Human shield

From Free net encyclopedia

Human shield is a military term describing the presence of civilians in or around like combat targets to deter an enemy from attacking those targets. It may also be used to describe the use of civilians to literally shield combatants during attacks, by forcing the civilians to march in front of the soldiers during human wave attacks. Using this technique increases the civilian casualty rate and is highly illegal.

1 Tactic in war
2 Tactic in peace campaigning
3 Other uses
4 See also
5 External links

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Tactic in war

The most famous use of human shields occurred in Iraq in 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in advance of the first Gulf War. Saddam Hussein's government detained hundreds of Western citizens who were visiting or living in Iraq to try to deter nations from participating in military operations against the country. A number of these hostages were filmed meeting Saddam, and kept with him to deter any targeted attacks, whilst others were held in or near military and industrial targets. Whilst the UN debated its response to the invasion of Kuwait, several international statesmen and peace campaigners visited Iraq to try to secure the release of the human shields, many returning with around 10 or 12 each time.

The tactic was used by the Bosnian Serbs in 1994.

Pictures from the Gaza Strip have documented incident of Hamas and Popular Resistance Committees using children as human shield, to prevent the IDF from firing over gunmen and Qassam rockets.[1] Human Rights Watch has reported that the Israeli Defense Forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields during the Battle of Jenin 2002. [2] The practice has subsequently been outlawed by the Israeli Supreme Court.[3]

The term human shield can also be used collectively where the shield is not an individual but the whole population. In this case, one party in a conflict intentionally positions its military assets amongst a civilian population or close to civilian facilities such as hospitals or schools in the hope that the other party will be reluctant to attack them. Furthermore, if the other party attacks these targets anyway, the resulting civilian casualties have propaganda value. In the case of popular resistance movements, which always operate amongst the civilian populations from which they arise, application of the phrase "human shield" is usually restricted to partisan polemics.

International law considers the use of human shields to protect targets a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids the use of any civilian as a shield: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." (Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3516, 75 U.N.T.S. 287, art. 28)

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Tactic in peace campaigning

In recent times civilian volunteers have attempted to use this tactic to prevent military conflict. Anti-war groups organised human shield action to Iraq in advance of the 2003 invasion.

Rachel Corrie and Thomas Hurndall, Western International Solidarity Movement volunteers in the Palestinian territories, who were killed in March 2003 and April 2003 while trying to disrupt IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, have been described as trying to act as human shields. Some ISM volunteers strongly object to the use of the term human shield to describe their work.

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Other uses

Some lesser used instances of human shields, include literally using a human as a physical barrier against bullets, or taking advantage of the opposing gun's lack of over penetration as a means of creating a shield. Some bullets expand when the temperature around it rises (ie. when entering a living being), this is done to increase the amount of tissue damage per bullet. The same is true for hollow point bullets which mushroom when entering living tissue. However both of these types prevent the bullet from piercing right through the victim, thus leaving anything directly behind them safe from oncoming fire. This idea has been demonstrated in several action movies including a controversial scene in Total Recall.

Human shields have also been used in videogames like Splinter Cell in which the player is able to grab civilians and enemies from behind and use them as a human shield. While controversial in Splinter Cell, the Metal Gear Solid series allows grabbing enemies for use as human shields, with less notoriety.

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