A REPORT published yesterday by Stanford University and New York University warns that the CIA’s drone campaign ‘terrorises men, women and children’ in North-West Pakistan ‘twenty-four hours a day’.
The campaign is ‘damaging and counterproductive’ and neither policy-makers nor the public can ‘continue to ignore evidence of the civilian harm’ it causes, warn the academics of Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law.
Through extensive interviews with the local population – including victims of strikes – humanitarian workers and medical professionals, the report demonstrates for the first time the devastating impact drones have had on the society of Waziristan as a whole.
Humanitarian organisation Reprieve helped, through its partner organisation in Pakistan, to facilitate access to many of the interviewees.
Reprieve is currently bringing litigation in the UK to force the government to clarify its reported policy of supporting the CIA’s drone strike programme through intelligence-sharing.
The action is being brought on behalf of Noor Khan, who lost his father in the 17 March 2011 strike, described in detail in the report, which killed a large number of local elders who had met to resolve a mining dispute.
Reprieve’s Director, Clive Stafford Smith said: ‘This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians.
‘An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies.
‘Their way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups.
‘Yet there is no end in sight, and nowhere the ordinary men, women and children of North West Pakistan can go to feel safe.
‘George Bush wanted to create a global “War on Terror” without borders, but it has taken Obama’s drone war to achieve his dream.’
The report reveals that children in the affected areas are being taken out of school for a number of reasons, including ‘the physical, emotional and financial impacts of the (drone) strike’; ‘to compensate for the income lost after the death or injury of a relative’; or ‘due to fear that they would be killed in a drone strike’.
The report describes the ‘significant evidence’ that now exists for the practice of ‘double-tap’ strikes, in which rescuers arriving at the scene are also targeted by follow-up attacks.
A leading humanitarian organisation has ‘a policy to not go immediately (to a reported drone strike) because of follow-up strikes. There is a six hour mandatory delay.’
The report details how the presence of drones overhead is leading to ‘substantial levels of fear and stress’ and mental health problems ‘in the civilian communities below’.