War is a package deal, of which
atrocity and gang rape are part of the package. To try to outlaw atrocity and
rape from war is naïve and disingenuous.
Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller, 1975, Excerpts
Rape in warfare is
not bound by definitions of which wars are “just” or “unjust.” Rape was a
weapon of terror as the German Hun marched through Belgium in World War I. Rape
was a weapon of revenge as the Russian Army marched to Berlin in World War II.
Rape got out of hand when the Pakistani Army battled Bangladesh. Raped reared
its head as American GI’s searched and destroyed in the highland of Vietnam. Rape
flourishes in warfare irrespective of nationality or geographic location. Rape
was outlawed as a criminal act under the international rules of war. Yet rape
persists as a common act of war.
Men who rape in war
are ordinary Joes, made unordinary by the entry into the most exclusive
male-only club in the world. Victory in arms brings group power undreamed of in
civilian life. The unreal situation of a world without women becomes the prime
reality. To take a life looms more significant than to make life, and the gun
in the hand is power. The sickness of warfare feeds on itself. A certain number
of soldiers must prove their newly won superiority – prove it to a woman, to
themselves, to other men. In the name of victory and the power of the gun, war
provides men with a tacit license to rape. In the act and in the excuse, rape
in war reveals the male psyche in its boldest form, without the veneer of
”chivalry” or civilization.
On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts
The ultimate fear and horror in most modern lives is to be
raped or beaten, to be physically degraded in front of our loved ones, to have
our family harmed and the sanctity of our homes invaded by aggressive and
hateful intruders. In rape the psychological harm usually far exceeds the
physical injury. The trauma of rape involves minimal fear of death or injury;
far more damaging is the impotence, shock, and horror in being so hated and
despised as to be debased and abused by a fellow human being.
Throughout history women have been the greatest single group
of victims of this environment process. Women have been defiled, debased, and
dehumanized for the aggrandizement of others. Rape is a very important part of
the process of dominating and dehumanizing an enemy; and this process of mutual
empowering and bonding at the expense of others is exactly what occurs during
gang rapes. In war, empowerment and bonding through such gang rapes often occur
on a national level.
Gang rapes and gang or cult killings in times or peace and
war are not “senseless violence.” They are instead powerful acts of group
bonding and criminal enabling that, quite often, have a hidden purpose of
promoting the wealth, power, or vanity of a specific leader or cause at the
expense of the innocent.
Films:
Redacted
Brian De Palma docudrama about an incident in which a
15-year old Iraqi girl was raped and killed by U.S. soldiers.
Casualty of War
Similar movie starring Michael J. Fox where U.S. soldiers
rape a Vietnamese girl.
Rape of
Sabine. Jacques-Louis David, Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799
Senior ICC judges authorize Afghanistan war crimes inquiry
05 Mar 2020
Senior judges at the international criminal court
have authorized an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Afghanistan. The ICC investigation will look at actions by US,
Afghan and Taliban troops. There is information that members of the US military
and intelligence agencies committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages
upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence in Afghanistan and other
locations, principally in the early years of the conflict.
'We lay like corpses': Bangladesh's 1970s rape camp survivors speak out
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/05/bangladesh-1970s-camp-survivors-speak-out
05 Nov 2019
In 1971, during the nine-month war that gave
Bangladesh its independence from then West Pakistan, four sisters – Amina,
Maleka, Mukhlesa and Budhi Begum – were abducted by Pakistani soldiers and
local collaborators. They were among the more than 200,000 women held in rape
camps and were detained for two and a half months. The sisters’ stories are
part of Gazi’s award-winning documentary, Rising Silence, screened on Tuesday
in London, which preserves the testimony of some of the few women who are still
alive, several of whom have died since filming.
Sudanese doctors say dozens of people raped during sit-in attack
11 Jun 2019
Doctors believe paramilitaries carried out more than
70 rapes during an attack on a protest camp in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan,
a week ago. More than 100 people were killed and as many as 700 injured in the
attack last Monday on a sit-in and clashes afterwards, as paramilitaries from
the Rapid Support Forces spread through the city. Harrowing details of rapes by
the RSF have emerged in recent days despite restrictions on communications in
Sudan, but the extent of the sexual violence has remained unknown.
El Salvador massacre: forensics teams dig for remains as US
envoy faces grilling
15 Feb 2019
Nearly 1,000 civilians – including 533 children –
were slaughtered by US-trained troops in and around the village of El Mozote in
December 1981. Eighteen former army officers now face trial for crimes against
humanity and other charges related to the massacre. This week, the memory of El
Mozote – and the legacy of US cold war-era intervention in Central America –
was evoked in Washington DC as the Democratic representative Ilhan Omar grilled
Donald Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, about US policies in
Latin America. The massacre came in the early stages of a civil war between
leftwing rebels and the US-backed government that eventually claimed 75,000
lives – most at the hands of state forces, according to a United Nations truth
commission. At El Mozote, soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion – an elite
counterinsurgency unit trained, armed, and funded by the US – lined up,
interrogated, tortured, and executed villagers. They started with the men
before turning to the women and children, gang-raping women and girls. After El
Mozote, Abrams dismissed reports of a massacre as a propaganda ploy by leftist
rebels and their allies in human rights groups. In a 1982 Senate foreign
relations committee hearing, Abrams claimed reports of the death toll were “not
credible”. On Wednesday, Omar noted that Abrams had once described US policy in
El Salvador as a “fabulous achievement”.
Children 'forced to watch rape' in South Sudan
23 Feb 2018
Children
in South Sudan have been forced to watch their mothers being raped and killed,
the UN says. The UN says the testimony gathered from survivors is
"devastating", including some people being forced to rape family
members "in cases reminiscent of Bosnia". One woman said her
12-year-old son was forced to have sex with his grandmother, in order to stay
alive. The same woman also saw her husband being castrated. Another man saw his
companion, a man, gang raped and left for dead in the bushes.
When Victims of Wartime Rape Are Scorned
18 Dec 2017
Last
month, Human Rights Watch published a report confirming that Myanmar’s army is
engaged in the mass rape of Rohingya Muslim women and girls as a tool of ethnic
cleansing. The Associated Press that established the same set of facts: the use
of “sweeping and methodical” rape as a weapon of war. The reports, in all their
horror — the dehumanizing gang rapes in front of family, the forced public
nudity, the torture and sexual enslavement — all called to mind similar stories
from Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, an estimated
20,000 to 50,000 women experienced brutal sexual violence, both inside and
outside numerous “rape camps.” The largest number of these women, by far, were
Bosnian Muslims. The forced impregnation of Bosnian Muslim women by Serbian men
was among the distinctive and repugnant genocidal strategies used by the
Serbian military, policemen and members of paramilitary groups.
Male rape used systematically in Libya as instrument of war
03 Nov 2017
Male
rape is being used systematically in Libya as an instrument of war and
political domination by rival factions, according to multiple testimonies
gathered by investigators. Harrowing reports from victims and video footage
showing men being sodomized by various objects, including rockets and broom
handles. In several instances, witnesses say a victim was thrown into a room
with other prisoners, who were ordered to rape him or be killed. The atrocity
is being perpetrated to humiliate and neutralize opponents in the lawless,
militia-dominated country. Male rape is such a taboo in Arab societies that the
abused generally feel too damaged to rejoin political, military or civic life.
Rape is an instrument of war in Central African Republic conflict
05 Oct 2017
Rape and
sexual slavery have been used as weapons of war across Central Africa Republic,
with armed groups carrying out brutal attacks with impunity. Research by Human
Rights Watch found “Armed groups are using rape in a brutal, calculated way to
punish and terrorize women and girls.” The study detailed cases of women and
girls who were held as sexual slaves for up to 18 months. Many of the women
endured multiple sexual attacks, in addition to other forms of torture. The
Central African Republic has been wracked by sectarian violence for the past
five years. Both factions, Muslims and Christians, have used sexual violence as
revenge against women perceived to be supporters of the rival party.
Sudan soldiers face trial for rape and murder
30 May 2017
Thirteen
South Sudanese soldiers accused of raping five foreign aid workers appeared
before a military court on Tuesday, a case seen as a test of the government's
ability to put people on trial for war crimes. The attack took place on July
11, 2016, as President Salva Kiir's troops won a three-day battle in Juba over
opposition forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Between 50 to 100
soldiers arrived in the hotel in the afternoon of July 11 and began looting.
Five women working with humanitarian organizations were then raped. UN
investigators and rights group have frequently accused both the army and rebels
of murder, torture and rape since the civil war began in 2013, and say the
crimes almost always go unpunished.
Philippines' Duterte under fire for second rape joke
27 May 2017
The
president of the Philippines has come under fire for joking about rape in a
speech to soldiers. While speaking at a military camp after imposing martial
law across the south of the country, he said they were allowed to rape up to
three women. Mr. Duterte's words were: "I will be imprisoned for you. If
you rape three (women), I will say that I did it.” Chelsea Clinton wrote on
Twitter that Mr. Duterte was "a murderous thug with no regard for human
rights" and that "rape is never a joke". And a women's political
party in the country, Gabriela, said in a statement: "Rape is not a joke.
Martial law and the heightened vulnerability to military abuse that it brings
to women and children are not a joke either." Last year, Mr. Duterte joked
about a 1989 rape and murder of an Australian missionary. He said that as mayor
of the town where it happened, he should have been "first in line".
UN condemns 'devastating' Rohingya abuse in Myanmar
03 Feb 2017
The UN
has accused security forces in Myanmar of committing serious human rights
abuses, including gang-rape, savage beatings and child killing. One mother
recounted how her five-year-old daughter was murdered while trying to protect
her from rape. In another case, an eight-month-old baby was reportedly killed
while five security officers gang-raped his mother. Of 101 women interviewed,
52 said they had been raped or experienced sexual violence from the security
forces.
UN Accuses South Sudan Forces Of Deliberately Raping, Killing Civilians
11 Mar 2016
GENEVA
(Reuters) - South Sudan's government operated a "scorched earth
policy" of deliberate rape, pillage and killing of civilians during the
civil war in 2015, a report published on Friday by the U.N. human rights office
said. "The report contains harrowing accounts of civilians suspected of
supporting the opposition, including children and the disabled, killed by being
burned alive, suffocated in containers, shot, hanged from trees or cut to pieces."
The prevalence of rape suggests its use in the conflict has become an
acceptable practice by (government) SPLA soldiers and affiliated armed militias.
The scale and types of sexual violence are described in searing, devastating
detail, as is the almost casual, yet calculated, attitude of those slaughtering
civilians and destroying property and livelihood. Although all sides have committed
atrocities that may amount to crimes against humanity, government forces were
most responsible in 2015, the report said. South Sudan's war began in December
2013, throwing the world's newest country into chaos, killing tens of
thousands, displacing more than 2 million, and plunging at least 40,000 into a
famine.
'Comfort women': Japan and South Korea hail agreement
28 Dec 2015
The
leaders of Japan and South Korea have welcomed the agreement between their two
countries to settle the issue of "comfort women" forced to work in
Japanese brothels during World War Two. Japan has apologized and will pay 1bn
yen ($8.3m; £5.6m) - the amount South Korea asked for - to fund victims.
Estimates suggest up to 200,000 women were sex slaves for Japanese soldiers
during WW2, many of them Korean. Other women came from China, the Philippines,
Indonesia and Taiwan. The issue has been the key cause of strained relations
between Japan and South Korea.
Hague and Jolie unveil plan to end war rape
11 Jun 2014
William
Hague and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie are seeking global support for a new
plan to end impunity for sex crimes committed in war zones. The pair have been
hosting a London summit on the issue. Hollywood actress Ms Jolie said the goal
was to make it possible to obtain justice even in fragile countries.
Burma military 'using rape as weapon'
15 Jan 2014
Burma's military has continued to use rape as a weapon of
war even after a nominally civilian government was elected in 2010, a women's
group says. The Women's League of Burma said it had documented more than 100
cases, some involving children as young as eight. Most of the cases were linked
to conflict in the border areas of Kachin and Northern Shan State. "Their
widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still
used as an instrument of war and oppression," the report said. "Sexual violence is used as a tool by
the Burmese military to demoralize and destroy ethnic communities," it
added. The last three years have seen far-reaching political change in Burma,
but the army has so far shown little appetite for change.
UN classifies rape a 'war tactic'
20 Jun 2008
The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favor of a
resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war. The document describes the
deliberate use of rape as a tactic in war and a threat to international
security. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the world now recognized
that sexual violence profoundly affected not only the health and safety of
women, but the economic and social stability of their nations.
