Violence against civilians - case-studies of perpetrators

Protection of civilians has become a central objective in many of today’s military operations. Through case-studies of perpetrators of violence against civilians the aim of this report is to provide insights into the purposes for which violence against civilians is used, as well the means required for perpetrators to succeed. Understanding the perpetrator’s strategy and required means is important to assess the relevance of using military force, and how military force to protect can be used with utility. A report concurrent with this one has developed seven generic scenarios of violence against civilians.1 The present report covers four of those scenarios through six contemporary casestudies. The purpose of using violence against civilians is denoted as a perpetrator’s strategy, while the practical requirements for implementing that strategy are described as capabilities. These practical requirements are; advance planning, top-down coordination, ambiguity, freedom of movement, and relevant military units and weaponry. The case-studies are the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Somalia’s Al-Shabaab movement, the Lou Nuer-Murle conflict in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, the 2011 conflict in Libya, and the civil war in Syria. The report finds that perpetrators will vary greatly in terms of what capabilities they require to attack civilians, depending on the role violence against civilians play in their overall strategy. It is found that the more central violence against civilians is to a perpetrator’s strategic objective, the more capabilities are required. Furthermore, different strategies require different capabilities. For instance, a regime seeking to deter a civilian population from supporting an opposition will be dependent on many capabilities, while an insurgency seeking to undermine government legitimacy by instigating civilian insecurity requires relatively few capabilities. The distinction between the capabilities perpetrators need to attack civilians and those needed to attack other armed actors is particularly important for military planners and commanders who may be mandated to protect the civilian population rather than to defeat the actor. Another important finding is that perpetrators too may fail. Successful protection is often attributed to well-executed military operations, but the reduction in violence may equally be the result of perpetrators failing to obtain the capabilities needed to attack civilians.