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Having grown up not far from the Army Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, Irvine Swahn knew at a young age that he would probably end up working there someday. He started as a base forklift driver before transferring in 1984 into an entry-level chemist position for the Edgewood Research, Development and Engineering Center as he began his last year of college.

Job Title: Chemist

Hometown: Street, Md.

Stationed: Aberdeen Proving Ground-South

Unit: CBRNE Analytical and Remediation Activity (CARA) Mobile Expeditionary Lab

Fast forward nearly 40 years, and you'll still find Swahn working at APG. But he had a few stops on his career path in between Army gigs, and those helped make him a leader in the field of chemical warfare agent science. He's worked in some intense situations in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, to name a few and seen a lot of changes in technology. Nowadays, he's passing his extensive knowledge on to others and reminding all up-and-coming scientists that there are a lot of civilian careers available within the DOD all you need to do is get your foot in the door.

Swahn is a chemist within the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives Command's CBRNE Analytical and Remediation Activity simply known as CARA. It's an all-civilian organization that has four main mission sets:

There are a lot of nasty, nasty chemical weapons out there. [I'm proud] knowing we were able to clean up about 98% of them 98% of the world's stockpile."

It may sound complicated to some, but Swahn said his role really isn't. As a chemist at the CARA mobile labs, he receives air, soil and water samples from military and civilian units, then prepares and analyzes them on various instruments to identify whether they contain dangerous chemicals that might cause harm.

"That's a whole lot of words to say we make the bad unknowns known," Swahn said. And the preparation is key. "You have to prepare those correctly for each specific instrument because you can get a little bit of information from one instrument, then more information from another. We have multiple chemical databases, which are libraries used by the instruments to identify those unknown compounds in samples collected."

Swahn trains new chemists on how chemical warfare agents are made, on how they break down in the environment and about their physical and toxicological properties. This information better equips CARA chemists to handle and analyze the dangerous compounds. Swahn also develops new methods for analyzing samples to better look for unknown chemical compounds or, as he said, "that needle in a haystack."

Swahn works with soldiers, too. He's currently gearing up to prepare realistic drills for units at various Army training centers so soldiers can learn to recognize certain chemicals and equipment that's used to store, fill or make weapons from synthesis labs up to full-scale industrial production plants. He also teaches them how to identify the most significant evidence and how to collect it properly.

Since the 1980s when Swahn first started his career, technological advancements have sped up chemists' ability to separate samples and do analysis on a greater number of chemicals.

"Now, you have instruments with hundreds of thousands of compounds in a library, and you can put any chemical in and get on-the-spot identification," Swahn said. "And now we're using a lot of handheld instruments, which top the big dinosaur instruments I started on. It's quite impressive how far we've come in the past 25 to 30 years."

Swahn's training expertise comes from his extensive background in working with chemical weapons. In fact, his resume really couldn't be more impressive. Here are just some of the highlights:

He took part in missions for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq after the first Gulf War.

This included going to Iraq's former chemical warfare agent research and production facility, Al Muthanna, after the 1991 war. His job: to verify the country's chemical weapons stockpiles had been destroyed and that there was no on-site contamination. Later, he spearheaded the setup, manning and training of international analysts at the Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center, the lab the UN Special Commission built to oversee the dismantling of the country's chemical weapons.

"They gathered all the chemical weapons they had across the countryside and brought them there to be destroyed," Swahn said. "It was interesting being in a former chemical weapons production facility and working with the Iraqis."

Swahn also helped draft many of the verification procedures that future inspectors would use there.

He worked in the Netherlands from 1997-2012 in the first group of inspectors tasked with eliminating chemical weapons stockpiled worldwide.

Swahn did this for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, headquartered in the Netherlands, which implements the Chemical Weapons Convention, an agreement that went into effect in 1997 that works to end the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons for prohibited purposes.

"You can still make chemical weapons," Swahn said. "We can make them here in small quantities for nonprohibited purposes like testing, detection and decontamination studies. It's chemical-biological defense."

Swahn initially developed sampling and analysis procedures and carried out inspections in countries that had joined the convention. Eventually, he become a team leader with a wide range of responsibilities that included training inspection teams and team leaders. He also planned and conducted more than 60 international inspections. These teams had full diplomatic status that provided them special protection during their inspections. His last two years with the organization had him coordinating and planning some difficult missions to some volatile countries such as Libya, Russia, Pakistan and Iraq.

"OPCW is kind of the watchdog of the world for the CWC to make sure these countries that whatever chemical weapons agents they're making are in small quantities for protective purposes," Swahn said. "Its second job is to look at industry and make sure all these chemicals that can be used to make chemical weapons aren't diverted. We did many inspections at regular industrial plants all over the world."

During his time at the OPCW, the organization won a Nobel Peace Prize for its extensive work on eliminating chemical weapons.

"The prize was won for the work they did from 1997 to 2013, and I was there from 1997 to 2012," Swahn said.

His humility about the experience was evident in his lack of words for it.

"It was very worthwhile an adventure," he said. "It was a great accomplishment to be involved in."

He was indirectly part of notable moments in history.

Swahn recalled a trip to Pakistan where inspections were delayed for weeks due to terrorist activity. He and his team ended up doing the inspection with armed escorts. He was also involved with many inspections in Libya, where he was one of the first people to sample and analyze their chemical weapons. One of the inspection teams he was on finished its work and left Libya just two days before the country's longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was killed in October 2011.

"Sometimes I felt out of my league negotiating special missions with ambassadors and high-ranking government officials, as with Libya, which was falling apart at the time," he remembered.

Swahn was also the first American to inspect Chinese military sites in 1998. It was a media circus that he found daunting.

"There were all these reporters, and they went right past our team leader. They wanted to talk to the American [me]," he remembered. "These people were shoving mics in your face and throwing all these questions at you and our public affairs guy was saying, 'Whatever you do, don't talk to reporters!'"I was just doing my job and trying to stay out of the politics," Swahn said.

Swahn returned to his military roots in 2012 to do chemistry research and training for various Army directorates. He spent about four years training Army National Guard soldiers, Reservists and their civil support teams and science offices on lab operations for the Army Chemical Biological Center. He still does this a few weeks every year.

Swahn was working for CARA in 2016 when he deployed with its mobile lab to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, to set up and take samples from the area for U.S. Central Command.

"It was inspiring to support commanders in the field who were making critical decisions on completing their mission while not risking their forces," Swahn said. "I helped answer questions like, 'How do we detect these agents?' 'How long do we have to stay away from areas where this stuff was disseminated?' And, 'What are the effects of these types of chemicals?'"

Over the span of nearly four decades, Swahn has worked at multiple weapons destructions sites in countries all over the world. He's trained inspectors of all nationalities and helped develop various chemical-biological defense programs. Needless to say, he's had a lot of memorable experiences. But he said his favorites have been the travel and the camaraderie.

"Walking through Red Square in Moscow, on top the Great Wall of China, and traveling to the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramids at Gisa are just a few of the most memorable experiences," he said. "Getting to see the magnificent, well-preserved Roman ruins of Sabratha and Leptis Magna [in Libya] was the chance of a lifetime and seeing the ancient ruins of Babylon, Hatra and Samarra [in Iraq] wasn't bad, either."

He said the occasional tension between countries was also pretty memorable.

"Whenever you went anywhere, they always suspected you of being a spy, and we always suspected them of being spies," Swahn said. "I started working before the end of the Cold War, when we were against the Russians. Then, 10-15 years later, I'm in Russia negotiating with these same guys who were thinking about how to kill us, and we were thinking about how to kill them."

As for one of the craziest moments?

"In April 1998, I was showered by a plume of liquid Sarin agent that covered my protective suit during a live agent collection at a destruction facility," he said. "It was pretty crazy, but keeping a cool head and good decontamination allowed me to survive!"

Swahn said the things he's most proud of are the opportunities he had to train various military units in chemical weapons defense and the work he did for the OPCW.

"There are a lot of nasty, nasty chemical weapons out there," he said. "[I'm proud] knowing we were able to clean up about 98% of them 98% of the world's stockpile."

For up-and-coming scientists who are looking to get their foot in the door along a similar career path, Swahn said they need to find what they want and make it happen.

"Dream big, study hard, be willing to travel around the world, and be the best at anything you do," he said.

For Swahn, that meant finding a way to be indispensable when he first started at that entry-level chemist position. At the time, he said the ERDEC was developing a new and complicated system to analyze particulates from old munitions. Only he and one other man knew how to use it properly and that other man was leaving the job.

"When that guy left, they didn't really have a backfill, so they said, 'We've got to find a way to get [Swahn] on, because he's the only one who knows this instrument,'" Swahn recalled. "That's how I got the full-time position."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Visit link:
Face of Defense: A Chemist's Journey to Make 'Bad Unknowns' Known - Department of Defense

GENEVA (AP) U.N.-backed human rights experts said Monday there is evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants in chaos-stricken Libya, including women being forced into sexual slavery.

The investigators commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council also faulted the European Union for sending support to Libyan forces that they say contributed to crimes against migrants and Libyans, and called on EU authorities to review their policies toward Libya.

The findings come in an extensive new report, based on interviews with hundreds of people, including migrants and witnesses, that wraps up a fact-finding mission created nearly three years ago to investigate rights violations and abuses in the North African country. The mission shared its findings with the International Criminal Court.

Oil-rich but largely lawless Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe. A ctivists have long decried horrible conditions faced by migrants who were trafficked and smuggled across the Mediterranean.

Spokespersons for the government in the capital of Tripoli, which works in western Libya, and the forces of a powerful commander that controls eastern and southern Libya, were not immediately available for comment.

The investigators found reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity were committed against Libyans and migrants throughout Libya, said Mohamed Auajjar, the head of the fact-finding mission. Speaking in Arabic through a translator at a news conference in Geneva, he said his team unearthed numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual enslavement and enforced disappearance.

The Libyan coast guard, which has received training and equipment from the EU, has worked in close coordination with trafficking networks in Libya, the report said. The wide-scale exploitation of vulnerable, irregular migrants churned up significant revenue that spurred continued rights violations, it said.

The support given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard in terms of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of certain human rights, said investigator Chaloka Beyani. You cant push back people to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants.

He said the European bloc and its member states werent found to be responsible for war crimes, but the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano told reporters Monday that the EU did not fund the Libyan coast guard nor any other entity in Libya, adding that the EU assistance was meant to improve their performance.

We are providing assistance to help them improve their performance when it comes to search and rescue, be it with vessels, be it with equipment, or previously training with a focus exactly on human rights, he said.

The investigators documented enslavement, rape at times at gunpoint and other sexual abuse against women and men, including by guards working both for state authorities and trafficking groups.

Investigators cited evidence of crimes against humanity in prisons in parts of eastern Libya controlled by forces of commander Khalifa Hifter, as well as in areas controlled by an umbrella group of militias led by Abdel-Ghani al-Kikli, an infamous warlord known as Gheniwa in the capital, Tripoli.

The U.N. migration agency, in its latest report published in mid-March, tallied nearly 700,000 migrants with 42 nationalities in Libya as of the end of last year. The investigators said the situation of human rights has been getting worse.

The missions mandate is ending when the human rights situation in Libya is deteriorating, parallel State authorities are emerging, and the legislative, executive and security sector reforms needed to uphold the rule of law and unify the country are far from being realized, it said.

Libya was plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed, and left the country divided between rival governments on the east and west. The United Nations has been struggling to try to shepherd the country toward new elections.

The International Criminal Court has an ongoing investigation in Libya that was originally called for by the U.N. Security Council during the upheaval that led to Gadhafis ouster. In November, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said his office had joined a coalition of nations investigating human trafficking in the country.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

Read the rest here:
UN-backed probe cites crimes against humanity in Libya - The Associated Press

Fact-finding mission says state security forces and armed militia groups have committed a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

United Nations investigators say there is evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants stuck in Libya, including women being forced into sexual slavery.

The investigators commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council also faulted the European Union for sending support to Libyan forces that they say contributed to crimes against migrants and Libyans.

Investigators said they are deeply concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation in war-scarred Libya, noting there are grounds to believe a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by state security forces and armed militia groups.

Their findings come in an extensive new report, based on interviews with hundreds of people, including migrants and witnesses, that wraps up a fact-finding mission created nearly three years ago to probe rights violations and abuses in the North African country.

The investigators said they collected at least 2,800 items of information documenting numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances that confirmed their widespread practice in Libya.

It is clear that there was a pattern of violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. Particularly in places of detention as well as in relation to migrants, investigator Chaloka Beyani told Al Jazeera.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for refugees and migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are seeking to reach Europe. Human rights groups and activists have long decried the horrible conditions these people are facing.

During the probe into alleged human trafficking and smuggling, the investigators found there are reasonable grounds to believe that migrants across Libya are victims of crimes against humanity and that acts of murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape and other inhumane acts are committed in connection with their arbitrary detention, the report said.

It specifically cited the Libyan coastguard, which has been supported by the EU over the years.

The support given by the EU to the Libyan coastguard in terms of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of certain human rights, said Beyani. You cant push back people to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants.

He said the European bloc and its member states were not found to be responsible for war crimes, but the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes.

The investigators also expressed concern about the deprivation of liberty of Libyans and migrants throughout the country, in what they said could also amount to crimes against humanity.

They found numerous cases of arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance throughout Libya.

People held in detention were regularly subjected to torture, solitary confinement, held incommunicado, and denied adequate access to water, food, toilets, sanitation, light, exercise, medical care, legal counsel, and communication with family members, the investigators said.

But they said nearly all the survivors they interviewed did not lodge official complaints out of fear of reprisals, arrest, extortion and a lack of confidence in the justice system.

The three-member panel said there was a broad effort by the authorities in Libya to repress dissent by civil society.

The investigation found that Libyan authorities, notably the security sectors, were curtailing the rights to assembly, association, expression, and belief in order to ensure obedience, entrench self-serving values and norms, and punish criticism against authorities and their leadership.

Libya was plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed, and left the country divided between rival governments in the east and west.

Here is the original post:
UN mission accuses EU of aiding crimes against humanity in Libya - Al Jazeera English

A United Nations-backed inquiry has found war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Libya by security forces and armed militia groups.

The investigators commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council found, "migrants, in particular, have been targeted and there is overwhelming evidence that they have been systematically tortured."

In the report released on Monday, the team of three independent investigators also said they had reasonable grounds to believe that there were incidents of sexual slavery.

"There is an urgent need for accountability to end this pervasive impunity," Mohamed Auajjar, who led the investigation, said.

Investigators said "there are reasonable grounds to believe that migrants across Libya are victims of crimes against humanity and that acts of murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape and other inhumane acts are committed in connection with their arbitrary detention."

It specifically cited the Libyan coast guard, which the European Union has supported over the years, of being responsible for abuses.

"The support given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard in terms of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of certain human rights," said investigator Chaloka Beyani. "You can't push back people to areas that are unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants."

The coast guard, has worked "in close coordination" with trafficking networks in Libya, the report said.

The "wide-scale exploitation of vulnerable, irregular migrants" churned up "significant revenue" that spurred continued rights violations, it said.

Beyani added the EU wasn't responsible war crimes, but "the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes."

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said the EU did not fund the Libyan coast guard "nor any other entity in Libya," adding that the EU assistance was meant to "improve their performance."

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The investigation, officially named the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, was created nearly three years ago to investigate rights violations and abuses in the North African country.

Its final report are based on interviews with hundreds of people, including migrants and witnesses.

Although migrants bore the brunt of the crimes ordinary Libyans were also targeted as authorities tried to quell dissent by civil society

The report cites cases of "arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance, confirming their widespread practice in Libya".

People detained were regularly subjected to "torture, solitary confinement, held incommunicado, and denied adequate access to water, food, toilets, sanitation, light, exercise, medical care, legal counsel, and communication with family members", the investigators said.

They said evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity would be passed on to the International Criminal Court.

lo/jcg (AP, AFP, Reuters)

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UN-backed probe finds proof of torture, sex slavery in Libya - DW (English)

A UN fact-finding mission has said the European Union "aided and abetted" Libyan authorities' crimes against migrants.

A new report from the UN will be released and presented to the Human Rights Council later this week. According to the report, crimes against humanity were carried out against migrants in detention centres. The report is based on interviews with 400 people including migrants and witnesses, along with photographs and videos.

"Although we're not saying that the EU and its member states have committed these crimes. The point is that the support given has aided and abetted the commission of the crimes," Chaloka Beyani, one of the independent mission's members, said.

The EU and member states have supported and trained the Libyan coastguard, which returns migrants to detention centres. They have also funded Libyan border management programmes.

The vast majority of people attempting the Mediterranean crossing pass through war-torn Libya. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), 32,450 people were intercepted by Libyan forces in 2021 and "hauled back to arbitrary detention and abuse" in the country.

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The UN mission said it would pass any evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court. According to the mission, militia groups have carried out murders, rapes, enslavement, judicial killings, and forced disappearances.

The violations and abuses investigated by the mission were connected primarily to the consolidation of power and wealth by militias and other state-affiliated groups," the report said.

"Trafficking, enslavement, forced labour, imprisonment, extortion and smuggling of vulnerable migrants generated significant revenue for individuals, groups and state institutions.

In 2022, the EU was criticised for using a drone to help Libyan forces intercept boats carrying migrants in the Mediterranean.

The drone, which operated out of EU member Malta, played a "crucial role" in detecting boats leaving Libya, information that the EU's border agency, Frontex, then hands to the Libyan coastguard, HRW said.

"Frontex claims the surveillance is to aid rescue, but the information facilitates interceptions and returns to Libya... [despite] overwhelming evidence of torture and exploitation of migrants and refugees in Libya," HRW said in a statement.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Excerpt from:
UN investigation says EU 'aided' crimes against humanity in Libya - Middle East Eye