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Monday, December 26, 2011 - 6.50 GMT |
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Loss of civilian lives during military action not IHL violation - Norway |
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NATO member Norway has acknowledged the impossibility in avoiding mistakes and civilian deaths during an intense military campaign.
Norwegian Defence Minister Espen Barth Eide responding to a New York Times (NYT) that it had obtained evidence to prove the NATO air campaign claimed the lives of up to 70 civilians, including 29 women and children.
He emphasized that Norway’s aim was to operate within International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The minister went on to declare that it was wrong to assert IHL violated because of civilians losses unless something unacceptable took place during a conflict.
Citing human rights organizations, which had contributed to the NYT report, Minister Eide said as the NATO had done nothing illegal there was no formal responsibility on the part of the organization to make an exact count of civilians killed.
The media also quoted Eide as having said the NATO was in the process of evaluating its efforts in Libya to find out whether there were lessons to be learnt. Claiming that there had been no demands to investigate each individual loss of civilian life, Eide asserted that civilian losses wouldn’t be one of the main points of the evaluation of the Norwegian effort. The minister said that the main point of their evaluation would be ‘target achievement’ during the campaign.
The NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) quoted Minister Eide as having said that it was almost unthinkable that high intensity air campaign directed at Libya could take place without mistakes and civilian losses. The Norwegian declined to rule out the possibility of Norwegian bombs killing civilians during the campaign. Norway fired about 10 per cent of bombs, which targeted Libya in one of the bloodiest campaigns, which ended with rebels backed by Western powers executing the ousted Libyan leader.
Courtesy: The Island
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