Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity

RAPEINWAR: CHALLENGING. THE TRADITION OF IMPUNITY Dorothy Q Thomas and Regan E. Ralph rveports of rape in die former Yugoslavia have brought much deserved and long overdue international attention to the issue ofrape in war. This attention has highlighted die abusive character ofwartime rape, but it also has revealed die persistent misunderstandings regarding rape's prevalence, function and motivation in war. Moreover, efforts to ensure diat rape is prosecuted effectively by die International Tribunal established to try war crimes committed in die fomier Yugoslavia have underscored die difficulties in applying international human rights and humanitarian law to rape.1 In order to overcome diese difficulties and to end die appalling history of impunity for this abuse, rape in conflict must be understood as an abuse that targets women for political and strategic reasons. The Prevalence of Rape Violence against women in conflict situations assumes many forms; rape is often only one of die ways in which women are targeted. But while odiet abuses, such as murder and odier forms oftorture have long been denounced as war crimes, rape has been downplayed as an unfortunate but inevitable side effect ofsending men to war. Itdius is ignored as a human rights abuse. Then when rape is reported and condemned, as it has been in Bosnia-Hercegovina, die abuses are called unprecedented and unique in dieit scale. In fart, wartime rape has never been limited to a certain era or to a particular part ofdie world. 1 The tribunal's fomial title is the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Since 1991 . Dorothy Q. Thomas is the director ofthe Women's Rights Project of Human Rights Watch, and Regan E. Ralph is the Project's staff attorney. 81 82 SAIS Review WINTER-SPRING 1994 During World War II, for example, Moroccan mercenary troops fought with Free French forces in Italy on terms diat "included license to rape and plunder in enemy territory."2 Nazis raped Jewish women despite soldiers' concerns widi "race defilement" and raped coundess women in their padi as diey invaded die Soviet Union.3 The Soviets dien exacted dieir revenge upon German women as die troops batded dieir way to Berlin.4 More recent history provides further evidence ofwartime rape. Pakistani soldiers fighting to suppress Bangladesh's independence, which was declared in 1971, terrorized die Bengali people widi night raids during which women were raped in dieir villages or carted off to soldiers' barracks.5 Similarly, Turkish troops participating in die 1974 invasion and occupation of Cyprus were notorious for die widespread rape ofwomen and girls. In one instance, twentyfive girls who reported their rapes by Turkish soldiers to Turkish officers were dien raped again by those officers.6 In Bosnia, coundess women have been attacked and brutally raped. J., a diirty-nine-year-old Croatian woman, was detained in Omarska, a detention camp where Serbian forces tortured and summarily executed scores of Muslims and Croats. She recounted her rape by a reserve captain of the self-proclaimed "Serbian Republic." "He direw me on die floor, and someone else came into the room. . . . Both Grabovac and diis odier man started to beat me. They said I was an Ustasa and diat I needed to give birth to a Serb—diat 1 would dien be different."7 In Pern, rape of women by security forces is common practice in the ongoing armed conflict between die Communist Party of Pern-Shining Padi and government counterinsurgency forces. In 1992, Human Rights Watch 2 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977), 133. ' Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Bantam Books, 1975X46-51. 4 Ibid., 64-65. 5 In Mardi of 1971, the Bengal state—at that time officially East Pakistan—declared its independence as Bangladesh. West Pakistan imported troops to put down the rebellion. Until India's armed intervention in December 1971 , Pakistani troops waged war against the Bengalis. Estimates place the death toll at 3 million, the refugees into India at 10 million, the number of women raped at over...