KLFCW Vol. 2 No.1 by Futri Salleh

Volume 2 No.1 PP 17742/10/2013(033047)

CRIMINALISE WAR QUARTERLY ORGAN OF THE KUALA LUMPUR FOUNDATION TO CRIMINALISE WAR

ISRAEL FOUND

Y T L I GU OF GENOCIDE Criminalise War, Energise Peace.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;if you uphold the sanctity of life of one person who is killed, then why is it that you do not apply the same sanctity for the millions of people who have been killed in war?â&#x20AC;?

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad The Fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR

FOREWORD BY TUN DR MAHATHIR MOHAMAD

FROM THE DESK OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

EDITORIAL

ISRAEL FOUND GUILTY OF GENOCIDE AT KL TRIBUNAL

THE CASE AGAINST AMOS YARON & THE STATE OF ISRAEL

PICTURE GALLERY ON KL TRIBUNAL NOV 2013

EDITOR

EDITORIAL BOARD

DESIGN & LAYOUT

G.S. KUMAR

ALA AAZRAA MERICAN AZIMAH NOR HAMZAN NUR QISTINA GANDING

FUTRI NAJLA SALLEH

GENOCIDE AND STATE IMMUNITY : A REFRESHING APPROACH BY KLWCT ON JUS COGENS

WHAT THEY SAID

A NEW EPISODE OF GENOCIDE IN (DEMOCRATIC) IRAQ

THE BANDUNG FORUM

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS YEAR 2013

BACKGROUND READING FOR CWC MEMBERS

THE HOTSPOTS OF THE WORLD 2

CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

THE SYRIAN TURMOIL CONTINUES

THE SYRIAN SITUATION IN PICTURES

A GIANT WALKS WITH US NO MORE

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE MICHAEL HOURIGAN

LETTER FROM DR. ANG SWEE CHAI

CHILDREN’S CHARTER TO CRIMINALISE WAR

Volume 2 No.1 PP 17742/10/2013(033047)

CRIMINALISE WAR QUARTERLY ORGAN OF THE KUALA LUMPUR FOUNDATION TO CRIMINALISE WAR

ISRAEL FOUND

GUILTY OF GENOCIDE

PRINTER INDAH MULTIPURPOSE TRADING & SERVICES

Criminalise War, Energise Peace. Vol. 2

No. 1

Jan 2014

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR

FOREWORD BY Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Time is not just a healer, but it also provides the opportunity to reflect upon what has been done, what has been achieved and what could have been done better. It is important to draw lessons from this passage of time. The Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) has on reflection achieved much this past year, despite the many disruptions and difficulties. More importantly, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal has had the courage to do what no others have done before â&#x20AC;&#x201C; take Israel to court and convict that state of the crime of genocide. This is a moral victory for us, even if none of the victims can ever obtain justice in custodial terms or even war reparations. The moot point is simply this, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal has established a principle of international justice that a state is not above the law. Will this judgment bring about a change of heart in Israel? I do not think so, in fact, one can expect even harsher treatment of Palestinians and especially those who risked their lives to come here to Kuala Lumpur to provide testimony. To them and the panel of judges who delivered the landmark verdict, I extend my personal gratitude. It gives hope to all that some where there are those who can distinguish between right and wrong. 4

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I note with a sense of pride that this publication, Criminalise War has now entered into its second volume, a feat in itself considering the many obstacles in its way. It renews my belief that there are dedicated people in the KLFCW who are prepared to work hard for our cause. At the same time, a whole host of people have to be thanked for their untiring work over the years in undertaking the many tasks of the KLFCW. Our work is not done yet. However I remain confident that we have a large enough pool of people to undertake what the Foundation was entrusted with when it was incorporated.To those who have given us time, effort and even financial support, I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation. Our tasks are onerous, but at least now displaced Palestinians and others who have suffered injustices know that there is one Tribunal which will give them a fair hearing. We will not fail those who seek our assistance.

TUN DR MAHATHIR MOHAMAD Founder & Chairman of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW)

â&#x20AC;&#x153; In relation to the charges against State of Israel for genocide and war crimes, the Tribunal is conscious of the novelty of the issues raised. It wishes to confront these issues head-on with a view to furthering the ideals of international law and to interpret existing precedents in such a way as to make them as good as can be from the point of view of justice and morality. â&#x20AC;? Final Judgment of Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine, Sabra & Shatila 20- 25 November 2013

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR

FROM THE DESK OF THE

SECRETARY-GENERAL One would have thought that the questions posed by Argentinian singer Alberto Cortez in his moving song, excerpted below, on the September 1982 Sabra and Shatila genocide, should have touched the hearts of many a soul, especially one whose life was almost lost in a previous similar episode : Where was I? At what party, careless, when I read the news? And where were you – you so eager to defend the oppressed – when the massacre happened? Where is the pride of men? … Where were you, my friend with the sleeping conscience? Were you clapping the attacker, as he killed the children of Sabra and Shatila? But evidently, holocaust survivor and nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel remained unmoved by that brutal bloodbath at Sabra and Shatila. On April 12, 1999, some seventeen years after the massacre, Wiesel gave a speech in the East Room of the White House as part of the Millennium Lecture series, hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. He spoke at length of the failures of Man in the face of adversity and the consequences of Man’s indifference over tragedies: These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations -- Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin -- bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence, so much indifference… Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own. In his speech, Wiesel was forthright in his criticism of war-time U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt for his “indifference” over an incident which he asserted resulted in the death of some 1,000 Jews: The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo -- maybe 1,000 Jews -- was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned,

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thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already on the shores of the United States, was sent back.I don’t understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help. Why didn’t he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people -in America, a great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don’t understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of the victims? Yet, in his impassioned speech, Weisel was himself indifferent to those who were brutally killed during the 1982 massacre. Not a word on Sabra and Shatila was breathed out from his mouth as he gave his presentation in the presence of the august White House audience. And it is therefore with truly a sense of elation amongst all of us here at the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War after the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal delivered its momentous verdict last November when it found both Amos Yaron and the State of Israel guilty of genocide for their part in the Sabra-Shatila massacre. Unlike nobel laureate Wiesel and so many others, we walked the talk and brought some closure to what the victims and survivors of the tragedy had sought for over thirty years. What next from here? In its judgment, the Tribunal, mindful of its stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of enforcement, nevertheless, ordered that reparations commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering undergone by the complainant war crime victims be paid to them by the two convicted parties, namely Amos Yaron and the State of Israel. Reparation, i.e. the obligation of a wrongdoer to redress the damage caused to the injured party, is a principle of law that has existed for centuries. It is our hope that those States at the UN General Assembly which, in 2005, had the adopted the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, would take the necessary measures to compel the two convicted wrongdoers to abide by the Tribunal’s reparation order and bring to a full closure one of the most heinous episodes in the history of mankind.

DR YAACOB HUSAIN MERICAN

Secretary-General Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War Inc

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Editorial The new year brings with it new challenges especially since we have moved on into our second year of publication. There is much to reflect upon, like the first-ever indictment of the State of Israel, found guilty of genocide by the KL War Crimes Tribunal. It was as many recall, a trial held in twoparts. But to those who endured the nail biting disruptions, the tantrums displayed by one person in particular, and the sitting of a panel of judges capable of delivering a legal masterpiece, were all worth the length of time it took. This was a moral victory for the victims, the prosecution and of course the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW), the organization that gave these Palestinians the platform

to air their plight and seek justice. The happiness at the verdict was felt all round, especially since there was the knowledge that these “victorious” victims could face even more danger when they returned to their occupied lands. But the very trial, the gathering of evidence, the legal process and the spirited defence by the Amicus CurIae all served to remind a disinterested world community, that justice can and will be done – even if it’s but a moral verdict with no enforcement. One cannot but also note that earlier in January 8

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2014, the world heard of the death of Ariel Sharon after being in a coma since 2006. He was a general turned politician and served as Defence Minister and later held office as Prime Minister. He was perhaps the one man who should have been brought to trial for having done nothing to prevent the massacres at refugee camps in Lebanon. To some he was a “hero” of the Six Day War, but to the world he was the butcher who caused the Second Intifada and walled in the occupied lands. We merely record his death because of his links with the trial last November in Kuala Lumpur. Of greater importance to us was the passing of Nelson Mandela, who had close personal ties with several Malaysian leaders. His death brought to an

end his Long Walk To Freedom, the autobiography that shows no trace of bitterness or anger at his harsh treatment. It is almost impossible to imagine that such a forgiving man walked this earth. It is however ironic to note that Madiba had to share his Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk, the former white President of South Africa, and not be given the award outright. The irony is that Barak Obama got the same prize for doing nothing – save the hope that he would do something to bring about a Middle East peace.

This is the manner in which the big powers “rule” the world and ensure that their interests are always looked after.

region. I can only presume that they had done a similar hatchet job on Malaysia and Indonesia was their next victim. The story does not end there…the woman seated next to me had her laptop on as the plane was taxiing for take off….there was a slight delay in take off, as the skies were filled with aircraft waiting their turn to lift off. Despite two reminders by friendly cabin staff to shut down her laptop, she continued to use the device…asking instead to have the piped in music switched off. Only on the third time of being reminded she closed the cover….then sitting next to the window, she peered out into the sky. A nearby cloud cluster seemed to give her a shock…and I did remember saying to myself, she is human after all….but once the seatbelt signs were switched off, she continued her writings… and I knew she was a travel writer….

Years earlier, there was a similar sharing of the Peace Prize, when a Catholic Bishop of Dili in then East Timor was named co-winner of the prize with Ramos Horta, who had led the fight to obtain independence from Indonesia. The bemused clergyman merely accepted the award, reiterating that he was a man in the service of God and only looked after his flock. It also reminds me of the sheer arrogance of many of these journalists and travel writers who jet in, spend a few days in a luxury hotel, get the right royal treatment by local hosts, and then fly off with a “poor assessment” of the country they stayed in. On a recent flight to Jakarta, I was sandwiched in the middle seat, economy class of course, just after the Business Class. It’s a bit awkward being seated there. But next to me was an American woman writer/ cum /whatever (I knew from her accent that she was American). Just behind us sat another passenger (part of the same group as this lady) making a loud statement that he did not want any meal that had pork or beef served to him on a Malaysia Airways flight!!!! Where did this goon come from? Would our national airline serve pork? Grow up, get educated and do proper homework when you travel to lands that have a far more courteous outlook to life. And these were people who were going to write about countries in this

Did she behave better when the plane was landing….no,no, no….and for this I blame our mild mannered cabin staff for not enforcing the rules. Why Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was asked to remove his belt when he arrived some time ago in the US. The Tun accepted it as “the rules” even if he travelled on a diplomatic passport. So some rules for us, and some others for them. Indian diplomat gets arrested in New York, strip searched and thrown into jail with the local riff raff. At least India asked one US diplomat to get out in retaliation. Russia has a policy against gays, so the US sends openly gay athletes to attend the Winter Olympics. Then of course there is the story of the troubles in South Sudan. US marines are sent there to get their citizens out. Could any nation on earth send their own troops to the US to evacuate their citizens should there be race riots in any American city? Not even China or the Russians will be allowed to do that. Time for “big brother” to behave himself. This year, we hope to see more Criminalise War Clubs being established in schools in the country. The last two months of the year usually prevents any activities in schools as all gear up for exams. Time to get going again.

The Editor JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR

ISRAEL FOUND

Y T L I U G OF GENOCIDE AT KL TRIBUNAL by G.S. KUMAR No nation, so far removed from the scene of atrocities, genocide, murder and inhumane treatment of Palestinians, has had the courage, conviction and the gumption to provide a measure of “justice” to the sufferers. No international court has thought it worthy of even considering the overwhelming evidence of more than 60 years, for they remain beholden to the superior powers that back such atrocities. Instead poor helpless Black Africans are the easy target when it comes to the notions of international justice. That was until last November 25th 2013, when the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal returned a verdict of guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide against a former Israeli General and the State of Israel. This momentous event has however gone unreported in the mainstream newspapers in Malaysia, save for some reports in vernacular dailies. One wonders why? An explanation is simply that the Kuala Lumpur Foundation To Criminalise War (KLFCW), the umbrella body that has worked tirelessly to gather evidence, evaluate it, bring witnesses, arrange for the legal teams of both prosecution and defence and the panel of distinguished judges (both local and foreign), is the brainchild of one man, the former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. In trying to create a world that may in the future declare war as a crime, the KLFCW has helped to launch the Criminalise War Clubs for schools, so that children will understand why wars solve nothing but rather add to the misery of especially women and children. With the blessings of the Ministry of Education, and under the patronage of Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, two such clubs have 10 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

already been formed. The eventual aim is to have such clubs in all states in the country. Detractors feel Tun Dr Mahathir is the master puppeteer pulling all the strings and even influencing the judgments of the jurists. Such is their folly, and indeed a grievous error. All international procedures had been stringently adhered to in the conduct of the investigation, trial, deliberations and then the verdict. Thus far, George Walker Bush, (the former US President), Anthony Blair (the former British premier) have been duly found guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. A few other cronies were also found guilty of crimes against humanity. The KLFCW was established to provide the “hopeless” with the opportunity for justice. The rallying call used is “war is a crime” and that “if killing one man is considered murder for which the punishment is death if found guilty, then why is nothing being done when thousands are being killed?” It’s the cause that is important, not the man and what he may have stood for in his political career. In the military, one salutes the rank not the man, as the commission that an officer wears on his shoulders have been bestowed by the King. Thus when a cause as noble as criminalising war has been established, should not one accept the concept or at least give it its due? Is it any wonder that there are now a dedicated group of people who have committed themselves to the “cause” and work (many as volunteers) in helping to bring justice in this an unjust world?

It is perhaps time that due recognition and understanding be given to the work of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and the KLFCW. The KL War Crimes Tribunal is unrelated to the Malaysian legal system, apart from the participation of some Malaysian jurists and legal experts in its proceedings. Malaysian laws are in many ways quite different from and sometimes in diametric opposition to the legal opinions of the international Tribunal. The independence of this “court of conscience” allows an approach to international law unconstrained by local norms, but this also means that the Tribunal lacks an enforcement capability. With no powers of enforcement, it can merely deliver a verdict. Why then such a Tribunal, that is not only costly, perhaps irrelevant to our situation and is seen as toothless? About Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) The KLFCW established the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (The Commission), to investigate cases of war crimes that have been neglected by established institutions such as the International Criminal Court. The Commission seeks to influence world opinion on the illegality of wars and occupation undertaken by major Western powers. The aim of The Commission is thereby to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their actions especially when relevant international judicial organs fail to do so. The Commission The commission’s function is to: i) receive complaints from any victim(s) of any conflict on:

The Legal Team Under the Legal Team 3 distinct divisions have been established : (a) The Prosecution Division (prosecuting offenders before the Tribunal); (b) The Defence Division (providing legal aid to accused,if such aid is requested); (c) The Victims Unit Division (looking after the interest of victims & their dependants during the course of the proceedings before the Tribunal). The aim is to present the complaints of victim(s) of any conflict and to act on the recommendation of The Commission’s report and to frame charges and prosecute accused person(s),and for a proper defence. The Tribunal The Tribunal adjudicates on the charges filed against the accused person(s) The applicable standard of proof shall be beyond reasonable doubt. About the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad founded the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW), a non-governmental organisation established under the laws of Malaysia on 12 March 2007. The main objectives of the Foundation, as stated in its Statutes are, inter alia: 1.

To undertake all necessary measures and initiatives to criminalise war and energise peace;

To provide relief, assistance and support to individuals and communities who are suffering from the effects of war and armed conflict wherever occurring and without discrimination on the grounds of nationality, racial origin, religion, belief, age, gender or other forms of impermissible differentiations;

To promote the education of individuals and communities suffering from the effects of war or armed conflict;

(a) Crimes against peace (b) Crimes against humanity (c) Crimes of genocide (d) War crimes ii) investigate the same and prepare a report of its findings. To further call for more evidence or where The Commission is satisfied to recommend prosecution.

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 11

To foster schemes for the relief of human suffering occasioned by war or armed conflict;

To provide for mechanisms or procedures in attainment of the above purposes.

in the integrity of the panel of judges led by the President, Tan Sri Lamin Hj Mohd Yunus. Their written judgment needs to be read and even studied. (www.criminalisewar.org) Judge Lamin noted in delivering the verdict that:

This perhaps should give the reader a better understanding of why such a War Crimes Tribunal exists in Malaysia and the aims of the KLFCW. Questions have also been asked, about the impartiality of the panel of judges and why attention to Palestine? Is there a Muslim affinity element to this? While all the three Tribunal Hearings have dealt with victims who were mainly Muslim, the stated aims clearly show that there is no discrimination when it comes to conducting a Tribunal Hearing. Malaysia’s foreign policy has always been crafted on the premise that the weak and down trodden should receive attention. From its earliest days, this country has stood for justice and fair play in the international arena. From the days of the founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra to the present day premier Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, we have always given more than moral support to many countries, including South Africa in its struggle against apartheid, other struggling African nations and the Palestinians in their violent oppression and annihilation by the Israelis. This Tribunal is the only hope for many Palestinians especially to have their plight given a hearing, no matter that it will only be a “moral victory”. One witness at the recent Tribunal Hearing, Dr Walid Elkhatib, a medical doctor who has often acted as a spokesman for other Palestinians, said: “No one else listened to us or gave us the opportunity, but Malaysia has done it. We are very grateful and happy for what you have done for us. I may return to the West Bank and face many more difficulties, but I don’t care. Someone has listened to us”. As to the independence of judges, the only manner to address it is to remind readers that each and every member of the panel is human, with human strengths of fair play and justice and even prejudices, whatever they may be. No panel of judges anywhere in the world can be considered devoid of human feelings and emotions and thus able to render the “perfect” judgment. We believe 12 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

The Tribunal is satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the first defendant, (General) Amos Yaron , is guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide, and the second defendant, the State of Israel, is guilty of genocide.”

This unprecedented verdict was significant in that the prosecution took a step beyond war crimes and crimes against humanity to the higher and broader charge of genocide. It is crucial to note that the panel of judges agreed that the state of Israel could be charged, instead of limiting its ruling to individuals who ordered the acts of genocide. This in itself was untouched territory, for no other court has done it before. This judgment buries the tradition of immunity of nation-states from criminal prosecution under international law. Its legal implications can be far-reaching. The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal based its momentous decision on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which prohibits and punishes the killing, causing of harm and deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group of people, targeted for their ethnicity, religion or race. With regard to genocide, these criminal acts are done with the specific intent of destroying in part or in whole the targeted group, in this case, the Palestinian people. The defendants, Gen. Amos Yaron and the State of Israel, were not present in court. Instead the Amicus Curiae (Latin for “friends of the court” as the defence) acted on their behalf. The KL Tribunal ruling has introduced a legal basis for international action to protect minorities from genocide as

a lawful alternative to the present position of so-called humanitarian intervention, invasion, occupation and regime change, which have often been as illegal and more destructive, and in some cases as genocidal as the original crimes being punished. But why Israel while many others have gone unpunished? Chief prosecutor Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar put it this way: “Other settler states, for example Australia, have offered compensation and apologized for the dispossession and harm to their indigenous populations, while Israel remains unapologetic and continues its campaign of destruction against Palestinians and to make their conditions unlivable inside and outside its borders.”

Another moot point, the KL War Crimes Tribunal left the time frame of events open-ended, by starting just before the creation of the State of Israel until the present and, presumably, into the future until Israel ceases its dastardly campaign against the Palestinians and offers instead justice and reconciliation. The Tribunal asserted that the modern Jewish state, in contrast to other cases, had prior to its inception pursued a genocidal programme as a pivotal feature and a foundation of state policy. For this reason, genocide in the Israeli case cannot be solely attributed as the isolated action of a leader, political party or elected government but remains the responsibility of the state itself. The prosecution called several witnesses to the stand and a few via Skype, as many Palestinians were unable to travel owing to the Israeli attacks at the very time of Tribunal Hearings. The witnesses included a former university student who was shot without warning at a peaceful protest by

an Israeli sniper firing a fragmentary bullet that caused extensive and permanent damage to his internal organs; a Christian resident of the West Bank who was repeatedly imprisoned and tortured on grounds of subversion; a female resident of Nablus who suffered mental anxiety due to her imprisonment and subsequent social ostracism; There was also the testimony of the Palestinian physician, Dr Walid Elkhatib who conducted studies on the psychological trauma inflicted, particularly on children, as a result of constant intimidation, massive violence and state terror during and following the second Intifada. Via Skype, expert witness Paola Manduca, an Italian chemist and toxicologist, who found extreme levels of toxic contamination of the soil and water across the Gaza Strip caused by Israeli weapons made of heavy metals and cancer-causing compounds The other witness via Skype were Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian at University of Exeter in the UK and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies. His extensive studies revealed that a planning group of top-ranking Jewish military leaders in the Haganah militia, led by David Ben Gurion (who later became Israel’s first prime minister) devised an ethnic-cleansing programme to rid the future Israel of its Arab predecessors. Called Plan Dalet (the letter “D” indicating the fourth plan of a colonialist agenda) was to be activated as soon as the British terminated the Palestine Mandate. The forcible deportation of indigenous inhabitants from their homes and land was a criminal act of ethnic cleansing, Pappe said. The policy developed into a systematic campaign to destroy Palestinians, that is, genocide. There was also the testimony of two from the Al Sammouni clan of Gaza, who lost 21 family members, mainly children and women, in an Israeli commando raid on their home. Among the witnesses who testified in person on the massacres of Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were: Chahira Abouardini, a widow whose husband and three children were murdered by Israeli-allied militiamen at Camp Shatila, provided a graphic account of the carnage, describing piles of bulletriddled bodies and, in one case, of a pregnant JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 13

women whose belly had been slit open and with her dead unborn child left on top of her corpse.

governments are subject to the same liability laws as commercial vessels.

She recounted how refugees were rounded up from their homes and lined against walls for summary execution by automatic weapons fire; and Dr. Ang Swee Chai, a London-based Malaysian born surgeon and medical volunteer at the time at a hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, with the aid of the International Committee of the Red Cross, testified that another Beirut hospital had been bombed by Israeli jets, all Palestinian facilities including schools and hospitals were deliberately destroyed by artillery barrages and explosive charges, and ambulances were intercepted and their drivers shot dead. She stated that an Israeli observation post positioned in the 7-storey Kuwaiti Embassy, located on a hilltop, had an unobstructed view of the refugee camp, indicating that the Israeli forces were directing a joint operation to exterminate the refugees left behind under the international plan to withdraw the PLO from Lebanon.

To this the Tribunal expressed its opinion, “We find it rather mind-boggling when some courts can consider commercial disputes as a reason for not allowing a state to be shielded by the state immunity principle and yet strenuously protect such a state in cases of genocide or other war crimes. Human lives cannot be less important than financial gain.”

A point contested by the Amicus Curiae Team was that then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, an official of superior rank, should have been prosecuted instead of General Yaron. (The prosecution had earlier declined to serve notice on Sharon, who has been in a coma for many years and was unable to testify in his own defence. Moreover, Yaron had wide sway of authority as field commander in a battle zone outside the borders of Israel). Prosecutor Gurdial Singh Nijar pointed out that Israel not only failed to file criminal charges against Yaron and his subordinates but subsequently awarded and repeatedly promoted the General and his circle. The Tribunal noted that restriction of state sovereignty, is a new and evolving trend in international law. The U.S. permits its citizens to file lawsuits in Federal court against states that harbour terrorists, and although this is covered under tort law, such cases inherently restrict the sovereignty of foreign countries. The European Union has also constrained the sovereignty of member states. Under the 1978 State Immunity Act, the British privy council ruled that vessels owned by foreign

CR C RIM MIN NAALLIIS SE WAR WAR JAN WA JJA AN 2014 220014 14 144 CRIMINALISE

This Tribunal Hearing originally convened in August 2013, but owing to several disruptions, un-courtlike behaviour, and down right bickering, the proceedings were postponed. The almost three month “cooling-off” period allowed for the new team of lawyers on both sides to be brought in and also to reinforce the Bench. It also meant that no longer were there going to be “shouting sessions” and court-room play-acting that are commonly used in the West but quite alien to this part of the world. This was after all, a Malaysian Court of Conscience, that had to be devoid of any roleplaying or posturing. With renewed vigour, both Prosecution and Defence Teams displayed legal knowledge, court craft and gave it “their best”. Both sides were commended by the Judges for their excellent work. Overcoming a few hiccups, the Tribunal itself displayed courage, wisdom and foresight in charging the State of Israel with genocide. Many legal experts are of the view that the panel correctly framed genocide in the context of international law rather than merely as a localised violation. This bold judicial opinion now becomes a crucial initiative in deterring the great powers from promoting and exploiting acts of genocide among weak and often victimised nations. The ground breaking verdict is a major step forward, not only for Palestinians but also for mankind. The only regret here is that neither reparations nor enforcement can be enforced, yet. *The complete text of the judgment is found in www.criminalisewar.org

The Case Against

Amos

Yaron the

State of

Israel

Excerpts from the Final Judgment “ ... the Tribunal heard 11 witnesses and examined documentary evidence that clearly indicated a long catalogue of incredible crimes conceived as long ago as 1945 and continuing till the present. What is significant is that these are not isolated acts in the heat of the moment but repeated pattern of atrocities committed against the dispossessed inhabitants of Palestine. What is also significant is that the above culpable acts are systematically directed against the same group and by the same offender over the last 67 years. The scale of atrocities committed and their general nature indicate a clear genocidal intention. Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia stated that the specific intent of the crime of genocide “… may be inferred from a number of facts such as the general political doctrine which gave rise to the acts possibly covered by the definition in Article IV or the repetition of destructive and discriminatory acts”. The Tribunal accepts evidence from various internationally respected social scientists among them Prof Ilan Pappe and John Pilger and Prof Noam Chomsky that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is a world historic tragedy that is the result of deliberate State policies of succeeding governments of Israel since 1948. The Tribunal wishes to state that the test that it employed in determining guilt was the test of “beyond reasonable doubt”. Was it a case of Self-Defence? The Tribunal heard significant evidence from the Amicus Curiae Team that Israeli actions of bombing, killing, maiming, other military interventions, curfews, checkpoints and “apartheid walls” were in response to continuous Palestinian terrorism. The Tribunal agrees that there is cogent evidence of Palestinian resistance to Israeli presence, incidences of suicide bombing, and firing of crude rockets into Israeli territory by Palestinian fighters. However it is our finding that much of the Palestinian generated violence is not on Israel’s own territory, but from and on Israeli occupied Palestinian land. Much of the violence perpetrated by Palestinians is a reaction to the brutalities of the vicious racism, brutalities and genocide that is a tragic feature of Palestinian life.

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Much as we condemn violence and pray for peace, it must be stated that no power on earth can douse the flame of freedom from the human spirit. As long as there is suppression, there will always be people prepared to die on their feet than to live on their knees. We also hold that the force employed by the Israeli Defence Force is excessive, totally disproportionate and a violation of international humanitarian law. The methods used are unspeakably inhumane and amount to war crimes. We unanimously find the State of Israel guilty as charged. After considering the evidence adduced by the Prosecution and submissions by both the Prosecution and the Amicus Curiae Team on behalf of the two Defendants, the Tribunal is satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the first Defendant, Amos Yaron, is guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide and the second Defendant, the State of Israel is guilty of Genocide. Orders The Tribunal orders that reparations commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering undergone by the Complainant War Crime Victims be paid to them. While it is constantly mindful of its stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of enforcement, this Tribunal finds that the witnesses in this case are entitled ex justitia to the payment of reparations by the two convicted parties. It is the Tribunal’s hope that armed with the Findings of this Tribunal, the witnesses (victims in this case) will, in the near future, find a state or an international judicial entity able and willing to exercise jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the two convicted parties. The Tribunal’s award of reparations shall be submitted 16 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

to the War Crimes Commission to facilitate the determination and collection of reparations by the Complainant War Crime Victims. International Criminal Court and the United Nations, Security Council - As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. We have no power of enforcement. What we can do, under Article 34 of Chapter VIII of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, WHICH WE HEREBY DO, to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council. Commission’s Register of War Criminals - Further, under Article 35 of the same Chapter, this Tribunal recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of the two convicted parties herein be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly. The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions. The Tribunal deplores the failure of international institutions to punish the State of Israel for its crimes and its total lack of respect of International Law and the institutions of the United Nations. It urges the Commission to use all means to publicise this judgement and in particular with respect to the Parliaments and Legislative Assemblies of the major powers such as members of the G8 and to urge these countries to intervene and put an end to the colonialist and racist policies of the State of Israel and its supporters.

Judge Lamin Hj Mohd Yunus, reading the verdict on the last day of the hearing

Having delivered its verdict and consequential orders, this Tribunal wishes to place on record its deep appreciation to both the Prosecution and the Amicus Curiae Teams for their efforts in ensuring that this resumed Hearing was able to be conducted in the best tradition of any Bar. The Tribunal commends Co-Prosecutors Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar and Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman and the other members of their team for their thorough preparation of their case. The Tribunal also commends every single member of the Amicus Curiae Team for accepting their difficult assignment as friends of the court and for giving their all beyond their call of duty in the name of justice and fair play for their absent Defendants. Mr Jason Kay, Ms. Larissa Jane Cadd and Dr. Matthew Witbrodt, all of whom had addressed the Tribunal during the Hearing, meticulously presented the case for the Defendants with extraordinary fidelity even though none of them had met or had been instructed by the Defendants. Finally, the Tribunal extends its thanks to members of the Malaysian public and other benefactors who had generously contributed to the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War in financing the holding of this adjourned Hearing.

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Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing On Palestine, Sabra & Shatila 20th - 25th November 2013

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KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL HEARING ON PALESTINE, SABRA & SHATILA 20 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

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GENOCIDE AND STATE IMMUNITY: A REFRESHING APPROACH BY KLWCT ON JUS COGENS by Ben Adams a Barrister-at-Law, and a senior free-lance columnist

In plain language, jus cogens (Latin, meaning “compelling law”) is a peremptory norm or fundamental principle of international law, accepted by the international community, from which no derogation is allowed or accepted. It is difficult to state exactly how a particular norm becomes jus cogens. Common examples of jus cogens, agreed by international jurists, are the probihition of genocide, piracy, slavery, torture and wars of aggression. Article 53 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties explains what happens when an international treaty conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. It states – “A treaty is void if at the time of its conclusion it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognised by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”

to Criminalise War, KLFCW) was faced with an interesting question: “Whether, under international law, sovereign immunity is a good defence against charges of genocide”? The Tribunal was convened to hear two charges filed by the Chief Prosecutor of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission – the first charge against Amos Yaron (for the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila camps) and the second charge against the State of Israel (for the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people). Neither accused was present when proceedings commenced (which meant that they did not submit to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal), but the Tribunal had appointed a Defence Team as Amicus Curiae for them.

This shows that, hiearchically speaking, jus cogens is on a higher level when compared with a state’s obligations or its rights under international treaties or multinational conventions.

When proceedings commenced, the Amicus Curiae raised a preliminary objection, inter alia, that the charge of genocide cannot be brought against the State of Israel because it is a sovereign state and enjoys full sovereign immunity from the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.

In its last November 20 – 25 November 2013 session, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (an organ of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation

The Amicus Curiae also argued that international law does not allow the State of Israel to be impleaded as an accused. The

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State of Israel is a nation state, recognized by the United Nations, and as a nation state, it has rights under international law. The Amicus Curiae Team further submits that the State of Israel has not entered appearance in these proceedings and has therefore not submitted to the jurisdiction of this Tribunal. The Amicus Curiae Team submits that the State of Israel enjoys immunity for the crimes of genocide and war crimes and therefore the charge against it should be dismissed. The Tribunal’s response to the Amicus Curiae’s application was as follows – “To our mind, the impugned preliminary objection of the Amicus Curiae Team raises the need for an appraisal of the dichotomy between the concept of State Immunity on the one hand and the doctrine of jus cogens on the other.” The Tribunal then said the following three questions need to be considered, namely – (a) What principles of law, relevant to the issue at hand, constitute jus cogens? (b) Can the doctrine of State Immunity be considered as having acquired the status of jus cogens? (c) If there is a conflict between two principles of law, one being jus cogens but not the other, which should prevail?

After giving due consideration to relevant authorities, the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and that of national courts as well as juristic writings, the Tribunal held that the prohibition on genocide is a jus cogens (a peremptory norm of general international law). On the one hand, the Tribunal said “We can find no legal authority which states that the doctrine of State Immunity has acquired the status of jus cogens … On the other hand, legal authorities abound that as a source of law, jus cogens is hierarchically higher”

The Tribunal further held that “It is trite law that when there is a conflict between two principles of law, the one hierarchically higher in importance should prevail.” In the premises, since the international law doctrine against impleading a foreign state is hiearchically lower in importance than that of the prohibition against genocide, the Tribunal held that the charge against the State of Israel should go to full trial. After giving a detailed list of “other inroads into the domain of State Immunity”, the Tribunal said – “Like all other areas of law, international law is not static and is evolving to meet the felt necessities of the time. The Tribunal is conscious that, that the concept of state sovereignty is in decline. In the human rights era in which we are living, state sovereignty is a shield against foreign aggression. It cannot be used as a sword against one’ own nationals and the nationals of another country…” The Tribunal further held that a system of law mush have coherence. The idea of absolute State immunity from prosecution for grave crimes like genocide “appears inconsistent with other wholesome developments in international law”. At the end of the six day hearing and after having considered the evidence adduced by the Prosecution (including the testimony of 11 witnesses and a mass of documents and historical records) and having considered the submissions (both written and oral) by both the Prosecution Team and the Amicus Curiae Team, the Tribunal found both Defendants (Amos Yaron and the State of Israel) guilty of genocide.

The Tribunal’s decision puts to rest any lingering doubt whether the doctrine of State Immunity is still a good defence to the charge of genocide.

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WH TH

The fact that nobody has been charged does not mean that the obligation does not exist. That is the weakness of the system. They should be charged. The decision of the ICJ in the case of Bosnia Herzegovina is quite conclusive that states have an obligation and can be charged. Chief Prosecutor Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar

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HAT HEY

aid

The Amicus Curiae Team was appointed to assist the Tribunal in the absence of an appearance of either Amos Yaron or the State of Israel. The Amicus role was to put the Prosecution to proof on the burden of beyond reasonable doubt. The Tribunal has held that the Prosecution has met that burden against both Amos Yaron and the State of Israel. The Amicus hopes that the outcome of the trial brings the Palestinian witnesses closure with respect to the events about which they testified.

Amicus Curiae Jason Kay Kit Leon JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 25

A New Episode of Genocide in (Democratic) Iraq by Wajdi Anwar Mardan*

The peaceful assembly in Iraq.

Demands of Demonstrators.

Freedom of opinion, expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental rights. These rights are outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media”; Article 20 (1) of the Declaration: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association”; Article. 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The early demands of the protests were the release of female detainees, who, according to reports from within the detaining prisons, were being subjected to rape, torture and other inhumane treatments. However, as the demonstrations grew bigger over time, and so did the demands.

However, for several years, the people of Iraq have been subjected to continuous grave human rights violations and failed provision of government services. Frustrated with living in fear and in constant violation of their most basic human rights, citizens took to the streets to demand that their rights be restored. Their call for action came in the form of peaceful demonstrations, which first took place on 25 December 2012 at Al-Anbar province. Since their onset, the demonstrations have extended to other cities in the country, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators taking part. In certain cities, such as Samarra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, the demonstrations take place on a daily basis.

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They now encompass a range of issues including: the release of all women prisoners detained under Art. 4 of the Anti-Terrorist law; that all individuals participating in the rape of women prisoners be held publicly accountable, the immediate release of detained fellow protestors, the abolition of antiterrorist law, to end the use of the death penalty, the cessation of random night raids without a legal warrant, to ban the use of sectarian criteria as a basis for state employment, the provision of security to all citizens, and to end the financial, administrative and legal corruption. The response of the Maliki Government to the peaceful demonstrations. At the political level, on 16 January 2013, several members of the current government established a joint committee tasked with studying the demonstrators’ demands, though, up to this day the committee has not yielded any results. Aside from the fact that many of those committee

members had been involved in mass human rights violations. Despite the existing international human rights norms and standards protecting the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his authorities have responded to these peaceful demonstrations with violence. As early as the 1st of January 2013, Prime Minister Maliki, in a public interview, warned the groups of scholars, dignitaries, sheiks and other Iraqis, against continuing the demonstrations which he described as â&#x20AC;&#x153;fetidâ&#x20AC;?, as he clearly and directly threatened demonstrators assuring them that if they did not stop their demonstrations, the government would force them to.

fire on demonstrators, killing seven and injuring an additional 60. Two of the injured died later bringing the total deceased to nine. Soldiers claim that they fired live rounds into the air, which unintentionally killed demonstrators, but witnesses confirmed that the soldiers were aiming at the protestors. Flagrant violations of international law and human rights. What happened at Al-Haweeja on the 23rd of April 2013 were a massacre and an act of terrorism. In the report released by the Commission of Inquiry established by the parliament to investigate the events at Al-Haweeja, Salim al-Jubouri, Chairman of the Human Rights Commission and member of the Commission of Inquiry, confirmed the involvement of senior Iraqi military officers in the massacre and their having issued orders to kill. The report also confirmed the specific targeting and execution of the wounded. Of critical importance in the report is the fact that the protest area was free of weapons, refuting the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claim that demonstrators were armed and that weapons had been found on the site.

This is exactly what Maliki and his forces have been doing since the onset of protests: continuous violent acts that were increasing in frequency and in brutality. This brutality reached its climax on the 23rd April 2013 in Al-Haweeja (Mid-North of Iraq) offensive, in which the armed forces injured and killed, in cold blood, 200 civilians and arrested hundreds of demonstrators, violating the right to life and the right to be protected from arbitrary detention.

As frequently reiterated by protest organisers, this event, like the other demonstrations, was peaceful in nature. The only crime committed by

The brutal offensive in Fallujah. The sit-in demonstrations that have been taking place regularly since January 2013 at AlAnbar province, including the city of Fallujah, ended in several deaths and injuries. On this occasion,December 30th, the armed forces opened

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the thousands of civilians gathered at Al-Haweeja on that fateful day was that of demanding that the most basic of their human rights be respected.

the house of Mr. Ahmad Al-Aalwani (Member of Parliament) and violated his family, an event that stirred violent reactions among his tribesmen.

What is worse, there were no indications of any intentions to end these flagrant violations. Instead, Prime Minister Maliki would appear on television almost on a daily basis since the Al Haweeja massacre reiterating his view that the demonstrators at Al-Anbar Province (Ramadi and Falluja) are terrorists and reaffirming that the armed forces will evacuate the cities where protests are being held and that they must put an end to all demonstrations or he will do that by force.

On December 30th, 2013, several hundred armed personnel carriers sieged the peaceful demonstrators tents under the pretext of searching for 40 terrorists hiding among the demonstrators.

The Current offensive. On December the 21st, 2013, Maliki declared that he was heading to Al-Anbar desert to fight AlQaida. He sent seven divisions of armed forces. On December the 24th, an army General named Mohammed Ahmed Alkawarri (Commander of the 7th Division) was killed in “Wadi Horan” in the desert of Al-Anbar (350 km west of Ramadi) along with several high ranking officers during their ride to destroy the so-called Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) . Al-Maliki declared on the 25th of December operation“Revenge for General Mohammed” and threatened to burn out the tents of demonstrators in Ramadi and Fallujah,unless they stop holding the Jumaa (Friday) prayers and their following gatherings. On December the 28th, a military force attacked

The commanders of the demonstrators allowed the armed force to search the camps. They found neither terrorists, nor weapons. However, the armed forces burned down the tents. On January 2nd, 2014, several thousands of armed forces surrounded Fallujah City and the tents of demonstrators. The citizens of the city got ready to defend their city and their families. On the same day, the city witnessed the insurgence of several persons with covered faces and attacking the police stations. The Fallujah citizens captured some of them and they turned out to be members of Prime Minister Maliki’s SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) forces. On January 4th 2014, the Iraqi authorities cut off internet and phone communications and suspended licences for ten media channels operating in AlAnbar Province. That was immediately followed by the armed forces moving into Ramadi and Fallujah backed up by artillery and some air cover. The Tribes of the province retaliated to defend their families and themselves. By the next day, 35 civilians were killed and more than 130 injured. The

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offensive has escalated and extended to Ramadi. It is still going on even now. According to the BBC, thousands of civilians fled Fallujah. As of the 9th of January, there were 13,500 families having fled Fallujah because of the heavy military fire.

proof of actual terrorist activities. Next to the alarming number of arbitrary mass arrests and executions based on the Antiterrorism law, disproportionate violence against peaceful demonstrators by the Iraqi armed forces is another aspect of the Iraqi government’s human rights violations.

On behalf of the offended Iraqis in Al-Anbar. We are totally against any act of terrorism and we condemn it strongly. Regrettably, the new Iraqi government, in its’ alleged fight against terrorism has devised regulations and so-called legal instructions using vague terminology, primarily to give the government eligibility to act against people, not for them or for their security. The Iraqi government’s actions are built around legislations established in 2005 (under the US occupation) and the major issue is the lack of clear definitions of perpetrators and crimes as well as its sectarian application. Such a strategy leads to a modern witch hunt and questions the quality of

The war against terrorism fits no legal paradigm and it is the role of the United Nations in general and the Head of the UN Mission for Iraq in particular to investigate and report on human rights abuses, protect individuals and ensure that the country implements the international principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Encouraging the Iraqi government to continue its policy and providing moral support for human rights violations under the guise of anti-terrorism can only lead to more instability and bloodshed. Where is Iraq heading to? “Iraq is plummeting rapidly towards civil war and

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genocide,” according to the senior EU lawmaker Struan Stevenson, a Conservative Euro MP from Scotland who chairs the European Parliament’s important Delegation for Relations with Iraq. Stevenson says that an onslaught against supposed Al Qaeda terrorists in 6 Iraqi Provinces is no more than a cover for the “annihilation of (Sunnis) opposed to the increasingly sectarian (Shia) policies of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.” (Press release 4\1\2014). Mr. Stevenson added: “When I visited Iraq in November 2013, I met with many of the leaders who had organised protests and demonstrations against Maliki in Al-Anbar and Kirkuk and other Provinces. I also met with the Grand Mufti, one of only two religious leaders of the Sunnis in Iraq. “All of them told me in detail how they were under constant attack by Maliki’s forces and how often these forces would be infiltrated by highly-trained assassins from Iran, who could be identified easily because they spoke Farsi rather than Arabic. “They told me how thousands of civilians have been killed in these attacks and how many Imams and their mosques were being ruthlessly targeted. “Maliki’s determined efforts to eradicate all leading Sunnis from the Iraqi government, including trumped-up charges of terrorism against them (his opponents) ….The last straw was the violent arrest of the senior MP and Chair of the Iraqi Parliament’s Economics committee –

Dr. Ahmad Al-Alwani – on the 28th of December 2013, utilising an assault force of 50 armoured vehicles, helicopter gunships and hundreds of heavily armed troops massacred 9 members of his family and arrested him and over 150 of his staff on baseless charges of terrorism. Allegedly, some Al Qaeda members appear to have infiltrated Ramadi in Al-Anbar Province, near the Syrian border, they were quickly driven out by the locals. The people who have now taken up arms against Maliki’s forces are ordinary Iraqi citizens, forced to defend themselves against a ruthless dictator and a common criminal. Shamefully, the Obama administration has fallen for this ploy, hence they supplied Maliki with 75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles which he is now raining down on his own people in Ramadi and Fallujah.Expectedly, 58 reconnaissance drones are to follow in the near future, and the first of a batch of F-16 fighter jets later this year.” The Americans seem unable to accept the fact that their blundering intervention in Iraq has so far led to over 1 million Iraqi deaths, changed that oilrich nation into a virtual basket-case and simply placed the corrupt and bloody dictator Nouri AlMaliki. The only solution is to remove Maliki from office and replace him with a non-sectarian government of all the people, which respects freedom, democracy, human rights, women’s rights and the rule of law.

Wajdi Anwar Mardan An Iraqi Lawyer , Human Rights Activist and Former Diplomat. Links : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PldcpNKS0Hs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdNb3e_ngY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wu5aEJXw48&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tV9I4jHnSc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LrTDOeglj4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHHXlmPxzLw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDqAEokC17c&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhlSq12OHV4

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“

Final Judgment of Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine, Sabra & Shatila 20- 25 November 2013

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THE BANDUNG FORUM by Dr Chandra Muzaffar President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). It was at the Perdana Global Peace Foundationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Conference on â&#x20AC;&#x153; Global Peace Efforts: What Went Wrong?â&#x20AC;? in Kuala Lumpur on 25 August 2013 that I broached the idea of a Bandung Forum as a platform for dialogue and awareness building among citizens of the Asian continent on the imminent challenges facing the region in relation to peace and security. Since then I have reflected further on the idea. While the Bandung Forum that I have in mind seeks inspiration from the famous Bandung Conference of 18 to 24 April 1955 which brought together illustrious political personalities from the anticolonial struggle in Asia and Africa at that point in time, the aims and activities of the Forum will be quite different from that epoch-making event 59 years ago. Of course, the underlying commitment to peace founded upon justice in the 1955 meeting will still be the leitmotif of the proposed forum. However, the Bandung Forum will be a conduit for citizen groups from all over Asia to exchange views on the pressing concerns of the day ranging from the environment and the economy to politics and culture and to propose solutions which would strengthen the quest for a just peace. Governmental leaders will not be part of the Forum. There are two reasons for excluding governments from the Forum. One, I envisage this Forum as an

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opportunity for citizens to articulate far-reaching changes to state and society in Asia, unimpeded by considerations related to existing intra-state structures of power and wealth or prevailing interstate ties. What should be encouraged through the new Bandung are expressions of the imagination which transcend the realities of the moment. Two, government leaders and officials already possess numerous channels for interaction at the regional and continental level. Citizen groups in Asia,on the other hand, have very few avenues for sustained communication and collective action. In other words, citizen groups in the continent do not communicate their

thoughts and coordinate their programmes across state boundaries on issues pertaining to political struggles within a nation-state or disputes and conflicts between state actors as often as they should.

and explore the possibility of evolving alternatives which are rooted in those spiritual-moral values that are integral to our religious philosophies. A third cluster could focus upon climate change and how it is affecting weather patterns in Asia.

Who are the citizen groups that will be part of Bandung? A whole spectrum of active citizen groups from different spheres --- those that are focussed on hegemony and liberation; poverty and socio-economic disparities; human rights and human dignity; women’s rights and the integrity of the family; consumer rights and business ethics; religion and culture --- should be part of the process. Priority should be given to those citizen groups that have an Asian and/or global perspective. Whatever their specific concerns, they should manifest a clear commitment to global justice and global peace.

The findings of the clustersshould be discussed at the Forum’s annual conference. Recommendations from the Forum could then be submitted to the relevant governments. If the Forum, as a case in point, produces a peace plan aimed at resolving the Sino-Japanese dispute or if it has a concrete proposal on how to settle the longstanding conflict between China and its neighbours over the South China Sea, it should talk to the parties concerned. The Forum should also engage with the public at large through seminars and conferences, and online newsletters and the social media so that citizens in the continent will be more knowledgeable about the challenges facing us.

At this point, it is important to emphasise that the Bandung Forum will be confined to Asia as we know it --- Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia. Australia and New Zealand will not be part of the Forum. Neither will the United States be a participant. These three countries are not part of the inter-woven indigenous, pre-colonial history, of Asia proper. To be effective, the Forum should not be too large. A maximum of 200 participants representing different Asia-wide causes would be ideal. The Forum itself could meet once or twice a year. In between sessions small clusters could work on specific issues. For instance, we could have a cluster looking at the Sino-Japanese territorial dispute. Another cluster could study in depth the impact of the global financial system upon Asian economies

Who should initiate this Forum? One NGO, or even a coalition of NGOs, can take the lead but I am doubtful if such an endeavour will have the desired impact. From my own experience, there is hardly any NGO in Asia that has the presence or the personality to attract and hold together NGOs from different parts of the continent devoted to a common cause. Perhaps ASEAN should make the first move. In the name of creating an ASEAN Community --- which is one of ASEAN’s cherished goals --- ASEAN governments could help to bring together NGOs whose purpose would be to establish an NGO network outside the power and authority of the governments in the region. This may sound somewhat paradoxical but if ASEAN governments appreciate the importance JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 33

President Sukarno speaking at the Afro-Asian summit, in 1955, at Bandung, Indonesia

of strengthening citizen groups for the sake of the regional grouping itself, they would be willing to take this step. Needless to say, the citizens’ network that we are thinking of will go beyond ASEAN and embrace the whole of Asia. IF ASEAN is prepared to take the initiative, one hopes it will also be willing to mobilise seed money for the Bandung Forum. The launch fund could come from both governments and private sector sources in the region. Here again, it is worth reiterating that just because funds come from governments and the private sector, there should be no attempt to control or dictate to the Bandung Forum. It is imperative that the Forum is truly independent and not beholden to any external actor. Governments, private corporations and philanthropists alike should appreciate this. Perhaps the Malaysian government can play a role in persuading other ASEAN governments to support this idea of an independent, autonomous Bandung Forum. Malaysia has a wide array of active and dynamic citizen groups, some of which are deeply committed to global peace and justice. The government has extended a helping hand to some of these groups. And yet they remain independent and autonomous. Can the Malaysian example inspire others in ASEAN to pool their resources for a larger cause --- a citizens’ movement called the Bandung Forum? A citizen based movement or network focussing upon a JUST PEACE for Asia is critical at this juncture in our history. Why? The United States is pivoting to Asia in order to contain and encircle China. The rise of China as an economic powerhouse has sent shivers down the spine of the world’s military superpower which fears that it will lead inevitably to a new power configuration that may see the US playing a subordinate role in global politics. 34 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

This is why the US is moving 60 percent of its military naval assets to the Asia Pacific, forging new military alliances in the region, refurbishing earlier ties, shoring up potential rivals to China and even fuelling conflicts between China and its neighbours. In response, China is also flexing its muscles on sea and in the air. Some analysts are of the view that given the way the two powers are positioning themselves there could well be a major conflagration within a decade. What have heightened the danger of war in Asia are continuous inter-state tensions some of which I have already alluded to. They are easily exploited by war-mongers. Schisms within nation- states between religious and ethnic communities can also be manipulated to weaken a government or to create instability in pursuit of the nefarious agenda of some big power or other. Gross economic and social disparities and intense inter-party political rivalries serve as cannon-fodder for those who are bent on perpetuating their dominance and control. A citizens’ forum would be better suited to expose machinations by the powerful in regional and global politics. As we have seen, it would not be constrained by diplomatic niceties or other concerns related to power. The Bandung Forum will also be in a position to discuss issues of religion and ethnicity with greater candidness thus contributing to the formulation of genuine solutions. Because it will not have to contend with vested interests in business and politics, it may be able to propose bolder ideas which may be more successful in overcoming the current malaise in some countries in the region. All in all, the Bandung Forum as a voice for the citizens of Asia offers some exciting possibilities at a time when we are faced with monumental challenges.

“

Laws, unless they concern that of the Almighty, can neither be immutable nor static. And when justice so demands, through the passage of time, shifts and changes to laws that are unjust invariably take place.

Final Judgment of Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine, Sabra & Shatila 20- 25 November 2013

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Kuala Lumpur Foundation To

CRIMINALISE WAR W A R I S A B O U T K I L L I N G, M A S S I V E K I L L I N G

20-23 August 2013 Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine takes place for four days starting from the 20th of August 2013 to hear charges against Amos Yaron and the State of Israel. The hearing then adjourns sine die.

11 April 2013 Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) establishes Criminalise War Club (CWC) in a National Boarding School located at Bandar Enstek, Seremban, namely Tunku Kurshiah College.

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20-25 November 2013 Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine, Sabra & Shatila, starts on the 20th of November 2013,for six consecutive days to hear charges against Amos Yaron and the State of Israel. Both accused are found guilty as charged.

25 September 2013 Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) establishes Criminalise War Club (CWC) in a Private Institution located at Cheras namely Cempaka International School.

4-6 October 2013 Tunku Kurshiah Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Criminalise War Club organises a short trip to Cambodia International Humanitarian Programme Malaysia

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Background Reading For CWC Members With two such clubs already established last year, the hope is that more Criminalise War Clubs (CWC) will be installed this year. Sanctioned by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, this country is the first in the world to have such dedicated clubs. CWCs were established to create awareness amongst students that war is a crime against humanity and that it is not the solution to the settlement of conflicts especially between nations. Students as future leaders/citizens need to be active and courageous in fulfilling this noble agenda of criminalising war in the future and energising peace amongst mankind, The Club’s aim is to build a community that has full knowledge, awareness and understanding of the effects of war, especially on women and children. Toward that end, the objectives of the CWC are to: - forge understanding and responsibility amongst students to oppose wars and armed conflicts - inculcate high moral values that war is a crime against humanity and global peace - inspire compliance of school regulations and the laws of the nation - formulate guidance to encourage students to carry out activities to promote peace and humanity - create a student community ready to accept its responsibility towards religion, people and the nation. 38 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

Killing Fields

While individual schools and existing CWCs gear up for 2014, we have provided here some background information on regional wars and why they have taken place. Many students will have already known of the “Killing Fields” in Cambodia, but few would have known of the events that led to this mass killing of a people. Related to Cambodia was the war in Vietnam, its long colonial rule by the French and how the people of Vietnam won their independence and today play an important role in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Each issue of Criminalise War will carry background information on regional and even wars in other continents so that our CWC members can have a better understanding of why such bitter battles have been fought.

Regional wars We will begin with the Vietnam War, because it started earlier, at around the time of World War II. The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region stretched back to the mid1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and

19th century. Inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism, Ho Chi Minh formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam, to fight both Japan and the French colonial administration. Japan withdrew its forces in 1945, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control of an independent Vietnam. But Ho Chi Minhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forces rose up immediately, seizing the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president. Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and set up the state of Vietnam (South Vietnam) in July 1949, with Saigon as its capital. Armed conflict continued until a decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 ended in French defeat by Viet Minh forces led by the legendary Gen Vo Nyuen Giap, who went on to later defeat US forces that led to the reunification of Vietnam.. Gen Giap went on to live to the age of 102. An interesting fact about Gen Giap is the fact that he attended a school that had been founded by a Catholic official named Ngo Dinh Kha, whose son, Ngo Dinh Diem also attended it. Diem later went on to become President of South Vietnam (1955â&#x20AC;&#x201C;63).

his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and continued against the backdrop of an intense Cold War between two global superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War; more than half were Vietnamese civilians. By 1969, at the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were involved in the Vietnam conflict. Growing opposition to the war in the United States led to bitter divisions among Americans, both before and after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. Roots of the Vietnam War During World War II, Japan invaded and occupied Vietnam, a nation on the eastern edge of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia that had been under French administration since the late

At the same school was another boy, Nguyen Sinh Cung, also the son of an official. In 1943 Cung adopted the name Ho Chi Minh. Negotiations at Geneva split Vietnam along the JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 39

latitude known as the 17th parallel (with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South) and called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956. In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN). U.S. Intervention With training and equipment from American military and police, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were tortured and executed. By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem’s repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging South Vietnamese Army forces in firefights. In December 1960, Diem’s opponents within South Vietnam--both communist and non-communist-formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that most of its members were non-Communist, many in Washington assumed it was a puppet of Hanoi. A team sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help confront the Viet Cong threat. Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention. By 1962, the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s.

hostilities between the two nations. War between North and South Vietnam continued, however, until April 30, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City (Ho himself died in 1969). The long conflict had affected an immense majority of the country’s population; in eight years of warfare, an estimated 2 million Vietnamese died, while 3 million were wounded and another 12 million became refugees. War had decimated the country’s infrastructure and economy, and reconstruction proceeded slowly. In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, though sporadic violence continued over the next 15 years, including conflicts with neighboring China and Cambodia. Under a broad free market policy put in place in 1986, the economy began to improve, boosted by oil export revenues and an influx of foreign capital. Trade and diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. were resumed in the 1990s. In the United States, the effects of the Vietnam War would linger long after the last troops returned home in 1973. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated by a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices. Psychologically, the effects ran even deeper. The war had pierced the myth of American invincibility, and had bitterly divided the nation.

Legacy of the Vietnam War

Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them as having lost the war), along with physical damage including the effects of exposure to the harmful chemical herbicide Agent Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dense forests of Vietnam.

The increasing losses, the unpopularity of the war and international opinion forced the end of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In January 1973, the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in Washington, D.C. On it were inscribed the names of 57,939 American armed forces killed or missing during the war; later additions brought that total to 58,200.

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Cambodia A Decade of War and Forced Migration From 1969 to 1979, Cambodia, also known as Kampuchea, was torn apart by constant internal conflict and war with its neighbors. In 1969, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger authorized a secret bombing campaign in eastern Cambodia, which harboured North Vietnamese bases and part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. In 1970, the neutralist Prince Sihanouk, who led the country as head of state and had managed to keep Cambodia out of the war in Vietnam and Laos throughout the 1960s, was overthrown in a military coup by Lon Nol. A civil war between 1970 and 1975 between the American-backed Lon Nol government and the North Vietnamese soldiers and their Cambodian communist allies, the Khmer Rouge, killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over two million, mostly to the capital Phnom Penh, but also to Thailand and Vietnam. During the 5-year civil war almost all agricultural infrastructure was destroyed; as a result, Cambodia went from being self-sufficient in rice production to being almost completely dependent on food aid from the United States.

countryside or join the Khmer Rouge. The United States dropped more bombs on Cambodia than it did during the entire Second World War. When the United States Congress forced President Nixon to stop the bombing in Cambodia the US continued to channel millions of dollars in military aid and food assistance to the Lon Nol government.

Despite this aid nearly all of Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge by 1975. With the imminent fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, the US embassy was evacuated on April 12, 1975; two weeks later, on April 30, the US left South Vietnam, ending the United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; presence in Indochina. The Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. At the time of their take-over, the population of Phnom Penh had swollen to approximately 3 million people, most of them internally displaced persons. Seeking to rebuild the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agricultural infrastructure and rice selfsufficiency the Khmer Rouge depopulated the city immediately and ordered everyone to go to work collectives in the countryside. Families were often separated and sent to different places.

Indiscriminant American saturation bombing of the countryside in 1969-1973 devastated eastern Cambodia, forcing thousands of villagers to flee the

Several western journalists, including Sydney Schanberg from the New York Times, remained in Phnom Penh for a few days after the take-over, trapped in the French embassy; all of the journalists were deported to Thailand soon afterwards. [Sydney Schanberg later published The Death and Life of Dith Pran, an account of the fall of Phnom JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 41

Penh in 1975 and his search for and reunion with his Cambodian interpreter in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border. The film, The Killing Fields, was based on this account]. The Khmer Rouge closed Cambodia to the outside world. Very little information came out of the country during their rule between 1975 and 1978. Media coverage of Cambodia during this time was rare. One of the only sources of information about what was happening in Cambodia came from refugees who had escaped the Khmer Rouge and fled to Thailand and Vietnam. Their accounts were often discounted as exaggerations.

in the West. The world soon found out what the Khmer Rouge had done. While in power The Khmer Rouge subjected Cambodia to a radical social reform process that was aimed at creating a purely agrarian-based Communist society. The Khmer Rouge forced around two million people from the cities to the countryside to take up work in agriculture. They forced many people out of their homes and ignored many basic human freedoms; they controlled how Cambodians acted, what they wore, whom they could talk to, and many other aspects of their lives. Over the next three years, the Khmer Rouge killed many intellectuals, city-dwellers, minority people, and many of their own party members and soldiers who were suspected of being traitors. The Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate anyone suspected of “involvement in free-market activities.” Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments. The Khmer Rouge believed that parents were tainted with capitalism, so they separated children from their parents, indoctrinated them in communism, and taught them torture methods with animals. Children were a “dictatorial instrument of the party” and were given leadership in torture and executions.

The question of what was happening in Cambodia was fiercely debated by journalists and academics

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One of their mottos, in reference to the New People (usually urban civilians), was: “To keep you is no

benefit. To destroy you is no loss.” The philosophy of the Khmer Rouge had developed over time. It started as a communist party that was working together and searching for direction from the Vietnamese guerrillas who were fighting their own civil war.

1990s as a resistance movement operating in western Cambodia from bases in Thailand. In 1996, following a peace agreement, their leader Pol Pot formally dissolved the organization. Pol Pot died on April 15, 1998, having never been put on trial.

A Criminalise War Club member from Tunku Kurshiah College pens her first impression of the

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Pol Pot was a key leader in the movement after he returned to Cambodia from France. He had become a member of the French Communist Party (PCF) which gave guidance to the ideas of the Khmer Rouge. The movement gained strength and support in the northeastern jungles and established firm footing when Cambodia’s leader Prince Sihanouk was removed from office during a military coup in 1970. The former prince then looked to the Khmer Rouge for backing. With the threat of civil war looming, the Khmer Rouge gained support by posing as a “party for peace.” After four years of rule, the Khmer Rouge regime was removed from power in 1979 as a result of an invasion by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and was replaced by moderate, pro-Vietnamese Communists. The Khmer Rouge survived into the

Ideology The Khmer Rouge’s ideology combined elements of Marxism with an extreme version of Khmer nationalism and xenophobia. It combined an idealization of the Angkor Empire (802–1431), with an existential fear for the existence of the Cambodian state, which had historically been liquidated under Vietnamese and Siamese intervention. Their ideology was also influenced by colonial French education, which posited Khmers as “Aryans among Asians”, who were morally superior to Chinese or Vietnamese. The spillover of Vietnamese fighters from the Vietnam War further aggravated anti-Vietnamese feeling. The Khmer Rouge explicitly targeted the Chinese, Vietnamese, and even their partially Khmer offspring for extinction; although the Cham Muslims were treated unfavorably, they were

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encouraged to “mix flesh and blood”, to intermarry and assimilate. Some people with partial Chinese or Vietnamese ancestry were present in the Khmer Rouge leadership; they either were purged or participated in the ethnic cleansing campaigns.

affected Chinese and Vietnamese, who were not accustomed to agricultural work, segregated from Khmers in labor camps, and forbidden to speak their own language. After the Khmer Rouge

Although a radical movement, the Khmer Rouge also drew on the idioms of Cambodian Buddhist culture. The time that the party spent in the forests in the 1960s, supposedly accumulating knowledge, has similarities to Buddhist lore. Before coming to power, the Khmer Rouge also demonstrated characteristics of “the Buddhist

ideals of propriety and social justice”. Rather than maintaining a bureaucracy based on names and reputation, the Khmer Rouge also used charismatic leadership that is characteristic of Buddhist societies. The Khmer Rouge’s social policy focused on working towards a purely agrarian society. Pol Pot strongly influenced the propagation of this policy. He was reportedly impressed with how the mountain tribes of Cambodia lived, which the party interpreted as a form of primitive communism; as a result, those minorities received more lenient and sometimes even more favorable treatment than the urbanized “bourgeois” Chinese and Vietnamese. Pol Pot wanted to remove social institutions and to transform the society into an agrarian one. This was his way of “[creating] a complete Communist society without wasting time on the intermediate steps” as the Khmer Rouge said to China in 1975. [13] The evacuation of the cities disproportionately 44 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

In December 1978, after a series of border skirmishes, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and captured the capital city of Phnom Penh, forcing the Khmer Rouge to flee to western Cambodia, near the Thai border. News coverage of Cambodia picked up considerably after Vietnam invaded the

country. In the aftermath of the invasion, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians began to return home and look for their family members. Many fled to the Thai border and into Thailand. After the Vietnamese invaded and occupied Cambodia the world saw the full extent of the Khmer Rouge era. Alarming reports of mass graves and widespread starvation in Cambodia filled the newspapers throughout 1979. The extent of starvation and availability of food were fiercely debated in the western media and among humanitarian relief agencies. In August 1979 the journalist John Pilger and the filmmaker David Munro went to Cambodia to record the current conditions in Cambodia. The resulting documentary Cambodia Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia was broadcast in the UK on October 30, 1979. Much of the documentary focuses on the lack of action by the international community to bring humanitarian aid to Cambodia.

Humanitarian Relief in Cambodia For the first half of 1979 the international community did very little to assist Cambodia. The focus in Indochina at this time was on the tens of thousands of Vietnamese boat people fleeing Vietnam to Thailand, Malaysia and other nearby countries. The attention that was given to Cambodia tended to focus entirely on the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia rather than the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge and the present state of the country. Efforts to launch a large-scale humanitarian aid operation in Cambodia were slow and fraught with political difficulties. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), known together as the Joint Mission, negotiated with Vietnam and the new Cambodian government to begin a relief operation. The new government was led by Heng Samrin, a former Khmer Rouge leader who had defected to Vietnam. The Vietnamese maintained a significant level of influence and control over the new government in Phnom Penh, as a result, negotiations to initiate a relief operation had to be conducted in both Hanoi and Phnom Penh. These efforts were continuously jeopardized by geopolitical tensions. The Cold War had a substantial impact on the Cambodian crisis. With the recent warming of relations between the United States and China and the conflict between China and Russia, shifting Cold War dynamics had a significant impact on the Cambodian crisis. In this case there were essentially two sides: on one side was the Soviet Union, Vietnam, the Soviet Bloc countries and the new Cambodian government led by Heng Samrin; on the other side were China, United States, Thailand, Singapore and most other western countries. The Heng Samrin government in Phnom Penh was not diplomatically recognized by any western

government. Only the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc countries supported the Vietnam and its occupation. China, the only major government that recognized and supported the Khmer Rouge while they were in power, lobbied fiercely on their behalf at the international level after the Vietnamese invasion. In fact, after Vietnam occupied Cambodia, China briefly invaded North Vietnam to “teach them a lesson” and attempt to draw the Vietnamese army out of Cambodia. To deny the new Cambodian government recognition and the Vietnamese legitimacy China, Thailand, the United States, and most other western countries voted in 1979 to continue to recognise the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia, though they controlled very little of the country. Regional tension between Vietnam and Thailand, countries that were wary of each other’s regional intentions, further complicated the Cambodian crisis. Cambodia had traditionally acted as a buffer between Thailand and Vietnam. For hundreds of years the Vietnamese and Thais vied for influence and control in Cambodia. With the recent expulsion of the United States from Indochina and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia Thailand feared Vietnam’s expansionist intentions. With the Cambodian buffer removed, the threat of a direct conflict between Vietnam and Thailand loomed large. (Editor’s Note: This background on both Vietnam and Cambodia aims at providing CWC members an understanding of the conflicts, mass murder and human suffering endured by the people of both countries)

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THE of the Since late last year, several “hot spots” have caught the attention of the world. While the troubles in the occupied Palestine homeland remains, there seems to be some relief with Iran as a certain cooling off has taken place. However Egypt remains a time bomb in many eyes as a freely elected President was removed and a kind of “military rule” has been installed. Charges and counter-charges have been hurled as people have taken to the streets to show their displeasure at the turn of events. Egypt remains a pivotal player in Middle Eastern affairs and indeed in the Arab world. Instability there could have far reaching consequences to the entire region.

The major events in Egypt: Feb. 11, 2011 – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, under intense pressure from nationwide demonstrations against his 30-year rule, steps down, ceding control of government to the military. The protest against his authority began in January as part of a wave of unrest across the Middle East and North Africa that would become known as the Arab Spring. Feb. 25, 2012 – The previous year had seen occasional flare ups of protests and criticism of the military’s political transition. Multistage, parliamentary elections beginning in November 2011 are held with the Muslim Brotherhood claiming nearly half of the available seats in the lower house. June 16, 2012 – Following a first round of voting in presidential elections held the previous month, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi emerges the victor in a run-off against Ahmed Shafiq, who served as the prime minister under Mubarak. Two weeks later, Morsi takes the oath of office. Nov. 22, 2012 – Attempts between Islamist and liberal-leaning parties to reach an agreement on the country’s constitution over the previous months failed. Morsi claims sweeping authority that make his decisions immune to judicial review, citing economic concerns as the reason for his power grab. Since the Muslim Brotherhood assumed the reigns of power, they had been accused of corruption and cronyism, ignoring Egypt’s soaring crime rate and plummeting economy. Mass protests greet Morsi’s proclamation.

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Jan. 25, 2013 – The previous month, a new constitution passed a referendum with twothirds of Egyptian voters supporting it, although turnout was low. On the two-year anniversary of the first protests against Mubarak, hundreds of thousands of protesters return to Tahrir Square with demands for Morsi to step down. Over the coming months, the government would respond with violence to mass demonstrations across the country. June 30, 2013 – On Morsi’s first anniversary in office, millions of protestors continue to call from his exit from office. The next day, Egypt’s military gives the president 48 hours to reach an agreement with demonstrators or else he faces the prospect of removal from office. July 3, 2013 – With no progress made toward reaching an agreement, Morsi is forcibly removed from the presidency and detained by the military, who also seize high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officials. Claiming to be a rightfully elected leader deposed by a coup, Morsi insists that he be reinstated, as do thousands of his supporters who form proMuslim Brotherhood protests. Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, one of the largest earlier pro-Morsi camps, then becomes a flashpoint for violence between political demonstrators and the military authority. Aug. 14, 2013 – Security forces backed with armoured vehicles and bulldozers begin to move in on demonstrators in sit-ins and protest camps, violently dispersing protesters by setting fire to their tents, and opening fire on them, setting the course for street skirmishes that claimed an estimated 900 lives. On 1 September 2013, prosecutors referred Morsi to trial on charges of inciting deadly violence. The date has been set for 4 November 2013; he is being tried on charges of incitement of murder and violence. He also will be tried on charges of espionage. But till today the Morsi trial has not taken place.

Recently (Jan 2014) authorities suggested that they could once again disband the Muslim Brotherhood, which would return the group to its decades-long pre-revolution status. South Sudan Formed from the 10 southern-most states of Sudan, South Sudan is a land of expansive grassland, swamps and tropical rain forest straddling both banks of the White Nile. South Sudan includes the Nnilotic Mandari tribe, known for fishing with spears and nets on the River Nile. It is highly diverse ethnically and linguistically. Among the largest ethnic groups are the Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk. Unlike the predominantly Muslim population of Sudan, the South Sudanese follow traditional religions, while a minority are Christians. As Sudan prepared to gain independence from joint British and Egyptian rule in 1956, southern leaders accused the new authorities in Khartoum of backing out of promises to create a federal system, and of trying to impose an Islamic and Arabic identity. In 1955, southern army officers mutinied, sparking off a civil war between the south, led by the Anya Nya guerrilla movement, and the Sudanese government. The conflict only ended when the Addis Ababa peace agreement of 1972 accorded the south a measure of autonomy. But, in 1983, the south, led by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its armed wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), again rose in rebellion when the Sudanese government cancelled the autonomy arrangements. At least 1.5 million people are thought to have lost their lives and more than four million were displaced in the ensuing 22 years of guerrilla warfare. Large numbers of South Sudanese fled the fighting, either to the north or to neighbouring countries, where many remain.

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The conflict finally ended with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, under which the south was granted regional autonomy along with guaranteed representation in a national powersharing government. The agreement also provided for a referendum in the south on independence in 2011, in which 99% of southern Sudanese voted to split from Sudan. Most South Sudanese sustain themselves through agriculture.

In January 2012, the breakdown of talks on the sharing of oil revenues led South Sudan to halt oil production and halve public spending on all but salaries. A deal in March 2013 provided for Sudan to resume pumping South Sudanese oil in May, and created a demilitarised border zone. Despite the potential oil wealth, South Sudan is one of Africa’s least developed countries. However, the years since the 2005 peace accord ushered in an economic revival and investment in utilities and other infrastructure. Conflicts Along with the oil issue, several border disputes with Sudan continue to strain ties. The main row is over border region of Abyei, where a referendum for the residents to decide whether to join south or north has been delayed over voter eligibility. The conflict is rooted in a dispute over land between farmers of the pro-South Sudan Dinka Ngok people and cattle-herding Misseriya Arab tribesmen. Another border conflict zone is the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan’s South Kordofan state, where violence continues between the largely Christian and pro-SPLA Nuba people and northern government forces. Inside South Sudan, a cattle-raiding feud between rival ethnic groups in Jonglei state has left hundreds of people dead and some 100,000 displaced since independence.

Long based on subsistence agriculture, South Sudan’s economy is now highly oil-dependent. While an estimated 75% of all the former Sudan’s oil reserves are in South Sudan, the refineries and the pipeline to the Red Sea are in Sudan. Under the 2005 accord, South Sudan received 50% of the former united Sudan’s oil proceeds, which provide the vast bulk of the country’s budget. But that arrangement was set to expire with independence. 48 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

Several rebel forces opposed to the SPLMdominated government have emerged, including the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA) of Peter Gadet and a force originally formed by a former SPLA general, the late George Athor. Juba says these forces are funded by Sudan, which denies the accusation. In addition, tension within the SPLM over alleged Dinka domination of the government spilled over into a major conflict in December 2013, sparking fears of civil war.

When the world’s newest country was born in July 2011 it was not only the South Sudanese that celebrated. The whole world applauded the independence of a people who not long ago had been locked in a two decades long civil war with Sudan to the north. Democracy, prosperity and freedom of speech were to be the corner stones of this fledgling nation after half a century of combined dominance and neglect by Khartoum. Yet just 18 months after the joyous street parties that marked its birth, the celebrations seem to be over. One campaigner for freedom of expression in the capital, Juba, says the optimism of just a short while ago is fading fast amid widespread government repression, continuing violence and abuses of human rights against those who criticise it. “It was the hope for many people that the guns are going to be silenced. Women and children are no longer going to die, men are no longer going to disappear to be killed in a very crude manner,” he said. “But that has not changed. Instead what is happening is guns are intensifying on a daily basis.” Much of the violence is sparked by long-running and bloody interethnic conflicts. A third of South Sudan’s inmates have not been convicted of any offence In the same month an outspoken political columnist, Isaiah Abraham, was shot dead at his home by unknown assassins. “South Sudan is an off-shoot of Sudan and all that is happening here is a copycat of what is happening in the north. And sometimes it is much worse.” It seems a dreadful irony. The very people who spent decades fighting a civil war that cost an estimated two million lives are now copying the ways of their former enemy. Khartoum has long restricted how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operate, what they do and most especially, what they say. New bills, now going through South Sudan’s parliament, aim to do much the same.

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THE SYRIAN TURMOIL CONTINUES Syria’s turmoil began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in March 2011. It crossed an important threshold a year and a half later, when the international Red Cross formally declared it a civil war. The international community has also expressed deep concern over accusations of chemical weapons use. The casualty tallies continue to climb higher as fighting rages across the country. Hundreds of thousands are fleeing Syria, seeking sanctuary in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The death toll now exceeds 100,000. Human toll of the conflict 100,000+ have been killed This is a United Nations estimate. The UN believes the actual toll may be much higher as many deaths are not reported. 2 million+ have fled Syria 2.3 million refugees who have registered — and tens of thousands more are waiting to register — with the office of the UN High Commissoner of Refugees. The actual number is feared to be much higher. 3/4 of refugees are women and children Almost half of the refugees are girls and women, while another quarter are boys under 18. Another 4 million+ are displaced inside Syria Aid agencies continue to increase their estimates of internally displaced people as the fighting rages through the country.

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Chemical Weapons The destruction of Syriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chemical weapons is an ongoing process that began with several agreements reached in September 2013. The most important is UN Security Council Resolution 2118, which imposed on Syria responsibilities and a timeline for the destruction of its chemical weapons and chemical weapons production facilities. The Security Council resolution incorporated and bound Syria to an implementation plan enacted in an Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Executive Council Decision. More than 300 people died and thousands were injured in the August 21, 2013 Ghouta attacks, in which rockets containing the chemical agent sarin struck several opposition-controlled or disputed areas of the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.

The United States and other Western countries blamed the Syrian government for the attacks, while Syria blamed civil war opposition forces. In response to Ghouta, a coalition of countries led by the United States and France, which support the rebels, threatened air strikes on Syria. Russia, a key ally of Syria, along with China had earlier blocked efforts by the United States, France, and the UK to secure United Nations Security Council approval for military intervention. In September 2013, Syria announced that it was acceding to the Chemical Weapons Convention and in doing so becoming a member of the OPCW. This committed Syria to not use chemical weapons, to destroy its chemical weapons within 10 years, and to convert or destroy all of its chemical weapons production facilities.

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The Syrian Situation in pictures

Syrian girls who fled their homes with their families peek out of their makeshift school at a camp for displaced Syrians in the village of Atmeh, Syria. The camp is home to some 3,000 children under the age of 12, including about 900 under the age of 1, and they make up the bulk of some 200 to 300 patients a day in the camp clinic.

A Syrian woman stands amid the ruins of her home where she used to sell her farm picks in the mornings. Hundreds of families live in abject poverty and survive on insurgent handouts. There is no more use of money in Syria. Civil war has brought economic suffering - both from the destruction and from crippling sanctions imposed by the West against Assadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crackdown.

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Syrian children at a shelter that was once a school. More than 3,000 schools in Syria have been damaged or destroyed since the conflict began in the spring of 2011. Another 900 have been turned into shelters. More than 5 million children are affected by the brutal conflict in Syria, which is now in its third year.

Two million children have become the â&#x20AC;&#x153;forgotten victimsâ&#x20AC;? of the bloody conflict in Syria. Millions have become separated from their families while fleeing the fighting and the threat of sexual violence.

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A Syrian woman who fled her home cries while asking for a pillow and a blanket at a distribution camp for displaced Syrians, in the village of Atmeh, Syria, December 10, 2012. The number of Syrians driven from their homes by the fighting has risen steadily, of some 2.5 million internally displaced, out of a population of 23 million. This tent camp sheltering some of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians uprooted by the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brutal civil war has lost the race against winter.

Injured Syrian women at a field hospital after an air strike hit their homes in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, August 15, 2012. Before the uprising started, Syria boasted nearly 500 hospitals and 70 licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers that supplied 90 percent of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drugs. All that has changed. Syria has more than 2.5 million people in dire need of food, water, drugs and medical supplies.

54 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

SYRIA

Age

SYRIA

Population 22,457,336 (July 2013 estimate)

22.7 median age. One-third of the population is under 15, while 3.9% is over 65.

Religion 74% Sunni Muslim, 16% other Muslim (includes Alawite and Druze), 10% Christian

Ethnicity Arab 90.3%, Kurds, Armenians and other 9.7%

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A GIANT WALKS WITH US NO MORE

Few people had his capacity for forgiveness. None would have embraced their jailors as he did. Fewer still would have done what he did by deeds and by words. He was a giant who walked this Earth but briefly. Nelson Mandela was a master of forgiveness. He died at the age of 95 last December 5th. The man who became South Africa’s first black president against all odds, spent nearly a third of his life as a prisoner of apartheid, yet he dedicated his remaining years to win over its defeated guardians in a relatively peaceful transition of power that inspired the world. As head of state, he lunched with the prosecutor who argued successfully for his incarceration. He sang the apartheid-era Afrikaans anthem at his inauguration and travelled hundreds of miles to have tea with the widow of the prime minister in power at the time he was sent to prison. It was this generosity of spirit that made Mandela a global symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation in a world often gripped by conflict and sectarian division.

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Mandela’s stature as a fighter against apartheid— the system of white racist rule he called evil—and a seeker of peace with his enemies was on the same level with that of other men he admired: American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, both of whom were assassinated while actively engaged in their callings. Mandela’s death deprived the world of one of the great figures of modern history and set the stage for days of mourning and reflection about a colossus of the 20th century who projected astonishing grace, resolve and good humour. The current South African President Jacob Zuma announced to the world: “We’ve lost our greatest son. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father….Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss.” He never gloated that he had defeated his one-time rulers. Mandela embraced his iconic status, but very often sought to downplay it, uneasy about the perils of being put on a pedestal. In an unpublished manuscript, written while in prison, Mandela

acknowledged that leaders of the anti-apartheid movement dominated the spotlight but said they were “only part of the story,” and every activist was “like a brick which makes up our organization.” He never forgot the cost to his family for his dedication to the fight against the racist system of government that jailed him for 27 years and refused him permission to attend the funeral of his mother and of a son who was killed in a car crash. In court, he described himself as “the loneliest man” during his mid-1990s divorce from Winnie Mandela. As president, he could not forge lasting solutions to poverty, unemployment and other social ills that still plague today’s South Africa, which has struggled to live up to its rosy depiction as the “Rainbow Nation.” But he secured near-mythical status in his country and beyond. South Africa erected statues of him and named buildings and other places after him. He shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize* (read Editorial on page 8) with F.W. de Klerk, the country’s last white president. He was the subject of books, films and songs and a magnet for celebrities. He was after all South Africa’s first freely elected President. He served only one term 1994- 1999.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people,” Mandela said. “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” He spent most of his prison sentence on the harsh Robben Island jail near Cape Town. It was forbidden to quote him or publish his photo, yet he and other jailed members of his banned African National Congress were able to smuggle out messages of guidance to the anti-apartheid movement, and in the final stages of his confinement, he negotiated secretly with the apartheid leaders who recognised change was inevitable.

One of the most memorable of his gestures toward racial harmony came in 1995 when he strode onto the field before the Rugby World Cup final in Johannesburg, and then again after the game, when he congratulated the home team for its victory over a tough New Zealand All Blacks. Mandela was wearing South African colours and the overwhelmingly white crowd of 63,000 was on its feet, chanting “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!” It was typical of Mandela to march headlong into a bastion of white Afrikanerdom—in this case the temple of South African rugby—and make its followers feel they belonged in the new South Africa. It was a moment half a century in the making. In the 1950s, Mandela sought universal rights through peaceful means but was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for leading a campaign of sabotage against the government. At his trial he outlined his vision and resolve. JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 57

In the years when apartheid was enforced, thousands died, tortured or imprisoned in the decades-long struggle against the white domination, which deprived the black majority of the vote, the right to choose where to live and travel, and other basic freedoms.

“Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.Let freedom reign. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement! God bless Africa!”

So when inmate No. 46664 went free after 27 years, walking hand-in-hand with his then wife, Winnie, out of a prison on the South African mainland, people worldwide rejoiced. Mandela raised his right fist in triumph, and in his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” he would write: “As I finally walked through those gates … I felt—even at the age of seventy-one—that my life was beginning anew.”

Mandela also stood hand on heart, saluted by white generals as he sang along to two anthems, the apartheid-era Afrikaans “Die Stem,” (“The Voice”) and the African “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” (“Lord Bless Africa”) at his installation as President. Having won by a landslide in the first-ever all race Presidential election, much was expected of him. He had some successes, among them the introduction of a constitution with robust protections for individual rights, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he established with fellow Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It allowed human rights offenders of all races to admit their crimes publicly in return for lenient treatment. Though not regarded as wholly successful, it proved to be a kind of national therapy that would become a model for other countries emerging from prolonged strife. Despite his saintly image, Mandela was a harsh critic. When black journalists mildly criticized his government, he painted them as stooges of the whites who owned the media. Some whites with complaints were dismissed as pining for their old privileges. In the buildup to the Iraq War, Mandela harshly rebuked President George W. Bush. “Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly?” he asked. “All that [Bush] wants is Iraqi oil.” He suggested Bush and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair were racists, and claimed America, “which has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world,” had no moral standing.

Mandela’s release, rivaled the fall of the Berlin Wall just a few months earlier as a symbol of humanity’s yearning for freedom, and his graying hair, raspy voice and colourful shirts made him a globally known figure.

58 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

To critics of his closeness with former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro and the late Libyan leader, Col Muamar Gadhafi despite human rights violations in the countries they ruled, Mandela explained that he wouldn’t forsake supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, the son of a tribal chief in Transkei, a Xhosa homeland that later became one of the “Bantustans” set up as independent republics by the apartheid regime to cement the separation of whites and blacks. Mandela’s royal upbringing gave him a regal bearing that became his hallmark. Many South Africans of all races would later call him by his clan name, Madiba, as a token of affection and respect. He had three marriages, his first wife, nurse Evelyn Mase, bore him four children.

Madiba with his third wife Graca Machel

Then came Winnie Mandela and finally he married Graca Machel, the widowed former first lady of Mozambique. After handing over the reigns of leadership to Tabo Mbeki on 1999, and with apartheid vanquished, Mandela turned to peacemaking efforts in other parts of Africa and the world and eventually to fighting AIDS, publicly acknowledging that his own son, Makgatho, had died of the disease. Mandela’s final years were marked by frequent hospitalizations as he struggled with respiratory problems that had bothered him since he contracted tuberculosis in prison. He was buried near his rural home in Qunu in Eastern Cape province. His three surviving children are daughter Makaziwe by his first marriage, and daughters Zindzi and Zenani by his second.

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 59

In Memory Of The Late

Michael Hourigan Michael Hourigan, who served as a judge in the aborted sitting of the KL War Crimes Tribunal on Israel and Gen Amos Yaron, passed away on 2nd December 2013. He had suffered a massive heart attack. He will be best remembered by the international legal fraternity as an Australian lawyer and War Crimes Investigator given the task to unearth the truth behind the assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents when their plane was downed by shooting over Kigali, the Rwandan capital in 1994. Hourigan produced evidence that Gen Paul Kagame had ordered their assassinations, but this evidence was suppressed. Even his death was unreported by the press. Leading a team of about 20 investigators, working for the office of the Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1996-1997, Hourigan had solid evidence that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Kagame had in fact shot down the jet carrying then president Juvenal Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi. Both former presidents were Hutu, while Kagame is Tutsi and remains president of Rwanda till this day. Hourigan presented ICTR Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour with his evidence that the RPF was responsible for the killing. But his evidence was rejected and Arbour quashed the investigation and destroyed the evidence. Those who knew the late Australian lawyer say that his evidence and affidavit are absolutely crucial to understanding the Rwandan tragedy.

60 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

Letter from Dr Ang Swee Chai

“

The passing of Ariel Sharon brought back the memories of the horrors of the Sabra Shatila massacre of September, 1982. I arrived in August that year as a volunteer surgeon to help the war victims of Lebanon. The people in Lebanon were wounded, made homeless and lost precious friends and families as the result of ten weeks of ruthless bombardment. That was the Operation Peace for Galilee launched by Sharon who was then the Defence Minister of Israel in June 1982. No one knew how many were killed as the result of that offensive - the London newspapers estimated a thirty thousand with many times more made homeless. When a ceasefire was agreed with the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Sharon broke that ceasefire and drove tanks under air-cover launching a land invasion into Lebanon’s capitol Beirut. Part of the tanks sealed Sabra Shatila and prevented the helpless civilian victims from escaping, while sending in Israel’s allies into the camps to carry out the most brutal massacre of defenceless women, children and old people under Israel’s watch. The blame was quickly and deliberately shifted to the Lebanese as perpetrators of the massacres, so that today no one can mention that massacre without blaming the Lebanese Phalange, yet forgetting the Israeli organisers of that event. I worked in Gaza Hospital in Sabra Shatila during the massacre trying to save the lives of a few dozen people, but outside the hospital hundreds were killed. My patients and I knew that Sharon and his officers were in control, and without them the massacre would not be possible. The residents of Sabra Shatila could at least have escaped. Now more than 30 years later, we know that the killers were brought in by Israeli armoured cars and tanks, obeyed Israeli commands, their paths lit by Israeli military flares, and some of them also wore Israeli uniforms. The mutilated bodies of the victims were thrown into mass graves by Israeli bulldozers. This Sharon continued on to be Israeli Prime Minister, and built the Wall which imprisoned the Palestinians in the West Bank. Sharon’s Wall cut through their lands, separating people from their homes, children from their schools, farmers from their orchards, patients from hospitals, husbands from wives, and children from parents. He marched into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem 2000 with fully armed Israeli soldiers and tried to have the West believe that his intention was for peace. He was responsible for other massacres such as in Jenin, Qibya and Khan Yunis just to name a few. The older generation in Khan Yunis in Gaza remembers that he killed all the grown men in the massacre of 1956 and left only the women and children to bury the dead.. I thought these facts should be publicised. Those who eulogise Sharon in his role of building Israel should also remember that he built his nation over the dead bodies of the Palestinian people, and the continued dispossession of those who are still alive. Dr Ang Swee Chai Author of From Beirut to Jerusalem 12 January 2014

”

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 61

Children s Charter to Criminalise War

We, the Children of the World, 3FBMJTJOH UIBU XBS BOE BSNFE DPOþJDU IBWF DPOTUBOUMZ CFFO VTFE CZ TUBUFT BOE HPWFSONFOUT BT JOTUSVNFOUT PG GPSFJHO QPMJDZ "DLOPXMFEHJOH UIBU XBST IBWF OFWFS CFFO UIF CFTU BOE KVTU TPMVUJPOT UP FOE DPOþJDUT BOE EJTQVUFT 3FDPHOJTJOH UIBU DIJMESFO IBWF DPOTJTUFOUMZ CFDPNF WJDUJNT PG XBS BOE BSNFE DPOþJDU 3FDBMMJOH UIBU QFS DFOU PG XBS T WJDUJNT BSF DJWJMJBOT NBJOMZ DIJMESFO BOE XPNFO 3FDBMMJOH UIBU BMNPTU POF IBMG PG UIF XPSME T NJMMJPO SFGVHFFT BSF DIJMESFO 3FDBMMJOH UIBU BQQSPYJNBUFMZ DIJMESFO VOEFS ZFBST PME IBWF CFFO GPSDFE PS JOEVDFE UP UBLF VQ BSNT BT DIJME TPMEJFST Recalling that between 1986 and 1996, armed conflicts killed 2 million children, JOKVSFE NJMMJPO USBVNBUJ[FE PWFS NJMMJPO BOE MFGU NPSF UIBO NJMMJPO PSQIBOFE 3FBMJTJOH UIBU FBDI ZFBS CFUXFFO BOE DIJMESFO BSF WJDUJNT PG MBOENJOFT 'VMMZ DPOTDJPVT UIBU XBS WJPMBUFT FWFSZ SJHIU PG B DIJME o UIF SJHIU UP MJGF UIF SJHIU UP CF XJUI GBNJMZ BOE DPNNVOJUZ UIF SJHIU UP IFBMUI UIF SJHIU UP UIF EFWFMPQNFOU PG UIF QFSTPOBMJUZ BOE UIF SJHIU UP CF OVSUVSFE BOE QSPUFDUFE $PODFSOFE UIBU VOMFTT XBST BSF DSJNJOBMJ[FE NPSF DIJMESFO XJMM CFDPNF WJDUJNT JO UIF GVUVSF

* The Charter was drafted by Prof Salleh Buang, a member of the KLFCW Board of Trustees.

62 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

.JOEGVM UIBU UIF 6/ $POWFOUJPO PO UIF 3JHIUT PG UIF $IJME IBT SFDPHOJ[FE UIBU DIJMESFO EFTFSWF UP CF QSPUFDUFE BHBJOTU IBSN VOEFS JOUFSOBUJPOBM MBX Recalling further that the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Foundation (KLFCW) is waging a noble effort to criminalise war and energise peace: %0 )&3&#: 3&40-7& "/% %&."/% UIBU o Wars of aggression must be made a crime and all their perpetrators be CSPVHIU UP KVTUJDF 4UBUFT BOE HPWFSONFOUT NVTU BMXBZT QSPUFDU DIJMESFO GSPN CFDPNJOH WJDUJNT PG XBST BOE BSNFE DPOÃ¾JDUT $IJMESFO NVTU OFWFS CF GPSDFE PS JOEVDFE UP QBSUJDJQBUF JO BOZ XBST PS BSNFE DPOÃ¾JDUT Children who are refugees in foreign countries or displaced within their own DPVOUSJFT NVTU CF HJWFO TQFDJBM DBSF BJE BOE BUUFOUJPO CZ UIF JOUFSOBUJPOBM DPNNVOJUZ $IJMESFO JO XBS [POFT BSFBT PG DPOÃ¾JDU PS EJTBTUFST NVTU CF SFTDVFE BOE HJWFO DBSF BOE QSPUFDUJPO VOUJM QFBDF BOE QVCMJD PSEFS IBT CFFO SFTUPSFE %0/& at the city of ,VBMB -VNQVS, Malaysia this UXFOUZ TFDPOE EBZ PG /PWFNCFS

MARISA MOKHZANI ."-":4*"

:&)#0//& #*&/ (SOUTH KOREA)

LEIGHIA JO-ANN STEPHEN (UNITED KINGDOM)

NISHI AHMAD TAHER (CANADA)

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 63

ULI CALDINA DE OLIVEIRA (MOZAMBIQUE)

(AUSTRALIA)

AISHATH ZAHANATH AFEEF (MALDIVAS)

(CHINA)

AKASH MILAN AGNIHOTRI (INDIA)

(INDONESIA)

ABDUL QADER AFIF AL GAILANI (IRAQ)

MAMORU OSHIMA (JAPAN)

NATASHA LAMA (NEPAL)

GUIA ROSE NAVOA (PHILIPPINES)

HAQEEM MOERTON (USA)

AFNAN SALAHELDIN FARAJ (PALESTINE)

LIZAMARIE SHENALI BERNADINE GOONETILLEKE (SRI LANKA)

(SINGAPORE)

PUTERI FATEH ARINA MERICAN

DAVID ALEJANDRO ESTRADA ALVAREZ (ECUADOR) In the presence of

THE RT. HON’BLE DATO’ SRI MOHAMMAD NAJIB ABDUL RAZAK (PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA)

H.E. TUN DR. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD (KLFCW FOUNDER / CHAIRMAN)

H.E H. .E. DATIN DATI TIN T IIN NP AD A DUK KA A SRI SRI R ROS R MAH MA HM ANS NSO OR H.E. PADUKA ROSMAH MANSOR

H.E. TUN DR. SITI HASMAH MOHD ALI (FOUNDER - CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB, MALAYSIAN CHAPTER )

H.E. DATIN SERI UTAMA MASNAH RAIS (MINISTER OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & CULTURE)

JAN 2014 2014 64 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN

Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali Founder of the Criminalise War Club (CWC)

It is now even more incumbent that the CWC be upand-running as the message that War Is A Crime has to be spread fast and to all corners of this Earth. For us here in Malaysia,we have much ground to cover.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Excerpt from Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali Keynote Address, The Launch of 2nd Criminalise War Club - 25 Sept 2013 Cempaka International School Cheras

JAN 2014 CRIMINALISE WAR 65

Kuala Lumpur Foundation To

CRIMINALISE WAR W A R I S A B O U T K I L L I N G, M A S S I V E K I L L I N G

66 CRIMINALISE WAR JAN 2014

Published by KUALA LUMPUR FOUNDATION TO CRIMINALISE WAR 2ND FLOOR, NO 88, JALAN PERDANA, TAMAN TASEK PERDANA 50480 KUALA LUMPUR Tel: 603 2092 7212 / 603 2092 7210 / 603 2092 7214 Fax: 603 2273 2212 Email: admin@criminalisewar.org Website: www.criminalisewar.org