Det danske Fredsakademi

Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 31. januar 2005 / Time Line January 31, 2005

Version 3.5

30. Januar 2005, Februar 2005


01/31/2005
Kvindesagsforkæmperen og pacifisten Ellen Hørups fødselsdag, 1871.

01/31/2005
232 contractors die in Iraq
By Sue Pleming in Washington
From Reuters
AT least 232 civilians have been killed while working on US-funded contracts in Iraq and the death toll is rising rapidly, according to a US government audit released today.
The quarterly report sent to Congress by the inspector-general appointed to audit US-funded work in Iraq said security problems were the biggest obstacle to Iraq's reconstruction and workers faced grave risks daily.
More than 1400 US troops have been killed in Iraq, but the US government does not keep an official tally of the number of civilians slain while working on US-funded projects there and in support of US forces...
Mr Bowen cited US Labour Department statistics that showed companies had filed 232 compensation claims under the Defence Base Act (DBA) for workers killed there, an increase in the fourth quarter last year of 93 per cent.
The DBA requires all US government contractors to acquire workers' compensation insurance for employees working in Iraq.
Not all US employers would have filed DBA claims for workers killed in Iraq and the death toll was likely to be higher than 232, said one US official.
In addition, 728 DBA claims were filed for employees who missed more than four days of work. Several hundred more were reported from neighbouring Kuwait where companies working in Iraq have logistics and support operations...

01/31/2005
Darfur killings not genocide, says UN group
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
©2005 Independent News
A special United Nations commission has decided that two years of violence in the western Sudan region of Darfur was not genocide but "crimes against humanity with ethnic dimensions", according to leaks of the report in the US.
The commission, led by the Italian judge Antonio Cassese, documents breaches of international human rights law and other war crimes, and names individuals who may have acted with "genocidal intent". But it failed to find evidence that the government in Khartoum, widely accused of backing the militias, had a specific policy of exterminating a particular ethnic group, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The report is to be made public this week, after it goes to the Security Council. But it could set off a new dispute between the US and its key allies. In September, the State Department said the murder of tens of thousands of people in Darfur, and the forced uprooting of 1.8 million more, did constitute genocide. It spoke of a pattern of targeted violence, co-ordinated by the government and committed by state-backed militias. Even more problematic however than semantics could be the report's leaked recommendation that war crimes and human rights violations should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), an institution backed by Europe and most African countries, but strenuously opposed by the US...

01/31/2005

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