Asian military instructors review humanitarian law
BANGKOK (JP): Asian military instructors began a meeting yesterday to discuss ways of promoting international humanitarian law in the daily practices of their forces.
Brig. Gen. P. Lt. Sihombing, deputy military chief prosecutor and Brig. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, deputy assistant for operations to the Army chief, represent Indonesia in the five-day meeting.
Brunei, Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand are also taking part.
Myanmar declined to attend the meeting of East Asian countries organized by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).
"The armed forces are the most capable organization to advise and convince the state of the need for implementing the law of war which basically rules protection of combatants and to guarantee proper treatment for combatants," Ch. Swinarski, ICRC legal expert, said.
Harald Schmid De Gruneck, head of the ICRC Regional Delegation for East Asia, said international humanitarian law should be an integral part of regular combat training and a key constituent of training programs at all levels in the chain of command.
The ICRC hopes to create the preliminary conditions for a structured and comprehensive regional training plan for the instruction of the law of war in the training programs of the armed forces in East Asia.
Indonesia ratified four 1949 Geneva conventions on the issue in 1958 but has yet to adopt two additional protocols enacted this year.
The conventions have provided guidelines for the Armed Forces' (ABRI) conduct, Sihombing told The Jakarta Post.
In the absence of the two protocols, Indonesia does not have the means of applying the Geneva conventions, he said.
The first protocol refers to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts, while the second refers to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts.
Although Indonesia had not adopted the two protocols, ABRI had adopted the Geneva Conventions as an internal part of its discipline and operational conduct, Sihombing said.
ABRI has the Sapta Marga (soldier's code of ethics), the Soldier's Oath and ABRI's Eight Obligations, all of which serve as operational guidelines on how to behave in daily life and in war situations, he said.
Kiki Syahnakri said that neither the Geneva Conventions nor the Sapta Marga nor the Soldier's Oath were in conflict with war doctrines.
"War is never unlimited. Every state has the right to choose its method of waging war and of selecting the means to do it," he said.
Maj. Gen. Louis Geiger of Switzerland who advises the ICRC on military matters, told the meeting that there was no such thing as a "humanitarian war".
"But there are ethical principles which have to be respected even in wartime. They form the basis for the international humanitarian law which has been developed and codified in the course of the past few hundred years," he said.
Sihombing said that generally, soldiers considered the law of war a constraint.
"We need to provide more information and improve training on the subject to change such attitudes. Soldiers often see the law as a restriction, not something they must conform with," he said. (lem)