Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 20. April 2005 / Time Line April 20, 2005
Version 3.019. April 2005, 21. April 2005
04/20/2005
2005 Alan Cranston Peace Award
Honoring Ted Turner
On April 20th, at the United Nations in New York City, the
Global Security Institute will honor Ted Turner with the 2005
Alan Cranston Peace Award.
The award honors leaders who, through their actions, demonstrate
the principles for which Senator Cranston devoted his life.
Appropriately, the Peace Award will be presented by President
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Kilde:Avery, John: Ted
Turner Protests Against the Death of Democracy. 
04/20/2005
Aid worker uncovered America's secret tally of Iraqi civilian
deaths
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=631173&host=3&dir=75
A week before she was
killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker
Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did
keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.
Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said
the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so
by the Geneva Conventions.
But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on
Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a
Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure"
for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant.
She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad
between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been
killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was
four times the number of Iraqi police killed.
"These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does
track civilian casualties," she wrote. "Troops on the ground keep
these records because they recognise they have a responsibility to
review each action taken and that it is in their interest to
minimise mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of
Iraqis is a key component of their strategy."
Sam Zia-Zarifi, deputy director of the Asia division of Human
Rights Watch, the group for which Ms Ruzicka wrote the report, said
her discovery "was very important because it allows the victims to
start demanding compensation". He added: "At a policy level they
have never admitted they keep these figures..."
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