After Libya, let us learn to count every casualty of war | Jonathan Steele

United

say fight to protect civilians must certainly agree to record the names and fates of all victims of gun violence

Cameron-Sarkozy duo of triumphalism in Tripoli yesterday was conveniently short. NATO is not a service technician was killed and the regime change mission was reduced in six months. So the temptation of singing was high.

But the two European leaders recall an outbreak of the Bush administration boasts of mission accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan. His advisers should have also warned that the "liberation" can be a fragile concept, with a short life. There may have been less looting in the post-Gaddafi in Tripoli in the post-Saddam Baghdad, but there was much brutality imposed on supporters of the former regime. Cameron, Sarkozy focused on measures to secure loose weapons and offered medical assistance and others. Upon his return, but should also consider more innovative ways to help war victims.

the same day of his visit, a new initiative was announced in London. Some NGOs have launched three dozen of the Charter of the recognition of each victim of gun violence. The creation of the Oxford Research Group, the charter calls upon States to ensure that all victims of gun violence, not just soldiers or "their own civilians," it must be properly registered, properly identified and acknowledged publicly .

the accounts of each victim, but is rarely count each victim. This war, in particular the modern brand, where civilian deaths outnumber those of combatants, slowly began to be corrected. The Iraq Body Count had a beginning of the war that the United States and Great Britain launched in 2003, carefully noting and filing of all victims reported and, if possible, the full name and date of death. The Centre for Research and Documentation Sarajevo was doing the same thing about the war in Bosnia, regular updating Bosnian Book of the Dead, now 99,000 names.

The memory book is a newly introduced impressive collaboration of Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians impartial in the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade and Pristina. List of 2046 people were killed in Kosovo in 1998 (one volume of the largest number since 1999 is in progress), the book includes details of court for victims of all ethnic groups. A goal is to try to end the battle statistics on the different sides to focus solely on their own group.

Another remarkable aspect of the book is that there is no distinction between civilians and combatants, and thumbnail biographies of the Yugoslav Army soldiers who died in Kosovo are set alongside those of women and children in Albania. In the "irregular warfare", which are increasingly the norm today, it is often difficult to distinguish between combatants and civilians, especially when the "men with guns" may have been forced into combat or are child soldiers, or were executed after being caught illegally.

• In Syria rights investigators of human organization Insan were risking their lives to save the names of the victims. Between March and this month a total of 3004 of which 92 children of 56 years, all shot in the upper body.
• baptisms held in New York in the 10 th anniversary of 9 / 11, Sunday was a model of how the families of victims can memorialize their loved ones. One day, the same care must be demonstrated by the tens of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, who died in America "recovery".

is good for society in a country starts to record and keep alive the plight of victims, but the main task should be supported by governments. They are used to maintain lists of war dead and war memorial. Civilian victims deserve less?

More than any other recent military intervention in the West, the Libyan campaign, based explicitly on the need to protect civilians. Although the real goal was regime change, the mission of the Security Council adopted can not be ignored now that the change has been achieved. Many civilians that NATO came to protect the dead, with hundreds of fighters, some deaths in custody.

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