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Letter to respondents of our appeal for Tribunal on US war crimes in
Iraq and to many other colleagues on suggested follow up actions
(6 June
2003)
Dear Friends,
1. This is letter of follow up on our original letter of
appeal to the Secretary General of Amnesty International requesting the
AI to lead the international human rights and peace community against US
war crimes in Iraq. The letter was sent to the Amnesty on April 17, 2003
and released to the public on April 18, 2003. Some of you may have
already received a copy of that letter from us or from other friends.
That letter is enclosed here again as attachment.
2. We are writing this follow up letter in order to request to
you to consider the ideas and plans for future action briefly outlined
at the end, join us in this initiative, and support the work in ways
suggested by us or by any other manner you think fit. We are
committed to working together and we look forward to your ideas,
suggestions and contributions.
3. Since the publication of the open letter on April 18, 2003,
we have received encouraging responses from many peace and human rights
activists, jurists, academics, medical practitioners, media persons and
political workers. Almost every one agrees that an independent war
crimes tribunal on Iraq must be constituted, and towards that we have to
take preparatory steps. Most of the respondents also agree that the lead
has to come from the people of the once colonized countries, while the
support of anti-war activists from the countries of the West and the
examples set by them remain valuable and as inspiring as ever.
4. This war, more than any other in recent times, has shown
the difference between the colonisers and the colonised and the semi-colonised. The
experience of the colonised and the semi-colonised people is different
from that of the colonisers. It is we, the people of the once colonised
and semi-colonised countries, who have witnessed the manipulation of our
history, denigration of our culture, destruction and looting of our
heritage, wealth and resources. In all these, the so-called
international human rights and humanitarian laws and institutions have
proved ineffective. For instance the Geneva Conventions failed to come
to the aid of the invaded people of Iraq. We also see how some of the
states who remained silent or had mildly opposed the American war on
Iraq, are now trying to get the lucrative contracts for Iraq's
re-construction. There is already talk, that the cost of the war and the
reconstruction will be taken out of the oil wealth of Iraq, and that the
United States, the occupation power, and its allies will control that
wealth. It is clear that the disagreement between the American led junta
and several other states as to who will "control" Iraq's oil wealth will
be soon over.
5. The Geneva Conventions contain clear provisions about the
responsibility of the occupying forces to prevent pillage and looting.
It enjoins on the occupying force the responsibility of protecting all
the civilian infrastructures and heritage sites. Yet, after taking over
Baghdad the US forces allowed the looting and destruction of
the precious heritage of humankind, stored in the National Museum of
Baghdad; one of the oldest collection of Koranic texts dating back to
the 16th century was deliberately burnt; and there is evidence that many
of the ancient artefacts from the National Museum of Baghdad have
already reached European and American cities for sale. Many reports have
reached us to the effect that the Coalition troops also allowed the
burning and looting of offices of the ministries dealing with the vital
infrastructure of Iraq - health, education, transport and
communications, power and food supply, which were necessary for the
reconstruction of the war ravaged country. For obvious reasons the
occupying army protected the ministries of petroleum and interior. The
Iraqi peoples, their national heritage, cultural, religious and social
heritage and resources have been deliberately destroyed.
6. As is already evident, people of Iraq are resisting the
illegal American and British occupation of their land. The occupying
powers assisted by sections of the western media are trying to project
the just resistance of the people of Iraq as terrorist activities of the
"remnants" of the old Saddam regime. Iraq which until recently was one
of the most secular societies of the Arab world, had high level of
literacy, a comprehensive health service and a large number of highly
trained persons in all fields of technology and learning is now slowly
and deliberately being pushed into the maws of obscurantism and
religious fanaticism. This is being done not only to prove the bogus
theory of "clash of civilisations", but also to deny the oppressed
people their right to resist and revolt against oppression, a right
enshrined in the now defunct Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
7. We need to start working on the question of crimes
committed by the Coalition forces immediately. This is part of the
internationalist agenda of the peace and human rights movement, which
must untie itself from the agenda of some human rights organisations in
the United States and United Kingdom, who are turning a blind eye to the
crimes being committed on the ex-colonial countries by the two powers.
Several friends have suggested that we develop a step-by- step strategy
in this regard. We agree with their suggestions. Based of their comments
and suggestions we have developed the following four-part plan of
action.
Preparing an exhaustive dossier on the crimes perpetrated on Iraq by
the occupying states since 1991. This dossier will also contain facts on
what the UN and other agencies did and did not do when they had
information about the massive suffering in Iraq during the period of
sanctions, particularly the oil for food programme. The dossier will be
prepared on the basis of already available and published information. We
need to immediately put one or two persons on this task. This research
and writing of the dossier might take about 3 to 4 months. This dossier
must be published and circulated as widely as possible. A desk needs to
be constituted for that.
The other important segment of this dossier will be local
information, which now has to be collected immediately on case or
selected basis, of reported events of war crimes – indeed before the
occupying powers mange to erase evidence and traces of their crimes. The
dossier will contain other evidences and testimonies, which can act as
the first information report on Iraq, on the basis of which the
international human rights community can move ahead.
On the basis of the dossier prepared by an Iraq Desk through various
ways of collecting facts (archival and library work, collection and
selection of reports, first hand inquiry into crimes and cases of
massive abuses), we should constitute an International Commission. The
work of constituting the Commission can proceed simultaneously with the
work of conducting the primary inquiry. The Commission will study the
dossier and select between 10 to 15 specific cases. The commission will
send about 5 investigators to Iraq to make as extensive an investigation
as possible into all the selected cases/charges. They will collect
information, evidence and witnesses for these cases.
On the basis of the Commission’s report, an International Tribunal
may be set up. The tribunal will comprise eminent judges drawn from the
countries colonised and semi-colonised in the past, and other
international jurists committed to human rights and peace. The cases
investigated by the Commission and its investigators will be presented
before this International Tribunal. The Tribunal will frame charges and
these will be given wide publicity through media and various
alternative networks. The public trial of the war criminals will be held
in open court and it will follow the internationally established norms
and procedure for such trials – the laws, norms and institutions, which
the US and its allies had violated and tried to destroy.
8. Obviously the all-powerful "accused" will ignore the public
tribunal and will not appear before it. The tribunal will not be able to
"punish" them. But the public trial of these accused will hopefully
achieve the following objectives.
First it will demonstrate to the world public in general and to the
people of the ex-colonial countries in particular the nature and the
dimensions of the crimes against humanity that these greedy
power-maddened states have committed even according to the
"international law and norms" that these very states claim to have
created.
It will also demonstrate the solidarity of the colonised people of
this world and their deep commitment to an international order based on
law, equity, justice and freedom. By exposing crimes, lies and the greed
of the American junta we shall be able to counter their attempts to de-legitimise
the resistance of the Iraqi people and their just struggle for
liberation of their country from the clutches of the occupying forces.
Through the report and recommendations of this Tribunal, we the
people of the "once colonised countries" shall present to the world a
set of concrete measures in law and practices which will not allow any
state, howsoever powerful it might be, to declare war on any other
country at its will and in clear violation of international opinion.
9. In this proposed plan of action and through this, we want
to develop a perspective, a shared perspective that can counter the "New
Empire". In inquiring into the war crimes, we shall not exclude crimes
committed by any side. The idea is to develop a shared perspective on
this very important development of our time, and in that task limiting
the inquiry and the accompanying document to crimes committed by any
particular party will not help. The focus in our work will be formed by
the context in the backdrop of which the goals of the proposed inquiry
have to be seen. The self-destructive dynamics of the region is linked
to a paradigm of neo-colonial political and strategic control, which was
imposed on Iraq and the entire region much more than a decade ago,
indeed long back, and therefore all crimes of war and crimes against
humanity will be seen and placed within that context. In that
perspective, it is still possible to suggest, at least as a supposition
for scrutiny, that making the region safe for Israeli hegemony and
breaking the backbone of Arab resistance was one of the motives behind
the war. If that is so, and that will have to be reasonably established,
the coalition forces are committing crimes of greater magnitude and
implications.
10. The points of mandate or the terms of reference of the
proposed inquiry and the dossier have to be stated clearly, so that you
know what perspective has impelled our appeal before you decide to
support it. These terms of reference briefly are:
We are inquiring a decade long war and not a less-than-a month war.
As explained in our original letter of appeal, the war on Iraq was by no
means a short duration war that we were witness to. This war was a
decade long war in which many actors played the role of aggressor or
silent spectator. These actors include the global media giants, which
bayed for blood of the Iraqi people, and even the UN Security Council,
which imposed strict economic blockade on the country and disarmed the
country completely thereby rendering Iraq defenceless in face of the
impending aggression. The examination of this proposition should form
part of the dossier. The part played by men like Wolfowitz and a dozen
or so lobbyists over the last 10 years or so, and even before 11
September, in indefatigably pressing the case for war on Iraq should by
no means be excluded from examination. The need to examine the dynamics
of the appearance of the "New Empire" is great.
We are inquiring the ambitious, aggressive, the far-reaching
interventionism of the "New Empire", which is the political face of the
extreme right wing form of globalisation, and is based on neo-colonial
methods and strategies, is today the root cause of tensions and war, and
therefore must be subjected to interrogation by the peace and human
rights movement. The interventionism, which we witness today, is
apparently new and points to the success of those who have been lobbying
for the last decade for wars everywhere. It may not be easy to
reconstruct the sequence of decision-making, discern the true reasons
that tipped the scales, pinpoint the actual characters who carried the
day. But there is the record of public debate and the dominant voices in
it, easy to access. We are calling for the examination of the dominant
voices, voices of men like Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Ari
Fleischer, James Wolfensohn, Robert Kagan, Martin Pertz, Morton
Zuckerman, Newt Gingrich and a score of others, and an examination of
what has made them to be so influential and powerful. It would be
possible to demonstrate that the success of this lobby comprises in
something more fundamental than being able to place the USA into an
aggressive gear. The process started long back – a little after the WW
II. Since then a Westerner, even half-way literate, press-reading, TV
watching, who reaches adulthood, has been subjected to hundreds of
thousands of pro-Israel stimuli; hammered in at school, work, home,
entertainment, cultural life, everywhere, year in year out – that any
opposition to American, Israel, and Christian values and actions is
heinous, the ultimate crime, and is anti-Semitism that must be rooted
out. In the beginning, this ideological dominance relied on a massive
sense of remorse in western societies. But soon it turned into something
more solid and durable: an entrenched system of values and
representations, with "plus" or "minus" tags firmly attached to all
items in the moral and ideological landscape.
We are inquiring the true power base of the global war lobby which
appears to have shifted from banking and academia to the media and
twilight institutions like the think-tanks, filled by glib, shallow, but
also smart enough, cunning, arrogant, and increasingly power-intoxicated
intellectuals who set the trends and position themselves at the hub of
the American system, coordinating and mediating between the executive
power, the lobbies, the Pentagon, the Intelligence community, the
diplomatic corps, big business, and the media; giving the administration
ideological guidelines, supplying "intellectually challenged
politicians" like Bush with private advisers, coaches, speech-writers
etc; and feeding the nation as a whole with ready-made ideas. The
unquestioned US support for Israel, with all its costs also for "buying"
compliance of countries, for instance of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen, etc., would not have happened if Americans
had not been brainwashed into viewing Israel as something of a sister
country: another pioneer nation, a melting-pot like them, a carrier of
democracy like them, gallantly battling terrorism, a country as
obviously chosen in its way as the USA in its. The result is that
grotesque alliance between the entire Protestant fundamentalist
constituency that give the Bush administration the "moral sustenance"
and the Israeli constituency. Of course, the Protestant fundamentalists
are temperamentally and intellectually far removed from the Israeli
mind-set. And, few things traditionally infuriate the Zionists hard-core
than having Christian interpretations put on their history and
destinies. But all strategic and tactical alliances are two-way
processes of give and take. Since the Protestant fundamentalist
constituency has come round to the view that rebirth and consolidation
of Israel is part of some divine scheme -- something to be encouraged
and fostered, the Zionist constituency has to make its compromises too.
In this grotesque alliance behind the "New Empire", intellectuals like
Samuel Huntington, R. Scott Appleby, Daniel Pipe, Bernard Lewis, and
others, are just private recruit.
We are thus calling for an examination of the role of media giants
also, engaged in supporting the New Empire, such as the CNN or the BBC
in inciting war, mass murders, and destruction of states and countries.
In all these, we are calling back to memory the colonial times when
wars of intervention, financial wars, and wars of aggression started at
least in the modern age - the colonial wars and genocides. Crimes
against humanity started then and still continue, and this explains the
relative ineffectiveness of the humanitarian laws and the human rights
laws when they are to be applied on the great power, which is the
victor.
In this enterprise, the rules of inquiry will be thus designed by
these specific terms of reference, specific aims, specific norms to
decide the quantum of punishment, and most important, the roll-call of
the accused.
11. We are aware that this is a very big task, beyond a small
group’s means and capacity. It will require a lot of effort,
coordination, and resource. We should make serious effort to do this to
counter the re-colonization of the world. Kindly comment on these
suggestions; give your suggestions, and contribute to our efforts. These
contributions can be done in the following ways:
You can use part of your time or part of the human resources of your
institution towards collecting information, gathering relevant
commentaries, and related facts. We can at the end of three months
gather all information to be integrated in a dossier. We can, if you
want, indicate the areas in which the facts have to be collected and
collated. In any case, our original letter of appeal and this one
indicate the areas and issues on which the dossier is to be made. We can
have a monthly update on the material we are collecting.
You can volunteer or send a volunteer to take part in the inquiry
team, and it is good if you know Arabic language or can send an Arabic
language knowing volunteer, or have a translator as your colleague on
whom we can rely.
On behalf of the team we shall set up a separate fund for the entire
work and shall maintain a separate account. We have no money to begin
with. If you can, please send us a donation of minimum US $ 100/-
towards establishing an Iraq desk. Depending on the availability of
volunteers and the amount of contribution gathered, we shall decide the
location and the nature of the desk.
We shall prepare a brochure to begin the work. We can send you the
English-language material in print ready form, you can then print it in
order to circulate it as widely as possible, translate in different
languages and publish them.
Finally, if you know of other institutions ready to assist and
sponsor this cause, please bring the programme to their notice, and urge
upon them to support us.
We look forward to your response.
In solidarity,
Paula Banerjee (University of Calcutta, Calcutta)
Tapan K. Bose (South Asia Forum for Human Rights, Kathmandu)
Meghna Guhathakurta (University of Dhaka, Dhaka)
Ram Narayan Kumar (Committee for Informatin and Initiative on Punjab,
Chandigarh)
Rita Manchanda (South Asia Forum for Human Rights, Kathmandu)
Dinesh Mohan (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)
Gautam Navlakha (Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy,
India)
Subodh raj Pyakurel (INSEC, Kathmandu)
Sushil Pyakurel (National Human Rights Commission, Nepal, Kathmandu)
I.A. Rehman (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan)
Ranabir Samaddar (South Asia Forum for Human Rights, Kathmandu)
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