$40 Million Allocated for Drone Victims Never Reaches Them

by Medea Benjamin
Published on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 by Common Dreams

In this Wednesday, March 20, 2013 photo, the grandson of Afghan villager Ghulam Rasool, 12 year old Ahmed Shah, center, recalled the attack on his village in the yard of his house where he and his family found refuge in the village of Khalis Family Village, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. (Photo: AP)

Recent reports on US drone strikes by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN have heightened international awareness about civilian casualties and have resulted in new calls for redress. The Amnesty International drone report “Will I be next?” says the US government should ensure that victims of unlawful drone strikes, including family members, have effective access to remedies, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation. The Human Rights Watch report “Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda” calls on the US government to “implement a system of prompt and meaningful compensation for civilian loss of life, injury, and property damage from unlawful attack.”

Several human rights groups have approached lawmakers asking them to sponsor legislation calling for such a fund. But congresspeople have been reluctant to introduce what they consider a losing proposition. Even maverick Congressman Alan Grayson, who is hosting a congressional briefing for drone victims from Pakistan on October 29, turned down the idea. “There’s no sympathy in this Congress for drone strike victims,” he said.

But unbeknownst to Grayson, the human rights groups and drone strike victims themselves, Congress already has such a fund.

The peace group CODEPINK recently discovered that every year for the past four years, a pot of $10 million has been allocated for Pakistani drone strike victims. That would make a total of $40 million, quite a hefty sum to divide among a few hundred families. But it appears that none of this money has actually reached them.

The Pakistani Civilian Assistance Fund was modeled after the ones that exist in Iraq and Afghanistan, where money was allocated to help alleviate the suffering of civilians harmed by US military operations as part of a strategy to “win hearts and minds.” In the case of Pakistan, where the CIA operates its drones, the money is supposed to go directly to the families of innocent drone victims, or for needs like medical expenses or rebuilding homes.

But Tim Rieser, the long-time staffer for Senator Patrick Leahy who has worked to get this Pakistani civilian assistance fund included in the yearly Foreign Operations budget, expressed his exasperation about the use of the funds. “It’s been like hitting a brick wall every time we push the administration to use these funds for drone victims, since for years they wouldn’t even acknowledge the existence of drone strikes,” said Rieser. “I seriously doubt that any of this money has reached the victims it was intended to help.”

Instead, it appears that the Conflict Victims Support Fund gets farmed out to US-based non-governmental organizations like International Relief and Development that, after taking their cut, provide humanitarian assistance for Pakistanis who are not drone victims and are not even living in the tribal areas of Waziristan where the US is carrying out the strikes.

Sarah Holewinski, the executive director of Civilians in Conflict, agrees with Rieser that the funds are being misused. “Sure, it’s not easy to assess damage and compensate families in Pakistan where there are no boots on the ground to do a military investigation and where the drone operations are covert,” said Holewinski. “But the State Department does have personnel in Pakistan, including AID staff, and they could work with communities to figure out what harm occurred, why, by whom, and then determine what the civilians need/want/expect in order to feel dignified and assisted.”

Doing this, however, would require cooperation from the CIA, which carries out the drone strikes while refusing to talk about them, and it would contradict the US government assertion that the drone strikes have caused only a handful of civilian casualties.

To make up for the US lack of help, the Pakistani government says it steps in to offer assistance. But the victims covered in the Amnesty report said they either did not receive compensation from the Pakistani government or that it was inadequate. The family of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed in North Waziristan while tending her crops, was furious when they were offered $100, given that their costs for medical expenses, repairs to their home and loss of livestock totaled about $9,500.

A 45-year-old Pakistani farmer told investigators of another report, Living Under Drones, that after his home was destroyed by a drone, he didn’t have the $1,000,000 rupees [US $10,500] to build a new house, so he and his family live in a rented room. “I spent my whole life in that house, my father had lived there was well….I belong to a poor family. I’m just hoping that I somehow recover financially,” he said.

If this farmer had lived in Afghanistan and had been harmed by a drone, he would have been entitled to compensation for loss of life, medical problems and/or property damage. The payments in Afghanistan are usually small (about $5,000 for a death or injury or $5,000 for property damage), but this can make a big difference to a poor family. But next door in Pakistan, there is no help. This inconsistency is the reason staffer Tim Reiser pushed for the Pakistan fund and now thinks a Yemen fund should be created. “Anywhere innocent people are harmed due to our mistakes, we should help them out,” says Rieser. Even John Brennan, CIA chief who is the mastermind of President Obama’s drone policy, said during his confirmation hearing that he thought the US should offer condolence payments—in fact, he thought the US was already doing that.

Most activists in the US and abroad are focusing, rightly so, on trying to stop the drone killing spree. But those already harmed deserve help. Mohamad al-Qawli, who just formed a network of drone strike victims in Yemen, thinks it’s the least the US should do. Al-Qawli’s brother was killed in a drone strike, leaving behind a distraught wife and three young children. “In our tribal culture, if someone commits a crime or makes a terrible mistake, they have to acknowledge the wrongdoing, apologize and provide restitution. The US government won’t even acknowledge the wrongful death of my brother, much less apologize and compensate his family. Could it be that my tribal culture is more evolved than the justice system of the United States?” Al-Qawli asks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

 

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart., and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

Amnesty International Assails U.S. on Drone Strikes

• "Many attacks, which have killed more civilians than acknowledged, are illegal."

By KEN DILANIAN Tribune Washington Bureau

Star Tribune

 

WASHINGTON – U.S. air-strikes in Yemen and Pakistan have killed far more civilians than American officials acknowledge, and many of the attacks appear to have been illegal under international law, according to a pair of reports by human rights organizations based on interviews with survivors and witnesses.  
  
The reports by Amnesty International, which looked into nine strikes in Pakistan, and Human Rights Watch, which examined six attacks in Yemen, also assert that the United States has killed militants when capturing them was a feasible option. In Pakistan, Amnesty found that U.S. missiles have targeted rescuers and other groups of people in an indiscriminate manner that increased the likelihood of civilian deaths.  
 
The reports were released at a news conference Tuesday in Washington.    The CIA had no comment, and the White House declined to respond in detail, but it pointed out that President Obama in May announced tighter rules of engagement that he said would make it less likely civilians would be killed or injured in targeted strikes. Most of the attacks detailed in the two reports took place before Obama’s speech.  
  
“U.S. counterterrorism operations are precise, they are lawful and they are effective,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that before drone strikes are used, there must be “near-certainty” no civilians will be killed. In addition, there’s a wide gap between the U.S. assessment of civilian casualties and what groups such as Amnesty have determined, Carney said.  
  
Amnesty International said 29 noncombatants died in the Pakistan attacks it investigated, and Human Rights Watch counted 57 civilians dead in six incidents in Yemen, including 41 in a December 2009 cruise missile strike based on bad intelligence from the Yemeni government. Most of the strikes involved missiles fired from remotely piloted drone aircraft. 

Amnesty International’s Mustafa Qadri discussed the findings.
Photo Susan Walsh Associated Press

  
The authors of the reports acknowledged that in many cases it was difficult to say with certainty whether men killed in a particular strike were members of Al-Qaida or associated forces who had participated in or were planning attacks on U.S. interests. 
    
Relatives of the dead often insist that their loved ones had no connection to extremism. American intelligence officials and their congressional overseers say that in almost all cases, the strikes have hit legitimate targets.  
  
The Amnesty International report also criticizes the Pakistani government. Even as officials in Islamabad, the capital, publicly condemn drone attacks, “elements of the state” are suspected of colluding with those behind the attacks, the report says, an apparent reference to Pakistan’s military and spy agencies. This ambiguity tends to discourage Islamabad from investigating civilian attacks, helping drone strike victims or pressuring the U.S. for greater accountability, Amnesty said. 
    
“The problem is that the drone program started through a tacit agreement between the U.S. and Pakistani governments,” said Raza Rumi, an Islamabad-based political and security analyst. “However, due to the nature of the bilateral relationship, the drone program has become controversial.” 
    
Drones generate political resentment in Pakistan.    But some Pakistanis also blame the Taliban for taking cover among civilian populations, putting ordinary people in harm’s way.  
  
The Associated Press contributed to this report.  

 

OBAMA TO MEET WITH PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER

Months of delicate diplomacy will be on display Wednesday when President Obama meets Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the White House. They have agreed to resume defense and security cooperation, which was suspended in 2011 after U.S. forces killed more than 20 Pakistani troops in a clash along the Afghan border.     

Sharif said Tuesday that reviving the economy, improving relations with India, helping to stabilize Afghanistan and working closely with the United States were all components of his government’s long-term strategy to combat terrorism and extremism, which he described as Pakistan’s greatest challenge.     

He said he was confident that Pakistan could work with the United States on those and other issues, expanding a relationship that’s “stood the test of time” despite “occasional hiccups.” He also said he welcomed American private investment in major projects to overhaul Pakistan’s energy and other sectors.   
 
In no uncertain terms, however, Sharif said the U.S. drone strikes not only violated Pakistan’s territorial integrity but also were detrimental to his country’s own efforts to combat terrorism

Washington Post Takes Govt's Lead on 'Kill List' Reporting

Government officials request redactions on how NSA assists CIA in drone assassination program

- Jon Queally, staff writer
Article from Common Dreams

 
According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA can be added to the list of those agencies behind the controversial assassination program run by the CIA. (Photo: AFP/Getty) 

The Washington Post is reporting new revelations about how the National Security Agency uses its vast global surveillance capabilities to assist the CIA in its controversial worldwide drone assassination program.

To be more accurate, however, the Post is only releasing information deemed non-threatening to what it describes as "ongoing operations" and "national security," based on the guidance of the U.S. government itself.

The newspaper admits that it is "withholding many details [...] at the request of U.S. intelligence officials" and that the documents discussed in their redacted coverage may, in fact, "bolster the agency’s case that its resources are focused on fighting terrorism and supporting U.S. operations overseas."

It has long been suspected that the NSA has played a key role in the CIA's overseas drone operations and President Obama's so-called "kill list" program, but the documents reviewed by the Post are the first to confirm that role with internal documents.

The NSA files, provided to the Post by whistleblower Edward Snowden, explain how the NSA leveraged its large budget and technical capabilities to help the CIA pinpoint a man, Hassan Ghul, they claimed to be a major figure within al-Qaeda believed to be in the tribal areas of western Pakistan in 2012.

According to the report:

The documents do not explain how the Ghul e-mail was obtained or whether it was intercepted using legal authorities that have emerged as a source of controversy in recent months and enable the NSA to compel technology giants including Microsoft and Google to turn over information about their users. Nor is there a reference to another NSA program facing scrutiny after Snowden’s leaks, its metadata collection of numbers dialed by nearly every person in the United States.

To the contrary, the records indicate that the agency depends heavily on highly targeted network penetrations to gather information that wouldn’t otherwise be trapped in surveillance nets that it has set at key Internet gateways.

The new documents are self-congratulatory in tone, drafted to tout the NSA’s counterterrorism capabilities. One is titled “CT MAC Hassan Gul Success.” The files make no mention of other agencies’ roles in a drone program that escalated dramatically in 2009 and 2010 before tapering off in recent years.

Even so, former CIA officials said the files are an accurate reflection of the NSA’s contribution to finding targets in a campaign that has killed more than 3,000 people, including thousands of alleged militants and hundreds of civilians, in Pakistan, according to independent surveys. The officials said the agency has assigned senior analysts to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, and deployed others to work alongside CIA counterparts at almost every major U.S. embassy or military base overseas.

According to the Bureau of Investigation Journalism's most recent estimate, between 407 and 926 innocent people have been killed by U.S. drones in Pakistan since 2004, with as many 200 children among the dead.

Borderless US Drone War an Affront to Intl Law: UN Expert

UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson's statements add to chorus of international concern

- Common Dreams staff October 18, 2013

 
File image of an armed MQ-9 Reaper drone (Photo: General Atomics Aeronautical)

 Missile attacks carried out by U.S. drones—that have killed countless civilians and remain hidden behind an 'unacceptable' veil of secrecy—may be in violation of international law, UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson declared in a damning 24-page report released Friday.

Emmerson's statements add to a chorus of international voices expressing concern about the rising use of weaponized drones, including a report released Thursday by Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, citing far-reaching harm to civilians with no accountability.

Emmerson's report offers a chilling account of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza, documenting numerous incidents of civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. attacks and other world powers.

Having just returned from Islamabad, Pakistan, he explains that the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has documented over 330 drone strikes since 2002 that have killed 2,200 people, 400 of them civilians.

Emmerson also cites the "steady recorded rise" of drones used in Afghanistan by U.S. and UK forces, as well as civilians in Yemen believed to have been killed by U.S. drones.

Emmerson states that because the U.S. has essentially declared the 'war against terror' a transnational conflict without borders, it is difficult to make concrete pronouncements about the application and interpretation of international law. As Emmerson explains in one key section of his report (emphasis added):

Yet critics charge that the United States does not have the right to unilaterally re-define international law, and that its covert drone wars are simply illegal.

The CIA actively obstructs access to information about drone strikes, Emmerson charges, creating an "insurmountable obstacle to transparency." Emmerson writes:

The United States has to date failed to reveal its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of remotely piloted aircraft in classified operations conducted in Pakistan and elsewhere, or any information on its methodology for evaluating this. The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data of this kind...

Emmerson concludes by demanding that the U.S. "release its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of remotely piloted aircraft, together with information on the evaluation methodology used."

The report was published in advance of a UN General Assembly debate over the use of drones to take place in New York next Friday.

Drones, the Media and Malala's Message

Fair Blog October 15, 2013
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

By Peter Hart

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai's visit to the United States was widely covered in the media, including interviews with ABC's Diane Sawyer (10/11/13), CNN's Christiane Amanpour (10/14/13) and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (10/8/13). She was selected as ABC's "Person of the Week" on October 11, and was considered a serious contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And for good reason; just one year ago, Malala was attacked by the Taliban for her outspoken advocacy on behalf of educational equality, surviving a an attack where she was shot in the head.
But one part of her message didn't seem to penetrate the corporate media.
During her October 11 visit to the White House, Yousafzai told Barack Obama that his administration's drone strikes were fueling terrorism. As McClatchy's Lesley Clark (10/11/13) reported:

In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she's worried about the effect of US drone strikes. (The White House statement didn't mention that part.)
"I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," she said in the statement. "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education, it will make a big impact."

This exchange, for some reason, didn't register in a corporate media that followed Malala's visit, and her story, very closely.

This is in keeping with other media patterns we've seen. Earlier this year, Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni writer and activist, came to Washington to deliver moving testimony  to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the effect of drone strikes on his country: "What the violent militants had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant. There is now an intense anger against America." His words received scant coverage in the US media (FAIR Blog, 4/24/13).

If Americans wish to understand how US wars are experienced by those on the other side of the military attacks, it is important to hear these voices. But will US media allow these voices to be heard?