for withholding aid. Haiti’s defiance of the United States sends a message to other developing countries that US imperialism does not have to be tolerated. If the most powerful country in the Western Hemisphere is unable to control the poorest, its clear that other countries are able to do the same. In recent years, the Haitian government has established a highly favorable relationship with countries that have shunned the US agenda, namely Cuba and Venezuela. Haiti is attempting to forge a new path for democracy independent of US interests. The Aristide government is in for a long, hard struggle that will hopefully bring about the positive changes that the Haitian people have waited for.

The International Coalition of Independent Observers (ICIO) is composed of Global Exchange, the Haiti Reborn project of the Quixote Center, Pax Christi USA Haiti Task Force, and Witness for Peace. This coalition of human rigthts and faith-based social justice organizations has been monitoring elections in Haiti for over ten years. The ICIO was the only international observation team in Haiti for the presidential elections.

US uranium shells linked to Kosovo veterans’ deaths

By Peter Beaumont

London, England, Dec. 31— NATO chiefs were last night facing Europe-wide calls for an investigation into the safety of depleted uranium ammunition used by US pilots in the Kosovo war, following Italian claims linking the cancer deaths of five of their peacekeepers.

The allegations have put Britain’s Ministry of Defense under new pressure to re-examine links between the use of depleted uranium ammunition and health problems suffered by servicemen who fought in both the Gulf War and in the Balkans.

The revelation yesterday that Italy’s military prosecutor is examining five fatalities among 20 cases that the Italian media is linking to a so-called ‘Balkans syndrome’ - similar to Gulf War Syndrome - follows concern in both Belgium and Portugal last week.

Depleted uranium has been a source of controversy for over a decade amid claims that its contamination of battlefields in Iraq has caused widespread cancer among Iraqi civilians and contributed to health problems among allied military veterans of the Gulf War.

Belgian Defense Minister André Flahaut called on Friday for European Union Defense Ministers to examine the issue. This followed reports that Portugal’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) had ordered medical tests for its soldiers serving in Kosovo to check for radiation.

US attack jets are thought to have fired more than 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition - used to pierce armor - at Serbian tanks and armored cars.

Last night a spokesman for the MoD in London said: ‘It is toxic in much the same way that lead is toxic, and it has a very low level or radiation. In its solid form it poses no great risk.

“There is more cause for concern when it is fragmented and can be inhaled. For that to happen it would have to hit a fairly hard target, like a tank. Then, if a soldier were to enter an overturned tank immediately afterwards they might be at some risk. But it quickly disperses. A year on we believe it would pose no risk at all.”

Source: Guardian Observer (London)

Israeli soldiers had ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy

West Bank, Israel, Dec. 26— A senior officer in the Israeli Army said today that soldiers operated a under “shoot to kill” policy against Palestinian militants suspected of committing attacks against soldiers and Jewish settlers, according to Israeli radio.

The radio quoted a senior officer as saying its operations, many of them carried out by snipers, had “succeeded in thwarting terrorist attacks.”

The operations were aimed at activists from the fundamentalist anti-Israeli movements Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat’s Fatah faction, as well as members of the Palestinian security services suspected of involvement in attacks, the radio said.

Palestinians have accused Israel of “state terrorism” over the killings, with at least a dozen militants eliminated in the pinpoint attacks in recent weeks.

General Abdel Razeq al-Majeidah, head of general security in the Gaza Strip, said: “This action is an act of terrorism and a violation of all agreements and international accords.”

The Israeli officer said the Army was not targeting political leaders.

Source: Times Mirror: http://www.thetimes.co.uk

Russia warns US against violating ABM treaty

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 26— Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev today warned the incoming administration of US President-elect George W Bush against violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

Russia had already devised a series of counter-measures should Washington unilaterally amend the ABM treaty and build the proposed National Missile Defense, Sergeyev said in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, according to Interfax news agency.

Sergeyev said Russia had devised various counter-measures to secure its national security interests should this become necessary.

He said a unilateral US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM treaty could jeopardize the entire system of international treaties securing strategic stability.

The minister said recent statements by the Bush transition team on NMD were “enough cause for concern.”

He noted that the Government of outgoing US President Bill Clinton, which deferred a decision on NMD, “had respected negative reaction” from Russia, China and Europe on the proposed defense system.

Source: The Hindu

General strike paralyzes Nepal

Katmandu, Nepal, Jan. 1— A general strike called by Communist parties to protest four deaths during last week’s rioting shut down the country Monday, leaving businesses and schools closed and vehicles off the road.

Two people were killed Sunday in the southern town of Rajbiraj, 150 miles southeast of Katmandu, when police fired at a crowd of demonstrators protesting the recent violence, the Katmandu Post newspaper reported. Police in Katmandu, the national capital, refused to comment on the report. Two others were killed last week.

The Group of Nine Leftists, an umbrella group of nine Communist parties, called the two-day general strike to protest the deaths during violent demonstrations last week over anti-Nepal remarks allegedly made by Indian film star Hrithik Roshan. The group is demanding the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, who is also the minister in charge of law and order.

Roshan denied making the comments about Nepal, where Indian films are very popular. The Nepalese government has cleared his name.

Streets in the capital were deserted with only some government workers walking to their offices. A few demonstrations were held in the morning, but there were no reports of violence.

Last week, four people were killed when police fired at a rampaging mob that attacked shops and a theater screening the latest Roshan film. Violence erupted after rumors swept through Nepal quoting Roshan as saying that he hated Nepal and its people.

On Wednesday, thousands of protesters clashed with police and blocked streets with burning tires and trees in Katmandu. Indian businesses were targeted by protesters shouting slogans against Roshan and India.

Anti-India sentiments tend to simmer in Nepal. Many Nepalese accuse India of behaving like a regional bully.

Source: Associated Press

Colombian officers charged with massacre

Bogota, Colombia, Dec. 21— Colombia’s state prosecutor’s office has charged 26 army and police officers with organizing massacres, disappearances and other alleged human rights abuses in collaboration with paramilitary groups.

Two civilians - a former mayor and a council chairman - were also charged.

The offenses were allegedly committed in the northwestern department of Antioquia - the site of fierce clashes between right-wing paramilitary groups and leftist rebels.

Human rights groups have often accused the Colombian armed forces of collaborating with the paramilitaries in the country’s 37-year long civil conflict.

Colombia’s biggest rebel group, the Armed Revolutionary Forces (FARC) has demanded the government take tougher action against paramilitaries as a condition to resume peace talks.

A statement from the prosecutor’s office said the accused had used pagers to coordinate and participate in “acts of social cleansing, massacres and disappearances of people ... as well as other criminal acts.”

But correspondents say charges such as these do not necessarily result in prosecution or prison sentences for those accused.

The state prosecutor’s office can only recommend dismissing officers from their jobs. Criminal investigations fall to the attorney general’s office or the military justice system.

Source: BBC News Service