Organized collection of forensic evidence of human rights violations is an important step toward discovering the truth, achieving justice, and ensuring that such crimes are not repeated. Incontrovertible physical evidence of such abuses is important both for the judicial process and for the survivors, as it provides the world with an objective account and acknowledgement of the abuses suffered.
The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF, http://epafperu.org/en/), in partnership with the government of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, continues its path-breaking international forensic training program in Somaliland. The project began September 24, 2012 and the next phase will run from February 5 to March 4, 2018. More information can be accessed here: Brochure_SOM_2018
With CJA’s sponsorship, the Somaliland government and the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team have opened an international forensic training program. The project began on September 24, 2012. CJA continues to support efforts to identify victims buried in mass graves throughout Somaliland.
CJA’s work in Somaliland is featured in the documentary “Kill All but the Crows,” produced by the Al Jazeera program People and Power.
Background
Encouraged by a second historic peaceful election and transfer of power in Somaliland in 2010, CJA invited partner Jose Pablo Baraybar, Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) and Recipient of the 2011 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award, to travel with us to Somaliland in July 2011. In collaboration with CJA, victims’ families, and local government officials, including Somaliland’s War Crimes Investigation Committee (WCIC), Mr. Baraybar began a preliminary assessment of the mass grave sites to determine the possibilities of providing relief to the families and preserving evidence for any future transitional justice efforts.
While assisting the WCIC as it builds capacity to conduct forensic investigations of human rights violations, the field school also provides foreign students with meaningful fieldwork experience. The curriculum encompasses international human rights and humanitarian law as it applies to the recent history of violence in Somalia and Somaliland, as well as field training in the examination, recovery, and analysis of mass graves.
On a CJA-hosted online blog, participants in the first phase reflected on the search for the missing and disappeared, giving readers a window into the process of fact-finding and forensic investigation of human rights violations in Somaliland.
CJA client Aziz Deria underscores the project’s importance:
I believe both my late father Mohamed Iid and my younger brother Mustafa are among those remains in Malko Durduro and thus, for me, this initiative in Somaliland is personal.
EPAF has previously trained local investigators in Peru, Nepal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Read more about EPAF.
Mass Graves: Unearthing Evidence of Barre-era War Crimes
In 1997, heavy rains and flooding exposed evidence of mass graves in and around Somaliland’s capital city of Hargeisa. [1] The bones were found in the vicinity of the former headquarters of the 26th division of the Somali National Army and the notorious execution site known as Malko Durduro.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Independent Expert on Somalia, Mona Rishmawi, formally requested an independent forensic examination of the sites. [2] On April 11, 1997 Physicians for Human Rights, under the auspices of UNHCHR, conducted an on-site forensic assessment of the mass graves. The forensic team examined over 100 known and alleged mass gravesites. Two sites were identified definitively as mass graves: the Malko Durduro Elementary School site and the Badhka site. At both locations the team found skeletal remains of victims apparently bound together by ropes or cloth ligatures.
» Images of the forensic investigation are available here. [Warning: graphic content.]
In response to cries for redress, the Somaliland government established a War Crimes Investigation Commission (WCIC) to investigate human rights abuses committed by the Barre regime and to support the prosecution of alleged war criminals. For these purposes, the WCIC began to identify victims and witnesses; collect testimony and other evidence; and locate, mark, register, and preserve the sites of mass graves.
In 2001 a report by a UN Independent Expert on Somalia indicated that many former military personnel suspected of war crimes and human rights violations had found safe haven in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To date, only one such perpetrator, General Mohamed Ali Samantar, has been held accountable for his role in the abuses of that regime.
» Watch testimony submitted in the Samantar case by Ibrahim Abdullahi, who was forced to bury bodies at Malko Durduro. [Warning: graphic content.]
» Read more about CJA’s Samantar case.
Attorney Tara Lee interviews representatives of the War Crimes Investigation Commission in Hargeisa, Somaliland.
CJA Client Ahmed Gulaid and Jose Pablo Baraybar, Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team, visit Malko Durduro, where Mr. Gulaid miraculously survived a massacre by firing squad in 1988.
NOTES[1] Forensic Report: Preliminary Assessment of Mass Graves in the Vicinity of Hargeisa, Somalia E/CN.4/1999/103/Add.1 (UN Commission on Human Rights, fifty-fifth session).[2] Somalia: A Decent Burial – Somalis yearn for justice, IRIN: Humanitarian News and Analysis Service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, May 2001. Accessed August 10, 2009.
