The latest leaked cables from the US delegation to NATO, written in September 2008, allege that “Norway’s ambassador emphasized the need to avoid a public debate about the reporting of the number of civilians killed”. According to reports in the Norwegian media, the cables claim to record then-Norwegian ambassador and former deputy foreign minister Kim Traavik ridiculing the UN’s civilian death toll figures, stating that “UN employees themselves in Kabul doubt the method that is used”.
Traavik – currently Norway’s ambassador to the UK – denied any conscious suppression, telling Aftenposten the US embassy cable account revealed in the WikiLeaks documents “must be a misunderstanding”. He claimed Norway was one of the countries that “most strongly argued” that NATO and ISAF had to implement measures to reduce civilian losses. “We did this for humanitarian reasons”, Traavik said, “but also with consideration to public opinion in member nations and Afghanistan”.
The secretary general of the Norwegian branch of Amnesty International, John Peder Egenæs, said that “it is completely unacceptable that Norway has gone along with covering up the death toll”. He described the revelations as “contrary to what we expect of Norwegian authorities and the impression the government wants to give of itself”.
The allegations are particularly embarrassing given that Norway is the lead nation on a multi-stakeholder process known as the Oslo Declaration on Armed Violence, which “commit states to implement a number of concrete measures to prevent and reduce armed violence. Systematic monitoring and measurement of armed violence, integration of efforts to combat armed violence into development plans at all levels of government and recognition of victims’ rights are key elements".
Afghanistan is one of the member states that have signed this commitment, although both ISAF and the Afghan Government continue to fall well-short of such "systematic monitoring and measurement". A civil society group, led by Action on Armed Violence, is developing principles and norms for armed violence monitoring for advocating to states.
Norway has been funding casualty recording projects around the world for many years – a stance that is completely at odds with the alleged statements of its NATO Ambassador in 2008. Most notably, Norway supported the Bosnian Book of the Dead, which is a complete name database of all the victims of the Bosnia war of 1992-5.
NATO usually responds to civilian casualties by apologising for the loss of life, promising an investigation and putting the blame on the Taliban. Recent reports suggest that human rights groups working in Afghanistan have shifted their focus from abuses attributed to NATO forces towards those committed by Taliban insurgents – in part, because NATO and US military leaders were beginning to make good on their promise to reduce civilian casualties. However, the latest accounts of mass casualties in Afghanistan, with up to 50 civilians or insurgents killed in NATO air strikes, is certain to re-ignite debates about how NATO responds to allegations of civilian casualties.