Yesterday, Human Rights Watch started to step back from the claims it made very loudly last month that during the fighting in Georgia,”Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas in Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens.” Those claims were first made August 15, and were repeated in two further public statements issued by the organization, this one on August 21 and this one on September 1. In addition, individual HRW staff members repeated these accusations against Russia– which it claimed were backed up by solid “evidence”– in a number of other signed articles, media appearances, etc.
I blogged here, on September 2, about the flawed nature of the “evidence” HRW had used in its accusations against Russia, and the impact that such accusations can have on raising tensions and galvanizing opinion for war. (Cf., the “Kuwaiti incubator story” of 1991.)
Yesterday’s statement was titled Clarification Regarding Use of Cluster Munitions in Georgia. Referring only to its report of August 21 on this matter, not the earlier August 15 report, it said:
- On August 21, 2008, Human Rights Watch reported a series of attacks with cluster munitions around four towns and villages in Georgia’s Gori district. Human Rights Watch attributed all the strikes to Russian forces, but upon further investigation has concluded that the origin of the cluster munitions found on August 20 in two of the villages – Shindisi and Pkhvenisi – cannot yet be determined.
…This clarification does not affect Human Rights Watch’s findings on August 15 that Russia used aerial cluster bombs to attack the village of Ruisi and the town of Gori on August 12. Eleven civilians were killed and dozens more injured in these two locations. In Ruisi, Human Rights Watch researchers found submunitions that they identified as PTAB 2.5M, which are known to be in Russia’s arsenal. Human Rights Watch based its findings on visual identification of the submunitions and the cluster bomb carrier in Ruisi, craters typical of submunition impact, and accounts from Georgian victims in both towns, as well as doctors and military personnel. The Russian government has yet to adequately respond to these findings.
What caused HRW to step back from the accusations regarding Shindisi and Pkhvenisi had been, the statement said, communications “from the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (NDRE), based on Human Rights Watch’s photographs.” The NDRE had identified the submunitions in the photographs as “M85 DPICMs, which have not been reported to be part of Russia’s arsenal.”
On August 31, as HRW told us September 1, the government of Georgia informed them that it had had a stockpile of ground rocket-launched cluster munitions that contained M85 submunitions. The Georgian government also told HRW it had used some cluster bombs “during an attack on Russian military forces near the Roki tunnel.” That tunnel is at South Ossetia’s northern border, quite a long way away from Gori.
It occurs to me that one explanation for what HRW’s witnesses in the Gori area saw is that the Russian aircraft might have blown up some of Georgia’s cluster bombs stockpiled in the area.. In HRW’s August 21 statement, and in the latest “Clarification”, the eye-witnesses to the attacks are quoted as saying that “Russian air strikes on Georgian armored units located near Shindisi and Pkhvenisi were followed by extensive cluster munition strikes that killed at least one civilian and injured another in Shindisi.” Would this description not be consonant with (a) the Russians having bombed ground targets in these areas– hopefully only legitimate military targets, and then (b) some of those strikes, hitting units equipped with cluster bombs, had caused secondary explosion of those cluster bomb munitions?
I looked at the video of one such attack that HRW has on its site, and this could be an explanation of what I was seeing.
If this is what happened– and I would welcome any comments on that from experts– then it’s very tragic. Well, whatever the explanation, it’s very tragic for all those noncombatants who were hit.
I note, though, that HRW’s “Clarification” is still far from satisfactory. It still maintains that the submunitions found in Ruisi and in Gori itself were of the the (Russian-owned) PTAB 2.5M type– though it gives us absolutely none of the evidence on which this finding is based. The photos of submuntions in the August 21 statement– published with no provenance given, though they seem to have been from Shindisi or Pkhvenisi– had been identified in the text as “Russian” too, though as NDRE noted, they actually were not.
So we still need to see HRW’s “evidence” regarding Ruisi and Gori.
The latest “Clarification” is also insufficient in the following ways:
- 1. It expresses no apology to the Russians or anyone else for the inaccurate nature of the organization’s earlier allegations against the government of Russia. Indeed, it explicitly states its continued support for the allegations made on August 15, regarding Russian cluster-munition attacks in Ruisi and Gori– even though it also says it will “continue its investigation into the use of cluster munitions in Shindisi and elsewhere by all sides during the armed conflict.” So presumably that means it will continue its (re-)investigation into what happened in Ruisi and Gori. … But even before those investigations are completed, HRW still maintains a defiant, accusatory attitude toward Russia (but not Georgia), saying, “The Russian government has yet to adequately respond to [HRW’s allegations regarding Rusisi and Gori].”
2. It says nothing about any internal investigation, within HRW, into the issue of how the organization could have earlier gotten the facts so very wrong about Shindisi and Pkhvenisi. Without such a thorough, transparent, and credible investigation, why should anyone believe what they say…. on anything?
HRW remains a frustratingly unaccountable organization, as I noted in my September 1 post.
What did you expect Helena?
There is someone who pays the HRW piper and its the same person that pays Saakashvili. You know that.
Anyway – it doesn’t even matter if HRW tracks back, as it should. The damage to the public image of Russia is done.
In four weeks or so HRW will issue a full track back and nobody will read it.
It seems pretty clear that there is no evidence at all for Russian use of cluster bombs. From a military perspective there was never a plausible reason for the Russian to use such weapons (i.e. against large infantry assemblies.)
There was plausible use for the Georgians as they had not much left to use and panicked. Did they fire cluster bombs against advancing Russian troops? Quite possible.
Did the Russians hit an ammunition storage or GRADAL launcher and those weapons got dispersed? Possible, yes, but having some military experience with ordnance, I find that unlikely.
Ask HRW who hired Marc Garlasco and on who’s recommendation s/he did so and you might get somewhere (at least off the record).
There is someone who pays the HRW piper and its the same person that pays Saakashvili. You know that.
Who’s this? George Soros? Who cares who pays them, or why? You think this addresses anything they’ve written? News flash: it doesn’t. It’s just lame innuendo.
Ask HRW who hired Marc Garlasco and on who’s recommendation s/he did so and you might get somewhere (at least off the record).
This sounds so insider-y! But maybe better suited to a gossip column, eh? More lame innuendo.
Properly referenced research doesn’t demand ‘credibility’ or political purity. the question should be *whether Russia (and Georgia) used the weapons*, not the political leanings of the researcher or who pays his rent.
your own analysis btw is steeped in political bias – i don’t see why this should deprive your writing of merit so long as your facts are properly referenced and your arguments well-framed.
“Lame innuendo” notwithstanding, HRW has, at the very least, demonstrated its incompetence and low standards. And criticizing someone for being short on facts without offering any of your own, “vadim” also demonstrates your own incompetence and low standards.
“Without such a thorough, transparent, and credible investigation, why should anyone believe what [HRW] say…. on anything?
They shouldn’t.
And criticizing someone for being short on facts without offering any of your own
Gee “Arch” you must have me mistaken for a human rights researcher. To be honest, I’d leave that type of thing to experienced people in the field (like HRW, who unlike Helena, bernhard or yourself are inspecting cluster bombs in person while we chat away on this weblog).
As you say, the peanut gallery should really just remain silent, or offer facts, so I guess we have the same standards. Or would you rather gab some more about Marc Garlasco and his dishonesty, incompetence and bad hygiene? Up to you I guess.
Vadim, your rhetoric is quite unhelpfully escalatory. No-one is getting personal about Marc Garlasco.
Can you agree with me that the publishing of accusations that “Country X dropped cluster bombs on populated areas” is a serious matter, since this a non-trivial accusation of an action that in many circumstances (i.e., lack of discrimination between military and non-military targets, lack of “military necessity”, etc) would clearly constitute a war crime?
Can you agree that if such allegations are made by any party, they ought to be thoroughly investigated before they are published by any governmental or non-governmental entity, given the fact that the publication of such accusations could well be expected to increase the pressures for military engagement or military escalation against Country X?
Can you agree that if such accusations are published by any such organization and then the “evidence” on which half of them are based turns out to have been quite erroneously analyzed, then that raises very serious questions about the probity of the publishing organization; and it certainly raises serious questions about the other half of its accusations– questions that can only be satisfactorily answered when the organization reveals the whole of the evidence and analysis on which those claims are made?
Absent a full view of such evidence, then those other accusations have no standing, if we are asked simply to believe them based on the say-so of the organization that has just confessed to the flaws in its own methodology.
I truly don’t see why you’re getting so shrill and defensive on this topic. Don’t you want to get to the bottom of the matter? I believe that if HRW is to be salvaged as a credible, non-partisan voice in the v. important realm of human rights protection– including in its v. important work on this inside Russia– then it has to show itself fully transparent and internally and externally accountable on this cluster-bomb accusation controversy.
Vadim, your rhetoric is quite unhelpfully escalatory. No-one is getting personal about Marc Garlasco.
I’m always amazed by what you consider ‘escalatory’ and what slides right past your notice. What exactly is :
there is someone who pays the HRW piper and its the same person that pays Saakashvili
if not innuendo of the shrillest, crudest kind?
How about :
ask HRW who hired Marc Garlasco and on who’s recommendation s/he did so
Is this informative or deeply personal lavatory-wall gossip? I’m still wondering why you haven’t deleted this inflammatory remark, or god forbid that you actually might its the kind of thing worth talking about (which would be a sad commentary on your own standards of decorum.)
non-partisan voice
There’s no such thing. Maybe the bias of HRW is the only thing we as non-experts in cluster munitions (or natural born gossips) feel comfortable discussing, but it isn’t adding anything to the conversation.
Can you agree with me that the publishing of accusations that “Country X dropped cluster bombs on populated areas” is a serious matter,
Yes I can, and the 1st hand testimony of HRW analysts who have (contra your accusations) investigated these weapons and their effects in person bears considerably more evidentiary weight than smears about HRW’s funding and its so-called ‘bias’, tendered by some internet gossip.
But since ‘b’ is now representing himself as an expert on ordnance, we should at least know where he was trained, since Garlasco’s Pentagon experience (GWU and the pentagon) is on the record. How about it b?
vadim wrote:
Yes I can, and the 1st hand testimony of HRW analysts who have (contra your accusations) investigated these weapons and their effects in person bears considerably more evidentiary weight than smears about HRW’s funding and its so-called ‘bias’, tendered by some internet gossip.
Sorry…
From the HRW report:
“Human Rights Watch researchers in Shindisi on August 20 found unexploded cluster submunitions, commonly known as Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICMs), and initially identified them as Russian. However, those submunitions were later identified by the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (NDRE), based on Human Rights Watch’s photographs, as M85 DPICMs, which have not been reported to be part of Russia’s arsenal.”
That should be embarrassing!
Their experts in Shindisi were simply wrong. And a Norwegian agency – just using HRW´s own photographs – proved it.
If they had just used HRW´s own charts they could have seen that the submunition photographed didn´t look like PTAB 2.5M.
It looks distinctly different. More like M85.
If they can´t even correctly identify cluster submunition described on their own website, why should I trust those “1st hand testimony of HRW analysts” anywhere else in Georgia?
Detlef, you probably need to read the clarification again a bit more carefully. The PTAB 2.5M found in Ruisi were not confused for M85s and were not depicted on the HRW website; NDRE’s report had to do only with weapons found in Shindisi, not those found in Ruisi.
This clarification does not affect Human Rights Watch’s findings on August 15 that Russia used aerial cluster bombs to attack the village of Ruisi and the town of Gori on August 12.
Don’t you want to get to the bottom of the matter? I believe that if HRW is to be salvaged as a credible, non-partisan voice in the v. important realm of human rights protection– including in its v. important work on this inside Russia
You seem a bit more interested in the accountability of HRW than either Georgia or Russia, to the point of vendetta. But if it’s the truth you’re after, you should concentrate on probing the evidence you have on hand, supplementing it with evidence of your own where possible (first-hand, not blow-ups of web pages) or admit that HRW’s report is inconclusive and leave it at that, without dismissing their past and future research wholesale.
you should try not to screen human rights groups by ideological bias. It seems really short-sighted & it contaminates the quality of discussion. no one hostile to your politics will take any of your “approved” expert witnesses seriously. and anyone can make rash calls — I’m sure you’ve made a few over the years – a few rushed judgments says very little about your credibility .. Meanwhile bernhards’s entire expose hinges on a mis-reading of the HRW site (same as above – he supposes the bomb type depicted in one photo on HRW was representative of all bomb types found in Georgia… a clumsy misunderstanding he’ll probably never admit.)
Helena wrote – I believe that if HRW is to be salvaged as a credible, non-partisan voice in the v. important realm of human rights protection– including in its v. important work on this inside Russia– then it has to show itself fully transparent and internally and externally accountable on this cluster-bomb accusation controversy.
Yes i agree with Helena
It will be of course more interesting to know who bankroll this dubious HRW Organisation.
Sergi
HRW has ties to NED and so the US govt….anyone who takes them as some version of the Red Cross is seriously deluded.
HRW and other ‘human rights organisations’ are frauds trying to oust the only organisation with any credibility in these matters: The Red Cross.