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War
Crimes Case in Belgium Illustrates Folly of Blair’s Belief That US is Interested
in Justice
by
George Monbiot
May
21, 2003
Belgium
is becoming an interesting country. In the course of a week, it has managed to
upset both liberal opinion in Europe - by granting the far-right Vlaams Blok 18
parliamentary seats - and illiberal opinion in the United States. On Wednesday,
a human rights lawyer filed a case with the federal prosecutors whose purpose
is to arraign Thomas Franks, the commander of the American troops in Iraq, for
crimes against humanity. This may be the only judicial means, anywhere on
earth, of holding the US government to account for its actions.
The
case has been filed in Belgium, on behalf of 17 Iraqis and two Jordanians,
because Belgium has a law permitting foreigners to be tried for war crimes,
irrespective of where they were committed. The suit has little chance of
success, for the law was hastily amended by the government at the beginning of
this month. But the fact that the plaintiffs had no choice but to seek redress
in Belgium speaks volumes about the realities of Tony Blair's vision for a
world order led by the US, built on democracy and justice.
Franks
appears to have a case to answer. The charges fall into four categories: the
use of cluster bombs; the killing of civilians by other means; attacks on the
infrastructure essential for public health and the failure to prevent the
looting of hospitals. There is plenty of supporting evidence. [1]
US
forces dropped around 1500 cluster bombs from the air and fired an unknown
quantity from artillery pieces. British troops fired 2100. [2]
Each contained several hundred bomblets, which fragment into shrapnel. Between
200 and 372 Iraqi civilians were killed by them during the war. [3]
Others, mostly children, continue to be killed by those bomblets which failed
to explode when they hit the ground. The effects of their deployment in
residential areas were both predictable and predicted. This suggests that their
use there breached protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits
"violence to the life, health and physical or mental well-being" of
non-combatants. [4]
On
several occasions, US troops appear to have opened fire on unarmed civilians.
In Nasiriya, they shot at any vehicle that approached their positions. In one
night alone, they killed 12 civilians. [5] On a bridge on
the outskirts of Baghdad, they shot 15 in two days. [6]
Last month, US troops fired on peaceful demonstrators in Mosul, killing seven,
and in Fallujah, killing 13 and injuring 75. [7] All these
actions appear to offend the 4th convention.
The
armed forces also deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure, bombing the
electricity lines upon which water treatment plants depended, with the result
that cholera and dysentery have spread. Protocol II prohibits troops from
attacking "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian
population such as ... drinking water installations and supplies". [8]
The
4th convention also insists that an occupying power is responsible for
"ensuring and maintaining ... the medical and hospital establishments and
services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory". [9] Yet when the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was
asked why his troops had failed to prevent the looting of public buildings, he
replied, "Stuff happens. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit
crimes and do bad things." [10] Many hospitals
remain closed or desperately under-supplied.
On
several occasions, US soldiers acted on orders to fire at Iraqi ambulances,
killing or wounding their occupants. [11] They shot at
the medical crews which came to retrieve the dead and wounded at the demonstration
in Fallujah. [12] The Geneva Conventions suggest that
these are straightforward war crimes: "medical units and transports shall
be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of
attack." [13]
The
armed forces of the United States, in other words, appear to have taken short
cuts while prosecuting their war with Iraq. Some of these may have permitted
them to conclude their war more swiftly, but at the expense of the civilian
population. Repeatedly, in some cases systematically, US soldiers appear to
have broken the laws of war.
We
should not be surprised to learn that the US government has responded to the
suit with outrage. The State Department has warned Belgium that it will punish
nations which permit their laws to be used for "political ends". The
Belgian government hasn't waited to discover what this means. It has amended
the law and denounced the lawyer who filed the case.
The
Bush government's response would doubtless be explained by its apologists as a
measure of its insistence upon and respect for national sovereignty. But while
the US forbids other nations to proscribe the actions of its citizens, it also
insists that its own laws should apply abroad. The Foreign Sovereignty
Immunities Act, for example, permits the US courts to prosecute foreigners for
harming commercial interests in the United States, even if they are breaking no
laws within their own countries. The Helms-Burton Act allows the courts in
America to confiscate the property of foreign companies which do business with
Cuba. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act instructs the government to punish foreign
firms investing in the oil or gas sectors in those countries. The message these
laws send is this: you can't prosecute us, but we can prosecute you.
Of
course, the sensible means of resolving legal disputes between nations is the
use of impartial, multinational tribunals, such as the International Criminal
Court in the Hague. But impartial legislation is precisely what the US
government will not contemplate. When the ICC treaty was being negotiated, the
United States demanded that its troops should be exempt from prosecution, and
the UN Security Council gave it what it wanted. The US also helped to ensure
that the court's writ runs only in the nations which have ratified the treaty.
Its soldiers in Iraq would thus have been exempt in any case, as Saddam
Hussein's government was one of seven which voted against the formation of the
court in 1998. The others were China, Israel, Libya, Qatar, Yemen and the
United States. [14] This is the company the American
government keeps when it comes to international law.
To
ensure that there was not the slightest possibility that his servicemen need
fear the rule of law, last year George Bush signed a new piece of
extra-territorial legislation, which permits the US "to use all means
necessary and appropriate to bring about the release" of US citizens being
tried in the court.14 This appears to include the invasion of the capital of
the Netherlands.
All
this serves to illustrate the grand mistake Tony Blair is making. The empire he
claims to influence entertains no interest in his moral posturing. Its vision
of justice between nations is the judicial oubliette of Guantanamo Bay. The
idea that it might be subject to the international rule of law, and therefore
belong to a world order in which other nations can participate, is as
unthinkable in Washington as a six-month public holiday. If Blair does not
understand this, he has missed the entire point of US foreign policy. If he
does understand it, he has misled us as to the purpose of his own diplomacy.
The US government does not respect the law between nations. It is the law.
George Monbiot is Honorary
Professor at the Department of Politics in Keele and Visiting Professor at the
Department of Environmental Science at the University of East London. He writes
a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper of London. The Age of Consent, George Monbiot's proposals
for global democratic governance, will be published in June. His articles and
contact info can be found at his website: www.monbiot.com
References:
1.
The Facts Files on this case can be viewed at http://belgium.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/63322.php
Most of the sources referenced here are cited on this page.
2.
ibid
3.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/editorial.htm
4.
Article 4, Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and
relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts
(Protocol II), 8 June 1977.
5.
Mark Franchetti, 30th March 2003. US Marines Turn Fire on Civilians at the
Bridge of Death. The Times.
6.
Michel Guerrin, 13th April 2003. J'ai vu des marines américains tuer des
civils. Le Monde.
7.
Eg Associated Press, 29th April 2003. U.S. soldiers fire on Iraqi protesters;
hospital chief says 13 Iraqis are dead.
8.
Article 14, Protocol II, ibid
9.
Article 56, Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in
Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
10.
Brian Whitaker, 12th April 2003. Free to do bad things. The Guardian.
11.
eg AFP, 10th April 2003. US troops fire on ambulance, two killed.
12.
eg Associated Press, 29th April 2003. U.S. soldiers fire on Iraqi protesters;
hospital chief says 13 Iraqis are dead.
13.
Article 11, Protocol II, ibid.
14.
Section 2008, The American Servicemembers' Protection Act, 2002